Welcome to Healthy Ish. Thanks for joining us on the daily podcast from Body and Soul. I am your host, Felicity Halle and Yes. To celebrate summer, we're dropping our top Healthyish episodes from the year now. I'm not sure if you follow best selling cookbook author Leah ititsteinus on socials, but if you do, you will know she loves cooking from TikTok's abundance of recipes. We spoke to her in April. We quizzed her on how she chooses the right TikTok
recipe and then makes it her own. Hey, if you want more from Leah listening to extra healthy Ish, where she shares more about her current approach to food, her healthy Ish cooking tips, and of course how she's learnt to love running, you can catch that episode where we get your podcasts.
Lee.
I'm nice to have you finally on the podcast. We've had your sister a few times, so I'm glad we've got you on.
Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Definitely be more of a fun conversation than fitness.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's good. Actually, that's quite fun. I never thought about that food versus fitness. Yes, a fun one.
Now, one thing that I do actually find fun is seeing your Instagram's the way you well, the way you cook off TikTok and cook these recipes.
I mean a TikTok fiend.
I mean like TikTok is a gold mine for finding recipes. How do you actually find ones that are going to be tasty and easy and we can cook them well?
To be fair, my home tied TikTok for you page is literally just like the trending recipe. So I just go on, I just flick a few and I find something amazing. But usually if I'm like, I really want a brownie and I know someone will have a good brownie recipe, I like our search chocolate, brownie, delicious, something, so I would do all the words that I want and then it pops up with and I always go for the first one because I'm like, that's most like
has to be good. But I did find I'm not sure if you saw on my Instagram, I did an easter krap It's called Easter crack wild recipe that I've found on TikTok. I said, I rang my sister straight away and I said, this is the best is it?
I have ever eaten in my entire life. I was shocked. I love TikTok so much because it.
Was, come on, you can't, you have to give us more? What was in that recipe?
So basically it's a it's apparently not just TikTok.
Apparently it's this is.
Like a wild thing that's gone on for years, mears and years, but I've just discovered it. Someone did Christmas crack with Christmas things and now we've changed to Easter. So basically it's alata biscuits.
I do you know what?
You know the square salata biscuits. Someone's with a four if you can snap those those I said. When I said that to someone, I was like, what is that happened?
I think I used to have.
Yeah, right, everyone has them.
So solata biscuits on the bottom, and then you make your own caramel sauce with butter and sugar, make your own camel. You pull that on top, and then you basically melt cara milk block and a regular chocolate block and you melt and chucked that over the top, and then you put sprinkles and whatever, and then you put it in a fridge and it's like a salty biscuit caramel chocolate.
I don't even know how to explain it. And it's no, it's no cook it's no cork. It's literally just melting in the chocolate.
When I say it was the best thing ever, I have it in the fridge and I don't even want to make eye contact with it because I.
Know that hold.
Yeah, it's like almost torture like so good, but.
Also it is wild.
I mean, there has been a bit going around about these virtual recipes on TikTok. I mean, I think one of Australia's leading chefs came out and said recently saying, oh, they're so tasteless. They're all done for show. You know, they're all they're easy, they're super easy. There's no skill in them. I mean, what's your take on that.
I mean that's the whole point, right, Like you want to find easy, easy, quick and easy things like I think that's the best thing about TikTok is people it's real people making real recipes, so it's not like you're trying to find some eighty five ingredient recipes. It's literally like some people just want honey chicken rice and it literally is the most easy ingredients and some people really
love it. But I always whenever I make something, I'm so annoying that I'll follow a recipe and then I end up with something completely different because I'm like, I think I could put extra this in there, amazed, or just some of that in there, or like start sprinkling random things and it's completely different. But like you kind of just want to take something and then make it your own, that you want to put your.
Favorite flavors in it. So I think TikTok's great. I don't know how people can hate it.
A TikTok lover, I'm jealous of people like you because I am like, stick to the recipe.
I don't want to go off it because I don't know if.
It will taste you know, yeah very well, well very you know if it's tasty.
Yeah yeah.
I think I'm just someone who just like I always believe that salt and garlic will fix anything. So I just constantly just try. If I say one garlic in a recipe for Bill, now I know they're likely you did not put one garlic, and then I'm like, nah, I didn't put five at least, So like it's so hard for me to recipe develop at the same time because I just lie to myself like I'm like, that's enough, and then like halfway through find myself sprinkling things.
I'm like, I know, you have to write that down, Like it's really hot.
Are you forever in the kitchen? Is your life just.
And forever forever vacuuming stuff off the floor and forever just in the kitchen.
But I love it, I really do. I really do enjoy it.
It's it's almost calming for me, Like I just completely zone out and I just do what I need.
To do and then I love to eat, so it's kind of like a wind.
How do you go about planning meals for you and your family and you know, getting away from the gram or TikTok and making sure that you're nourishing yourself, that your meals are nutritious and delicious and balanced.
Yeah, well, I mean, like Mitch and I have been, we love dinners, like dinners is our thing. Breakfasts can be like a piece of toast, don't really care, like you know, but I obviously I like to have a bigger breakfast like eggs up. But sometimes being busy in the mornings with gigis she wakes up early, she's having a tanty whatever it is, Like, sometimes it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Lunches is something that like we just have really quickly. Sometimes it's a sandwich,
sometimes it's a rockbot whatever it is. But dinners is my thing where I'm like, this meal we're gonna make as nutritious as possible because I know that, you know, we've struggled in the morning or our lunch.
Was really quick.
So Mitch and we speak on the weekend and I'm like, all right, what are you vibing throughout the week?
And write a big list.
We think about it something like I've actually i used to mill prep a lot more and I'm getting back into it slowly now that I've got like my rhythm being with Gigi. But I try to meal prep, but I don't meal prep fully. I'll make like a sauce for a past or, I'll make like a seasoning. I'll marinate my meats or something like that so I can cook fresh on the night. So I just kind of
like help myself out during the week. But yeah, sometimes it's just on vibes, Like I like we get to a Monday and like tonight, I'm like, we had planned to have this barrel Monday thing and I might not mentioned I want dumpling soup.
And he's like, I a breath. So tonight there's getting cold, isn't it.
Yeah, if it was maybe thirty five outside, you'd be like, oh, yeah.
I understand. But now tonight I'm like, sorry, no, can do you gotta have dumplings?
Like it just we just we make sure that whatever we eat is just thought out. Like I want to make sure I've got some noodles to make me full. I want to make back tonight. I want to make sure the dumplings got some protein in it, some bed, extra bed, you know, do you know what I mean? Like I just kind of think about the meals to make sure we're actually fueling ourselves, because like this morning, I had a piece of toast, and I think I had half piece toast because gen ate the other half.
So like I just try and make sure just kind of do what you can. Really.
Yeah, well, I was going to ask you how motherhood's changed your approach to eating and cooking, but in many ways, you know, you seem even more relaxed about it all.
Perhaps so relaxed.
I Like before, like pre Gig, I would make sure like my meals to a tea were you know, planned.
Out, thought out.
I would make sure I had you know, X y Z on my plate or whatever. And now it's just like whatever goes, whatever goes. Whatever makes it easy. Like I obviously really like to cook. I like to enjoy food, like foods my thing, so it comes maybe more easy for me, but definitely having Gigi has made me stress less about things because like for her, she's in her chicken sausage and chicken spensele era and she doesn't want anything else but that, you know what she's.
Too she just turned to okay, so she's going through that.
I'm a beige girl, and I'm like, you know what, I just it's fine, it will eventually you're going to eat something Like last night she ate three broccoli.
Stemps and I was like.
Whatever you like, you like, But I just think that's kind of my approach now. It's like it just you have to enjoy it.
You got to just yeah, yeah, she'll get to the dumplings, don't worry, she'll be there and then you'll be like, oh you want you want more dumplings.
They or more dumplings like you can eat my dumplings are kind of happy with her Spinsel.
Yeah, exactly what she wants. Leah love it you chat. Thank you for coming on healthy Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to this interview as part of our twenty twenty four summer series. There are plenty more awesome ebbs your ears, both from Healthy Ish and our big sister podcast Extra healthy Ish. If you did like this interview, please take a quick minute to share it with a friend. If you do want any other info, head to body andsoul dot com dot you follow us on socials. Any feedback please dm me at Felicity Harley and until tomorrow, enjoy the sun and stay healthy ish.