Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
Gathering Around the Table: Cherishing Family Traditions
Discover stress-free holiday meal preparation with the delightful insights of James Beard Award-winning chef Emma Smock, who also happens to be my talented daughter. You'll learn how to wow your guests with a simple yet stunning roasted green beans recipe, offering a healthier twist on the classic green bean casserole. Emma shares her culinary secrets, from selecting the finest French-style green beans to mastering the art of roasted garlic and choosing high-quality olive oil. This episode is packed with practical tips and mouthwatering recipes to ensure your Thanksgiving contributions shine at the dinner table.
Dive into the heartwarming world of Thanksgiving traditions and the joys of hosting large family gatherings. We explore the significance of creating a welcoming atmosphere, where cherished traditions blend with new ones, like sending the kids to a movie while the adults cook together. Listen in as we recount personal stories, from hosting 52 families to a memorable Thanksgiving involving a wayward dog, emphasizing the value of involving everyone in meal preparations. With practical advice on simple, flavorful dishes like sweet potatoes, this episode aims to inspire you to create lasting holiday memories and enjoy the warmth of togetherness.
On this episode of Death by Adulting. We're going to get ready for the holidays. They're right around the corner. Maybe you're invited over for the first time this year and you're bringing something Need help, maybe it's the second or third time. Maybe you're having people in. We've got James Beard Award winning chef Emma Smock and, of course, mama Megan. Here we go, roll the intro.
Speaker 2:I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger, welcome to Death by Adulting. I'm your host as always, megan Scheidmere, and these next three episodes we're on location with chef Emma Smock who just happens to also be our third child, second daughter and a professional chef.
Speaker 2:So for those of you who are thinking, what do I do this holiday, We've got some real help for you. And so, Emma, you've got some skills, sweet skills to share with us. But talk to us about when you first started not being a shibner at Thanksgiving and had to do things on your own yeah.
Speaker 3:So your first year where you're kind of being invited over as a guest or you're not at mom's house anymore and you're you're bringing something to Thanksgiving can be so stressful because it's kind of a representation of how you are in the kitchen. So the first thing we're gonna do is give you this, because we're not messing up any nice shirts today. Let me apron up. But I remember feeling so pressured our first Thanksgiving. We were living out of state and we weren't able to get home, and so we met up with some friends and I was obviously bringing a few things because I wanted to contribute and I just was nervous.
Speaker 3:So here's a couple recipes I've come up with that are easy they're one pan, they're not a lot of cleanup and they're just gonna shine. Everyone's gonna love them. So it'll be the talk of Thanksgiving. The first one we're gonna do is roasted green beans. Can't get easier. Everyone loves green bean casserole on Thanksgiving. This is kind of like a healthier alternative. So we're gonna take some French style green beans. You'll find them at your grocery store, and the only difference between these and regular green beans is they're gonna be a little straighter. So if you want the regular, like thicker green beans. Go ahead and use them, and these come pre-cut at the grocery store, so you don't have to trim off any ends, which is lovely, and you're just gonna throw it on your pan.
Speaker 2:Do you remember green bean casserole at our house the year that I couldn't find French style and I bought regular and you and Molly had to French all the green beans and they were so soft yeah, the French green beans.
Speaker 3:Now here's something that I have in my pantry all the time that you might not necessarily have, so I'll talk to you about an alternative. This is roasted garlic. You just take your garlic cloves, pour some oil over them and stick them in a 300 degree oven for an hour until they're really, really soft. I'll show you just how soft they turn out, and these will last on your counter in the oil for six months and you can just squish it.
Speaker 3:They're just so soft it's like butter. So we're going to use these, and if you don't have this, you're just going to take three regular garlic cloves and mince them up. Really, really fine. We are going to sprinkle the whole clove just kind of all over. So I could buy my jarred minced garlic, you could buy your jarred minced garlic, yep, and I'm going to do six or seven good-sized cloves. You know there's a couple in here that are smaller, some that are bigger, so you're just going to kind of play around with it until you have the garlicky-ness that you want. The next thing we're going to do is can you drizzle some balsamic vinegar over this? Sure, no pressure, any balsamic vinegar will do. If you have white balsamic oh, there's a little lid on there Press, no pressure, any balsamic vinegar will do. If you have white balsamic, oh, there's a little lid on there Pressure.
Speaker 3:Pressure and this is just gonna add some acidity. That's not there, naturally. Yep, that's plenty. I'm gonna take good quality olive oil you want to use your good stuff for this and you're just gonna drizzle this all over a good amount, because that's where we're gonna get any crispiness from. And then the final step is salt and pepper.
Speaker 2:so I have a question yeah, is there an olive oil that you would consider not good quality?
Speaker 3:yeah. So you want to look at. You want extra virgin for sure, because that's gonna be pressed a little bit more than just a regular olive oil is. And you want to look at the color of the olive oil. Anything that's tan, that's not going to be very flavorful. Anything that's kind of green in the bottle, that's going to be where all of your flavor is.
Speaker 2:So you want to get those deeper green hues okay, so this is definitely a step up from our canned soup.
Speaker 3:Yes, sprinkle, sprinkle dried onions, it's gonna be healthy, it's gonna be delicious and it's gonna be something people talk about.
Speaker 1:And next, year when you're invited back.
Speaker 3:they're gonna be like make sure you bring those green beans. So we're gonna do about a teaspoon of salt and then a good pinch. It ends up being about half a teaspoon of ground black pepper. And then, mom, you get to get in here and get your hands dirty. You're just gonna toss it on the pan. Nothing special is required, and my hands are clean, yeah, so pull that pan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just pull it right up to you. All right, here we go and then just toss it around and it's going to kind of mash up the garlic as we're going. I was going to say, should I smush the garlic while I'm doing it? It will naturally mash up and kind of get all over those green beans, so that's kind of slimy.
Speaker 1:Slimy and good.
Speaker 3:You can't cook in the kitchen without getting a little messy, and then that's it. We're gonna lay them nice and flat and these are gonna go into a 375 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. At 10 minutes I check them. If they're looking a little browned on the outside, they're done. That's what you're looking for, that kind of flip on. Nope, we're just gonna leave them. This is so easy, and the reason we're not using parchment on this pan is because the heat from the pan is what's going to add to that crispiness. So if you put parchment between it, it's going to create a layer and a little bit of steam, which will make them softer but not crispy. So we want crispy edges on here.
Speaker 3:Okay so 10 to 15 minutes, and then we'll check them All right.
Speaker 2:While they're cooking. We want to talk a little bit about Thanksgiving and some traditions and maybe some of the things that cause stress at Thanksgiving, because we're entering into the holiday season and where you were a child in your family's home, when you're not anymore, there may be some things that cause stress. So, as a young adult, what's stressful to you about?
Speaker 3:the holidays. I think for me, the first time, the first year, having kids at the holidays was very stressful for me because, as a new mom, you're focused on nap schedules and feeding schedules and too much stimulation, and so having that first year with a baby, I was so nervous and just kind of had to learn to let go. It's just one day. People are going to love on your baby. They're excited to see you, they're excited to see them. So just kind of had to learn to let go. It's just one day. People are going to love on your baby. They're excited to see you, they're excited to see them. So just kind of lowering your expectations of keeping to a schedule or keeping to a routine and letting it kind of just be a day of fun.
Speaker 3:The other thing is, when you're the one that's doing a majority of the cooking, I typically end up hosting and our big family comes and then we all cook together.
Speaker 3:But when you're the one that's hosting or in charge, it can feel like a lot of pressure to have everything perfect and an Instagram worthy table and Pinterest worthy crafts for the kids. It's more important that everyone is just loving on each other and fellowshipping together and having a good time, and so we've started a tradition where we send the children away during the day. They go to a movie with the dads or the uncles and the women all cook together and the kids have a great time at the movies. The other thing that we do is I'll have one little coloring page printout, like a free coloring page printout nothing expensive and nothing crazy. They love it. It takes up some time and they do a coloring contest to see who can do the best picture, but keeps them busy, keeps them feeling involved in the Thanksgiving Day, without it having to be so stressful and picking out a you know, five-step craft right, right and, and if you recall growing up, I had a little 3x5 card on the refrigerator with a question.
Speaker 2:It said am I blessing or impressing? Yep, and the goal is we want to bless people. If I'm worried about impressing, I'm going to be hovering. Yeah, you know, going behind cleaning up, making sure the children don't touch things, snapping at everyone because they're in the way yeah.
Speaker 2:And, honestly, there are seasons in your life as a young mom, a mother of middlers, a mom of teenagers, and if you're in the season where the decorations are handprint turkeys and acorn placeholders go for it. We don't need to impress people, we need to make them feel like they're welcome. And talking about that, seasons of life, for years our family had a lot of people over. In fact, if you'll recall, we had one Thanksgiving where your dad was a pastor and we had invited 32 military families over because they didn't have other family in the area and the assistant pastor had invited about 20 families over and he had a tragedy the week before Thanksgiving and we were like, well, we can't abandon them. So we had 52 families over.
Speaker 2:And then, because I'm psychotic, I thought well, I don't want anyone from the church to feel left out, so we invited everyone for dessert. I think we had about 110 desserts in the house, every surface, which you know what which was not a problem for me. The kids loved it, and moms you know what. Which was not a problem for me? Right, the kids loved it, and moms you know what.
Speaker 3:I was really tired, but it was one day and it was super fun. It created a lot of memories For everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody had memories about that. But we're in a different phase now. In our family, yes, and where we used to bring in a lot of outsiders and this is for some of you older listeners and watchers of the podcast we this year had to make the decision that it's family and spouses, grandchildren and family of the spouses, because just with that, we're well up over 30 people, yes, and so it's okay to have your traditions change. There's no law in the traditions, right? What's your favorite Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3:memory. Oh, there's so many. I think my you're going to hate this one. Uh-oh, my favorite Thanksgiving memory is the year in Pennsylvania when we had a big party at the house and our dog came back. You're right, I hate that memory. We had to rehome our sweet puppy and the guy decided that she was too much. And in the middle of the Thanksgiving party, mom went outside with some trash to throw away and there was the dog tied to the grill and as a child.
Speaker 3:it was a Thanksgiving miracle Her mom, it was a Thanksgiving nightmare.
Speaker 1:Explain what happened to the dog.
Speaker 3:She was sick. She was very, very sick, and the guy couldn't bear to put her down, and so he brought her back to the mother of seven children to do it To put her down. Which was not so nice of him, but for us it was sweet to be able to say goodbye to our puppy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we did get to say goodbye. Wow, what a great memory. All right, so we have another recipe to share. Is that correct Yep, because you know what you wanna have a repertoire, yes.
Speaker 3:And we're gonna have a couple things that are your thing, that you can be counted on to bring every time. So we're gonna do one more side dish and this is again a little bit of a healthier take on a traditional side dish get your kids involved.
Speaker 2:So, not just my girls, my boys were involved too, but especially at Thanksgiving it was like a girl team thing, and even when they were very little. So our oldest was in charge of the bread because she liked to break rolls, and you were in charge of.
Speaker 3:I did pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2:Okay, and Molly was in charge of creamy casserole that didn't look like what we just prepared. It was the totally unhealthy one, okay. And Molly was in charge of cooking casserole that didn't look like what we just prepared.
Speaker 2:It was the totally unhealthy one, okay. And then our youngest, bailey, has been a pie baker. So she was little and she's still in charge of the pies now. So get your family involved. And then we had an extra. We called her our foster daughter. She was a single mom that lived with us and she was a competitive cook, if you'll recall. She's real good at it. She tried to do the same as every one of their dishes, just to make it better. Yeah, but vegan, yeah. So competition's good at thanksgiving, but get everyone involved in what you're doing, yeah.
Speaker 3:So this next one easy to get the kids involved in, and we're just gonna set for it and be right back, okay. Okay, this is gonna be another super simple side dish. We're gonna do a new take on sweet potatoes. Grab your sweet potato. We're gonna peel this as quickly as you can. It does not take very long. One sweet potato feeds a lot of people, so you think you do. And this dish has been requested by my brothers-in-law's for this year, so that tells you that it's good if even the boys are wanting it.
Speaker 2:It's a lot harder than my canned meals.
Speaker 3:My soon-to-be brother-in-law was like please have these at my wedding, thank you. So you'll be seeing these again in September. For the wedding.
Speaker 2:Nothing says September wedding like sweet potatoes in North Carolina. Okay, I win. Yours was smaller.
Speaker 3:Okay, once they're peeled, you're going to get rid of your peels, just clean your space. Yeah, don't help. Help. Yes, ma'am. And then you're going to dice these into small pieces and I'll show you exactly what I mean. Now, sweet potatoes are very hard to cut through, so we don't want that butt piece. You'll see me putting my hand flat against it. That is just for stability. You want to cut it like this so that you have these big flat pieces to work with, so that you're not trying to like saw through your hand. We're gonna go ahead and cut this into cubes. So question I'm reading a recipe.
Speaker 2:We're going to go ahead and cut this into cubes. So question I'm reading a recipe. Yep, and it's my first Thanksgiving. What's the difference between? Oops, our green beans are done. Oh oh yeah, green beans are like my favorite part of the meal, even though I eat them all in here. All right Back to my question. Okay, what is the difference in a recipe between dice and chop? Because I think this is a chop.
Speaker 3:This is a dice. So dice is when you're going to have a flat surface, you're going to get pretty even sized pieces. Um, we're just gonna, as we cut these, throw them onto our pan. A chop is more rough a chop. You'd be coming through and just kind of like hacking away at it. It doesn't matter the size or the consistency of the piece. Okay, so we're looking for things to be the same size.
Speaker 2:Roughly All right, that should help you with your recipes. I know when I first married dad I minced everything, thinking I was dicing.
Speaker 3:Oh no.
Speaker 3:And so it was always like mushy Yep, because it was too small, too small, and with this you want to do a nice dice, because we're trying to get a lot of surface space. The more surface space we have, the more fat we can stick on it the olive oil that we're going to use and fat equals flavor. So when you have a lot of surface space and some fat spread over it, you're going to get really crispy edges and a really soft center, which is just the most delightful sweet potato consistency, and I am very anti sweetened sweet potatoes. They are already sweet. I agree. They don't need marshmallows. Now, is it bad to stick cinnamon and nutmeg on them and a few marshmallows? No, but there's better ways to do it. So the next thing we're going to do is we're going to take half of an onion. Doesn't matter what kind of onion you use red, white, yellow, whatever. You can even use shallots for this if you already have them on hand. So what if it's?
Speaker 2:a sweet onion. Would you use that? You know, especially here in the south there's yellow onions and there's sweet onions and they look a lot alike.
Speaker 3:Yep, it really does not matter what onion you use. If you only had leeks, you could use leeks.
Speaker 3:The only one I wouldn't use is a scallion, just because it's not oniony enough. And then the same thing with this. We're going to do just a medium, small dice on it. You don't want tiny pieces with this onion. The onion actually adds a lot of flavor to this. So you want nice, decent sized pieces, and again, half of an onion will do. We're going to scoop that up and throw it on there. That was really graceful there, thank you. And then I'm just going to pull this closer to work with. We're going to put more of that roasted garlic on it. Just a few cloves this time.
Speaker 2:So what I'm hearing from you is you should always have roasted garlic on your counter.
Speaker 3:But again for this one, if you don't have the roasted garlic, you're just gonna throw regular garlic on it and you're not even gonna chop it. You're gonna do the whole cloves. It's super, super easy. I'm putting on five.
Speaker 2:Done with that, alright, so let's not skip anything for new cooks.
Speaker 3:You are peeling the cloves, yeah you'll peel the clove of garlic and then just throw the whole thing on there. It doesn't need anything special olive oil, this one, it doesn't matter if it's good or not. You could also substitute this for melted butter, which I have done a bunch of, yeah, in my day. That would be yummy. Um, and then dried parsley and you're gonna season with your heart, so just kind of sprinkle it on until it looks like christmas kind of like math, huh could you use fresh parsley, or would that get yucky on this?
Speaker 3:I don't use fresh parsley on this because of how long it needs to roast. It's going to get kind of a weird black color to it. So using the dried stuff A it's got more potency than fresh does Okay, and B it's not going to turn that weird black color. And then next we're going to do a little bit of pepper.
Speaker 2:So you said these are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's kind of how I am in the morning.
Speaker 3:And then we're gonna save salting them until after they come out of the oven. If we salt them ahead of time, their outside is gonna get a little hard. We don't want that, because salt draws water out, so we want to leave the water in these until after they cook. So when they come out of the oven we'll sprinkle a little fresh sea salt done. I'm not gonna stir these with my hands because I don't want to get dirty. Oh wow, and you're not even really caring about how good of a job you just stirring.
Speaker 2:So again, you don't have parchment down because you want, I want that he met on the metal.
Speaker 3:So when I put parchment it's just because I'm, you don't want to, don't have to clean it, okay, got ya, um, there's good reasons for parchment a cookie, for sure but for something like this, you want that heat, direct contact to your vegetables. This is going to go in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes until the outside is crispy and golden brown and they are soft if you squish them so while it's cooking, do I get to taste the green beans?
Speaker 3:Yes, you do, okay. So here are our green beans and, as you can see, they are crispy and delicious. They've kept their nice green color and you can see there's some caramelization from the balsamic on here. So just grab one and go. You want your green meats to still have a little crunch to them.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's yummy.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't have thought of the balsamic, but with the salt and the balsamic that's really yummy yeah it's just that right amount of acidity, and then, with the roasted garlic on there, that's my favorite part.
Speaker 2:I would probably grab some roasted garlic cloves to. That's my favorite part. I would probably grab some roasted garlic cloves to spread on my thanksgiving roll.
Speaker 3:That would be an excellent use of the extra roasted garlic, for sure, okay. So thanksgiving, honestly, is our favorite holiday. I think it is because we get to do what we're best at, which is eating eating and cooking.
Speaker 2:Um, and I know people that christmas is their big holiday, fourth of july is their big ho. But whatever your big holiday is, find your things yeah Right. And every year, especially for little ones like our grandchildren, your children, that consistency builds memories. Memories build security. Secure children are happy children.
Speaker 3:Yes, they are, and we'll be right back with delicious sweet potatoes for you to try.
Speaker 2:I don't know, we may have to put me behind the camera and bring Dad in, because he loves sweet potatoes.
Speaker 1:You can try them too Okay.
Speaker 3:So there's a couple things that we can do now. If you have a ways to travel, I would suggest leaving this on your pan that you cooked it on, wrapping it in foil and taking it to your host house with your platter so that you can platter it up there. If you wrap it in foil and leave it on the pan, that means you can stick it in the oven, whatever temperature your host is cooking at, just until it's warm again. You want to serve these nice and hot, and then the other piece is having your platter with you because you don't want to use your host's dishes and put them out trying to find a bowl you think about it ahead of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good idea. Bring those things with you.
Speaker 3:I threw my hot pad, but this is still pretty warm, so I'm going to go ahead and just this is the easiest presentation. This is where, if you had a little fresh parsley, you could sprinkle some fresh parsley on here, but honestly, you don't even need to go through that trouble. This is meant to be an easy and delicious dish, so keep it simple. That's the rule number one in the kitchen is keep it simple, okay, so I'm just gonna arrange these on here and then your spoon and you're good to go. And again, the most important part of any dish is salt. So right at this stage is when you're going to go ahead and sprinkle a little kosher salt, a little flaky sea salt, whatever you have. Sweet potatoes don't need a ton, but salt just kind of enhances the flavor, and now we get to try it. So I'm looking for one of those really crispy pieces.
Speaker 2:It's got a nice browning on it and that's going to tell me oh, it's all the way through and delicious even without any of the marshmallow, brown sugar, maple syrup things that I used to put on it so good so these are a favorite jack.
Speaker 3:You can look forward to these for Thanksgiving. And yeah, two simple, easy dishes. There's not a lot that has to go into it. It doesn't have to be overwhelming to be delicious.
Speaker 2:And the only problem you're going to have with these two is people are going to be so impressed that next year you're going to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. So until then, I'm Mama Megan, I'm Em, and it's been great to be with you. Remember, when it comes to adulting, what doesn't kill you just makes you tired.