Hey there, my fellow gear head and food nerd.

This is Mason, from Kinda Healthy Recipes.

In case you're unfamiliar, Mason’s Must-Haves is a monthly email about my favorite foods, ingredients, cooking gear, or food-related content from the past month.

Since this is still something new I’m trying, I’d love it if you could reply letting me know what you think about it, and how it could be better.

Here we go!

#1. Olive Wood Utensils

Following up on last month’s gear recommendation about enameled cast iron, you’ll definitely want to use gentle cooking utensils with them. Heatproof silicone is fine, but it’s hard to beat wood.

I picked up most of my collection from World Market, and this is probably the most affordable place I’ve come across.

Some of my oldest pieces have been around for years now and require basically no maintenance. Just don’t throw them in the dishwasher! (Mine could use a splash of mineral oil.)

I also have some pieces from Crate and Barrel and a few local pieces. These are great pieces to look for at cool bakeries or coffee shops where they show off the work of local artists/woodworkers. Utility meets style.

#2. Bibigo Steamed Dumplings & Kirkland Bone Broth (Costco Finds) + Frozen Aromatics

I’m pretty “cold” on 90% of the frozen and refrigerated items we’ve purchased from Costco. But these dumplings are pretty solid and have 15 grams of protein with just 7 grams of fat per serving. While those aren’t world beating macros, you can pair them with 2 cups of heated bone broth and a few other ingredients for a soup with at least 35-40 grams of protein.

I like to add some scallion whites, soy sauce, a cube of frozen crushed garlic (or 1 garlic clove), 2 cubes of frozen ginger (or 2 tsp of crushed ginger), a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, and a teaspoon or two of gochujang or a chili sauce to the broth while heating it up. I pour the broth over the heated dumplings and garnish with the scallion greens, pickled vegetables or kimchi, and some gochugaru and/or chili crisp.

Side note: The frozen garlic and ginger cubes from Dorot Gardens are definitely must-haves as well. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a store locator. Trader Joe’s always has them in my area.

#3. Six Seasons and Mi Cocina

If I’m ever looking for inspiration, I start with these two cookbooks.

​Six Seasons is by chef and farmer, Joshua McFadden. It highlights the foods that are in season throughout the year and gives recipes to make with them. The recipes are maybe slightly more elevated than what we’re typically cooking, but it’s a great starting point. I made a kinda healthy bolognese using canned pumpkin last fall based on his pumpkin bolognese recipe, for example.

If you’re interested in learning more about seasonal produce and how to use it, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

Rick Martinez’s cookbook, Mi Cocina, is one of the most thorough cookbooks I’ve ever seen about food from one country or culture. It highlights traditional dishes from every region in Mexico and teaches you how to make them well.

I also like that Rick has a social media presence, so you can see him putting in the research first hand. He has an entire series on the Binging with Babish channel exploring Mexico. Start with this video about traditional birria in Jalisco, Mexico.

#4. Protein Queso

You’ve heard me talk about the frozen foods company I’ve been working with since 2021, Counter. Well, this month I’ve been working to adapt one of the early products we pitched to Sam’s Club in a chicken taco bowl.

With food costs on the rise, we’re aiming to reduce the cost of the bowls while keeping the protein above the 30g per serving mark. In the original bowl, we had an avocado crema. It was great, but we thought swapping it for a high protein queso would do the trick.

So, I tested about 15 different queso sauces for the bowls and we’ll see how it turns out. While that queso will be a cheese-only sauce, I ended up making an upgraded beefy queso using the same base sauce. Check it out here, if you haven’t seen it already.

#5. Huckberry’s “Dirt”

If you like food travel shows, you’ll dig this YouTube series where host Josh Rosen travels around different regions talking to local chefs, farmers, and artisans. It’s beautifully shot and scratches the food content itch in a small, 25-minute dose. The Seattle episode is the first of the series, and a great place to start.

Bonus

The Great British Baking Show returns at the end of this month, and it reminded me of a great online course Vanessa took this year. It’s called Bake with a Legend, and you can take classes with former GBBO contestants online. Vanessa made pasteis de nata with Dan, but it looks like classes are currently available with former winner Jane, Lottie, Ian, Rosie, and Howard.

Double Bonus

I asked for feedback in the last must-haves email, and I received several requests for recipe recommendations. While it’s been a slow month for new recipes on my end thanks to the protein queso trials, Vanessa made an awesome re-creation of the famous Porto’s Milk’n Berries cake. It’s a summer-centric cake, but I think it’s worth trying before we get too far into fall.

(Vanessa’s cake is on the right. You can order the original Porto’s cake delivered via dry ice. We ordered two, and one of them thawed a bit too long before this photo was taken.)

Thanks for reading!

Mason

9900 Spectrum Dr, Austin, TX 78717
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