Christina Cooks: Back to the Cutting Board

I've spent my career straddling two worlds, Mediterranean cooking and macrobiotics with a dusting of Chinese medicine.

And one day it hit me: They're both about wellness and great food, so, duh, let's make a marriage.

The result is a delicious, unique, and super smart way to eat.

I call it the The Macroterranean Way.

I'll show you what I mean today on Christina Cooks.

(theme music) (announcer) 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.

Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding is also 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 it all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will it all be amazing?

Yeah.

So, for many, many years, I've kind of straddled the worlds of macrobiotics and Mediterranean cooking.

And so I thought, "Let's marry the two and come up with my own little sort of name for it."

So I called it Macroterranean eating, which is the wisdom of Eastern thinking, macrobiotics, combined with the delicious, sexy food of the Mediterranean and their wisdom too.

So it's like all comes together to create a win, win, win, win, win for everybody who decides to eat this way.

And if you want to feel well, I highly recommend it.

So the first thing we're gonna make today is an appetizer sort of, or a light dish of some kind, right?

So, it's called a crostini.

Crostini means toasted bread.

And the topping is agridolce onions with black kale.

Agridolce means sweet and sour.

So we're gonna start with our bread.

What we're gonna do is just lightly oil a grill pan.

And for once, you're gonna see me light the grill pan with the olive oil in it, which I normally don't do, but we're gonna do that to warm it up.

And then we're gonna take and drizzle and then brush some oil onto some whole grain bread.

This is just a light drizzle.

What we're trying to do is create a crusty, sort of rich texture to our bread.

And I really only do this on one side.

Some people do both sides, but I don't.

And use whole grain bread because it's healthier for you.

It has fiber and this has seeds and nuts, so it's better for digestion.

All right, so now we're gonna create the agridolce onions, and I'm gonna use shallots because they're really, really sweet, but you can use whatever you want.

I happen to be personally, deeply, and passionately in love with shallots.

And shallots are the smaller-- smaller than an onion, they're red in color, they're super sweet.

They're a little bit challenging to peel for people, so, many people struggle with them.

I don't, I love them.

They're worth the work.

To me, slicing them is very, very zen.

So you're gonna put a few of those in.

Maybe a few more.

'Cause you wanna get them in the pan before your oil gets too hot.

So they go in.

Gonna add a pinch of salt... ...to begin to sweeten them up.

And then, because I can, we're gonna add a touch of hot spice.

Just a touch.

Okay.

Then we're gonna start to move these around as the sizzle builds.

Remember, with extra-virgin olive oil, really good olive oil, you want to let your sizzle build so that you have the flavor of olive oil at, like, the back.

You know, when you taste it, you go, "Ooh, there's that olive oil hit."

If you heat your olive oil before you put your onions or your garlic or whatever your first ingredient is, you're not gonna get that lovely hit of olive oil at the back.

And if you're gonna spend 20 bucks a bottle, which I recommend you do, skip the cheap t-shirts and buy good olive oil.

Make your investment in your health.

You're gonna want that flavor.

Meanwhile, the bread's starting to sizzle.

That's good.

So then the next thing to go in is golden raisins.

You can use regular ones, but I really like golden raisins, like I really like golden raisins.

They're sweeter.

And aesthetically, they're much more beautiful in this dish, and that's a very big part of eating.

So they've been soaked for about 15 minutes to kind of pull some of the sugar out.

(sizzling) So now that the sizzle has built... (sizzling) ...we're gonna quickly turn the bread so it's nice and toasty.

Look how perfect that is.

You want nice dark edges.

(exclaims in delight) I love bread.

Don't you love bread?

I mean, I love bread.

Okay, now we're gonna add some balsamic vinegar, which is gonna give us our sort of sweet and sour.

(sizzling) And that's gonna cook almost to a syrup.

And it's gonna do it quickly.

So then we're gonna take a few leaves of kale.

This is called dinosaur, black, or lacinato kale.

And we're gonna just ribbon it.

When you cook with kale, try not to pull the stems out.

I know that's a very popular thing to pull the stems out, but the stems are sort of the nervous system of the kale where all the nutrients from the soil traveled up to get to all the little veins in the leaves, so it's kind of like where the most concentrated nutrients in the kale are.

So maybe we don't want to throw that away, you know what I'm saying?

If they're big, thick stems, then you could cut them out and cook them separately, but what you don't want to do is compost 'em, 'cause your compost pile will feel great, you not so much.

You want to cook this just until the kale turns a deeper green and starts to wilt a little bit.

Let's not overcook this.

This--this is perfection.

One more quick season of salt.

Stir it in.

You can add some cracked black pepper if you like, but I used a little hot spice, so I won't.

And then... Take our bread.

I know it's good luck to do three.

And since I'm Italian, and Irish, two of the most superstitious people on the planet, we're gonna use three.

And then you're just gonna pile this on top of each piece of bread.

Make sure you get raisins and shallots and kale on each one.

And they're kind of a little messy and abundant and beautiful.

And the raisins have caramelized just a little bit under the balsamic vinegar.

And you have the very first dish in your new Macroterranean way of cooking.

-Can a vegetable be a fruit?

-A fruit can be a vegetable.

What?

It can be both?

What happens if you swallow the seeds?

(unintelligible) -I don't get it.

-I am so confused.

We get a ton of letters and emails in our office asking about how to get started with being well, how to begin to live a healthier lifestyle.

And usually, I'm pretty good at answering all those questions.

But every now and then, I like to bring an expert in who can really give you that sort of concise, on-the-money answer that'll get your feet on the path to wellness.

So today I invited my friend, Dr. Vicki Bralow, who runs a boutique medical practice in Philadelphia, internal family medicine.

And I've invited you in today to talk to us about steps people can take, like beginner steps, to get their feet on the path to wellness.

Like what can they do, if I was sitting front of you and I knew nothing about it, what would you tell me to do as my first three things that I should do?

Okay, so, the first three things, I guess, that you should do with getting yourself on a path to better wellness would be looking at the foods that you eat.

-Okay.

-Being more active.

-Right.

-And also keeping your weight -normal, all right?

-Okay.

Those are really the three biggies.

And it all kind of centers down to the kitchen and understanding your food, what you're eating, what's healthy, what's not healthy.

If people would really stick to a diet that doesn't have a lot of processed food, that's mostly plant-based and is low in sugar, they're going to, you know, find that they're in better health.

-Great.

-And the problem with that is that that's hard to do if you don't know how to cook.

-Right.

-So I suggest that people -take cooking classes.

-Right.

Read cookbooks, I tell people, "Go online, look for recipes."

-Watch videos.

-Watch videos.

-Right.

-Watch your show.

And as somebody that doesn't really cook, it's a big deal.

You should understand how to take an eggplant and make it taste really good in 10 minutes, which you can do, right, as you know.

And, you know, ordering out is going to take at least 30 minutes, and it's gonna come back and it's not gonna be as healthy, anywhere near as healthy, as something that you made yourself.

(Christina) Right, so, now let's move to activity.

How--like walk.

Go to the gym.

Like what--like what's their first step?

(Vicki) Okay, so the first step is, if they don't do any activity, which is usually the people that I am speaking with, okay, they're really, you know, their activity is, "Well, I walk to work, which is five blocks away, and back."

And that does--that counts but not really, you know.

So, we talk about-- or I talk about doing at least 30 minutes of activity a few times of week where you get your heart rate up and you sweat.

-Great.

-It can still be the walk.

You can walk.

In fact, I encourage people to walk.

(Christina) Yeah, you can walk and break a sweat.

(Vicki) You can walk and break a sweat, so make sure you're walking and breaking a sweat, which means that you must be doing that walking on the way home from work and not going to work unless you want to arrive to work sweating.

Exactly, right?

Which is fine too, you know.

So take a little detour and make sure you wear a backpack as your new-- You know, it's nice to be able to incorporate activity into your everyday life rather than having to carve out time for it, which will come eventually as you start to get more fit.

Then you're gonna start saying, "I think I'll take that class," you know, and--you know, and you just start becoming more active.

So if you do nothing else, learn to cook and start to walk and your feet will be on the path to wellness and you'll be inspired.

-Thanks, Vicki.

-Anytime.

So now we're gonna make a classic Sicilian dish.

And this is a favorite in our house, so I make this dish all the time.

It's sweet and savory.

And if you'll notice, yet again there's that sweet and savory thing, which seems to be a very big Sicilian flavor combination.

So we're gonna need some extra-virgin olive oil.

I'm gonna be abundant here because this is gonna create my sort of pasta sauce, if you will.

I'm gonna drop in some pine nuts and start to let them toast, and some golden raisins.

Here we go with the golden raisins again.

It's the Arabic influence in Sicilian cooking that gives us that wonderful combination of golden raisins and nuts in so much of the cooking.

We're gonna let that start to sizzle.

And in this pan I'm cooking some orecchiette, which we'll get to.

The next thing to go into this dish, once you have the two in there, you're gonna smash some garlic.

(thumps garlic) And then just run your knife along it to create what they call smashed garlic.

(chopping) The smaller your garlic pieces, the more intense the flavor.

So, since I've got sweet raisins and rich pine nuts, I think I want intense garlic flavor.

So we're gonna put that in.

It's two whole cloves, nice big cloves.

Don't be shy with your garlic.

Clean the board.

Okay.

Now we're gonna take cauliflower.

And to cut cauliflower, we're gonna simply take the stem off and remove the leaves.

If your leaves are nice and green like this, save them and put them in things like soups or stews.

It is part of the cauliflower, right?

Its job is to cover the cauliflower so the sunlight doesn't turn it green.

So the leaves are loaded with chlorophyll, so you kind of want to save those in your-- in your, like, scrap bowl, so that you can cook it later, put it into a soup or a stew.

If they're brown, they'll be bitter, so you have to kind of pick your battles.

We're gonna use about four florets.

That should be good.

Now we're gonna take the florets and just coarsely chop them into small pieces.

You can hand break them, but I find that I can get a more even size if I'm doing it with a knife.

And I'm sure there are people out there who will say I'm doing it completely, entirely wrong and that I should break the little florets.

And to you I say, as you like.

This is how I like to do it.

And in my kitchen, I kind of do things the way I like.

So they go on top.

And the cauliflower's just gonna cook until it's tender.

You don't want to cook it until it's dead, right?

We just want it to be tender.

Wipe the board off.

You always want to clean your board so that you don't have chaos happening while you're working.

Now we're gonna add to this a little bit of white wine.

If you don't want to use white wine, you can use water, you can use broth, but white wine is gonna give it a nice sweetness.

Gonna add a generous pinch of salt to start the sweetening process.

And because it's Sicilian cooking, a touch of hot spice.

We're gonna give this a stir.

And we're gonna bring this to a high rolling boil so that the cauliflower becomes tender.

You can cover it, but it's not necessary to cover it.

You want it to cook just until it's tender.

Now, here I have cooking orecchiette.

Orecchiette means little ears, and this pasta is orecchiette.

And so you can see there's little ridges in it when you're looking at it.

In Bari, B-A-R-I Bari, in Puglia, which is where this pasta's from originally, women still sit in the street in alleys and make orecchiette by hand with either a butter knife or their finger.

And they're amazing.

They look just like this.

They're uniform and perfect and beautiful.

And you watch chefs go up and down the street, saying, "No, no, no, I want Maria's orecchiette.

No, I want Michelle's orecchiette.

No, I want this one," because they like the way they're done.

They do whole grain, farro flour, regular.

But orecchiette is designed for a sauce like this where there's lots of veggies, where it's not real thick, and so the little ears catch the pine nuts and the raisins and the reduced wine to create the flavor that you want.

So the cauliflower's almost ready.

It's--it's tender, the pasta's almost ready.

So now we're gonna take some fresh parsley... ...and a little bit of fresh basil.

That's gonna be the garnish on the dish.

And remember, when you cut your herbs, if they're planted, to cut down by a joint so that it'll regrow and not go to seed.

And we're just gonna give this a coarse chop, pull it all together.

(chopping) You can use a mezzaluna for this, which is the half-moon knife, or you can use your regular knife.

And you just keep running your knife through it like this.

(chopping) It goes right on top of our cooking cauliflower and raisins and pine nuts.

And now, in typical fashion... ...we take our pasta right from the pot, you want that little bit of starch to pull this dish together.

It's such a yummy, wonderful, satisfying, richly flavored...

In case you are remotely unclear, I love this dish.

Now we'll stir it all together.

You get the nice green.

It's a really--it's sort of just a very mild colored dish, but it makes up for flavor what it lacks in color.

And this goes right into our serving bowl.

And I'm not really sure what the rest of you are having, but I know what I'm having for lunch.

We get a lot of emails in our office with questions, so I thought, "Let's answer a few."

This one's from Sarah in Philadelphia, who's asking me, huh, why her tomato sauce, actually, Sarah, it's gravy, tastes acidic.

Tomatoes are acidic by their nature.

They contain an alkaloid called solanine.

And if you don't cook them enough with something that sucks out the acid, then your tomato gravy, no matter how long you cook it, will have a little bit of an acidic aftertaste.

A lot of people add sugar.

Ew, don't do that.

Some people add wine, which is nice.

But the best thing to do to make your tomato gravy have a smoother finish is to put a whole carrot in while it's cooking.

And then when the gravy's done, you take the carrot out.

And if you were to taste that carrot, it would be like you soaked it in vinegar, but don't, trust me.

Then just compost the carrot, and you will have perfect tomato gravy every time.

So this next dish that we're gonna make is from Sardinia, and Sardinia, if you don't know, is one of what are known as the Blue Zones, which are areas of the world where because of the way people live and eat, live really long, healthy lives, like still practice surgery at 96, can still, you know, put up fences by hand at 100.

So you might want to pay attention to what's going on in Sardinia.

So this is a Sardinian pasta called fregola, and fregola is sort of like a couscous, but it's got more whole grain flours so it's a little healthier.

And it cooks for like eight or nine minutes.

We're gonna make a salad with it.

And when you cook it, you want to cook it and let it cool on a baking sheet like this, not with a lot of overlap, so that it doesn't stick together, 'cause it is starchy, right?

So then we're gonna take a little extra-virgin olive oil and we're gonna make the rest of the salad now that we have the fregola.

You don't need a lot of oil here, maybe about a tablespoon, although a Spanish study said people who eat three or four tablespoons of oil a day are the healthiest.

And right in goes some finely diced red onion.

Now, you do need knife skills for this recipe, because the fregola is tiny, so your dice has to be tiny so it all kind of fits together and looks like it matches.

We're gonna add a little bit of salt.

Tiny bit of hot spice, because in Sardinia, if your food's not spicy it's not considered food.

And in my house, it's exactly the same.

We're gonna give that a quick stir and let the onions start to sweat while we get the garlic ready.

A lot of times in cooking, I'll start the onion and then add the garlic because you don't run the risk of it burning if your flame is high.

And in this recipe, I'm just gonna slice the garlic, not necessarily smash it, because I don't need a really strong garlic flavor, just a hint.

So that goes in, along with the ever-popular and wonderfully expensive but so worth it pine nuts.

And now our sizzle has built and now the flavors start to develop.

I wish you could smell this.

I know you hear this from TV chefs all the time, but I wish you could smell this.

The pine nuts and the garlic and the--oh!

Oh!

And the onion.

Now we're gonna add some finely diced zucchini.

I find that in Southern Italy, one of the jokes in our house is, all they seem to have is eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes, and they seem to make the most wonderful dishes in all of Italy.

And Sardinia's no exception.

So we're just gonna cook this until sort of the rawness is off the zucchini.

(sizzling) No, little more pinch of salt.

And then, while this starts to reduce down and sort of simmer a bit, we want to give it the finish, if you will, of like a Parmigiano kind of flavor.

So we're gonna take a little bit of water... ...and then we're gonna dissolve into that water... ...a little bit of white miso, which is gonna give us a little finish of salt but really taste as though we finished the dish with Parmigiano.

And you want to dissolve the miso in water just so that it doesn't, you know, turn lumpy and you have this big, lumpy, salty mess.

So you just dissolve it a little bit.

You can use your finger or a spoon, whatever you choose.

And what doesn't get dissolved, you'll dissolve in the pan as you stir it.

Turn your heat down to low.

This is one of those times where if the miso boils a little, you're not really using it for digestion here, you're using it for flavor.

And so now that's gonna simmer.

We're gonna take our fregola, using your best kitchen tools, which would be your hands, and scoop it, it's cooled, of course, please don't do this while the fregola's hot or you'll regret it and send me a nasty email that says you got burnt.

So in goes the fregola.

And, yes, you'll have escapees.

It's okay.

Let it wander around the kitchen.

And then we're gonna take our finished sauted veg, put it right on top, let the liquid that's in there be part of the dish.

Then we'll take some fresh basil.

(snipping basil) Give it a quick chop.

You just need a touch.

This is a very sort of powerfully flavored dish that's mild at the same time.

(chopping) Give it a nice, quick chop.

Stir it in.

Mix this until all of the sort of juicy bits of the zucchini and the onions and the pine nuts are mixed well through the fregola, and you end up with this lovely side dish or main course, light lunch, light dinner, snack.

It's the greatest pasta dish on the planet, and it comes to us from Sardinia.

So what are you waiting for?

Let's get back to the cutting board, and I'll see you next time on Christina Cooks, the Macroterranean Way.

(theme music) (announcer) 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.

Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding is also provided by: You can find today's recipes and learn more by visiting our website at: And by following Christina on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The companion cookbook, "The Macroterranean Way," combines the Mediterranean diet with the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine, allowing us to understand how food affects us so we can cook deliciously while creating the wellness we want.

To order your copy for $14.95 plus handling, call: Add "Back to the Cutting Board" and Christina's iconic "Cooking the Whole Foods Way," and get all three books for $49.95 plus handling.

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