I went to a great cookbook event on Tuesday night presented by Kim Ricketts Book Events with my friend who was visiting from New York City. I was proud to show off the fantastic food writers we have here in the Pacific Northwest. For a very reasonable fee, we were offered a cocktail, vegetarian paella, roasted chicken, and sourdough bread (I had to mention the food).

The authors then sat as a panel and regaled us with never-before-seen scenes and stories. They graciously fielded questions from the audience  and the evening ended with book signings. For a group of writers, they were very comfortable in front of a crowd and had us laughing for most of the night. It was real treat to see them in person and hear about their experiences as writers.

I own a couple of these books but haven’t had a chance to read them yet (when do non-New Yorkers read books? I’m at a loss now without long subway rides) but I’m determined to find the time  now. I’m especially excited to read the recently published Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton. It sounds hilarious (the passage he read had the crowd in stitches) and I’m curious to hear what happened when he fed his baby gourmet food.

So, if you’re looking for a new food book to dive into, read on:

Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back by Shauna James Ahern

Read this if you need some inspiration to make a shift in the way you eat. Many of her delectable dishes are what we should be eating anyway: meals made with whole foods from the farmer’s market.

“The theme of Shauna’s writing isn’t gluten-free, it’s gluten freedom. She focuses much more on the delicious world of what she can have rather than fixating on what she can’t. Her enthusiasms for exploring the world of gluten-free cooking is infectious and her knack for communicating her experiences to the reader is heartfelt, inspiring, and informational.”

—Heidi Swanson, author of Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

Read this if you love Orangette’s unique writing style found on her blog – it’s more of the same and each chapter ends with her delicious recipes.

A review, “An A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table”, Molly Wizenberg recounts life with the kitchen at its center. From her mother’s pound cake, a staple of summer picnics during her childhood in Oklahoma, to the eggs she cooked for her father during the weeks before his death, food and memories are intimately entwined. You won’t be able to decide whether to curl up and sink into the story  or head straight to the market to fill your basket with ingredients  for Cider-Glazed Salmon and Pistachio Cake with Honeyed Apricots.”

Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater by Matthew Amster-Burton

Read this just published book if you are a parent, a soon-to-be parent, or just like to laugh.

“Since becoming the proud father of a little girl, I’ve found myself quickly morphing into Bill Cosby–minus the sweaters. One of my greatest fears is imagining my daughter insisting on nothing but crustless grilled cheese sandwiches and “chicken” McNuggets. Hungry Monkey goes a long way to allaying that concern. I finished the last page and immediately set about making her Thai Shrimp Curry. A very timely and excellent book.”
—Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

This is the only fiction book in the mix. Read it if you want to lose yourself in the story of a cooking teacher and the lives of her eight students – and the magic that’s created when strangers cook together (which is why I love being a cooking teacher).

A review, “The School of Essential Ingredients” follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant every Monday night for cooking class. It soon becomes clear,  however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen….Brought together by the power of food and companionship, the lives of the characters mingle and intertwine, united by the revealing nature of what can be created in the kitchen.

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less you Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Finn

Read this if you dream of going to culinary school or doing something equally adventurous – or what other people would consider reckless – at a point in life when you’re not “supposed” to take risks.

“I can never get enough of true stories about people who stop in the  middle of their life’s journey to ask, ‘What do I really want?’ and then  have the guts to actually go get it. Kathleen Finn’s tale of chasing her ultimate dream makes for a really lovely book – engaging, intelligent and surprisingly suspenseful.” -Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Cheap Healthy Good also mentions some other great food books – Five Fiction Books for the Frugal Foodie – check them out.

I recently wrote the  following article for a wonderful site, www.savvyauntie.com that offers resources and an online community for aunties. Although the article is targeted toward aunts, it’s still useful information for parents, grandparents, sitters, teachers, and anyone else that spends time with kids (or likes asparagus). This will be the first of many posts on how to encourage children to eat more nutritious foods – many parents mention that this as a big issue for them.

Getting Kids to Eat More Green

Green, green, green! It’s definitely the color of 2009. But a lot of kids aren’t a big fan of green – especially when you’re talking about vegetables. I know that it’s hard for us aunties to feel like we have much influence on our nieces and nephews’ eating habits. But there are plenty of ways for you to introduce a love of food, even vegetables, to your nieces and nephews even if you don’t see them frequently.

Even the smallest of activities can help you and your nieces and nephews forge a bond in the kitchen so that they become open to eating new foods with you. When my nephew was only 2 years old, I began making smoothies with him and talking to him about how it’s important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Now, at 7 years old, he constantly peppers me with nutrition and food questions and trusts me when I encourage him to try a new dish – and of course, he still loves smoothies! Even if you aren’t a confident cook, you can still make basic recipes like yogurt parfaits (yogurt, cut fruit and granola or graham crackers layered in a clear glass).

Once you have them excited about sweet, fruit-based recipes, you can try introducing them to vegetables and more exotic cuisines. They will often be more receptive to trying a food for you that they might not otherwise try for their parents. While many parents are often too busy (and tired) to keep introducing a new food (it can take up to 15 tries, or in the case of my 4 year old nephew, 150) you have the advantage of being the Cool Auntie who can make something as simple as eating a fun, new adventure!

Some tips on introducing new foods to kids:

Don’t make a big deal out of it. Keep your tone light and offer it only a couple of times per meal. Remind them that if they don’t like it, they don’t have to eat all of it. The point is to get them to TRY new foods – so compliment them for trying it, even if they don’t end up liking it. It’s fine if they spit it out but they must do so politely into a napkin.

Be a good role model. Introduce the new foods around other adventurous eaters – including yourself. Don’t expect them to eat something that you won’t – they are too smart for that. If they don’t want to even taste it, I’ll eat it instead and say “Mmmmmm” and tell them how lucky I am that I get to eat something so good.

Have fun with it! If you’re at a grocery store, make it a safari hunt or at a restaurant, pretend that you’re on an exotic vacation – they love immersing anything into a “story” so let both of your imaginations run wild.

Here is a spring time dish that is a favorite with adults and kids. Kids are more open to vegetables like broccoli and asparagus because they look like little trees. I can’t explain it – I just know it works. It’s very easy-to-prepare and this is asparagus season so try to pick up a fresh bunch at your local farmer’s market.

Parmesan Crusted Asparagus

1 pound green (or white) asparagus stalks, ends cut off
1-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Zest of ½ lemon (zest is finely grated lemon peel – it’s best to grate with a microplane)
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup grated parmesan
¼ teaspoon kosher or sea salt

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper. Arrange asparagus on baking sheet. Whisk olive oil, lemon zest, and lemon juice in small bowl and pour over asparagus. Toss asparagus stalks gently to coat. Spread asparagus in a single layer. Sprinkle parmesan and salt evenly over stalks. Roast until asparagus is tender, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Serves 2-4
Recipe by Julie Negrin © 2006

While teaching cooking classes over the years, I’ve found that my students fall into two categories: the recipe followers and the free-for-all cooks. The recipe followers are often pretty good cooks – but they get nervous coloring outside of the lines. And while the free-for-all cooks cover a wide range of skills, they are usually in the minority.

I’m always surprised at how many people are intimidated by the idea of cooking without recipes. My great-grandmother, Nona Pearl,  was a Greek immigrant from the island of Rhodes and famous for her cooking. Typical of her generation, she never wrote any of her recipes down – if you asked for it, she would just laugh and say, “A pinch of this, a pinch of that.”

I’m about to teach some of the dishes she used to make in my cooking class, Old World Sephardic Cooking for PCC Cooks next month. Fortunately, my grandma was organized enough to write down versions of Nona Pearls’ dishes before she died. I’m testing a few of the recipes now (which I will post soon) and I’m reminded of how people used to cook: with whatever ingredients they had in the house so that nothing was ever wasted. Nona Pearl had 7 children to feed. My Papoo, the oldest and born in 1915, remembers his mother putting together meals for 10+ people with whatever she had on hand. Bones, meat scraps and onion peels were used to flavor soup and so . The term “food waste” did not exist in their world.

I recently read on Cheap Healthy Good’s blog how she was frustrated at wasting fresh herbs since you only use a little at a time. If I have extra fresh herbs, I’ll make a pesto – which is not dependent on basil but can be made with anything green: cilantro, tarragon, spinach, or watercress. After that, all you need is olive oil, a few nuts (I like to experiment with different nuts), garlic, a  little salt – and cheese, if you have that around.

Rather than buying a ton of expensive ingredients for a specific recipe, try using up what you already have in the house. Experiment. Throw things together. Look through your pantry for canned items that never get used. Have your kids join in. Go old school and make casseroles, stews, and chilis. Pull out that slow cooker buried in the cupboard. If you need a little help, print off a recipe from the internet – but just use it as a guide. As I tell my students, it may not turn out perfectly but it’s your very own creation. And you’ll get better at it over time.

I never measure anything when making pesto since I’m usually using up ingredients laying around but I did write this one down for you. Again, just use it as a guide and add your own flavor!

Walnut-Almond Pesto

I love pesto – I eat it off of a spoon. As far as sauces go, it’s pretty healthy, adds a lot of flavor and can be served on just about any dish. I used almonds and walnuts here because that’s what I had in the pantry. This recipe is made without cheese – I like having a dairy-free version in my refrigerator and then depending on what I’m making or who I’m serving, I’ll add parmesan into the pesto or the dish.

½ cup almonds, toasted
½ cup walnuts, toasted
2 cups basil leaves
¼ cup parsley, chopped
½ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt (or more depending on your tastes)
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth. If necessary, add more olive oil for a creamier consistency. Serve it on pasta, sandwiches, fish, or in soups like minestrone. It keeps in the refrigerator in a sealed container for a week and in the freezer for several months. Freeze it in dinner size portions or ziplock bags for easy reheating.

*Cooking tip: be sure to mince small items like garlic before pureeing in a food processor – otherwise, they’ll flip around the blades and stay more whole than not.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Yields 1 ½ cups pesto
Recipe by Julie Negrin © 2009

Check out this great blog entry at A Might Appetite (one of my favorite blogs) about shrinking your “cookprint” and tips on making your kitchen more eco-friendly.

Hi and welcome!

I’m very excited to launch my brand new blog, My Kitchen Nutrition. Keep checking back for nutrition advice, kitchen tips, and how to cook easy meals with or without kids. You don’t need to spend hours in the kitchen or acquire a nutrition degree to eat well – I will offer easy ways for you to incorporate healthy habits into your busy life.

For those of you requesting past recipes and articles from previous website entries and newsletters, you can find those under Archives.

You can subscribe to my newsletter or to the RSS feed to get updates. Feel free to email me directly at info@julienegrin.com to request any topics you’d like me to cover – I’d love to hear from you.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Do you wish you had the time to go to a farmer’s market to buy fresh, local produce? If you become a CSA member, they will do the shopping and delivering for you!

This is a great time of year to become a member of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA). They differ in how they are set up but essentially, a CSA member purchases a “share” of the farm’s crop at the beginning of the growing season. This way, the farmers have guaranteed revenue and each CSA member can count on fresh produce throughout the growing season. Some CSA’s deliver your box of recently picked, seasonal produce directly to your home while others have a pick-up location or on-farm pick-up.

If you need a little motivation to eat more fresh, local vegetables and fruit – there is nothing more inspiring than having gorgeous produce land on your kitchen counter each week. Many CSAs include recipes on how to prepare the produce you receive and also offer other items like milk or eggs – saving you trips to the grocery store.

And if you are worried about receiving too many vegetables – find a CSA that offers bi-monthly deliveries instead of signing up for the standard weekly box. Or start off sharing it with a neighbor, friend or co-worker. You’ll be eating better, saving money, and helping the planet and your local economy. Visit Local Harvest to find a CSA in your area and celebrate Earth Day by becoming a CSA member!

For ideas on how to integrate more vegetables into your daily eating habits, check out the recipes page of my website for tips and recipes.

And for those extra vegetables you aren’t sure what to do with? I recommend finding recipes that don’t rely on specific ingredients such as chili, stews, and soups so that you can take advantage of whatever is in season. It’s more economical and efficient to prepare these kinds of dishes.

I like teaching parents and kids how to prepare hummus because it’s the ultimate kid food (a smooth, creamy dip), keeps in the fridge all week long, and is easy to prepare. And most importantly, it’s a great source of protein – so it’s the perfect snack to serve with crackers or carrots right after school when everyone is cranky and needing an energy boost.

In my cooking classes, the kids prepare hummus old school style by mashing the garbonzo beans with a fork and then adding in tahini, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, water and salt without measuring each ingredient. If you need more specific instructions, the following recipe  is a little more sophisticated but equally as delicious! Enjoy.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

After living in Israel and working in a kibbutz kitchen, I’m a hummus snob. I like making this recipe for parties because it can be made in under a half hour using canned beans and jarred roasted peppers. Though, if you take the time to make the beans from scratch and roast your own peppers, you’ll appreciate the difference in taste. The tofu can be omitted but it’s a great way to double the protein – especially for kids who don’t eat enough of it.

*1 large red pepper (or 4 oz of jarred roasted red peppers)
1 15 oz. can (or 2 cups cooked) garbonzo beans
4 oz. silken tofu, well-drained
¼ cup parsley, chopped
3-4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lime (or lemon) juice
2 tablespoons minced garlic (or jarred crushed garlic)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 cup sesame tahini
1 to 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt

To roast pepper, preheat oven to broil. Make sure top oven rack is positioned so that the pepper will be 4-5 inches away from heat at the top of the oven. Place pepper on a baking sheet lined with foil. Roast until black and charred, flipping with tongs when necessary. When the pepper is nearly all black, remove from oven and place in a metal bowl and cover with saran wrap to loosen skin. When peppers are cooled, gently peel skin off and remove all seeds. Save the oil released from the pepper during the roasting process. Cut 2 or 3 slices for garnish and set aside.

Blend the roasted pepper, beans, tofu, parsley, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, lime juice, garlic, olive oil, tahini and 1 teaspoon of salt in a food processor until desired consistency is achieved. Add in roasted pepper oil from pan or jar. Depending on your taste, add more garlic, lemon juice, olive oil or salt.

Serve warm or chilled. Garnish with slices of red pepper. This dish keeps for a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

*For plain hummus, just leave out the red peppers and add in some extra olive oil to make the dish creamy.

Preparation time: 30 minutes (once beans are cooked or if using canned beans)
Serves 6
Recipe by Julie Negrin © 2008

HIRE YOUR KIDS AS SOUS CHEFS – they can:

-Kids can rip up the parsley leaves or cut with a butter knife.
-Roasting peppers is easy but peeling them is the perfect task to give to kids 6 and older as it’s more time-consuming than most parents would like.
-Kids love squeezing lemon and lime juice – or if you’re in a time pinch, buy the organic Santa Cruz bottle of fresh lemon juice.