Food for your Whole Life: Cooking Demo

Lindsay and I with Amy Kweller at the USA Pears booth

Elizabeth, Corinne and Jessica

This week is the first ever Food for your Whole Life Symposium in NYC. What an amazing event! I’m here with Jess, Elizabeth, Corinne and Lindsay as the blog media for this symposium and we’ve been having a blast blogging, tweeting, meeting, and learning. The first day of the symposium was open to health professionals as well as the general public and it was a very well attended event with over 1,000 people!

Recognize him? It's Dr. Oz

We started off listening to keynote speaker Dr. Oz. Check out Corinne’s blog for more info about his talk. We also heard from Dr. Roizen, Dr. Katz, Brian Wansink and wrapped up the day with a cooking demo led by Mollie Katzen, author of the Moosewood Cookbook, chef and author of Now Eat This! Rocco DiSpirito, and chef Jamie Lauren who was a contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef.

Jess, Elizabeth and I with Mollie Katzen

Rocco DiSpirito

Rocco just came out with a cookbook with 150 of America’s favorite comfort foods all under 350 calories. He said when writing his cookbook, he turned to people on Twitter and Facebook to ask feedback on what foods people wanted recipes for. The responses included mac and cheese, brownies, cookies and fried chicken! So he set out to “healthify” some favorite comfort food recipes. Rocco highlighted the fact that we’re infatuated with chefs on TV, the Food Network, Bravo, etc. but when it comes to cooking, people still don’t know how to do it at home!

I love how Rocco offers some “cheats” by using things like pre-peeled garlic to make cooking at home even simpler. He said, “The only place you can get away with cheating in the house is cheating in the kitchen!” Rocco cooked up a beet, arugula, blue cheese and roasted walnut salad, and a creamed spinach dish that went from 300 calories and 21g of fat for ¼ cup originally to a healthy 90 calories and 5g fat. His trick was to use Greek Yogurt instead of heavy cream.

Next up was Jamie Lauren whose dishes we could smell all the way in the back of the room. Jamie Lauren stressed “blooming” spices, which means toasting them in a pan with some fat (like oil or butter) to really bring out the flavor and aroma. She did this with some curry powder when making a chickpea salad with walnuts and currants. All of her recipes sounded amazing but one I definitely want to duplicate is her Wild Blueberry Chutney:

Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients:

2T olive oil
1 small yellow onion, minced
1 T grated ginger
2 cups wild, frozen blueberries
1 cup red seedless grapes
2 T sugar
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
Zest of 1 lemon, white pith removed (cut in large strips with a small sharp knife)
2T apple cider vinegar
Salt to taste

Directions:

Heat oil over medium heat in a medium saucepan. Add onion and ginger and cook until soft. Add all remaining ingredients except vinegar and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until mixture thickens and reduces, about 30 minutes. When chutney has thickened, stir in vinegar and season to taste with salt. Allow to cool and remove bay leaf, cinnamon and lemon zest. Store tightly covered in the refrigerator.

This chutney can be served warm or cold. It’s great as a snack on toast with a little mild cheese such as Brie or even cream cheese.