Christina Cooks: Back to the Cutting Board

We talk a lot about green living.

What about green eating?

Literally green eating.

One of the most important ingredients in Italian cooking are leafy green vegetables.

From kale to broccoli rabe and all the greens in between.

These babies will light up.

I'll show you how easy it is to eat green today.

On Christina Cooks: The Macroterranean Way.

Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties.

Sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

and by Jonathans Spoons.

Individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding provided by: Hi, I'm Christina Pirello and this is Christina Cooks, where each week we take fresh seasonal ingredients and whip them into amazing dishes.

Will they all be plant based?

Yeah.

Will they all be delicious?

Absolutely.

When I was a kid, my grandparents came from Naples, and they came to America because they were poor.

And they grew their garden there because they didn't have a lot of access to fresh food where they were because they didn't have any money.

But when they came here, this land of abundance, they built a microcosm of what they had in Naples in our backyard.

We had no room to play.

They grew food in every inch of the yard, from a fig tree to fruit trees to tons of vegetables in the garden, that were meant to sustain us as a family.

And greens?

Broccoli rabe, broccoli, kale, which they called cavolo cappuccio, All kinds of greens, herbs, arugula.

And we ate them all.

And you're thinking, So what's the big deal about greens?

Greens give us everything.

Vitamins, magnesium, Folate, which is good for heart health., calcium and protein.

They give us everything.

When you think you've eaten enough, greens, eat more.

So we're going green today, Italian style.

And we're going to start with some extra virgin olive oil in a heavy skillet.

I use olive oil abundantly, so hold your breath.

This is meant to be a rich side dish or a light lunch.

Whatever you decide.

We're going to take some hot chili pepper.

You can eliminate this, but it's good for circulation.

And it's really yummy.

It makes you feel alive.

And we're going to drop in some red onions and you're thinking, Wait, I don't hear a sizzle! You don't because I'm using really good olive oil.

And if I want to preserve that olive oil flavor, you put the oil and your first ingredient in the pan, then turn on the heat.

So at the end of eating these delicious greens, people say, Wow, what's that olive oil flavor? It's the olive oil.

You can cook it to high heat.

Don't panic, but you don't want to cook it without anything in the oil.

A pinch of salt, Werre gonna let those start to sweat.

Then were gonna come right over here and we're going to make some whipped chickpeas.

These are cooked chickpeas.

You can also use canned.

Make your life easy.

If you use canned, rinse them really well before you put them anywhere so that you don't become musical after you eat them.

This is really simple.

I am not making hummus.

In here goes chickpeas, a pinch of salt, some balsamic vinegar for sweetness.

Get a really good balsamic vinegar.

You see how thickly this pours.

It's like a syrup.

That's what you want.

Skip the stuff from the supermarket.

Some olive oil again.

Generously.

We're making a whip.

It's a couple tablespoons, you know, use your head and then we're just going to pulse this until it's sort of whipped.

Just so there's no whole chickpeas anymore.

Done... so far, easy.

Now, we'll start to take these onions and move them around in the oil.

They don't need to wilt, right?

You don't need to make them really soft.

You don't need to have them caramelized.

You just want them to take a little bit of the rawness off.

And next, we'll add some halved cherry tomatoes and another pinch of salt.

And we're going to let these just wilt as well.

So this dish is a combination of textures.

You're going to have the creamy chickpeas, sort of cooked veggies, and now we're going to toast some bread so that when you take the chickpeas onto the bread and eat the greens, you'll have sort of the perfect bite.

Some olive oil.

You can either brush the bread or put it in the skillet.

Whatever floats your boat.

And we're just going to take four slices.

I'm using a whole grain baguette, whatever whole grain bread you can find.

Try to stay away from white flour so much if you can.

Now you hear that nice sizzle.

This is exactly what I'm looking for.

And what we have here are tomatoes and onions.

And while tomatoes are fruit, what you're getting here is vitamin C and all sorts of polyphenols.

Onions help to take congestion out of your lungs.

And then we add the star of the show of this dish, which is broccoli rabe, this green, which many, many people boil before they cook, is meant to be delicately bitter.

We want that flavor.

So if you can make yourself not boil it first, bitter is the point.

This is part of a family of veggies known as bitter greens, and they help in Chinese medicine.

So we're combining east and west here philosophy.

It helps with digestion.

It helps your liver to do its job.

What's the job of the liver?

detoxify, you might say.

Well, that's one of its 120 jobs, but its real job is to help your body to digest your macronutrients fat, protein and carbs.

If your liver is not doing a great job or it's fatty, it's harder for you to normalize your weight.

Greens like broccoli rabe help the liver to do its job.

So we are using it in this dish.

Let me turn the bread so it gets nice and crunchy.

Turn my onions.

I wish you could smell this food.

The color of these tomatoes.

It's like eating vegetables is not only wonderful for you, but they're so beautiful.

Okay, so we're going to take our broccoli rabe.

Now, when you buy broccoli rabe you want stems like this that aren't split, right?

And if the little flowers, the broccoli part are yellow buy a different bunch, it'll be unpleasantly bitter.

So we're going to start to cut this and take the stems, which take a few more seconds to cook and put them in first, then we'll chop the rest.

When you cook a green, any kind of a green, any kind of a green, don't chop it until it's just ready to go into the skillet.

Don't do that whole thing.

I think I'll chop all my greens and save them for a week. You lose all your nutrients, right?

Greens are laced through with veins.

Those veins bleed.

Now all the nutrients from the greens, if you leave them here, end up in the cutting board Couple of weeks, cutting board feels great.

You have no energy.

Now, we season with salt Now season Right?

And we're just going to stir these until they wilt.

They don't need to be overcooked.

You don't have to cover them.

Well you can if you want to.

If you're in a hurry, throw a cover and they'll wilt really quick.

But be careful because they could wilt too much and be overcooked while they start to wilt.

We're going to take our chickpeas and pile them into a bowl just like this.

It's a big difference between this dish and hummus.

There's no tahini, there's no garlic.

The chickpeas will be sweet because the greens are spicy.

Take a couple of leaves of fresh basil to just garnish really pretty.

That's going to go there.

Now, we'll take some toasted bread and put it with our other toasted bread, a dish like this.

I'm going to tell you, you can never have too much bread with this dish.

Now we'll wilt down the greens.

It's hot enough they're just getting there.

As soon as your greens turn a darker shade of green and they will down about 20%.

I'm going to say you're done.

Please don't cook them until they're like a dark, black, green.

You've lost all your nutrients.

The flavor will be crazy bitter, and you're not going to like them so much.

These are done.

So now let's do something nice here.

Let's clean the cutting board off so we can plate our greens.

Okay, we're going to take our greens with our tongs and just pile them right in here.

Get all the tomatoes, get all the onions, all of this.

You can scoop it in, you can tongs however you want to do it.

You want a nice mound of greens.

Yeah.

The chickpeas are the protein in this dish.

But the truth is, this dish is all about the greens.

Garnish it with some toasted bread and this is a light lunch like no other.

Now, not everybody can shop like Europeans everyday fresh.

But you can shop better than you do.

Now I'm going to show you how right near my own home.

[gentle music plays] I'm in my local supermarket here in South Philadelphia and I'm going to show you how easy it is to eat well, particularly greens.

CHRISTINA: I'm here with Marina, who's from this local ShopRite, actually.

CHRISTINA: And you own this store?

MARINA: Yep, just this one store.

CHRISTINA: What I've noticed, and I want you to talk about is the changes in the supermarket.

It used to be when I came here looking for organic and natural, it was like off in some dusty corner.

MARINA: Yeah.

CHRISTINA: And now it's everywhere.

There is a big sign.

So how did that change come about for you guys?

MARINA: Well, honestly, I think the change came when we remodeled the store.

MARINA: Our space was a little limited and then we had to kind of work things into the departments themselves.

We started working MARINA: with local farms, so our produce comes, you know, not just from our warehouse, which is great, it comes from farms in New Jersey, right over the bridge.

CHRISTINA: Right.

And do you feel that it like, CHIRSTINA: because its now all integrated, it sells better, do you know what I mean?

CHRISTINA: Like, people aren't looking for it, they just see it MARINA: Yeah, absolutely.

MARINA: I think they notice that the price on organic is not much higher than something CHRISTINA: It's not.

MARINA: ... that's not organic.

CHRISTINA: Thank goodness.

That's changed.

MARINA: Yes, absolutely.

MARINA: I think that was what prevented a lot of people from purchasing organic foods, especially produce was the price.

And now they can compare that.

That is... CHRISTINA: It's right there.

MARINA: Right.

Exactly.

CHRISTINA: And it makes such a difference for our personal health, for the planet.

MARINA: Absolutely.

CHRISTINA: And speaking of produce, can you point me toward the greens?

MARINA: Yeah, we'll head right over here.

[gentle music plays] This is where the magic happens.

Everything you need in your life comes from greens, protein, fiber, minerals, vitamins, all of it.

Man may not be able to live on bread alone, but we can certainly live on greens.

My favorites, while there are tons to choose from, are things like escarole and broccoli rabe and unique things like dandelion, which you can find in season.

Then there's turnip greens, collard greens, everything you can think of.

There's not a flavor profile within greens that you can't find something that you like.

So what shall we make today?

This is actually how I cook.

I look at the greens section and think what looks good to me.

So I'm feeling a kale salad.

So let's head to the kitchen and whip up a kale salad.

That's so easy, so yummy, so wonderful that you will have no excuse not to eat greens.

[gentle music plays] Okay, so here we are.

The no-excuses to-not-eat-well kale salad.

Now you can complicate this however you like, but the basics, down and dirty, of this salad that you can put on the table any day of the week in 5 minutes is the way to go.

This is the kale we just picked up at the supermarket.

It's super fresh and really lovely.

Wash it, don't wash it.

It's up to you.

You want to trim the stems off at the bottom.

If they're dry, you can either tear this into the salad.

I tend to like to chop it, but whatever makes it easier for you to do this, you want to get the kale into bite sized pieces just like this and they're going to go right into a salad bowl.

This is going to get mixed and go right to the table that I'm going to add to it some canned chickpeas.

Everyone's got canned beans in their pantry.

If you don't, you should because they get you out of a lot of tough spots.

Make sure you rinse them really well before you use them so that you don't have that sort of stale tasting water that's in the can.

I tend to want some color in my salad, so I'm going to add some halved cherry tomatoes.

You do not need to do this.

I like the sweetness that's going to help to balance the kale.

So if you have cherry tomatoes lying around, let them go into your salad.

Now we're going to dress it.

Extra virgin olive oil...

Invest in some good oil, whatever your budget will allow.

If you're spending $4 and getting a vat in a big box store, that's not really olive oil.

That's just oil, which is okay, but it's not going to serve your wellness.

Good olive oil gives you polyphenols and all the heart health benefits that we talk about for olive oil.

Now we're going to add some sea salt, just a pinch like that because you really want to season it and it's going to kind of melt the salt into the salad as you do it.

I'm going to add to this some lemon juice.

You can use vinegar, balsamic, red wine.

Lemon juice, I find gives a nice fresh sort of a bright flavor.

It also helps you to digest the oil.

And now we'll just mix this.

You can use tongs, you can use your hands, and you just want to mix this until it's well coated with oil.

So you can see getting your greens doesn't get easier than this.

But for now I'm off to Italy to make a pasta dish with greens that you'll want to make pretty much every day.

[gentle music plays] So now that we have all our greens, we're going to take a lovely green called arugula and arugula, sometimes people call it rocket, is whats known as a bitter green.

And bitter greens help the liver to do its job of digesting your macronutrients better.

So this makes you a happier camper and everyone around you a happier camper as a result.

But that goes in last.

What we're going to do is salt our pasta water generously.

Now, before you all get your pantries in a twist, you salt your pasta water generously so that your pasta tastes like pasta and not like water.

So this is orecchiette.

The orecchiette.

This stands for little ears right?

Because you have this little sort of bend in your pasta and it holds what we put together very easily.

So it's comes from an area of Italy known as Bari, although everyone eats orichette.

So it's going to go into the water.

Make sure your pasta water is boiling.

Give it a stir, and then this is going to cook for about 10 minutes.

But with it goes some potatoes.

And what we've done is just take some regular potatoes and you want to cut them into bite sized pieces, almost the size of the orecchiette.

There.

And if you do them ahead of time, you want to soak your potatoes in cold water so that they don't turn brown because there's nothing wrong with them turning brown.

But it's not very appetizing in your dish to have brown potatoes.

So you want to cut them, put them in water if you're not going to use them right away.

The other thing you can do is cut them and put them right into your pasta water.

So we're going to drain off our potatoes and then these are going to go in right on top of the pasta and they're going to cook in the same time as the pasta.

Now, once you have, if you see here, once you have the potatoes almost coming out of the water, you have enough.

Right.

The thing you don't want to do is drown your pasta and your potatoes in too much water because then they all taste watery and you wonder why the dish isn't fabulous.

Over here, we take a skillet with a generous amount of olive oil.

And the reason it's generous is what's in here has to coat all that pasta and all those potatoes in it.

Go on to a nice high heat, medium high, let's say, and into this is going to go four whole cloves of garlic, just like that.

That's going to give us a nice sort of tender garlic flavor instead of a strong, overpowering, because you have the light bitterness of the arugula, you're going to have sweetness of tomatoes, you've got the nice sweetness of potatoes, you have pasta.

You really don't want to overpower it with tons of garlic.

That's a very I'm going to say, Americanized cooking kind of thing that we don't really do so much in Europe where they're just coarsely chopped some plum tomatoes right into the oil.

And you can see what's missing is a sizzle because the oil is not hot yet, because I want to maintain my flavor of my great olive oil.

So I always start with cold oil.

Now you hear it starting to build.

Now we're making a nice sort of sauce for this and the whole thing is beginning to cook.

This is so simple.

It'll cook.

And the time that the pasta and the potatoes are ready.

So less than 10 minutes.

Well, now, less than 10 minutes.

cauze its been in the water already.

So now we have these going in.

And you don't have to rush here, you know, to get your plum tomatoes in the pan because, well, we've got 10 minutes.

So and if you don't have 10 minutes to cook, you really got to rethink your priorities, cause this dish takes, you know, 10 minutes.

Gonna lower our heat a little bit more.

and it doesn't have to cook long.

The tomatoes don't have to be mushy.

They don't have to make a gravy.

They're just going to be a nice sort of coating to give flavor to the pasta and potatoes and keep an eye on your pasta and potatoes that they don't overcook.

If they overcook out of the pan, it means your flame is too high.

So you want to have like a nice medium heat when you cook pasta.

So it doesn't overcook.

You don't want to cover it.

Now, we take a little bit of salt.

When you season the vegetable part of this dish, you want to season really lightly because what's happening is this is going to have enough salty flavor for everything.

And if you start to really salt your tomatoes and start to really salt this part of the dish, you're going to end up with a dish that's too salty.

So now these are going to sort of simmer in the olive oil in the same amount of time it takes to finish cooking our pasta.

And then we'll put the dish together and it'll be exquisite.

So I'm thinking this dish has some nice flavors, but maybe let's spice things up just a little bit with some Italian red pepper, which will give us a nice spicy taste, but very smooth.

I know a lot of people like to add this at the table, but for me, I like to add it while it's cooking.

I think that the flavor becomes smoother and when you add it at the table, it's sort of just hot for the sake of hot.

So for me I'm much bigger on, uh adding it when it's cooking.

So now I'm going to wilt some arugula.

This is baby arugula and I'm wilting it so that the the pasta goes on top and it has this nice texture.

But in the bowl where the pasta will be is some raw baby arugula.

So now we'll have both textures happening and you don't have to do that.

I know you're thinking, oh, my goodness, she's complicating this simple dish. I'm really not.

I'm just giving you some options to give yourself some more freshness, some more lightness to the dish, right?

That kind of thing.

So now we're going to go directly from the pasta pot into the skillet, Hopefully.

You're going to take your orecchiette and your potatoes.

I could use a colander, but I'm not going to.

And you're thinking, why wouldn't she make her life easier?

Because what I want to do is take some of this starchy pasta water into the dish, into the pan, which is going to help the tomatoes to become more like a gravy, more like a sauce.

So you just keep piling on here in the orecchiette, they all hold a tiny bit of water as well.

So you have this great sort of starchy thing happening that gives you a beautiful, silky sauce around your pasta and your potatoes.

This is a different version of pasta and potatoes that you may have seen other places.

This one's a little bit fresher, doesn't cook quite as long.

It's not quite as heavy as I have a piled skillet, but it's not as heavy when you eat it.

Okay, so that all goes in.

And we then come over here to our board.

We're going to give this a stir and pull the tomatoes and the arugula up around the pasta.

And you see you have that nice shine from the olive oil, which is really beautiful.

Turn off your heat and then starting with a few ladles so that you can manage it, you start going on top of your fresh arugula and then you continue to just pile this in and you have fresh and cooked, raw and wilted, and you pull together a dish that is satisfying but not heavy, fresh, but cooked.

And there you have one of the greatest Italian dishes that I have ever made in my life.

I love this dish because it's got pasta, potatoes, arugula, tomatoes, olive oil.

What more could a girl ask?

So what are you waiting for?

Let'sget back to the cutting board and I'll see you next time on Christina Cooks: the Macroterranean way.

Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties: Sweetness, the way Mother Nature intended.

And by Jonathans Spoons individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding provided by: You can find today's recipes and learn more by visiting our website at ChristinaCooks.com, and by following @ChristinaCooks on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Learn how to add delicious plant-based dishes to your daily diet with the companion cookbook VegEdibles, featuring more than 120 easy-to-make recipes.

To order your copy for $29.95 pl handling, call 800-266-5815 Or visit ChristinaCooks.com.

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