Elizabeth Banks Has Been Sending Her 'Manny' Easy Recipes to Make: 'He's Never Really Cooked' (Exclusive)

The actress also tells PEOPLE she has been on a cooking spree herself lately and enjoys discovering new meal ideas on Instagram

Elizabeth Banks
Elizabeth Banks. Photo:

Jason Koerner/Getty 

Elizabeth Banks is sharing her love of food with her "manny."

The Hunger Games star, 50, who hosted a happy hour with wine brand Archer Roose — of which she is who is coowner and chief creative officer — on Saturday at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami, tells PEOPLE she’s gotten inspiration for tons of recipes on Instagram.

“I started saving food inspo on [Instagram], and now all I get is food inspo. And to be honest, I’m cooking tons of stuff off Instagram recipes,” Banks says.

The actress, who shares sons Felix, 11, and Magnus, 10, with husband Max Handelman, also revealed that she recently hired a "manny" (a.k.a male nanny) and has been passing along her favorite recipes to him.

“He’s never really cooked anything,” she says. “And I’ve been sending him this Instagram account that’s, like, a five-ingredient meal from Trader Joe's.”

“Just make it easy, go buy these five things and put them together,” she explains.

The actress went on to share that she loves food and is “actually a really good cook,” before showing PEOPLE some of her favorite recipe accounts, including one social media page that made one of her new favorite gnocchi dishes. 

Meanwhile, when it comes to what was important for Banks with Archer Roose — which offers wines sourced from around the world in single-serve cans — she says that one aspect was making wine more accessible for lovers of the beverage.

"How do we move away from a 150-year practice of selling wine in America as like a snooty endeavor where you better know what you’re talking about, to 'I just like what I like, I just like what tastes good to me and I don’t want to be shamed when I buy it' " she explains.

"So, this felt to me like a really great way to make quality accessible to people who don’t want to be sold snooty wine," she says, adding that the wine industry is "old school" and has very few women in it.

"So, very much we also felt like we were breaking down a real barrier as a female-founded company," she explains of Archer Roose, which was co-founded by the company's CEO Marian Leitner-Waldman and her husband before Leitner-Waldman reached out to Banks to become involved in the brand.

"I was floating down a river in an inner tube with a can in the water staying cold, and I was like — this is the greatest day of my life," Banks says of first trying Archer Roose wine.

Earlier this month, the Charlie’s Angels star had more fun when she celebrated her 50th birthday with fans by sharing a lighthearted video on Instagram showing herself having fun in a golden catsuit. In the clip, she could be seen pretending to do several sultry poses while making funny faces. 

In one shot, she posed with her leg up outside her home while wearing fuzzy slippers on her feet and even attempted a high jump in the air.

“Birthday suit ⭐️ #50,” she captioned the video. She added that she was “inspired by the best to ever do it,” though she did not reveal the person's name.

Several of her celebrity friends wished her a happy golden birthday, including actress Julianne Moore, who wrote, “Happy birthday Queen!!! You are a golden ⭐️.” Katie Couric commented, “Happy birthday hot stuff 🔥❤️.”

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Banks previously opened up about her newfound focus on keeping her body healthy in an interview with PEOPLE last year.

"You can get away with so much when you're young — now I just realize that I can't," she said at the time. "My skin is a reflection of what's going on with me holistically. So I've really tried to make my beauty routine more holistic. That means a little less drinking, a lot more sleep and a lot more hydration.”

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