It’s starting next week. The bread-free holiday of the Jewish faith: Passover. I actually like Passover. As a kid, I survived the week by eating hard-boiled eggs and buttered matzoh. Fortunately, I’ve expanded my repertoire since then – and have some recipes to share with you.

I am including spring time recipes that will appeal to everyone regardless if you celebrate Passover. They include Spring Leek Patties (Keftes) and Seared Salmon with Sauce Gribiche (see below). For more holiday dish ideas, click here to find links (scroll down the page) to the four video clips and Passover recipes I did for New York’s channel, NY1.

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend and Happy Spring and Passover!

Mom’s Passover “Bread” Rolls
For those of you who do celebrate Passover, these “bread rolls” are a must. They aren’t the most attractive bread products you’ll ever see (flashback to my brothers and me eating them for lunch with peanut butter and jelly in a mostly non-Jewish elementary school) but they are a lifesaver for on-the-go meals during the holiday week.

2 cups matzoh meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 375ºF. In a medium sized bowl, mix matzoh meal, salt and sugar together. Whisk eggs together in a separate bowl. Bring water and oil to a boil in a small saucepan. As soon as the water and oil reach a boil, add the liquids to the dry ingredients and stir together. Wait a few minutes for the mixture to cool, then add in egg mixture. Blend well until slightly sticky. Shape into desired roll size and line them up on greased baking sheet. Bake for 45-50 minutes.

Recipe by Mama Negrin adapted from Manischewitz

Leek Patties (Keftes)
This Mediterrinean recipe is often served at Sephardic seders in Seattle. Leeks, which are in season for a little longer, are perfect for spring, Passover dishes.

2 lbs leeks (will need 1 1/2 cups of cooked leeks)
2/3 cup walnuts, chopped (you can omit for nut-allergies)
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/3 cup maztoh meal
2 eggs beaten
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder or potato starch
Matzoh cake meal for dredging
Canola oil for frying

Wash, slice, and parboil leeks in a large pot of water for 10 minutes or until tender. In a colander, drain all of the water. Squeeze leeks to remove as much water as possible – leeks need to be very dry. Combine all of the additional ingredients except cake meal and oil. Moisten hands and shape into patties 3- to 4-inches in diameter. Dip each patty in the cake meal and pan-fry until golden brown. You can serve the leek patties warm or room temperature.

Seared Salmon with Sauce Gribiche
If you’re tired of eating meat meals two nights in a row at the seders, seared salmon makes for a lovely, light dish during the middle of the week. The gribeche is a little heavier but absolutely delicious. The key to searing is to make sure the pan is very hot – when you carefully lay the piece of fish in the pan, don’t try to move it. Once it’s cooked, you’ll be able to gently lift it up with a spatula and turn it over. If it’s a really thick piece and the center isn’t quite cooked, you can throw it into a heated oven for a few minutes – just make sure you don’t overcook it.

For the salmon:
4 (5-oz) pieces center-cut salmon fillet (about 1-inch thick) with or without skin
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

For the “sauce gribiche”:
6 hard boiled eggs, diced
1 large red onion, diced
4 tablespoons capers
1/2 cups kalamata olives, diced
3 anchovies, finely minced
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (omit for Passover)
Juice of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil

To prepare salmon, sprinkle each filet on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat vegetable oil in heavy large oven-proof skillet until it shimmers but not smoking. Add salmon fillets, flesh-side down in skillet. Sear until brown and crisp, about 3 minutes. Turn fillets over and sear skin side until salmon is just cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish.

In a medium bowl, mix together all sauce ingredients gently with a rubber spatula. Drizzle some of the sauce gribeche over the seared salmon filets and serve garnished with fresh parsley.

Preparation time: 35 minutes
Serves 4-6
Recipes by Julie Negrin and John Scoff (chef instructor at the JCC in Manhattan and Home Cooking New York)

I think it’s time I explained why I am so passionate about children’s nutrition. It’s a long story and we all know now that I have trouble being concise but I’ll do my best.

I was a sick kid. All the time. Knowing what I know now, simply removing wheat and dairy from my diet and adding in some supplements probably would have done the trick. But, that sort of information wasn’t around at the time. And we want to believe what doctors recommend – especially when it comes to kids. Many rounds of antibiotics and four years of allergy shots later, I ended up with an inflammatory bowel disease at the age of 17, called Ulcerative Colitis. I don’t talk about it much but if sharing what happened to me helps the kids, then so be it.

It was pretty rough for 8 or 9 years during some crucial “growing up” years. Fortunately, I lived in the progressive city of Seattle and had access to alternative practitioners. In the end, it was food, natural remedies, and Chinese medicine that led to my recovery after being sick for nearly a decade.  I’ve now been in remission for over 10 years. It was definitely not easy getting well – it was a lot of work. But it’s possible – more than possible. And it breaks my heart now that there are kids all over this country who are becoming sick at SUCH young ages because of what they are EATING. So unnecessary! So preventable and fixable. This is why I work so hard to help kids out – so many of our health problems can be fixed in the kitchen – not all, of course, but many.

Why am I bringing this up now?

The Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) act is going to be re-signed in Congress very soon which is why I was lobbying in Washington DC last week. CNR is a huge piece of legislation that covers several extremely important programs including school lunches, after-school and summer feeding programs, and Women Infants, and Children (WIC). It’s only signed every 4 or 5 years so what Congress decides NOW will affect these programs for half a decade.

It’s bewildering to me why the government is hemming and hawing over how much money they should invest in CNR. It could be as low as a half a billion (which sounds like a lot but divide that by five years and millions of schools) and as much as $1 to 4 billion per year over the next 10 years.  When they give so little for each child’s school lunch, how can the school staff be expected to produce healthy, balanced meals for growing children? Even the most talented chefs I know would have a hard time coming up with a well-rounded meal appropriate for children if they only had a couple of bucks to spend per person. And had little to no kitchen equipment. And were given low-quality ingredients.

Why does this matter to you? Well, for one, every time you get taxes taken out of your hard-earned paycheck, it’s funding programs like school lunches. And even if you don’t have kids, this legislation affects our economy – sick kids grow up to be sick adults. Last year obesity related health problems cost this country $147 billion. That $1 billion doesn’t sound like so much anymore, huh?

It even affects national security! Currently, 70% of military age kids are UNFIT to serve. Even retired generals know we need to improve school lunches and nutrition education for kids. People are worried about higher taxes if we support these kinds of programs but the truth is, this is a drop in the bucket for our nation’s spending and we will be saving ourselves a lot of money in the long run. Consider this: we spend roughly $7 billion PER MONTH in Iraq!

We need to start investing in prevention and turning our health around in the kitchen – starting with school lunches. Invest now, save later. A fundamental of finance theory that applies to our health.

So, what can you do? While you sit on your computer or doing the laundry? Quite a bit, actually.

1. Sign petitions at: Healthy School Lunches, at Takepart.com, and on Facebook to show support for healthier school lunches.

2. Healthy Schools Campaign made it VERY easy for you to send an email to your legislators by simply typing in your name, address, and zip code. It took me about 10 seconds – literally. Click here to make a difference.

3. Call your Representative or Senator and tell them to support $1 billion per year for CNR. That’s all you have to remember: $1 billion per year for CNR. Click here to find their contact information by typing your zip code into the Getting Involved box.

*If you want to add in one more line, ask for $50 million in mandatory funding for farm to school programs. which help local school kids as well as farmers in the region.

4. And it’s last minute, but tomorrow is Chefs Day of Action – New York chefs, led by Chef Bill Telepan (founder of Wellness in the Schools) will be lobbying in DC. Click here for more information.

5. For those of you on Twitter, use the #CNR to find out more about what you can do.

6. If you’re a parent, get involved in your local school(es) and support healthier school lunches.

If you know of any other ways to support CNR, please feel free to let me know!

I promise that I will get back to some fun spring recipes and nutrition 101 in upcoming blog posts. For now, please do what you can to support our nation’s children.

Can you believe everything you read on food products? Unfortunately, the answer is: no, not really. I keep seeing commercials claiming that their “whole grain product” will prevent heart disease. HEART DISEASE. If that were true, then, technically Americans shouldn’t have much heart disease, right? We do love our cereal….

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that the FDA recently posted a list of companies who are making false front-of-the-package claims.

We should be suspicious of any company that spends millions on a marketing budget in order to sell their “healthy” products to us. The foods that are healthiest for us usually don’t have a marketing budget at all!  Many companies are jumping on the “health halo” bandwagon right now. Buyer beware.

The truth is that it’s actually soluble fiber in the whole grain that lowers cholesterol, thereby reducing heart disease risk. Most whole grains, or vegetable, bean or fruit, contain soluble fiber which can reduce heart disease. (Foods that are highest in soluble fiber are oats, barley, beans, flax seed, and some fruits and vegetables.)

So, what is a whole grain exactly?

A whole grain has three parts: the outer, fibrous hull/bran (which is what makes brown rice chewy), the germ (which contains vitamins, minerals, and even some protein), and the endosperm (pretty much just starch). To make a long story short, some time after World War II, when manufacturers were able to use trucks and airplanes to ship products far away, they discovered that whole grain products didn’t last as long on the shelf due to the oils in the germ that would go rancid.

So, food manufacturers started yanking off the fibrous hull, and removing the nutrient-packed germ leaving only the starchy endosperm behind. This method continues today. The endosperm is then combined with refined sweeteners, additives, and preservatives. The result is “refined carbs” which is what we’ve been eating for years.

This is not a whole grain.

Cereal products made from whole grains do contain a few more nutrients and fiber than their all-white counterparts but they are still ground down and processed. If a product does not resemble brown rice, quinoa, millet, barley, oats or anything else that looks like it came directly from the ground, then it is NOT a whole grain. When organizations like the American Heart Association recommend eating more whole grains, they are referring to actual whole grains – not packaged products.  For the record, I have nothing against cereal – in fact, I love it. But, when I eat it, I’m aware that it’s not going to prevent heart disease.

This is a whole grain (brown rice).

Real whole grains contain almost everything you need including vitamins, minerals, fiber, fat (from the vitamin E) and protein. Fiber, which is linked to all kinds of disease prevention, deserves its own blog post so we’ll save that for another day.

Try easing into whole grains by making it just once a week to start. I’ll eat brown rice or quinoa with just about everything. I try (but don’t always succeed, I will admit it) to make some at the beginning of the week so that I always have some in the fridge. I will re-heat it and throw a green salad on top, or I’ll serve it with fish, beans, or any other protein. I usually add a few drops of water before reheating it in the microwave. If it’s really dry, I’ll make fried rice or create a dressing to marinate it so it will last longer.

Here are some suggestions on how to incorporate whole grains into your daily diet:

Kasha, oats or quinoa for breakfast – add maple syrup, cinnamon, nuts, dried or fresh fruit,  vanilla yogurt (for added protein)

Brown rice – many Asian restaurants offer both – if you and your family are used to white rice, try mixing them together. Make it easy by purchasing a rice cooker. See my notes from the Indian Recipes on how to cook brown rice on the stove.

Millet is a nutty, gluten-free grain that used just like rice or quinoa and serve with a protein like fish, check, or meat. Check out this site for recipes.

Quinoa is one of my all-time favorite grains. It cooks in 20 minutes, it’s not as chewy as other whole grains, and it’s packed with nutrients. Check out a past blog post for my Quinoa Stuffing with Caramelized Onions and Pine Nuts recipe which is always a favorite in my cooking classes.

NOTE: Many, many people are having trouble digesting gluten these days. Rather than relying entirely on expensive gluten-free products that are still somewhat processed, it’s best to eat the real deal (and of course, using the packaged products for convenience). I will share more information about gluten issues in the near future.

Gluten-free grains: rice, quinoa,  corn, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, teff – check out Gluten-Free Girl’s blog and cookbook for more information about cooking gluten-free.

Gluten-containing grains: wheat, oats, rye, barley, and spelt