I just came across an article written by a colleague about cooking fathers. It discusses how dads don’t cook much. I guess the men I know aren’t part of the survey because I know plenty of dads who prepare meals for their families on a regular basis! And since it’s nearly Father’s Day, I thought I’d give a hats off to the many dads who do.

I’ve found that the main reason people don’t do a lot of cooking is that they find the process overwhelming. It’s always best to keep it simple! So, for fathers (and anyone else) looking for some dinner ideas that can be made quickly and/or easily, I created a short list of menu concepts. Whenever people are unsure how to come up with a menu, I suggest that they start with a cuisine or a theme and work from there. If you have an Asian noodle dish you want to make, round out the meal with some edamame and grilled chicken or tofu.

I called a friend in Seattle who cooks the majority of his family meals and asked him for his most popular dinners. All of these (with the exception of the Pad Thai) are extremely easy to pull together. Since he rarely cooks from a recipe, I searched online for similar dishes that look tasty, have good ratings, and don’t take long to prepare. The cherry tomato pasta dish is so easy that his 10 year old daughter often  makes it by herself!

Top Five Go-To Meals by Dad

1) Latin: Chicken Fajitas made with Green Peppers and Onions, served in Flour Tortillas with Homemade Guacamole

2) Seattle: Barbecued Salmon, served with Steamed or Grilled Asparagus with Butter, and a Baguette

3) Asian: Thai Dinner: Pad Thai and Coconut Red Curry with Shrimp or Tofu served with Sticky White Rice

4) Italian: Penne with Cherry Tomatoes, Fresh Basil, Garlic, Olive Oil, and Parmesan Cheese

5) American: Flank Steak made with Soy Sauce, Red Wine, Honey, Garlic, Salt and Pepper (marinated for 24 hours) served with Caesar Salad, and Baked Potato or Rice Pilaf (or Grilled Corn in the summer)

I’m keeping this post short and sweet. Happy Father’s Day to all the incredible papas who take such care good care of their families. We love ya.

Lobby Day for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization act (see next post) ended with a food tasting - my favorite kind of event. Celebrity chefs from around the country kindly cooked up mouthwatering dishes such as Seared Tuna and Asian Slaw and Potato Belinis with Smoked Trout. The lobbyists said it was the best event that they had ever attended!

I have a recipe for one of the dishes which was superb. Salmon cakes are very inexpensive (you can used canned salmon) and extremely easy to prepare. Enjoy!

Ginger Cilantro Salmon Cakes

1/2 cup celery, minced
1/2 cup yellow onion, minced
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne, plus 1 pinch (optional)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs (you can make your own in a food processor with stale bread)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lb (2 cans) canned salmon (you can substitute tuna, chopped chicken or sardines)

2 tablespoons olive oil

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the celery, onion, cilantro, ginger, garlic, mustard, cayenne, and sea salt. Add egg and breadcrumbs to mixture.

Fold in the salmon and mix well. Form small 2-inch patties for appetizer size salmon cakes or 4-inch patties for entree size cakes. Set aside on a platter.

Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan and fry the patties for roughly 3 minutes on each side, or until golden-brown. You will know when the bottom is nicely browned because the patty will slide easily across the pan when you try to flip it. Allow to cool and top with yogurt dill sauce or salsa.

Recipe adapted from Operation Frontline - Share Our Strength Chef Ana Villalobos

I know that a lot of people feel our country has been down more than it’s been up lately. But walking on the Hill reminded me that this is still a democratic country. And that means that we can all make a difference. Look at how much money we raised for Haiti in a matter of days! If we work together on these issues, we can turn it around. I believe that. Click here to make a difference.

I took this shot at the end of Lobby Day on my walk to the metro.

To see more photos from Lobby Day, visit my Facebook page.

A big THANK YOU to the chefs who flew in from around the country to lobby for kids and feed us!

CHRISTOPHER ALBRECHT, Eno Terra, Princeton, NJ

CATHAL ARMSTRONG, Restaurant Eve, Washington DC

ZACH BELL, Cafe Boulud, Palm Beach

BILL BRADY, Sonoma Restaurant, Worcester, MA

RJ COOPER, Vidalia, Washington DC

MICHELLE GAYER, The Salty Tart, Minneapolis

DAVID GUAS, Damgoodsweet, McClean, VA

LINTON HOPKINS, Restaurant Eugene, Atlanta

MARY SUE MILLIKEN, Border Grill, Santa Monica, CA

WILL MOONEY, The Brothers Moon, Princeton, NJ

BILL TELEPAN, Telepan Restaurant, NYC

ANA VILLALOBOS

JONATHAN WAXMAN, Barbuto, NYC

I’m often asked: What comes first, the nutritionist or the cook? My Spanish blood always wins out. If I don’t like the taste of something, I won’t eat it. I’m fortunate that I like a lot of healthy foods - but, I think that’s because I learned how to cook them early on.

What bums me out is the prevailing misconception that healthy food isn’t appetizing. When people sit down to eat the meal at the end of my cooking classes, someone inevitably looks up and says, “Wait, this is delicious. AND it’s good for me?” My response is always the same: “I wouldn’t last very long as a cooking teacher if my recipes weren’t tasty!”

I hope to show people that healthy food CAN taste good, one recipe at a time. Or, in this case, two recipes at a time. Unless you live on the west coast, it’s likely you’ve never had tempeh. I admit that I didn’t like it the first few times I ate it but now I’m a huge Tempeh Fan. Give it a chance.

Tempeh is an Indonesian fermented soy product. It’s a good texture for people who like meat but are trying to eat more plant-based meals. It’s also nice because after eating a tempeh meal, you feel full without feeling super stuffed.

Cynthia Lair, who has a very informative website, Cookus Interruptus, full of recipes and cooking videos, recently posted her Szechwan Tempeh dish. It’s been one of my favorite recipes ever since she taught it in my Bastyr University cooking class when I was a grad student. When I make this recipe, I’ll prepare couscous (takes five minutes) and wilt some greens for a complete and satisfying meal. Click here for the Szechwan Tempeh recipe and watch a video on how to prepare it.

Here is one of my own tempeh recipes. The great thing  about tempeh is that it will take on just about any flavor  - so feel free to play around with this marinade and try different vinegars, oils, spices, and fresh herbs. The key to preparing tempeh is to marinate it for at least 15 minutes before sautéing or baking it.

Balsamic-Glazed Tempeh

1 (8 ounce) package tempeh
¼ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons tamari
1 tablespoon mirin
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 scallion, sliced
¼ cup water
Kosher or sea salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350° degrees F.

Cut tempeh into 1-inch slices and place in a 8×8 oven proof dish. In a medium-size bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, tamari, mirin, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, red pepper flakes, scallions and water. After whisking dressing together, carefully pour it over tempeh so that each piece is covered in dressing.

Let it sit at room temperature for around 10 minutes and then flip each slice over so that both sides soak up dressing. Marinate for 15 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper and bake for 25 minutes. Serve over couscous, rice or with polenta.

*Note: if doubling this recipe, prepare only 1.5x the sauce.

Preparation time: 1 hour
Serves 2-4
Recipe by Julie Negrin © 2008

Check out Tempeh.com or Recipezaar.com for more tempeh recipes. It’s a fun ingredient to experiment with!

When I was in New York City last week, I attended the HealthCorps Gala, a fundraiser than will ultimately finance health education for at-risk teenagers around the country. What does this have to do with breakfast?

While the government is trying to figure out how to combat childhood obesity, HealthCorps is already in schools and educating hundreds of teenagers. HealthCorps “coordinators” are recent college grads who teach nutrition and physical eduction in the same high school for two years. One of the HealthCorps coordinators, Jake Ross (who was my student last summer) recently spoke about the importance of breakfast during a segment on the Dr. Oz show with six of his high school students.

We often hear how important breakfast is but some of us (even me) still slack off sometimes. “Break” “fast” - means exactly that: we are breaking our overnight fast. By morning, it can be up to 12 hours since our last meal. In order to stoke our metabolism (which burns calories), we must eat in the morning. Otherwise, our metabolism remains sluggish from the overnight fast and will shift into “famine mode” - slowing down in order to conserve calories. We don’t ever want to do anything to slow down our metabolism! Eating actually activates the metabolism which is why I’m always telling you to EAT.

Whatever you do, make sure you consume protein in the morning. And try to find something that you look forward to eating for breakfast. Food should be pleasurable - even when it’s good for you. Lately, my favorite breakfast is organic vanilla yogurt, peanut butter granola, and macadamia nuts. It tastes like dessert and I don’t get hungry for hours.

I taught this granola recipe at the JCC in Manhattan and one of my students, Anne Grossman, loved it so much that she started giving it as a gift to family and friends. It’s tastier, cheaper, and healthier than most store-bought products and takes only minutes to toss together.

Homemade Golden Granola
The nice thing about cooking from scratch is that you can customize each dish exactly the way you like it. If your family can’t eat nuts, you can omit them from the recipe. For those of you who are always in a rush in the morning, prepare little baggies of granola to bring to work along with some yogurt and eat it for breakfast at your desk.

4 cups rolled oats (Quaker oats work just fine)
½ cup slivered almonds (optional)
1 cup pecans (optional)
½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes
¼ teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 ½ cups mixed fruit (golden raisins, currants, dried cranberries or cherries, chopped dried apricots)
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup all-natural maple syrup (or ½ cup honey)
Optional: sunflower seeds, wheat germ, oat bran, brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350° F. In a large bowl, mix oats, nuts, coconut flakes, salt, spices, and dried fruit and stir together well. In a liquid measuring glass, whisk oil and maple syrup together. Pour it over the oats mixture and toss well to combine. Scoop entire batch onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Make sure the pieces are spread out in a thin layer. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes and then remove the pan and stir granola well so that pieces brown evenly. Repeat this process 10 minutes later.

After about 30 minutes, when the granola is golden brown and crispy, remove the pan from the oven. Pour it immediately into a bowl and break apart clumps with a wooden spoon. Serve with yogurt and fresh berries. Store granola in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks (or longer in the freezer).

Active time: 10 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes
Yields ~10 cups
Recipe by Julie Negrin and Anne Grossman © 2008

I know a lot of people are short on funds these days but if you or your company are looking for a worthwhile organization to donate to, please consider HealthCorps.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to worry about lunch. I absolutely adore brunch/breakfast foods and I can spend hours reviewing dinner menus.  But lunch? Eh. I know I’m not the only who feels this way because I talk to a lot of people who either don’t eat lunch or eat very little. But even though I don’t get excited about it, I do my best to eat a quality lunch.

When people speak to me about struggling with their weight, one of the first questions I ask them is how much they eat during the day. The ones who are having the hardest time are usually the ones who eat very little all day. The “diet mentality” from past decades - that it’s better to eat less - is a very one dimensional way to address food and weight loss. Certainly, we should treat food like we treat money - we should not consume (spend) more than we burn off (earn). But we also have to address the timing of meals - breakfast is crucial but lunch also plays a key role in keeping our bodies fit.

Studies indicate that regular, well-timed meals throughout the day help people shed pounds and also prevent heart disease, diabetes, and even aging. The old proverb, “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper,” now has scientific verification.

When I worked on a kibbutz in Israel from 1995-96, one of the first things I noticed was that they ate their heaviest, hottest meal at lunch time. Many other countries also distribute their meals differently than Americans - studying other cultures can help us re-think how we eat in the middle of the day.

If nothing else, remember to eat some protein at lunch time. While waiting in the salad line at delis in New York City, I’d watch many people ask for only vegetables in their salads. They were eating too lightly! I’m guessing that later in the day, the vending machine will start beckoning…. Eating smart is all about thinking ahead - addressing the body’s hunger throughout the day instead of trying to deny it.

You accomplish several things by eating a “princely” meal in the middle of the day:

1) Eating a good lunch means you’ll be less susceptible to crappy, nutrient-less foods like the stale cookies at work or leftovers from your child’s lunch box.

2) You are more likely to hit the gym in the afternoon or after work. If you go to the gym in the morning, it’s especially important to eat a solid lunch so that you don’t become so hungry that you end up making poor eating choices later in the day.

3) One of the biggest pitfalls of not eating enough during the day is the inevitable binging in the evening. Of course the body is going to want to eat everything in sight when it hasn’t gotten much food all day! It’s not a lack of will power - it’s a matter of physiology. The body needs frequent meals or else it’s going to demand all of it’s daily calories at night - plus some extra just in case you starve it again the next day.

I recently bought the book, Cook This, Not That by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding.  It’s kind of a goofy marketing strategy but this series of books and their website contains a lot of great information. Cook This, Not That compares the cost of preparing a meal at home versus eating out. It also lists the calories of meals from different restaurant chains. While I’m not big on calorie counting - it’s worth noting that some salads at California Pizza Kitchen have enough calories for a woman’s entire daily needs!

Many of the recipes are easy, they don’t use a lot of ingredients and have good photos. For those of you who prefer heartier lunches, check out the meatier dishes in Cook This, Not That! or Tom Colicchio’s delicious cookbook, ‘wichcraft: Craft a Sandwich into a Meal.

Grilled Chicken Salad with Cranberries, Avocado, and Goat Cheese

12 oz cooked chicken
12 cups arugula (1 bag)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 avocado, pitted, peeled, and sliced
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
1/4 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1/4 cup Honey Mustard Vinaigrette (see below)
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the chicken, arugla cranberries, avocado, goat cheese, walnuts, vinaigrette, salt, and pepper in a large bowl (or tupperware to take to work). Use two forks to incorporate the dressing (or bring it in a separate smaller container to add right before you eat).

Dressing: 1/2 tablespoon honey, 1 tablespoon Dijon, 2 tablespoon red or white wine vinegar, 1/4 cup canola oil, and salt pepper.

Recipe from Cook This, Not That!
Calories: 500
Cost per serving: $2.64

California Pizza Kitchen Waldorf Chicken Salad
Calories: 1,644
Cost per serving: $12.99

Food. Healthy. Diets. Eating. Cooking. Sustainable. Local. All big buzz words for 2010. I have dozens of blog posts ruminating in my head that cover all of these topics - attempts to clarify all of this Food Confusion and help people get back on track. But today, I am going to talk about popcorn.

Twice yesterday, I encountered the tell-tale smell of microwave popcorn. And it got me thinking about how people are trying to eat healthier - but struggle with finding the time to prepare food from scratch. I’m particularly passionate about popcorn - love the stuff. When I make it, I prepare it on the stove in a pot with some oil - “old-fashioned” style. It takes me approximately 5-6 minutes. The only ingredients I use are: popcorn kernels, oil, and kosher salt.

Microwave popcorn, on the other hand, takes roughly 3 minutes to “cook.” It contains all kinds of processed ingredients including: Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Natural Flavors, Annatto For Coloring, Soy Lecithin and/or Palm Oil and Freshness Preserved With Tbhq and Citric Acid. (It’s pretty cool that you can read the nutrition labels on packages via Amazon.com). In 2007, they discovered a chemical in microwave popcorn that causes lung problems.

We certainly like things to be instantaneous! Even if it means saving us just a few minutes. It never ceases to make me laugh when I take pictures of my nieces and nephews on my digital camera and they immediately say, “Let me see it!” We are so spoiled by technology now that we often forget that it’s the things that take a little time that we usually savor the most in life.

Last summer, I made popcorn for my Healthcorps students who are in their early 20’s. They were drooling over it. You would have thought I made them a gourmet 5-course meal - because most of them had never had it before! It not only tastes much better but it’s MUCH cheaper and it’s made with “real” ingredients our bodies recognize and know how to digest.

We can keep buying “100-calorie packs” and trying to go that route which, clearly hasn’t worked well for us over the past 20 years. Or, we can face the fact that our bodies want to consume food grown naturally - not engineered in a laboratory. Mother Nature’s food. If we cut out the chemicals, we will notice a lot of positive changes in our health including our energy levels, our skin, our weight, our moods and so on. This is especially important for kids - chemicals in processed foods are linked to all kinds of health, weight, and behavioral problems in children. Michael Pollan just discussed how crucial it is to eat “real” foods with Oprah last week.

I realize that it’s not easy to eat completely chemical-free these days. All we can do is keep making small differences in our diet - take baby steps toward a “cleaner” way of eating. Since processed foods are everywhere, we need to take every chance we can to reach for “real” foods - and save the “instant meals” for road trips and weekday evenings when everyone is exhausted.

Preparing a meal from scratch doesn’t take as long as you’d think. A UCLA study found that those making meals from scratch spent almost the same amount of time preparing dinner than those making a meal from partially-prepared, “convenient” foods. While developing recipes for my cookbook, I discovered that making (gourmet) macaroni and cheese from scratch takes roughly the same amount of time as it does to prepare it from a box.

So, next time you’re looking for a snack - instead of pulling out the chips or packaged foods, pull out a bag of popcorn kernels.

JULIE’S HOMEMADE POPCORN
One of my chef friends drizzles truffle oil over popcorn for a decadent snack. You can add all kinds of ingredients and spices: nutritional yeast, parmesan, cinammon sugar, or chili powder. This recipe yields a pretty big batch because I like to eat it the next day or put it in snack bags to take to work.

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I’m into grapeseed lately)
3/4 - 1 cup popcorn kernels (Organic, if possible)
Kosher salt to taste (Kosher or sea salt always trump table salt)

In a Dutch oven (or 8 quart pan), heat oil on medium to high heat. When it starts to shimmer (after a few minutes), add a popcorn kernel. When the oil starts to sizzle around the kernel, add the rest of the kernels. (I use a full cup in a Dutch oven which overflows a little when it’s fully popped.) Cover with tightly fitted lid.

Jiggle the pan just a little bit while the kernels start to heat up (you might need to use hot pads to hold the pan). When they all start to pop at once, jiggle the pan with more force so that the bottom pieces don’t burn. As soon as the popping sound starts to slow down, lower heat, jiggle for another minute or so and pull it off the heat. Salt and enjoy.

For more information on how chemicals in food can affect health, especially with regards to children, check out Robyn O’Brien’s new book, The Unhealthy Truth.