Episode 206 with Robin Miller
Solving the Dinner Dilemma
SHOW NOTES:
With Robin's insights, you'll find meal prep made easy, utilizing a well-stocked pantry for efficient and delightful cooking. Robin also unveils her expertise in back-to-school lunch ideas and busy evening dinner solutions, emphasizing the importance of involving kids in meal preparation. Plus, we'll explore the daunting barriers that often deter us from making nutritious choices and how to overcome them.
Tune in to unlock the culinary wisdom of one of the world's top nutritionists who not only advises but also writes cookbooks. Discover the flavors that connect families and make your kitchen a hub of health and happiness.
Explore more at robinmillercooks.com and let your taste buds savor the future of nutritious dining.
Purchase Robin's newest cookbook here >> https://amzn.to/3FyY5ws
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
206 ROBIN MILLER
Ginny Yurich All right, here we go.
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I have a fantastic guest here today. Robin Miller, welcome.
Robin Miller Thank you. Great to be here. Ginny, I'm excited.
Ginny Yurich This is a really important topic because we are trying to get our kids outside and that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of planning, especially here heading into the school year. There's just a little less time. And you have a fantastic new cookbook coming out. People are always asking like, how do I keep up with my cooking? How do I keep up with my cleaning? In your cookbook is called 30 Minute Meal Prep. There are so many recipes in here. Robin I was starting to scroll through and I think, Oh, it's just one after the next. So many ideas and 100 healthy and delicious recipes to eat all week. You are a New York Times bestselling author. I'm so grateful that you're here.
Robin Miller Oh, and I'm so grateful that you invited me here. So thank you.
Ginny Yurich This is one of so many cookbooks, and I am not amazing in the kitchen, so I'm always incredibly impressed. I was someone that could not only write one cookbook, but you have written so many cookbooks. Can you just tell us about where your interest started? I'm always curious. Is this like.
Ginny Yurich Your.
Ginny Yurich Childhood? Is this passed down generations where you come from.
Robin Miller That you're so funny? And you're right. This is my 11th cookbook. I already have started cookbook 12. I just can't stop. I can't.
Ginny Yurich Stop.
Robin Miller So, you know, growing up, my mom was a passionate cook and an avid gardener, so we would spend a lot of time in the garden. And it was a lot of farm to table type stuff in my house. But I was kind of a tomboy and an athlete, so I was not really the cook all through college. I was in college sports. My roommates did all the cooking, but once I graduated and got out on my own, that's when I discovered my passion for being in the kitchen, creating healthy meals, things that would help, you know, performance and energy. And that's where I got the interest in nutrition. So at back to school for my master's in nutrition, thinking I was going to be a nutritionist, like working with clients.
Ginny Yurich But.
Robin Miller Really fell in love with the kitchen part, like the cooking. I'm Italian, so it's like feeding is love and cooking for people is love. My son is home for his last few days before he goes off to college. And I had a whole list of all of his favorite things that I wanted to cook. My shopping list, said Luke. Food, literally. That was one of the items on my shopping list. So to me, it's equal parts performance and then love, you know what I mean? Like it's health. And to me it's a way of showing that you care and your whole concept of thousand hours outside. So cool because, you know, I think about my childhood growing up and being outside and doing what my mom could do, whatever she could to get dinner under the table quickly and still spend all that time outside. You know what I mean?
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. It's really important because we want to have healthy foods. We want to cook from scratch. I mean, this is a this is a big thing is a lot of chemicals out there. But a lot of times we are really strapped for time. And I think we're now in the season of we're trying to get outside. But plus, are we have older kids like you that are in sports and so you're running. And so one of the things I really loved about this cookbook was how many 100, 100 options can't go wrong. You can easily find something. So I want to tell you the one that we made already. Yeah, we just sometimes we you know, we've just gotten it so we don't have a ton of time to dive in. But we've, you know, we've just gotten it before. We have a chance to talk and we'll make more. But we made the chicken pot pie nice. The easy chicken pot pie. It was like a deconstructed chicken pot pie. So this was so fun because actually our kids do not love pie crust. So I loved this.
Ginny Yurich Idea of this.
Ginny Yurich Deconstruction input. They like biscuits, though.
Ginny Yurich So there was the biscuits.
Ginny Yurich This was a fantastic idea. So we actually made it for company.
Robin Miller That's awesome. And what I love about the Biscuits is you can have everybody can have their own individual bowl with a biscuit on top. So instead of doing the pie crust, if people are familiar with the recipe instead of doing that pie crust. I actually just did one with filo dough too, which is kind of fun because you can just do like little pouches of filo on top, and if somebody doesn't want it, they can just pull it off. But yeah, and it's a really cool presentation to have a bowl of chicken pot pie with just a biscuit on top. It's flaky on the top and kind of wet on the bottom because it absorbs all the wonderful broth. Yeah. So yeah, that's a fun one. I like that.
Ginny Yurich And it was a great one and completely eaten like there was none left. Oh, it's gone and my kids could help. And so I thought that was really cool. Do they help chop the different things? And so it was a great way to come together in the kitchen and make this. It was a total hit. Like I said, we that's it's always a tricky thing to try something new for company.
Ginny Yurich Yes, we did.
Ginny Yurich And it was a huge hit. So I love that one. And we have so many. My daughter, who is ten, she'll come in, she'll take all these sticky notes and she's sticky. She sticky notes, the ones she wants to try.
Ginny Yurich So there's a whole stack?
Ginny Yurich Yeah, there's a whole bunch in here that are sticky. Note it. So one really cool thing. About this cookbook in particular that's unique is that you have this round one round to Yes, making life easier for families. Tell us about that.
Robin Miller So this this all started with my Food Network show when people really loved the act because my show was called Quick Fix Meals still is. It's on Discovery Plus. But people loved that. I would take one. I would take leftovers from meal one and morph it into meal two. But it wasn't like, you know, the classic is you have leftover turkey. You make turkey tetrazzini. That's not like that's not what I'm doing. It's more like you're going to make garlic butter shrimp and then you're going to turn it into shrimp patties or you're going to have like a sheet pan lemon chicken that then becomes something with Asian dish, with noodles and vegetables. So that's why round one, a round two. So there are 100 recipes in the book, 50 recipes for round one and 50 recipes you make with the leftovers of round one. However, those second 50 recipes, you can buy a rotisserie chicken and make it. You can get smoked salmon and do it. You can have pasta from any meal leftover to do another, you know, pasta salad for someone. School lunch. Do you know what I mean? Right.
Ginny Yurich So I do know what you mean because we did a round two recipe that was our first one was around TV. So it works either way. It works either way. And it just helps you in your mind to figure out dinner for the week. Yes.
Ginny Yurich Because if you.
Ginny Yurich Do the round one, round two, and you figured out Monday, then you've already figured out Tuesday.
Ginny Yurich Yes. That is really helpful.
Robin Miller And you're also saving time. So say you're doing a roasting some chicken now you have twice the amount. So the next dish you have already pre cooked chicken that maybe just goes into a broth with some noodles. And now you have that right more or, you know, many, many different things, like if you have cooked pasta, for example, and you're doing a cold dish like the one of the chicken ones that I was just thinking about that would make a great school lunch because now I'm in school mode is there is a chicken dish with the leftovers becomes like a wonderful chicken salad with fennel, you know, or a Greek rice bowl with olives and chicken and rice and dressing that goes on the side. So, yeah, always I guess I've always been because I like to be outside it, either watching the sports or doing things with my kids, which is I'm cramming in all I can this week, mini golf, this, you know, I'm just doing all these different things, so I don't want to be in as much as I love cooking. I still want a delicious dinner, but I want it quickly so I can spend more time outside, more time with my family. So that's always been the strategy. So it's, you know, you would think it's like selfish. I just want to. But it really the strategy is what can I do? Spend more time with my kids, right. And still have my food and not have to eat out or drive through.
Ginny Yurich And still have that delicious meal that you're coming together over, that you enjoy, that you can have these conversations. Well, you you wrote in this you talk about the dinner dilemma. I wrote this cookbook for one reason to solve your dinner dilemma. And then you say, which I thought was really cool, like, here you are, you're on television, you're TV personality, host of Food Network's Quick Fix meal streaming on Discovery, plus an Amazon prime host of classes, live events, brand influencer spokesperson, 11 cookbooks with the 12 coming out, New York Times best seller featured in USA Today. All these things. And then you write it, which I just love this, you say, But my life is a lot like yours. It's a.
Ginny Yurich Juggle. Yeah, it's.
Ginny Yurich A juggle of work, of parenting, of errands, of chores. And you say. And hobbies, if I'm lucky.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I love this idea of like, we want to be able to quickly make our meals and be able to still have time for all of these other things. I was curious what your hobbies are.
Ginny Yurich Yes, if you're lucky.
Robin Miller Well, I mean, I always make sure that I get outside for something like running or walking or something. So now I've noticed I go earlier and earlier in the morning because I put it off that my day starts too late. Then I'm kind of behind. So I love that. I love hiking, I love and I just I just moved to the East Coast from the west, from Arizona. So I'm up my my thing that I've been doing a lot of is exploring. So I just kind of like exploring these little towns that are 25 minutes away. Or am I was this castle that I never even knew of in Pennsylvania? Like, who knew that I would get to go see tomorrow? So, you know, things like that just kind of exploring is one of my things. So if I have time.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, I do want to have time, at least a little bit for these things that we love. And so by being able to streamline in the kitchen, that really helps.
Ginny Yurich It sure does.
Ginny Yurich Really cool that you're a nutritionist. So we talk about these are actually healthy recipes and they really were a lot of just whole food ingredients. Yeah. So we made that chicken pot pie. It was fantastic. I mean, we're cutting up carrots and celery and onions and peas and corn. So just a great recipe there.
Ginny Yurich A lot of.
Robin Miller People think that if if you're going to make a meal quickly, that it requires, you know, a bottle of dressing or a jar of mayonnaise, but it doesn't have to I mean, you can make incredibly delicious meals with, as you said, whole wholesome foods, vegetables. You know, there are some great ways to g like a great vinaigrette or some kind of a healthy salad dressing or a pesto that can turn a five ingredients into something that tastes like there's 20. But you don't have to to lean heavily on processed foods to get dinner on the table quickly. And that's always been my mantra. Obviously, there are times when you have to grab something that just requires for boiling water, right? Like some kind of a kit.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, right.
Robin Miller But but if those are few and far between, that's that's kind of would be the best case scenario.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I think there is a misnomer. It's like, you know, we have a generation of people who grew up on Hamburger Helper. Isn't that such a message, Robin? Like, you need help. You need help for your.
Ginny Yurich Hamburger.
Ginny Yurich Tuna helper. I mean, they were all like that. And I think the messaging implies that, like, we can't do this. You're going to need some of that.
Robin Miller That is true. That is a good way to put it. I never thought about it that way. But that is that is really true. And I'm sure that was they all sat around that table and came up with that on purpose because, you know, I mentioned in the beginning I love cooking, but I would say most people don't, most busy people, it's work is a job. It's something that they're happy with. It's over. Many of my friends I was at a heard my friends a couple of weeks ago and he does all the cooking, She does all the cleaning and they're both kind of happy when it's everything's clean and put away, you know, it's a chore.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. Yeah. I was so surprised that there could be this many recipes done in 30 minutes because I think sometimes you're like, Well, what am I in the mood for? And whatever you're in the mood for, you're going to find in this book because there's so many options. And it's I love okay. One of the things that in this book that's unique to is you have this meal prep 101 Yeah. Which is so important. You have 25 tactics that will revolutionize your experience in the kitchen, all these tactics. And you probably had to learn a lot of this behind the scenes stuff. I would imagine filming a show.
Ginny Yurich Yes, you have to be pretty organized.
Robin Miller And also I started filming in my own kitchen when COVID started, so I didn't have any help. It was only me. So the pantry was what I put in there. And so, yeah, that's for a show. But it really if you have a well, that's one of the, one of the strategies is well I guess it's, it's maybe in five or six tips of those 25 is what can you put in your pantry that you can pull and make your life easier. So I talk about tomatoes. I love canned and carton tomato products and there's so many now fire roasted in green peppers and oregano and the rotel with all the flavor and then, you know, quick cooking grains. I love having those in the pantry couscous, quinoa people, obviously. I love the rice medleys now and other things that you can just keep in a I think I'm convinced that a well-stocked pantry makes for an efficient, awesome cook, you know, because it's there and you have it. I mean, look at the bean oil. I remember when I was growing up and when I was writing my first cookbook, there was like maybe black beans, garbanzo beans. And now they're seasoned and chili and, you know, there's all kinds of different delicious.
Ginny Yurich Pink pea beans. And then then there's like different.
Robin Miller Names for the white ones, and.
Ginny Yurich Now they.
Robin Miller Come seasoned. So you don't need to drain them. You can just put them right in a pot and skip a couple of herbs, spices from your spice rack. So I love So when I talk convenience items like that's a convenience I did for me, not Hamburger helper or tuna helper, you know, rice, seasoned beans. These rice medleys. I just made the one last night that had like four different types of rice in it, ready in 15 minutes. It's funny because last night I we, we ended up doing this golf way long and we played, like, forever. Cool. So a quick dinner I wanted to do enchilada something so I did deconstructed enchiladas so it was just a bowl of rice and we put everything on top and tortillas on the side having the ingredients. And I was able to do it because it was all there already. I'm sure in my cookbook, I would say assemble the enchiladas on Sunday.
Ginny Yurich And enjoy them. But that's not everybody's reality.
Robin Miller And yesterday it wasn't mine. So all the flavors were there in a bowl.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. And you got sons. You got college age boys. So this is filling them up? Yes. They're happy about it. I love that you dedicated this one to your sons who never say no when it comes to tasting my creations, who inspire me to make delicious food every day. So it's feeding your grown boys, and therefore, and.
Ginny Yurich Your.
Robin Miller Roommates now. So one of my sons is only 40 minutes away. So every week I bring about five or six meals for him and his four roommates.
Ginny Yurich Oh, Robyn. Wow.
Ginny Yurich I know it's so important. All of you, they love.
Robin Miller It because dining hall.
Ginny Yurich Food.
Robin Miller You know, I mean.
Ginny Yurich Almost.
Robin Miller You know, usually.
Ginny Yurich They.
Robin Miller And they were all interning over the summer and dining halls weren't even open. So it was like fast, not fast food, but, you know, like this convenient. I know if you have wah, wah, wah wah, but they're like, you know, 7-Eleven or whatever those types of things or the food that I could bring in just load up their freezer.
Ginny Yurich Robyn That's incredible because these are such pivotal years. Like you want them to have good nutrition and they're up late and they're under a lot of stress. Say it again. You took meals for your son and a roommate.
Ginny Yurich Well, one time I got 12 full meals.
Robin Miller I just bring coolers down and they have two refrigerators and just load them all up. And I take the old containers back, and the next Friday, I do it again.
Ginny Yurich If you want to be a popular mom.
Robin Miller I just. And also they. So they were doing in terms of internships all day. They have track practice in the afternoon.
Ginny Yurich When you have.
Robin Miller Five boys going to shop and cook. Yeah. And as you said, these are pivotal years for growth and getting good night's sleep. And they cannot be eating out every night if they want to feel good and perform well on the track and sleep well and have good skin hair. You know what I mean? Energy.
Ginny Yurich So and they need that, right? These are the these are the big years. So you are one of the top three most famous nutritionists worldwide.
Ginny Yurich Where I don't either. I don't know why, but I.
Ginny Yurich Bet you are.
Ginny Yurich So that's a pretty cool ranking.
Robin Miller I think. I think it's because I'm outspoken. So I'm definitely I'm published. I'm in those things a lot. A lot of nutritionists, they just work with clients, right? So they don't have a national presence. But I also think what's what's different is you don't find a lot of nutritionists that write cookbooks. So there's they're really good at telling you what to eat and how to change your diet for whatever your needs may be, whether it's diabetes or weight loss or, you know, whatever. But they don't write recipes as a general rule. And I got when I was getting my masters, that was 100% the case. All the women were going to be all the women and men were going to be clinicians. There were no cooking classes, nothing. Why?
Ginny Yurich How can you become a nutritionist and not take a cooking class?
Robin Miller Not one. There was a food lab that was not we weren't making recipes. We were seeing what happened. When you put certain things together, we're looking at chemical reactions. So I don't think that's even changed. So I think that's probably why I'm on the radar so much, because I am a vocal and I've written and I have a lot of so I write cookbooks when I've written a lot of articles on nutrition because I used to write for a lot of the fitness magazines. So those were not recipes. It was about what can you do to have a better performance or more energy or sleep better, What nutrients do this for you and that for you and that kind of thing. And I think that's how I just, you know, I got on the map that way, which is how you.
Ginny Yurich Became a top three.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it's a funny global, global ranking.
Ginny Yurich That's awesome. Robyn Okay, so we're heading into back to school. Yes. What do little bit of nutrition advice for parents like? We're in back to school, we're packing lunches. We are in these busy evening times. I mean, a lot of times it's like, oh, I could just I got to grab this or grab that.
Robin Miller So what I what I like to tell people is to not think so much about it. Like, what I always did was offered a variety of little things. So when you're packing lunch at six, seven in the morning or laying it out the night before, who knows what they're going to be hungry for the next day at 11, 12, 1:00, whatever their age, 914, it doesn't matter. So what I used to do is I have like a little bag of nuts up some cheese sticks, maybe some slight rolled up meat, but I wouldn't make a sandwich. It would be like it would almost be like a crudités, you know, like in a lunchbox. And I used to visit. You know, I sound like that, mom, but I kind of was that mom. I used to visit lunch a lot when they were littler, and I'd see kids just going straight to the chips, throwing the sandwich out, throwing the fruit out, and that's it. They had like three things. They had an apple, a sandwich and a bag of chips. They ate the chips and threw everything else out. And that was it for the whole day.
Ginny Yurich Wow.
Robin Miller So I feel like and also getting kids to help put what's in the lunchbox is really important, too. Like, were you eating in there tomorrow? Are you going to eat this Mandarin orange? Will you eat this dried mango or would you prefer You know what I mean?
Ginny Yurich That's a.
Ginny Yurich Really interesting. I mean, who is in the cafeteria? Usually there's just a couple of people working in there, so you don't really see what's happening. So that's really interesting insight, Robin, that you were seeing. They're not really eating what you're sending.
Ginny Yurich So.
Robin Miller They don't know. And if they don't and if they don't bring it, I mean, if it's if you're if a lunchbox is empty, you assume they ate it.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. I mean.
Robin Miller I had there were some moms I could see and I was like, why are you putting that sandwich back in your lunchbox? And they would say, Because my mom wants to see what I didn't eat. But but usually you'd see this big trash cans full of these carefully crafted sandwiches by mom and dad. You know what I mean? I used to break my heart, so I used to offer a variety of lots of little things. So there was one big thing that went to waste. And that way, if they were hungry for savory or sweet or and also sometimes they were able to snack in before lunch.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Robin Miller Because some of these kids, if they have the last lunch, it's like almost 1:00 in the afternoon, at least that was in our case.
Ginny Yurich And some of them it's at ten in the morning.
Robin Miller Yeah, ten or 11 or one. And then to have a little something left, maybe it's a mozzarella stick for 1:00 in the afternoon. That would be great. Or a handful of, like, yogurt covered raisins. To carry you.
Ginny Yurich So those are interesting insights because like you said, who knows what you're going to be hungry for. Maybe stressful morning. You had some tests, you had to go running for your whatever class. Maybe you're hungry or less hungry. Super interesting. Yeah. Okay. I really, truly cannot wrap my head around 12 cookbooks, but it's So I want to talk about some of these.
Robin Miller It's 11 for.
Ginny Yurich Now, but.
Ginny Yurich Wow. Well, you're working on your 12th. There's a newlywed cookbook.
Robin Miller Yes, that was my first one.
Ginny Yurich That's my first one.
Robin Miller And it and it has been redone.
Ginny Yurich Updated three times. Yeah, three times. Really neat. The most recent in 2013, it looks like. Right?
Robin Miller 2013 or 15 it was Robin takes five four busy families with my kids on the week. They look like they're in a Luke's holding a burrito, a fake burrito.
Ginny Yurich I think I wish I would have had The Newlywed Cookbook.
Robin Miller That's why I wrote it, because I wrote it when I was a newlywed. You know, you do your bridal registry and I would look at all these pots and pans and all these utensils, and I was like, What do I need? I don't even know. What's the difference between a skillet in a sauté pan? Do I need a Dutch oven? Like, who am I going to be? Am I making a pot roast? You know, I didn't know. And I thought, I'm going to start taking notes and someday I'm going to write a cookbook. That's how that started. And then that someday turned into like, the minute I got back from the honeymoon, I was like, I'm going to start doing all this and I'm going to find all these herbs and spices. What are they for? I did an urban spice index, a pots and pans index, your first turkey, your first ham, your first chocolate cake, cooking for your in-laws, stuff like that. So yeah.
Ginny Yurich I almost think it'd be a great cookbook for kids, too. So like, if you are wanting to teach your kids at home, almost like that could be a whole course that you do it.
Ginny Yurich You could do The Newlywed Cookbook.
Ginny Yurich So they learn those things before they become a newlywed.
Ginny Yurich That's true, because it is a beginner's book.
Robin Miller That's a good point. Yes.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. To walk them through the whole premise of these books, they have such a similar feel to them. Rest your robin to the rescue. A quick fix. I mean, this is we this is what we need is we need help because life has gotten really busy. So is your does your new one that you're working on now, does it have a similar feel to it?
Robin Miller Same feel, Same feel. So I have a bunch of content on craft sitcom. I don't know if you're familiar with Gravity. I see you have some crafts behind you, so but yes, so I have a lot of shows on. There are weeknight meals, baking, cook once, eat twice the only recipe you need for and it will be bolognaise sauce. So these are like because what I had a conversation with them yesterday. What crafts you pride themselves on is we're not looking for celebrities. We're looking for you to find out the best way to do this, whether it's quilting or knitting or cooking, how are you going to make the best sauce or the best chicken or whatever? So I have so much content on there. I thought a compilation of some of that work, plus a bunch of bonus recipes, maybe.
Ginny Yurich 50 bonus recipes.
Robin Miller So putting it all in one spot instead of all the different classes, one spot plus bonus. Because I have more up here.
Ginny Yurich What? Just I can't.
Ginny Yurich Even I can't wrap my brain around because you said in this one, which has 100, 100 recipes, you said you made them all.
Robin Miller Oh, I photographed them all, so I made them. I have a book with 500 recipes in it.
Ginny Yurich Unbelievable. I love this. I crafted, tested, photographed every recipe, and after every meal was complete, we ate it basically.
Ginny Yurich Right. My kids have learned.
Robin Miller That dinner's not ready until the light goes off.
Ginny Yurich So it.
Robin Miller Was like, Mom, don't call us until you're really finish this time.
Ginny Yurich Because I'll be like, Well, where are you?
Ginny Yurich Oh, that's really funny. Well, what a fun way to grow up.
Ginny Yurich Not what? Not when you are my kids.
Robin Miller And you're starving.
Ginny Yurich You got, like, the photo lights. Oh, that's. That's great. Well, I mean, it's super impressive. So in each of these has. Good to know. Well, actually, I loved this, Robin. It was like, good to know. And then it would say sometimes it would say good to know and then sometimes it would say one more thing.
Ginny Yurich And always And.
Ginny Yurich Also good to know.
Ginny Yurich Right now, all these little tips. Well, you learn so much. And that's the way people talk.
Robin Miller We think about like, one more thing. Oh, wait, I have another thing.
Ginny Yurich Yes.
Ginny Yurich Yes. Good to know. Also good to know. One more thing. This is really helpful. Like you said. Well, you could get this canned or this one says you could use a different combination of breads and cheeses and it would still taste good. And then you also have prep ahead tips.
Robin Miller For some.
Ginny Yurich Of them. So this one is I love to sneaky source. So this one stood out to me. This is Mediterranean meatballs with two ZG Yes, Amazing recipe. It's beautiful. You got a little garnish on there. So pretty. But you say you can make your meatballs up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Robin Miller Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Same with the design.
Robin Miller Yep. And so if you have maybe you're having people come over or maybe, you know, I know for me, I would love to put leftovers like a couple of those meatballs in my kids lunch. Know what I mean? So.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Robin Miller Yeah, it's got meatballs. I feel like they're always better when you do them in advance. They have the flavors. Have a chance to kind of, like, bloom in the meatball. I made Meat Loaf two days ago when I made it 12 hours, I mean, in the morning to cook at night. So it would have a chance to kind of hang out in the fridge and and evolve.
Ginny Yurich And sometimes you just have more energy in the morning, too. I do feel like that four or 5:00 hour hits in your. Yes, you're kind of tired.
Ginny Yurich And and that's when.
Robin Miller That's when poor decisions are made, when you're running out of time. And it's like, you know what? Forget it. Let's just get takeout.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Absolutely.
Robin Miller And that if what if it's already prepped and you've already done a lot of the work and it doesn't even have to be in the morning. My some of my my tips in the book are, if you're prepping one thing, like you're cutting carrots, celery, onion for that up, I cut the whole onion and put the other half in a bag or a zip or a sealable container. Now, two days later, you have a pre chopped onion. Maybe you just add some ground beef and now you have the beginnings of a sauce or a meat mixture for something. Who knows what. But I think a lot of a lot of the reason some of the we don't do things is because it's daunting. It's 6:00. It was a really long day. I have to cut all this. No, I'm not cutting all this right now.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. And as a nutritionist, I would imagine that one of the most important things is that we just cook our own meals.
Robin Miller Yeah, I mean, and it's. It's not just. I mean, it's the preservatives, it's the salt, sugar, it's the flesh, it's the freshness, you know? I mean, getting it from your garden. My mom was the gardener. I've never really been able to keep things alive for very long, but it's just something more satisfying about the farm to table as close as you can get it. So if it's produce section to your cutting board.
Ginny Yurich Right.
Robin Miller And always I mean, the frozen vegetables are awesome too, but and I'll get those in there as well. But yeah, I feel like as much as you can get that's wholesome from the produce department and the meat and seafood department that you can make yourself, even if it's three nights a week, three or four.
Ginny Yurich And then yeah.
Robin Miller You know. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich But yours is even like, look, if you picked two sections out of this because there's the round one, round two that would give you four nights of your week. That's over half your week. Okay. If you had to pick Robin would you pick chicken, beef, pork, seafood or pasta and rice or like your go to meal.
Robin Miller I think I like instinctively, I think I'm always doing chicken, chicken.
Ginny Yurich Okay. I'm always.
Robin Miller Chicken. And then I have my out because I did it this week. I did a sheet pan, lemon chicken. And then with the leftovers, I made myself a chicken Caesar salad.
Ginny Yurich That's your go to my go to would be the pasta section for sure. So it's always nice to hear what people's go to. Are you having this one Which is really cool. Okay you have the minestrone. And I was just talking to Dan Buettner who does this concept of blue zones less and people live to be 100 centenarians. And he said that the minestrone minestrone is one of the things that you eat in Sardinia. Yes. And it hits all of so many of the different things that they need. And they have it almost every day.
Ginny Yurich Robin, I could.
Robin Miller Eat minestrone every day. And you think about I don't know what he because I know the the blue zones.
Ginny Yurich Nuts being yams.
Robin Miller Tons of vegetables, olive oil, right?
Ginny Yurich Yes.
Robin Miller So, yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I love that the minestrone was in there and I think it's such a great one for the fall in. It is nice warm. It tastes so good. So that was a.
Ginny Yurich Really cool, too.
Robin Miller That's why I would have put something like that in my kids lunch boxes. I think it's great cold too. I mean.
Ginny Yurich There's no need in it. Yeah.
Robin Miller So if it's if it's a vegetarian, I mean, it's like, you know, So I love it. I love.
Ginny Yurich It.
Ginny Yurich Well, he said that he would talk to people and he said one of the things that he asked people, oh, I'll ask you, this is a good question. What would you choose to be your last meal?
Ginny Yurich Oh.
Robin Miller I you know what I love? I love, like, sweet and sour Asian noodles, like rice noodles with like soy and sesame. And sometimes I put in like, apricot preserves and cilantro and my mouth watering so that I think it would be I think it would be that because sometimes and I'm in a like a pinch or it's or if I am like hungry at 9:00.
Ginny Yurich For example, which.
Robin Miller Sometimes happens rice noodles and literally just put a scoop of apricot preserves, some soy sauce and some sesame oil, I mean, I would never serve it anyone, but I think it's delicious. And a whole bunch.
Ginny Yurich Handfuls of cilantro.
Ginny Yurich Be perfect for you. Yeah. So he says that a lot of people in these blue zones, they say minestrone.
Ginny Yurich Is good and then it wouldn't be their last.
Robin Miller Meal. They'd live to see another day.
Ginny Yurich Because that's true. Again. We're still here.
Ginny Yurich That went in here. Cilantro, lime, rice, which is so cool that that one's in here because I always like they have that Chipotle.
Robin Miller Yes. I think I probably got the inspiration.
Ginny Yurich Like, I.
Ginny Yurich Want to have cilantro and rice and then you have fried rice. That is better than takeout.
Robin Miller Yes. People have told me that.
Ginny Yurich Apparently.
Robin Miller My orange chicken that's in the book. So I was when I brought one of the meals down to the boys in college a couple weeks ago was like, yeah, Kyle said, you make the best orange chicken. I was like, Oh, happened to bring it this week. So yeah. So there's and I wrote on it better than Panda.
Ginny Yurich So I wrote on the label. I was like.
Robin Miller But like that was the rumor, so.
Ginny Yurich Well, that's interesting, Robin, that these are recipes too, that you could, you could take to someone else. And I think that's also a thing that happens sometimes. You talk about things being daunting. I think it's sometimes daunting to someone has a surgery, they've had a baby and you want to try and take them a meal because it really matters. It's so helpful. But that can feel daunting too.
Ginny Yurich And also a healthy.
Robin Miller Meal, like if especially if they've had surgery, if they're recuperating, you're not you know, you don't want to bring over like a beefy lasagna.
Ginny Yurich Right.
Robin Miller You know, if you could bring something a little bit lighter, if they're not, you know, especially if they're like not be able to move around a lot. So he's not going to weigh them down. Feel heavy.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. And I think that's what you always get.
Ginny Yurich You always get a beat about every time. Oh.
Ginny Yurich We had friends. Well, one I have one friend, Robin, and I think this is like the coolest thing about my mom always said, if you are good in the kitchen, you're always going to have a lot of friends. And we had one friend who just made the best meals. It's like every time we had a baby. So sometimes I would be like, Man, I should have another baby.
Ginny Yurich Just one of those meals. That's so cute.
Ginny Yurich She was such a good cook. Okay, Talk to us about being on TV. Oh, can you give us like, a little bit of behind the scenes? Like, was it stressful? Was it funny? Was it a combination of all of it?
Ginny Yurich It was.
Robin Miller Energizing. I loved it. If you're talking about like the Food Network days when.
Ginny Yurich It was the big crew.
Robin Miller Running around.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it was.
Robin Miller Like a family.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it was.
Robin Miller Because we all were there together. We were all there for a lot of hours. You know, things would go wrong and we'd all laugh. So I would say it was energizing. I wouldn't say stress. I would say exciting because I. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun the first time I was ever on television. I never was never my goal to be on television. It was I was writing for Family Circle magazine. I was in the test kitchens, working in the test kitchens, writing recipes during the day, going to school for my master's at night. And they asked me to do a ABC New York make cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving because they didn't have any of the camera crew was going to come in the afternoon. It was like four days before Thanksgiving. And I said, Well, I've never been on television, and my cranberry sauce usually is the shape of the can. So I created a cranberry sauce, a chunky one. I wrote the recipe. The camera crew came in. We made it in the family circle. Test kitchens like that was the background. Somebody from the Today Show saw that segment, and I was on that Sunday morning on The Today Show with Al Roker making.
Ginny Yurich Believable.
Robin Miller Pancakes. So I didn't look for it, but it just was like because I was having fun and we were having a good time. And then so then I started to become a regular on the the morning shows in New York, and that's how Food Network happened. So it was basically just because I love cooking and it was just comfortable, a comfortable space.
Ginny Yurich But also you were willing to dive in. I mean, if you said, look, they need this thing in four days and you've not really done it before, you've not made the cranberry sauce, and you were willing to say, Well, I'm going to do that. And then I'm willing in two days from now to come on and make pancakes and, you know, television. I mean, the willingness to try something that's completely new and scary.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich With very little notice.
Robin Miller Or experience an experience, you know, I mean, so when you said that I was thinking about what my stomach felt like that first morning.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, that's.
Robin Miller Especially the Today show. My stomach was so. But it wasn't stress. It was excitement, but nerve. I was just nervous. I didn't want to remember all my things I was. But then it was Al Roker, so it didn't matter. I could have made a complete mistake and nobody would have cared or probably even known.
Ginny Yurich What kind of pancakes did you make?
Robin Miller Because they were just regular. And I remember and I remember my mom. My mom thought it was rude of him, but I thought it was hilarious because there were kids on the set. I don't know. They it was a tour that came in or something. And he started picking up the pancakes and throwing them to all the kids. So I'd be making them and Al would be throwing them. Mom was like, Those were your pancakes.
Ginny Yurich And I was like, It was great.
Ginny Yurich That's hilarious. I mean, my kids will eat a pancake. They don't need it on a plate with they sirup anything. Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, if we make a bunch of pancakes and then they're just out in the kitchen for the kids. Just come grab them all the time.
Ginny Yurich Oh, my cousins. Yeah, well, those kids will never.
Ginny Yurich Forget that either. They got thrown a pancake on their tour.
Ginny Yurich Right. That's true.
Ginny Yurich That's so neat. And it went from there. And now there's six seasons.
Robin Miller Six seasons of that. And then I don't know how many dozens of hours I have on crafts. We all knew some of the stuff isn't even up yet. Like filmed in April and in June. And it's not even up on crafts yet. So that'll roll out, I guess, in the in the coming months.
Ginny Yurich A little bit here and there. Y Yeah.
Ginny Yurich So and then you have your own YouTube channel.
Robin Miller Yes. Yes. I've been doing a lot of shorts lately, which, you know, the really short 45 second, like people now don't need to see me. They need to see their ingredients going in the pan. How does this look when it's finished? So I've been doing a lot more of just my hands for YouTube because I think that's about the attention span. If you're looking for a restaurant, I mean, if you're looking for a recipe to see, Hey, this the best thing I ever had, you need to say do this in 45. So you can. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Cause I think it's like, dum dum dum. Yep, yep, yep.
Ginny Yurich Those are cool to see. Actually, I tried one recently, and it was a total disaster, but it was like a feta cheese and, like, the feta cheese somehow cooked and then the egg. And then it was supposed to slide it.
Ginny Yurich And then the pasta in it.
Robin Miller Too, and, like, swirled.
Ginny Yurich All around at the end. I shouldn't.
Ginny Yurich I should've done that. It was supposed to go like on a piece of toast or something. And it.
Ginny Yurich Was, it.
Ginny Yurich It was a bit of a disaster, but it was fun to try, and I gotcha. I think it went in a tortilla.
Ginny Yurich Oh.
Ginny Yurich I'll try it again. But those are really fun to watch. I think they're inspiring, even if you botch it a little bit, it's inspiring. It makes you think like, Oh, this is actually a little easier than I realized.
Robin Miller So did you see the one? It was a combination of like a smashburger and a taco. So smashburger tacos.
Ginny Yurich You smashed the. You saw that one. What I like.
Robin Miller About that on YouTube and Instagram, wherever people are watching those, it's encouraging people to get into the kitchen and do fun things that maybe they wouldn't have because that's a smashburger tacos. Kind of a cool. Let's try that this weekend.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Robin Miller Versus we have to make dinner like me, you know, maybe it's putting a little bit of excitement in the kitchen.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. You definitely take the drudgery out of it. And I love that. When you think back on the seasons that are now on Discovery Plus and Amazon Prime, is it blur together or do certain episodes stand out?
Robin Miller Well, there's two my two favorite episodes are one with my kids were on YouTube.
Ginny Yurich That was fun.
Ginny Yurich How old were they?
Robin Miller They were little. They were probably eight and ten maybe, because I.
Ginny Yurich Remember I gave them the days.
Robin Miller When they were just throwing the basil across the set into the pan and they let it go and they made a big ice cream sundae. And then there was another one where I had my parents on because my dad always made Christmas dinner. And so we made his Christmas dinner on the show. So that warmed my heart. And he was.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Robin Miller He was comfortable doing it and warm and fuzzy, just like he always was, you know what I mean? So those are my two favorite. The rest kind of do blur. I only really can tell the difference based on my hair.
Ginny Yurich It's a little dark.
Robin Miller Or is it long and kind of blond? I mean, I can tell really funny.
Ginny Yurich What a special thing, though, to have your parents on there and to have your kids. I do think that, you know, I've tracked it a few other people who have written cookbooks and they say beyond the impact that it's having in the world, Right. Like you're putting out this hundred recipes, it's going to help families heading back into the school year, 30 minute meal prep, 100 healthy and delicious recipes to eat all week. This is an heirloom. This is something that gets passed down through your family. And so do those shows, right, that you have forever memorialized. You have this video with your parents. You have this video with your young kids who are having fun in the kitchen. And it's a professional quality thing and it's edited. And so I think that's a really special thing to do.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, Yeah, that.
Ginny Yurich You've done that and that they'll always have that. Like your boys will always be able to look back and be like, Oh, remember when we did this with our mom? And that's a really unique experience to cry. You know how many kids have been on TV with their parents? I think, Well, not many. So really, really special. Well, I just absolutely love this, Robin. And I can't wait to see that the final copy is in color, right?
Robin Miller Oh, yes. Oh, my gosh.
Ginny Yurich Yes. Have you gotten to see it yet?
Robin Miller I haven't gotten to see it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I have all the pictures on my computer since I took them, but.
Ginny Yurich We're the same. We both have this advanced.
Ginny Yurich Copy and the black.
Robin Miller And white I'm kind of tired of. But yeah. So, yeah, there was a glitch with the shipping. I'm guessing you probably heard that. So the publication date was pushed back.
Ginny Yurich That happens a lot. Does that happen? That's common.
Ginny Yurich Thinking a lot.
Robin Miller Lately.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. In the past couple of years, yes. There's customers and.
Robin Miller Yeah. So.
Ginny Yurich Yes, I can't wait to see it, Robin. But one of the things I love is I do love that there is a picture of every recipe.
Ginny Yurich Yes.
Robin Miller Yes. And in the past, some of my cooks, because it's very expensive to do that. So in the past, I think a couple a few of my books don't. It's like a section in the middle with all the pictures, because that's less expensive to like, kind of bundle them. Yeah, but this one, you're right. And I like that too, for when I'm looking at other people's recipes, I want to see what it's supposed to look like.
Ginny Yurich At the end. Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich And it's motivating. Like you could tell your kids, Okay, we're going to pick this one and that one. So they are beautiful. And I know, like you said, not all cookbooks can do that, but that's a really special one in this one with there being so many recipes like these beef and bean empanadas. Like, I will look at that, you know, mine's black and white and I'll, you know, I'll get the color one eventually, but it's like, oh, this would be a great thing to take to a football game.
Robin Miller Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Ginny Yurich Yes. It's just a little hand-held thing. And I like what you say, too, about the side dishes. The side dishes can be overwhelming.
Robin Miller Yeah. I think people get worried about. Yes, exactly. And I think in one of my my tips in the front 25 tips.
Ginny Yurich Don't look.
Robin Miller Like some of the things that we consider snacks like carrots and ranch celery and, you know, cream cheese. They make side dishes, too. You know, you don't have to roast the asparagus if you already have some raw carrots and your kids like ranch, then you know, that's your side, which right there, you're still getting a vegetable.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. I love that part. No cook side dish options, cheese and crackers, peanut butter and celery, cured meat, grapes, apples. So that set of chips at the front is fantastic. And then I like how you say they're younger. Members of the family will love these, and they're nutritious from a nutritionist. Great idea as a side dish show, Robin what a treat.
Ginny Yurich You are famous.
Ginny Yurich The top three most famous nutritionists in the world is here on the 1000 Hours. That's a podcast TV personality. I mean, what a thrill to get an opportunity to talk with you. I just adore this cookbook. Like I said, we had such a fun time with our first recipe out of it, the first of many, many that we are going to try. Perfect timing for this to come out at back to school, that getting into the fall rhythms and to know that it's written by a nutritionist. And so these recipes are going to be healthy. It's clean eating, budget friendly, fast and easy. So, Robyn, I just am so grateful for you to spend this time with us on your journey.
Robin Miller This was so fun.
Ginny Yurich It's so fun and people want to find more. You have awesome recipes on your website too. I was looking at that to Robyn Miller cooks dot com you have.
Ginny Yurich You and then they can click.
Robin Miller There's a section called cookbooks.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm.
Robin Miller And they're all there and this was the fruit at the top of that. You can preorder them and it'll take you to that link if you want to do that. But yeah, they're all there and more about me is there and all that jazz.
Ginny Yurich Yes. And picnics is one of them. And a suit. And Jane Fonda.
Ginny Yurich Oh, great. And the.
Ginny Yurich Newlywed one. The newlywed one would be a really cool one. Like if you're wanting to learn how to cook and learn some basics, like over this next year, that's a great one. So, Robyn, this has been awesome. We always end our podcast with the same question and the question is what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
Robin Miller Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, everything was outside. I mean, we spent I was a the generation where everything was outside. So we had you know what? I guess the first thing that came to mind is we had a big backyard where my mom's garden was. So she had all of her tomatoes and basil and all that stuff. And right next to us was like a nice grassy area. We would play bocce and badminton, and so she'd be gardening and then pop over and we, you know, put a slip and slide back there. Once That was so I mean, that was a fun yard, the play yard.
Ginny Yurich How cool.
Robin Miller How many sides would work? I mean, you don't need much room for, you know, they mean.
Ginny Yurich That.
Ginny Yurich You need it right next to a garden. What a fun way to do it.
Robin Miller Yeah.
Ginny Yurich So you can pop back and forth and you can spot.
Ginny Yurich That kind of thing. Yes, I did.
Ginny Yurich I love that. Robyn. This has been awesome. I think beyond the inspiration for the House, beyond the inspiration for finding pockets of time and all of these tips that you have, I really was inspired about how you're still connecting with your college age son through food.
Robin Miller Oh, thank you.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, Huge.
Robin Miller As long as he'll say yes, I'll keep driving the food.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich It's a really neat idea. So isn't it interesting how sometimes one topic can really bleed into other topics, which is like, you know, how are we staying connected? And that's a really big transition as our kids go off to college, which is a couple of years away from that ourselves. And so it's something that we think about often. And food is one of those things, especially in those years. I remember we we to even when we first got married, used to say like, you know, if someone is going to cook for you, you're going, Yeah, I know. And I'm showing up.
Ginny Yurich Oh, yeah.
Robin Miller Yeah. And I do think because there and there are certain flavors that kids associate with family with like, like your kids will with you. Yeah, well, my mom makes this thing that. You know what I mean? And I. So I think it's nice. It's. It's good for them to have that connection with parents as well. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. How beautiful. Robin, thank you so much. And people can find you everywhere. Discovery press, Amazon and 11 cookbooks with a 12th coming out at some point and really going to help people have, I think, a fantastic school year here with better meals, better lunches, and a little more connection. Time for connection.
Robin Miller Yeah, a little more time for connection. Exactly.
