fftf: hot tip friday #16 🥦🎃💃

garlic butter sizzle-steamed broccoli, homemade PSL syrup, my new side hustle!

Hello! A quick housekeeping note that I am currently publishing this newsletter once a month, but with high hopes of increasing that cadence by early 2025. My goal is to publish at the beginning of each month… but I promise to publish by the end of each month (lol)! If I can, I will pop in more often. Thanks for your patience while I slowly get back in the swing of work/writing while also mostly caring for my 4-month-old and 2-year-old!

For those who may be new here, my Friday newsletter usually takes one of three forms:
1) an in-depth recipe by me (ex: this simple(ish) Indian-inspired breakfast)
2) a deep dive on a certain food topic (ex: guide to improve your spice life)
3) a “hot tip friday” - like today - which has three shorter, mostly food-related tips or items I’m thinking about lately. (see archive here for more hot tip fridays)
4) something else - sometimes a personal essay or just whatever I feel like writing!

Today is a hot tip friday - enjoy!

Hello friends,

It feels like it’s been a while; I missed ya! Today I have some Hot Tips for you, including an update that I’m excited/nervous to share! I know my posts have been coming out at random times lately so I’m also glad to tell you that I will be publishing my next newsletter in two weeks on Nov 8 - it’s one I’ve been working on for a whiiiiile - my first round of Pittsburgh Food Recs! So get excited for that to hit your inboxes. Hope you’re getting cozy with Fall feels wherever you are!

Love,
Jess

my new sizzle-steam method! the garlic is extra tasty too!

#1 - Super quick and delicious:
Garlic Butter Sizzle-Steamed Green Veggies

This is my newest favorite QUICK method for cooking veggies and it’s SO GOOD! It doesn’t sound that special but I promise you - sometimes these don’t even make it to the table because my husband and I eat them all straight out of the pan! I have been making green beans this way all summer, but just discovered that broccoli tastes equally great when cooked this way, so I think that means this method will translate well to many other kinds of veg! We especially love it with butter, but I think olive oil would likely be just as good. Here’s how you do it:

Ingredients:

• 3-5 cloves garlic

• 3 T butter (and/or sub olive oil)

• roughly 4 servings of green veggies - green beans, broccoli, etc

• salt

• equipment = shallow sauté pan with a lid that fits/covers!

Instructions:

1. Crush and peel 3-5 cloves of garlic. Prep/trim/wash veggies if needed. Veg can be a little wet from washing, no problem.

2. Add butter/oil to a shallow sauté pan and heat up over medium heat (cast iron or stainless steel both work great).

3. Add the garlic cloves and let them sizzle for a minute or two until fragrant. Crush them just a little with a wooden spoon if you can.

4. Add the green veggies to the pan and toss to coat in the butter/oil. Add a sprinkle of salt and toss once more. Spread veggies around the pan and leave to cook without the lid on for 2-5 minutes. They should brown just a bit but not burn. Add more oil to the pan if it’s smoking/seems too dry.

5. Now get the lid of your pan, hold it upside down under your faucet/water source and put just a little water in it - maybe 3 tablespoons but no need to measure. Carefully dump this into your pan and then immediately put the lid on the veg. It will sizzle and steam, that’s what you want!

6. Cook for another 5-10 minutes without peeking for the first 5 minutes. Ideally, the water is creating steam which will further cook your veggies to a bright green. The water will also create a little sauce from the browned bits in the pan which flavors the veg. If you see a ton of smoke rushing out the sides after a few minutes, this means the pan is too dry, and you may need to add a bit more water. If so, repeat this step.

7. When veggies are cooked to your liking, plate and enjoy - tasting and adjusting for salt if needed! You can add more flavorings if you wish, but I really like these just as is!

It will likely take a little practice to perfect this method for yourself - ideally you’ll have some veggies that are more browned, and others that are more steamed, but they should all have a nice garlicky flavor! Sometimes I cook these less and sometimes I cook them more, depending on my mood and the veggies. Try it and let me know what you think!

I thought I had overcooked it a bit but it was still SUPER tasty!

#2 - Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte Syrup ( /Spread?!)

One thing I didn’t realize before I had kids is how SUPER fun it is to see them experience new delicious things for the first time, and to share family food and drink rituals together. As such, I am newly interested in fun drinks that our whole family can share (and something warm/cozy/special for Jazzy to drink while we enjoy our morning coffees).

I recently did a big spice order from my fav company, Diaspora Co, and decided to try their new Pumpkin Spice Blend, which then inspired me to try making my own Pumpkin Spice Latte Syrup because I happened to have some extra chopped up butternut squash. Here’s their recipe that I used, and it turned out very delicious, although next time I will cut the sugar by half because I personally always like things less sweet. I doubled this recipe and froze about 3/4 of it in little jars for the future or to give away! Also a note that I blended it with my immersion blender right in the pot, which was way easier/less mess than moving it to the blender. The consistency of mine is somewhere between a syrup and a puree which I am very OK with!

I’ve been making myself Pumpkin Spice bulletproof coffees¹ with this, and I’ve been making Jazzy Pumpkin Steamed Milks with it, and both are delicious!

Jazzy and I have also been putting a little bit of it on toast with almond butter, which makes for an equally tasty fall bite!

#3 - My New Side Hustle - bringing Baby Dance Club™️ to Pittsburgh!

I’m going to announce it here because… where else would I announce it, LOL?! I am starting a side hustle! Not like I really have the time for it right now, but all I can say is IT found ME (on Instagram), and when it did, I had a fully body “yes” to doing it, so I just had to do it!

I recently completed a teacher training to learn how to teach a class called Baby Dance Club™️, so I’m bringing this in-person dance class to Pittsburgh in the next couple months! It’s a 30-minute dance class for the parents/caregivers of babies 0-12ish months and their babies. What I love about it is that it’s adult-focused fun/time, but it just so happens that the babies love it too. So - it’s something you do for YOU, but you bring your baby, which makes it fit into your life better! We dance to adult music and it’s a good workout without the focus being on the workout. Mostly it’s just FUN, in community, and don’t we all need more of that in our lives?!

My goal is to teach Baby Dance Club™️ once a week to start, and go from there! I’m mainly doing it because I myself want to attend the class😁! I still have so much to do to get it up and running; part of my reasoning for announcing it here is to stay accountable and get it going before I lose my momentum!

Pittsburgh friends, if you are reading this, I will likely recruit you to attend my early classes to make sure I have at least a few people show up! If you’re in the ‘Burgh and interested, sign up for Baby Dance Club™️ PGH email updates HERE! (I will also plan to put small announcements/updates about Baby Dance Club™️ at the bottom of my FFTF emails while I get this going, thanks for not minding!)

1. Scroll down to #3 in this post for my personal Bulletproof Coffee recipe!