- Hello, and welcome to Living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

When it comes to cooking ingredients, it's often said there's no real substitute for the real thing.

But what if you run out of a key ingredient at the last minute, or, if you're looking for a low-cal alternative to fit a special diet?

Well, to help us solve these kinds of culinary conundrums, our own Grover Silcox is here now.

- Grove, always great to see you.

- Britt, great to be here.

Actually, it is not I who has the solution, but a Lehigh Valley-based culinary author, David Joachim, and his Food Substitutions Bible: Third Edition, with 8,000 alternatives.

- Wow, there's something in here for everything.

Let me see that.

- Watch it, it's pretty heavy.

- Yeah, and this seems like a really good thing to have around, especially with all the supply chain issues right now.

- Correct, the timing is perfect.

- And a good one to keep in the kitchen when you need it?

- That's where you want it, very useful.

In fact, useful in so many ways.

The Food Substitutions Bible: Third Edition offers more alternative agreements, it provides 188 recipes, it offers substitutes for cooking equipment and techniques, and features extensive ingredient guides, as well.

Need to know what type of flour is gluten-free?

Check out the guide in the back of the book.

It'll also tell you how much protein the flour contains.

It's all quite extensive.

I had an opportunity to chat with the author about the book at Mister Lee' Noodles, in South Bethlehem.

Plus, I spoke with Mr Lee's owner, an award-winning chef, about how he uses substitute agreement to meet his patrons' special requests.

Chefs and cooks of every kind face the challenge of substituting ingredients all the time.

Finding the right replacement isn't always easy.

This is why culinary author David Joachim wrote The Food Substitutions Bible.

The latest addition features more than 8,000 alternatives.

- There are categories in the book for different types of substitutions.

They are, if you ran out of it, so just a quick substitute to replace something you don't have.

Then, to save time, that's another reason to substitute.

To make it healthier is another reason.

And then, just to explore and make it different, to try something new.

- The book has served as a go-to source of food substitutes since the first edition was published 17 years ago.

Interest in the book has grown substantially in the last couple years.

- Because of the pandemic, there were so many shortages with food, demand for this book skyrocketed.

So we created a new addition.

- These days, folks might find certain ingredients hard to come by because of supply chain problems and other issues.

- Various ingredients that may or may not be on your shelf, or your favorite brand might not be there from week to week, and those are chickpeas, and then, related to that, hummus, and then, eggs is one that's been in and out, and that's due to avian flu, actually, bird flu.

And then, Sriracha is another one.

But there are substitutes.

- David offers a show-and-tell of these products and their potential substitutes.

-Well, we talked about eggs.

Aquafaba, if you need to replace egg whites.

Aquafaba is chickpea water, believe it or not.

What's left over in your can of chickpeas, you can whip it up just like egg whites.

So that might be useful in cookies or waffles, or some other place where you need egg whites.

But other egg products, like liquid egg substitute, can be used instead of whole eggs.

Avocados, right.

That's actually a tough one.

But if you're using the avocado for guacamole, it's most popular use, well, what is guacamole?

It's a dip, right?

- Right.

- Try another dip!

If you're using it on toast, like avocado toast, go back to butter.

- Now, what do we have here?

- So this is Sriracha sauce.

If you can't find any Sriracha sauce, well, what is Sriracha?

- Yeah, what is Sriracha sauce?

- It's fermented hot sauce.

So, another hot sauce will work.

So, let's say you like Sriracha on your burgers.

Well, maybe you use spicy ketchup.

If you can't find chickpeas, what food families that in?

- The chickpea family?

- Beans!

- Oh, beans!

- So if you're making a chickpea salad, maybe go for white beans instead.

Maybe you're making hummus, you could make a white bean puree instead of a chickpea puree, which is what hummus is.

So, look to the food family if you're trying to replace chickpeas.

Almost any other bean will work.

- This is just a small sampling of what's in your book.

Yes, more than 8,000 substitutions for everything you can think of.

- David and I met for our interview at Mister Lee's Lee's Noodles, in South Bethlehem.

Here, chef-owner Lee Chizmar and his staff prepare their homemade Roman noodle dishes, and often substitute ingredients per request.

For special diets, when certain ingredients are in short supply, or simply to try something new.

- So over here, he's dropped our noodles into the boiling water.

Today, we're going to substitute a Sriracha and an egg dish.

One of our other big sellers is the hot and spicy, which is a pork sausage-based noodle dish that we rely heavily on Sriracha.

And this is a Sriracha that we make in house.

When we lost all the availability of some Sriracha out of the market, we decided, hey, let's do it ourselves.

For me, eggs is kind of a tougher one because you're still looking for that protein.

So one of the things that we will do today for an egg-less Ramen is we will actually take some tofu, press it down, grind it up, which then kind of has the consistency of a scrambled egg.

So we'll go ahead and sautee that up, and use that to garnish our Ramen.

- Mister Lee's American farm-to-table philosophy marries well with Ramen, a broth-and-noodle dish steeped in Japanese culinary culture, and prepared by Lee and his staff in myriad, creative ways for a variety of tastes and diets.

- You know, you have a noodle and a broth, the two main things that make up what a Ramen dish is.

And then, from there, it's what we decide to pair it with, you know, the good local fare.

Whether it's chicken or pork, or vegetables, tofu, we create the dishes seasonally from there to make this noodle soup.

This is our hot-and-spicy bowl, and let's do these noodles.

- Now the hot and spicy is ready to serve, complete with all the carefully-chosen ingredients, including two alternatives.

- Mister Lee's Noodles, who has something very special!

- So this is our hot and spicy bowl.

It's one of our big sellers here at Mister Lee's.

We've gone ahead and substituted the egg with some ground tofu.

And of course, our Sriracha substitute is, we'll just make our own.

- It is delicious.

Hey, I think you two fellas know each other, don't you?

- That's right, we do.

- We actually ride in a charity called Chefs Cycle, 300 miles over three days, which is a long way, and hopes to help feed hungry kids across America.

- Wow, a great cause and a great dish.

Thanks, gentlemen.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Even if you rarely or never cook, like myself, The Food Substitutions Bible offers mounds of important information literally from A to Z about all the foods and fares we Americans consume.

- Grover, just glancing through this book, it's quite an adventure.

- It really is an adventure.

And I love the little factoids and bits of knowledge that really surprise you.

There's so many in there, like, take figs for instance.

Who knew that to store them, you keep them in a low-humidity environment or location at 55 degrees Fahrenheit, and they'll stay well for six months.

- I had no idea.

- And that's even before you get to the substitute on the right side of the page!

It's the book to have if you're the cook.

- Well, I'm not always the cook.

My husband's a chef, but I think this'll be good for my personal reference when I have to cook, when it's my turn.

As always, Grover, thank you so much.

- My pleasure.

And that'll do it for this edition of Living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.