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Thanksgiving: The Tasty Apron
Thanksgiving is upon us, and in a time when many people jump straight from Halloween to Christmas, Evergreen is still celebrating Thanksgiving in style with our favorite cooking show, “The Tasty Apron.” In this episode, Mama Gazpacho is making us one of her favorite Thanksgiving Recipes, Peeping Mushroom Pasta.
Cast of Characters
Heather.....Heather Bartholomae
Sam.......... Samuel Capaldi
Mama Gazpacho......Katie Curley
You can find the full recipe for Peeping Mushroom Pasta HERE
Sarah: Hey guys, this is Sarah producer at Evergreen Podcast. In this episode of Cheer, we'll be celebrating my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to me is full of thanks and food. And in today's episode, I've collected three of my friends from Los Angeles to put together a little cooking show sketch for your enjoyment. This is the Tasty Apron. Enjoy.
Sam: Hello everybody out there in podcast land.
Heather: Welcome to another delectable episode of Tasty Apron.
Sam: Today's our very special podcast as we're going over Thanksgiving today. And I would like to say, in a spirit of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my wonderful co-host Heather.
Heather: Oh my goodness. And you know what? I'm thankful for you too. And that wonderful smile you bring every show.
Sam: Oh I am thankful for that wonderful personality of yours.
Heather: Oh my goodness. And those muffins you made me last week. I was so thankful.
Sam: They were so delectable. They had the...blueberries were huge. I picked them from Smith's Farm.
Heather: Oh my gosh, Smith's Farm. I'm thankful for those guys over there.
Sam: I am thankful for them too. You know, ever since the [inaudible 00:01:26] sold theirs and turned them into condos, I have been selectively at Smith's Farms and I got to be honest. I did not know what I was missing. I did not know what I was missing.
Heather: You know what? I'm thankful that that family made a ton of money and is running this city into the ground.
Sam: Well, I'm just thankful that I had a friend in the neighborhood who I knew before I introduced you to him, so I knew to go to the Sprouts.
Heather: Well, I'm thankful that I dated and then married your friend who actually, I don't know if he calls you a friend anymore to be honest.
Sam: I am just thankful that he still made me his best man, even though someone across the mic objected to it.
Heather: You know what? I'm thankful that we have this show together so we can tell each other these important things.
Sam: Yes. It's almost, but not quite like therapy. I like to see it as a couple of world leaders who need to sit down and talk things out, and this is how they do it. Resolving conflicts, shall we say,
Heather: I'm thankful that you're so unaware of your stature that you would possibly say that we were close to world leaders.
Sam: Well, I would like to think that we change the minds and hearts of many aspiring chefs out there. And I'm grateful that I am able to be that guiding light in their life.
Heather: I'm thankful that you never look at our YouTube comments.
Sam: What's with the YouTube comments?
Heather: Oh, they're not good for you.
Sam: For me or for the show?
Heather: For you. Okay. Let's move on.
Sam: Wow. We have a special guest. Is that right?
Heather: Today we have one of our favorites. Let's welcome to the show Mama Gazpacho.
Mama Gazpacho: Oh, hello. Hello, everyone.
Heather: We're so excited to have you here today.
Sam: This is wonderful. So delighting. [crosstalk 00:03:09]
Heather: We're very thankful for you.
Sam: Yes, very thankful for you to be on our show today.
Mama Gazpacho: Well, that's wonderful. I'm thankful you're thankful.
Sam: So I see today that you are preparing for us a favorite family dish for Thanksgiving here. I can see everything set out before us.
Heather: What is this favorite recipe of yours that we're going to be working on?
Mama Gazpacho: Well, this is something that's been passed down in my family for quite a while. And I think you're going to like it. It's called Peeping Mushroom Pasta.
Sam: Wow. Peeping Mushroom Pasta.
Mama Gazpacho: Yeah. It's really wonderful. The finished result is beautiful on the table. I'll tell you what it just really brings a lot of color. We got the white ones. We got the yellow ones. We've got some beautiful deep red ones. And these green ones with like, kind of like a blue fringe to them. So it just looks like, it looks like you just rolled a log over and found this beautiful dish underneath it.
Sam: I normally don't have mushrooms for Thanksgiving. So I'm a little excited let's say to interject this into my Thanksgiving course.
Mama Gazpacho: It really fills out the menu I find.
Heather: And how many generations back does this recipe go?
Mama Gazpacho: The first recipe card was indeed written in stone.
Heather: Oh my goodness.
Sam: Wow, stone. And I imagine the stone is, has been passed down from generation to generation and...
Mama Gazpacho: Oh, that broke a long time ago.
Sam: Oh okay.
Heather: Oh wow. That's the card then... [crosstalk 00:04:35]
Mama Gazpacho: Exactly. Like you would think that stone would last, but actually you drop it and it breaks.
Sam: So I guess we can no longer use that phrase, carved in stone anymore. Ha ha ha.
Heather: Well, let's get right into that recipe.
Mama Gazpacho: Okay. So first thing you're going to want to do is melt the butter in a medium frying pan over medium heat. So we're thinking medium, just like you're trying to read someone's mind. Just think medium. All right. So once you got that butter going, then you're going to take the flour and you're going to mix it to form a paste. So once you've got this kind of pasty thing, don't lick it. It's very hot. Cook it for two minutes. All right. And then we're going to remove it from the heat and let it cool for two minutes. And then we're going to gradually add some milk, whisking. Just very, just very whisking. Okay. We're going to whisk this up. It's good for your arm.
Heather: Oh Mama, be careful.
Sam: You're really splashing it all over the place.
Mama Gazpacho: Yeah, you can see my right arm is a little bit thicker than my left one because I got a lot of whisking practice. Okay. Now we're going to place the pan back over the medium heat and in go the onions. Okay. Into the party onions and then some clove and a bay leaf. And then we're going to let this simmer.
Sam: Now what about these mushrooms over here? They just seem to be...
Mama Gazpacho: We're going to get to them. They're sitting in a wonderful bath. They've been listening to some NPR. They're feeling great.
Heather: Oh, they feel good.
Mama Gazpacho: Yeah they do. All right. So we've got the oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. You might've noticed this other pot over here has been doing its own little thing. It is salted water and it has now come to a boil. So we're going to put the pasta in. We want it to be...we want to have it a little toothsome. We want it to have a little bit of a bite, a little al dente. Okay, because it's going to do a little bit more cooking. This sauce is getting to be saucy. We're going to take out the onion, the clove and the bay leaf.
Heather: Okay.
Mama Gazpacho: Yes, because those things are going to be... they're a little too chunky. Though here we go with the mustard and half of the cheese. We've got three and a half ounces of Gruyere. You could also do Parmesan or another hard cheese, but we're going to do half of that in now.
Heather: Wow. This is rich. I'm liking it.
Sam: So thick.
Mama Gazpacho: Oh yeah. This is not... This is once a year, all right, you can indulge. Okay. I've got a little mug and this mug here, as you can see, it's got a fall leaves on it. So the little pumpkin, a little kitten.
Sam: Very festive I see.
Mama Gazpacho: Little kitten peeking over the pumpkin.
Sam: [crosstalk 00:07:12] ] Climbing over the jack-o-lantern.
Mama Gazpacho: Yep. It's very cute. Very cute. So what we're going to do, we're going to arrange the pasta so that all the tubes are facing up because we want to have little places to plant the mushrooms. So, okay. We're just going to get these in. We're going to stack them up nicely.
Heather: Do the mushrooms actually peep out of the pasta?
Mama Gazpacho: They do. They do indeed. They're just little...they peep out of the top, not like peep, peep like little chickies, but peep like they're popping out. All right. This is good. All right. As you can see in the dish, we've got all the noodles arranged. They're all in there nice and tight. Not too tight because we still want to have a hole to put the mushrooms in, but they're all stacked up. They're all standing upright. It looks kind of like a honeycomb you could see. But there's no honey.
Sam: So the mushroomy, oniony honeycomb.
Mama Gazpacho: Yes. Okay. So now we've going to pour the sauce over the pasta. Do you see it? Oh, you see it? It's just going right into all the holes.
Sam: Fills it up.
Mama Gazpacho: [crosstalk 00:08:10] And then we don't want to fill it. We don't want to fill it all the way up to the top because we're going to display some sauce once we put the mushrooms in. So we're just going to get it almost all the way to the top.
Heather: It's so thick. It's really holding that pasta in place.
Mama Gazpacho: Oh yeah. It's great. All right now, so we're going to take these little mushroom guys you can see. The smaller ones you can fit a couple of them in there. You can... You could fit like a stock of like three or four because they're teeny tiny little guys, but the slightly larger ones, you might just want to stick one in there and then use your artistic talents. Keep them arranged. You don't want to have everybody uniform. Let's put some of these little white guys in here and these little, like very small white guys and put them in the side and it's just like arranging flowers. But they look like they just growing out as pasta. And it's more fun with fungus. And then yeah, with the caps poking out, we are looking good. And then we're going to sprinkle the remaining cheese over there and then we're just going to pop it into the oven. So it goes into the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cheese is golden bubbly. And I just happen to have this a finished one right here.
Sam: Wow. Oh, look at that. And the cheeses all melted across the top.
Mama Gazpacho: I'm just going to take some of the chopped parsley. Nice, fresh chopped parsley. So it looks like they actually growing out of the ground. You know, you've got... And there we go. It's like a little...
Sam: That looks scrumptious.
Heather: Okay, you guys let's dig in.
Sam: I can't wait. It looks good.
Heather: First bite. Oh my goodness.
Sam: Let me just take a little taste here.
Heather: Mama Gazpacho, everything is complimenting each other. This cheese is perfect. The texture is perfect. The mushrooms with the parsley and the bay leaves. Oh my, it is a symphony of flavors going on right now. I just, I have to say, this is one of the greatest things I've ever tasted.
Mama Gazpacho: Mmmmm.
Heather: Right? Yes.
Sam: Oh, Oh, mmm.
Heather: What?
Sam: Oh yeah, no, it doesn't really taste that good. Can I get a glass of water please?
Heather: You know what, thank you so much for being here, Mama Gazpacho and this is going to be a part of my Thanksgivings for years to come. And I just really want to know what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?
Mama Gazpacho: Oh, well I tell you what I am thankful for butter. Just melt it all, put me in a vat of it and cook me with some onions. Oh, smell delicious.
Heather: All right. Well we just want to thank Mama Gazpacho again. Just a wonderful, wonderful recipe. And we're the Tasty Apron and we hope to see you next time.
Sam: Thanks for tuning in.
Heather: Oh, dear. Are you okay? Here come here.
Mama Gazpacho: Oh get the bucket.
Heather: Oh Jesus. I'm so sorry.
Sam: I see white spots.
Heather: Oh dear.
Sarah: Thank you for listening to Cheer. We'd like to acknowledge the Evergreen team for making this podcast possible. You can listen to Cheer and more of our podcast by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app or visit evergreen podcast.com. From all of us here at Evergreen. We wish you a happy Thanksgiving.