Vegetarian Times featured Ann’s recipe for South American Squash and Vegetable Ragout on the October cover! Check it out, along with the rest of her delicious recipes!
May 14th, 2010
Healthy Eating for Kids!
As I’ve spent the week preparing for my talk at this weekend’s You Are What You Eat event, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to get kids to the table and enjoy healthy and delicious meals with the family. As I thought back on strategies that I’ve used with my kids, I remembered this GEM of an idea, given to me by Mary Hartzell, who is an early childhood educator and ran the nursery school both by children attended. Mary suggested to always have one consistent dish on the dinner table that the kids could eat, no matter what. If they are picky or fussy and don’t want to eat what I have prepared, there is always one dish that they can eat.
When I cook, I cook what my husband and I want to eat (and what we WANT our kids to eat) but, lets be honest, what parents like eating vs what the kids want to eat is often not the same thing! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told Halle and Walker, that our home kitchen is not a restaurant! So in addition to what recipes I am preparing for that night’s dinner, I always prepare a whole grain dish, usually quinoa or brown rice. That way, the kids know there’s one nutritious item being served that they’ll WANT to enjoy.
I hope that there may be some of you out there who are able to make it to Brea tomorrow. There promises to be a full day of talks and discussions on this very topic, which I know is one that most mothers grapple with regularly! Even if you can’t make it to Brea, please feel free to share any thoughts or questions you have in the comments section, I’d love to start a dialogue where fans of RFD and REAL FOOD can talk about how to make the best choices for you and your families.
Click here for more information on You Are What You EAT. I hope to see you there!
May 4th, 2010
Superfoods to save the day!
I recently had a great opportunity to work with the folks at MSN’s Practical Guide to Healthier Living, a health and wellness site dedicated to showcase easy, everyday tips for ways to improve your quality of life and improve your overall health and wellness.
I was asked to share my thoughts on superfoods, and why it’s so important to incorporate these nutritional powerhouses into your daily diet. I was thrilled, because this is a topic very near and dear to my heart. Often, people think that “Superfoods” are just the exotic items like Goji or Acai berries, and neglect to think of the everyday items that really pack a nutritious punch. Foods like spinach, soy, avocado, and blueberries are all items that are nutrient rich and loaded with antioxidants and phytonutrients. By simply incorporating these foods into your daily meals, you will get an extra surge of vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients that will produce results for your body that you can see and feel, inside and out.
Check out my full video interview, as well as my article on superfoods on the MSN website, and let me know your thoughts! Are there items that surprised you on the list? Are there foods we left off? Let us know!
March 9th, 2010
my cup is full.
Almost a month has past and I thought I was on a roll with my blog postings. I am laughing, what was I thinking? Ideas run through my head daily, but my fingers never touch the keys. The perils of a modern woman are running my cup over. In plain English, I am on overload, but I’m use to it, so I don’t even notice.
OMG, am I just whining when I think of all my excuses?
Let’s see, I own a small business that employs 150 people. I actively run it every day. I’ve got my business in a good place where I work on it, not in it. I’m the producer, but this role does call on me to be present and participating. I liken it to show business and the show must go on. I am raising two kids and maintaining a relationship with my husband. Daily, I try to carve out quiet time to have the sacred life, I so longing want and I try to show up at a few exercise classes because if I don’t release all the tension from these other things, I’ll go mad.
And now, I have taken on a big creative process, the one the fortune teller told me in the fall that I needed to balance my life, to fulfill my creative urges. So, here I am writing a cookbook and blogging about it. Am I crazy? How do writer’s work? How do mother’s juggle? How does a working woman stay emotionally attractive to her man? How do I connect to my blog readers, my husband, my kids, my employees, myself?
January 27th, 2010
Reprinted with permission from “The Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh,
Really Good, Really Vegetarian” by Ann Gentry. Copyright 2005
Is it 21 days already?
Man, time flies when you’re neglecting to write blog posts daily… (Seriously, though, where did last week go?)
So here I am, at the end of the 21 days of the challenge, and I feel as though I have hardly scraped the surface! There are so many more things I want to explore– detoxing… macrobiotics…. juicing…. vegan, gluten-free pastries…
So the bottom line is that although the 21 days are up, and the “challenge” that I set for myself has come to an end, there is so much more to say here in the blog, that I fully intended to keep going, and hope that my discoveries about veganism and clean-eating can serve as a primer of sorts for others who are curious about what Real Food really means.
However, since last night was the end of day 21, I wanted to make a special vegan dish to celebrate with my husband. So many choice, one big night… so, I asked Ms. Ann Gentry herself, what she makes for guests when she is cooking for mixed-company, and she said that she always gets rave reviews when she makes a dish from her cookbook, the Amaranth Saute in Kabocha Squash.
So, armed with this expert advice I cracked open “The Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh, Really Vegetarian, Really Good” and saw that the very simple recipe really only called for kabocha squash, amaranth, green onions, and tamari. Simple! Quick! Ideal! I thought that would make a lovely centerpiece, and since I knew I had both beets and lacinato kale in my fridge, I thought I would pair it with roasted beets and garlicky greens (a recipe for which can also be found in the RFD cookbook.) It was a very vegetal celebration of 21 days of animal free eating, and although is was a perfect ending to the challenge, I also felt like it was a great inspiration to keep me going for the next 21 days (and 21 days after that… and then… well, we’ll see how long I can go without a bagel with cream cheese…)
Reprinted with permission from “The Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh,
Really Good, Really Vegetarian” by Ann Gentry. Copyright 2005
Ten Speed Press, Berkeley CA.
Amaranth Sauté in Kabocha Squash
The porridge-like amaranth mixture is seasoned with tamari and green onions, then spooned into a steamed whole kabocha squash, making it a festive fall side dish.
Serves 8
1 (2-pound) kabocha squash
1 cup amaranth seeds
3 cups water
6 green onions, thinly sliced diagonally
2 tablespoons tamari
Using a sharp knife, carve out a circular opening in the top of the squash. Reserve the top. Hollow out the squash. Return the top to the squash. Pour enough water into a large pot to come 1 inch up the sides. Place the squash in the pot. Cover with the pot lid and bring the water to a boil. Decrease the heat to medium-low and steam the squash for 30 minutes, or until it is tender but still holds its shape.
Meanwhile, heat a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the amaranth and stir constantly for 5 minutes, or until the amaranth is toasted and fragrant. Transfer the toasted amaranth to a bowl. Bring the water to a boil in a heavy saucepan over high heat. Add the amaranth. Decrease the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often, or until the amaranth is tender and the mixture thickens like porridge. Stir in the green onions and tamari.
Remove the top from the squash. Spoon the amaranth mixture into the cooked kabocha squash. Return the top to the squash. Cut the squash into wedges and serve.
The stars of the show-- kabocha squash and golden beets
Amaranth Sauté in Kabocha Squash
Reprinted with permission from “The Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh,
Really Good, Really Vegetarian” by Ann Gentry. Copyright 2005
Ten Speed Press, Berkeley CA.
The porridge-like amaranth mixture is seasoned with tamari and green onions, then spooned into a steamed whole kabocha squash, making it a festive side dish.
Serves 8
1 (2-pound) kabocha squash
1 cup amaranth seeds
3 cups water
6 green onions, thinly sliced diagonally
2 tablespoons tamari
Using a sharp knife, carve out a circular opening in the top of the squash.Reserve the top. Hollow out the squash. Return the top to the squash. Pour enough water into a large pot to come 1 inch up the sides. Place the squash in the pot.
The squash ready to be steamed (NB-- the top should be added back to the top prior to steaming to prevent condensation from re-entering the squash during cooking)
Cover with the pot lid and bring the water to a boil. Decrease the heat to medium-low and steam the squash for 30 minutes, or until it is tender but still holds its shape. [Note from Beth: This is where it all went awry for me... Check your squash periodically, because if you over-steam it, this will happen:]
When culinary disaster strikes...
Meanwhile, heat a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the amaranth and stir constantly for 5 minutes, or until the amaranth is toasted and fragrant.
Amaranth: This Mexican super-grain has a long history, and is believed by many to possess magical properties. As it cooks it develops a porridge-like consistency that is both hearty and filling.
Transfer the toasted amaranth to a bowl. Bring the water to a boil in a heavy saucepan over high heat. Add the amaranth. Decrease the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often, or until the amaranth is tender and the mixture thickens like porridge. Stir in the green onions and tamari.
Remove the top from the squash. Spoon the amaranth mixture into the cooked kabocha squash. Return the top to the squash. Cut the squash into wedges and serve.
The broken-up squash that was fished from the pot
The final dish, a celebration of winter veggies!
January 10th, 2010
Motivation for the Weekend
I think it’s always tough to diet on weekends. And while taking on the vegan challenge is not a diet so much as a lifestyle, I maintain that there are many more temptations on a Saturday night out, than on a Tuesday lunch-break.
So, in an effort to stave off potential lapses, I turned to some of the facts about a plant-based diet that were really inspiring for me before I started. This is an ever-so-brief list, but I’d love to keep it growing. Let us know if there are any facts, statistics, or even favorite quotes about the benefits of veganism or vegetarianism– there’s many more temptations ahead!
These are some of the highlights of a recent IPCC study about the impact of a meat-based diet versus a plant-based diet:
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a well documented scientific study reports:
- Of all raw materials and fossil fuels currently used in the U.S., more than one-third goes to raising animals for food.
- An area of rain forest the size of seven football fields is destroyed every minute to make room for grazing cattle, but each vegetarian saves one acre of trees every year.
- More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.
- The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth.
- Raising animals for food is grossly inefficient, because while animals eat large quantities of grain, they only produce small amounts of meat, dairy products, or eggs in return. This is why more than 70 percent of the grain and cereals that we grow in this country are fed to farmed animals. It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of meat, and even fish on fish farms must be fed 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce one pound of farmed fish flesh.
- Eating animals causes 40% more global warming than all planes, cars, trucks and other forms of transport combined. Put in other terms, eating one pound meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gasses as driving an SUV 40 miles.
January 5th, 2010
2010 and the 21-Day Vegan Challenge
Hi! My name is Beth Griffiths, and I’m the newest member of Team RFD. I joined up with Real Food Daily in December, and I came on-board to help with communications and community outreach. I am a long time advocate for environmental and sustainable food systems, and cannot believe my good fortune at having found a job that combines my experience in food service with my dedication to the green movement.
Now that I’ve started the job with Real Food Daily, one of the questions I get most often has been, “but are you a vegan?!” To which, I’ve had to shake my head and admit, “no, I’m not.” Not only am I not a vegan, but I’m actually something of an expert on artisanal cheese and charcuterie. I love cheese, I love meat, but the reality is that I also love the planet, and at some point I realized that the planet needs everyone to embrace a little moderation on the “meat and cheese” front.
So, in taking the job, my philosophy was, “come for the organic, stay for the vegan.” Well, it’s been six weeks, and I am overwhelmingly impressed with the restaurant’s dedication to organic and sustainable food, and now I’m here for the vegan.
I’ve been following news of the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart, which is spearheaded by the Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine, and I thought it seemed like a really great way to challenge my cheeseburger loving soul to embrace the full culinary philosophy of Real Food Daily.
I’m looking forward to blogging about my experiences during the next 21-days, as well as discussing motivations, facts, information, and even some recipes and cooking tips from the helpful team here at Real Food Daily.
I have had such good fortune to meet and interact with so many of the wonderful and committed fans of Real Food Daily, fans and guests from all walks of life– from carnivores who just can’t get enough of the Not-Chos, to die-hard Real Food Meal aficionados who have been with us since the opening in 1993. I am looking forward to joining them in the dining room for the next 21-days, and if the meals I’ve enjoyed at RFD so far are any indication, I strongly suspect that the 21-day mark will be just the beginning.
November 15th, 2009
New Cookbook in the Oven ?
I'm Going For Number 2 !!!
My 48-hour trip to NYC was to meet with editors at major book publishing companies to talk about my second cookbook. It was exciting to be in the center of the literary world. There are many opinions that believe this space will end, as we know it. From my vantage point, this world is alive and percolating with creativity, people and passion. I am really excited about the possibility of my new cookbook. This one will be written from the perspective of the ‘real’ home cook, more personal and dare, I say sassy and sexy, with 100 plus recipes with accessible ingredients and easier steps. Don’t get me wrong, my first book; The RFD Cookbook is a great book. It’s just that it was a restaurant cookbook, thus recipes made for serving and impressing hundreds of people per day. This time, I will share more from the heart and soul of my own home kitchen.