Eat Like You Give a F*ck
looking back and two 🔥 beloved recipes
2023 is a big one. We bet you can feel it too. It’s a year where we’re all getting some much-needed perspective. These last few years have been fucking rough on all of us, no matter your circumstances. We have been heartbroken, flattened, and humbled by life. But on the other side of that coin is growth. We can see ourselves and our choices differently with time. Our perspective shifts. This October our fifth book Hungry as Hell will be released. This October also marks nine years since our first book was published and our lives were changed forever. So we are going to look back over these last nine years (and these last four books) to celebrate how far we’ve fucking come and share some stories along the way. Each month we will talk about one book from our back catalog and give it a week or two of the star-treatment here in The Broiler Room. We’ll be highlighting some of our favorite overlooked recipes, ridiculous stories about how each book came to life, and all that we’ve learned along the way. We will keep lots of the regular scheduled programming that you’ve come to expect here each Saturday but we’re excited to share all of this hard-earned perspective with you, the people who’ve been here the whole damn time. First up, for June we’ve got Bad Manners The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a Fuck.
Our first book was published in October 2014 under our original brand name: Thug Kitchen (more on the name change here). It was an instant #1 on The New York Times best-seller list and stayed there in the top ten every single week for over a year. This was an unimaginable thing. That cannot be overstated. We both labored over this book, me with the recipes and Matt with the photography, because we knew that we’d only get one shot. The goal wasn’t to rocket to the top of the food world, push veganism into the mainstream, or even to get any additional book deals- although all those things happened. Our goal with our first book was to show that you could be an average, flawed person and care about your food. We wanted the book to be a road map on how to give a fuck about the planet, your diet, animals, and yourself without being so fucking self-righteous about it. You could laugh at stupid jokes AND eat more vegetables. You could eat like you gave a fuck instead of being overly precious about what you put on your plate. And we fucking pulled that shit off. All the advice, tips, and 100+ recipes in those pages are as valuable today as they were in 2014. It remains our most popular book to-date and one of the most popular vegan cookbooks EVER published.
This week we want to share a few of our favorite recipes from the original book with you. Whether you have a tattered copy at home or you joined the party a little later down the road, these recipes deserve a place at your table. Cook up our Sweet Corn and Green Chile Baked Flautas and/or our Grilled Peach Salsa this weekend and think about how much has changed in your life in these last 9 years. Or don’t and just eat some good food. We love the fuck out of you guys either way.
Sweet Corn and Green Chile Baked Flautas
makes about 12 flautas
Cooking spray
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow or white onion (about ½ onion)
2 teaspoons chili powder
3⁄4 teaspoon ground cumin
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
4 to 5 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups cooked pinto beans, or two 15 ounce cans, drained and rinsed
1 can (4 ounces) mild green chiles*
Juice from 1 lime
1 cup sweet corn kernels**
12 flour tortillas
Crank your oven to 400°F. Grab a large baking sheet and coat it with a little cooking spray.
Heat up the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat and throw in the onion. Cook until the onion starts to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, and garlic and cook for another 30 seconds and then turn off the heat.
Throw the beans, chiles, and lime juice together in a big-ass bowl. Mash them up using a potato masher or a spoon until a paste forms. It’s cool if there are some whole beans left here and there; you don’t need to spend the whole goddamn day mashing. Fold in the sautéed onions and corn and stir that motherfucker up. Your filling is ready.
Using a griddle, your oven, or the microwave, warm up the tortillas. Grab about 2 heaping tablespoons of the filling and spread that shit in a nice line toward the edge of the left side of one of the tortillas from top to bottom. Then roll that shit up nice and tight from left to right. You could even put a small smear of beans toward the other end of the tortilla to help that fucker stay shut. Place the flauta seam side down on the baking sheet about an inch or two away from its flauta brethren. Keep going until you run out of tortillas or filling.
Lightly coat them all with cooking spray and bake for 10 minutes. When you pull them out, the bottoms should be golden—if not, stick them in for another couple minutes. When the bottoms look good, turn them over and bake those bitches until they’re golden and crispy on both sides, another 5 to 7 minutes. Serve warm topped with lettuce, sour cream, and salsa if you want to impress some motherfuckers.
* These should be in a tiny can near the salsa in your grocery store
** This is about 1 cob’s worth. That’s a fucking ridiculous phrase but whatever. You can use frozen if that’s all you can find.
Grilled Peach Salsa
Makes 3 ½ cups
6 ripe but not soft peaches (about 3 pounds)
½ teaspoon oil*
1 to 2 serrano peppers, minced
½ a medium red onion, chopped (about 2⁄3 cup)
1 medium slicer tomato or large roma tomato, chopped
Juice of 2 limes (about ¼ cup)
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
Handful of cilantro
Cut the peaches into wedges no thicker than an inch. You can leave the skin on because everybody needs more fiber in their fucking diet. You should get around 12 wedges out of each peach. Throw the cut-up peaches in a large bowl with the oil and mix them all together.
Bring your grill to a medium-high heat. Place the peaches on there for a minute or two on each side. You don’t need to cook them; you just want some char marks on there because that looks pro as fuck. Grilling the peaches also caramelizes their natural sugars, making them sweeter.
When all the peaches are grilled, let them cool for a couple minutes while you chop everything else up. When the peaches have cooled enough to handle, chop them up into salsa-appropriate-size pieces and then mix everything together. Let this all chill together for at least 30 minutes and then serve.
*Avocado or even olive oil would work here.
Thanks so much for joining us here in The Broiler Room. This week Sunday subscribers are getting our recipe for BBQ Jackfruit Sliders, a favorite at every cookout we’ve ever brought them too.
Don’t have the first book? Click on over and grab a copy if you feel like finally joining the party. We’d love to have you.
When I bought the first book I had no idea the fun I was going to have cooking and eating and sharing with folks. I’m buying the set to give as a shower gift for a Friends daughter who vegan and her family who are trying to include vegan meals to support her. Our friends in the meantime are finding they also give a shit about their food. These two recipes are going to be on the menu Sunday supper!
I keep some of those flautas assembled in my freezer at all times. They’re so good!