Christina Cooks: Back to the Cutting Board

Or you're not.

And by tough I don't mean mean, I mean resilient tough.

Come from deep in your gut tough.

Your gut.

Remember that?

Taking care of digestion will have you taking care of business.

Let me show just how gutsy you can be as we go Back to the Cutting Board 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.

Additional funding is also provided by Old Yankee Cutting Boards, designed for durability and custom crafted by hand with Yankee pride and craftsmanship.

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 they all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will they all be delicious?

You bet.

So, let's talk about our guts, shall we?

I mean, not our guts, but our actual digestive tract where we compost our food, shall we say.

There are so many prescriptions and remedies and whatever to help with digestion that I gotta wonder what's goin' on.

Do you know if you just ate the right food, you'd probably not need all of that stuff?

Prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics.

Give me a break.

If you ate food that was appropriate for human digestion, you'd be all right.

So that's what we're gonna talk about today.

I mean, think about all of the clichs that are out there.

If somebody's really brave, what do we call them?

Gutsy.

If somebody's kind of a wuss, we go, "Wow, what a gutless wonder."

Your strength, your body's ability to have fortitude, comes from your digestion because that determines the quality of blood that nourishes your organs, that nourishes your cells, and makes you able to stand up straight, fight for what you believe in, and be strong.

So--and it's delicious.

So now, we're gonna make a dish that has root vegetables as the base, but we're gonna disguise them as a cake so that people will eat them.

So root veggies, like carrots, parsnips, turnips, are designed by nature to nourish the lower part of the body, and that's kind of esoteric and energetic.

But really what they are is high in fiber and loaded with minerals that the body needs to digest well.

So you can look at that esoterically, that they make you grounded, or you can look at it scientifically, they have fiber.

Your choice.

So what we're gonna do is take some extra-virgin olive oil.

Into a skillet that can go into the oven.

So, it can't have any plastic handles.

It's gotta be like a cast-iron skillet.

Then we're gonna take some carrots.

And the carrots are gonna lay in the skillet in sort of decorative pattern.

Because this is gonna be the top of the cake.

Stick with me, you'll get it.

So you just put the carrots in.

And the carrots have to be sort of thickly sliced, I'll show you on the parsnips.

So this is a parsnip.

It's not a pale carrot, it's actually a parsnip.

And parsnips are a little sweeter than carrots, a little more mild, but they do the same job.

And we're gonna take it and we're gonna slice it into thick slices like this.

Because they can't be too thin and they can't be too thick because you need them to cook and get soft.

So now we lay the parsnips in with the carrots.

And depending on what's the bigger one, you know, it'll kind of like take over the pan in a different way.

You just make a pattern that you like, okay?

And then we're gonna turn this on.

And we're gonna add a little bit of brown rice syrup.

And that's gonna help to create a glaze over the veggies.

Like that.

Not much, we don't want this to be sweet.

The veggies are already sweet.

We just want it to kind of do its thing.

And then a little bit of salt to start the cooking.

This will also make the vegetables sweet.

It's all about sweet.

If your food's not sweet, meaning sweet potato sweet, then your digestion can't relax and do its job.

So now we make the cake part.

And for that, we need about two to two-and-a-half cups of whole wheat pastry flour or sprouted flour depending on the size of your skillet.

If it's an average, like a 10-inch, about two-and-a-half cups.

Carefully measured.

And then a teaspoon of baking powder.

Two, because you want one for each cup.

And one teaspoon of baking soda.

You need both because they have to sort of boost the rising.

Some salt to make it sweet.

Then we'll add some black sesame seeds for texture.

Some dried basil.

Which if you have a lot of basil in garden, what you want to do is dry it so that you have your own dried basil that actually still tastes and smells, you know, like basil instead of the stuff you buy in a container.

So grow some basil even on a windowsill and dry it yourself.

Then we'll take some rosemary.

You can use dried.

I really don't care for it, so I use fresh usually.

But what you want to do is mince it so that as the cake bakes you don't develop little sticks in your cake.

And this is gonna give it a nice sort of savory, earthy flavor.

Now you can see that we're kind of-- like a nice sort of bubblings happening here and the parsnip and carrots are glazing.

So now we're gonna take an orange and zest some of the zest into here and then some juice.

And I'm doing this later as the veggies are cooking because I don't want the orange juice to turn bitter, right, so I'm doing it now.

So once you get the zest of, I don't know, three-quarters of the orange, as much as you want, it doesn't matter.

Do the whole thing, do half.

If you get bored, stop.

Then we're gonna take and split the orange in half.

Squeeze the juice in.

(sizzling) Then, we're gonna add the water to our cake.

And you're gonna add water to just make a cake batter.

And don't mix till your heart's content.

Mix until you have a cake batter and then stop.

If you keep mixing because it's fun, which it is, if you keep mixing till it's fun, what happens is you will activate the gluten far too much and your cake will be tough.

Once you have a nice sort of smooth cake batter like this, you take it, turn the heat off, pour it right into the center.

Get all your batter out.

So you have a savory cake and you have a sweet topping.

But sort of savory-sweet at the same time.

Now this is gonna go into the oven at about 350 for 30 to 35 minutes.

(bright music) So, after 30 minutes, it's moderately cooled.

You don't want it to be totally cooled, otherwise it won't come out of the pan.

So, you run your knife around it, and it should feel like it's loosened.

Then, you're gonna flip.

You're gonna put a plate over it, and you're gonna flip the pan and create like an upside down cake.

And as we say in Italian, "speriamo," "we hope."

And you should feel it fall right out of the pan.

Oh, man.

I love it when a plan comes together.

So, here's our carrot and parsnip tatin.

It's a lovely side dish to any meal that you're making.

-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 must get a million letters, emails, and phone calls to the office about various things that people are confused about when they try to change to a path of healthy eating.

So I thought, rather than answer all those emails, which I try to do, I thought I'd bring some people on who actually have questions and see if we can't clear a few things up.

So I'm here today with Steve Levy, who's a former NBC anchor, sportscaster, talk show host, everything but weather girl, maybe, I don't know, and-- -I knew a couple.

-I'm sure you did.

(laughing) -Professionally.

-Of course.

Any other way?

So what would you like to talk about today?

Well, I confuse easily, as you know, so prebiotic, probiotic-- is one before and after?

(Christina) Well, that's what it sounds like.

(Steve) Yeah.

And fermented food sounds like we're eating something that's already gone bad.

(Christina) All right, well, no.

So, let's start with "pre."

Prebiotics are actually a supplement created by fibers that stimulate the intestines to make bacteria and enzymes you need to digest.

So prebiotics are often given to children when their immune system is still forming.

I don't know that it's necessary, and we'll get to that.

Probiotics are when you need to make that friendly bacteria to help you digest.

Fermented foods do naturally what probiotics do from a supplemental standpoint, so things that are live pickles, live sauerkraut, meaning you buy it in a refrigerator.

Miso, soy sauce, all of those are fermented foods, and so fermented foods help to nourish your intestines, to produce the enzymes and bacteria you need to digest well.

So, for me, the ultimate probiotic is miso.

So like making a miso soup or eating a live pickle, and the supplements we use when someone's digestion is so poor that they need a kick-start, and then they can get off those and move to natural probiotics and fermented foods.

So it's not stuff that went bad.

It's actually good bacteria.

It sounds like cabbage, then, is the number one all-time perfect food.

It actually is.

Fermented or cooked, it actually is the perfect food.

Are we good?

-Yeah.

-Okay, so let's try not to be confused about pre- and probiotics, eat some miso soup, and you'll be all set.

So one of the things that's really, really good for digestion is a combination of root vegetables and vegetables that are what we call ground veggies, like Brussels sprouts, squash.

They kind of lay on the ground, and they nourish spleen, pancreas, and stomach, and spleen, pancreas, and stomach support the function of digestion.

So when you combine those veggies, you get the benefit of both.

And what we're gonna do is make a warm salad out of root veggies and ground veggies to make it sweet and delicious and with a vinaigrette that's kind of sweet and tart so that you bring out the sweetness of the veggies, which relaxes the middle body and allows you to digest.

When you're stressed, you can't really digest.

In Italian culture, we do this a lot.

You know, it gets me right here!

That's because you're tight in the middle body.

If you eat a salad like this, he'll still get you, but you won't tighten up.

Do you know what I'm saying?

All right, so we are going to take shallots, you may use onions.

Shallots are just a little sweeter and lovelier and I love shallots, but if you don't want to use shallots, just use onions.

They're just sweeter, and when something is sweeter, it's gonna do the job that we want a little more effectively than the vegetable that's not sweet.

And we're just going to cut it into chunks.

It's no big deal.

This is not a heavy skill dish in terms of, you know, I have to know how to cut things.

So we're gonna take-- these are rainbow carrots, meaning that they are three different colors.

They're orange as a typical carrot, they're purple, which has more magnesium, and then we have yellow.

So when you use carrots-- and you don't have to use rainbow carrots, they just look really nice.

If you can't find them, use something else, just use carrots.

And so we're gonna take these and make big chunks, 'cause this is going into the oven.

And this is a really nice salad.

You can enjoy it warm or even chilled.

And then the ground veggie that's gonna go in is Brussels sprouts.

Now, before you go running away from the TV screen because you hate Brussels sprouts, what are you, five?

Brussels sprouts are a cruciferous veggie, so they're not only delicious and nourish spleen and pancreas, but they're also cruciferous, meaning they have cancer-fighting properties, so hike up your skirt and eat Brussels sprouts.

And they're gonna be really sweet.

We're gonna dress them, we're not just gonna boil them or make them too mushy.

They're gonna be delicious.

You have to trust me on that one.

Okay.

If you don't like Brussels sprouts...

If you don't like Brussels sprouts, if you don't like Brussels sprouts, make another dish.

That simple.

No options here, sorry.

Okay, so we'll put some Brussels sprouts in, call that done.

Now we'll add some daikon.

Daikon is a long white radish, and it tastes like a red radish, and this one's a really big one.

So what we're gonna do is just cut a piece off the side, because you don't need a lot of daikon in this dish.

You just want a few spears, because it has that peppery flavor.

It's gonna make the carrots taste sweeter, plus it's gonna help you digest the dish.

Just cut it into big chunks, like I said.

This is not a big skill dish.

You don't need the knife skills of, you know, a chef.

Then we have some celery, and celery's gonna cook partly soft, but also be a little bit crunchy still to give a nice texture to the dish.

Now, we're gonna dress it.

Take some extra virgin olive oil.

Just a little, 'cause we're also making a dressing.

A little bit of soy sauce.

You may use salt if you don't want to use soy sauce.

Soy sauce just gives you a nice umami.

And a little bit of brown rice syrup, which gives us a little bit of added sweetness.

It's a glucose-based sweetener, it's fermented, it's not an insulin trigger, it makes your body happy.

It doesn't make you crave baked potatoes and macaroni and cheese.

It's a win-win.

Then we're gonna toss this just to coat the veggies, and you want to make sure you don't overdress them, because we are gonna make a vinaigrette to toss with them when they're done, so you don't need the vegetables to be overly dressed.

It's terrible when you're overdressed, don't you think?

Okay.

So they're gonna go into the baking pan.

You ever show up at an event where you were overdressed?

Well, don't do it to your salad either.

Okay, then we're gonna make them nice and even so they bake evenly.

It's okay if there's some overlap, I don't need them to brown, just get tender.

Then we're gonna make the vinaigrette.

And for the vinaigrette, we have some fresh ginger that we're gonna grate on a microplane.

You can also grate it on a ginger grater.

You can't use a box grater, though, because it won't be fine enough.

And you can just let the pulp fall in to give you a light ginger flavor or--it's a nice workout, too, don't you think?

Upper body, arms are working out, shoulders.

You can take the little bit of flesh off here, squeeze it a little bit and get some ginger juice.

But I kinda like just the pulp.

I have to be honest, I'm not a huge ginger fan, so I kind of like it to be more mild.

Then we're gonna take my favorite kitchen trick in the world, a frozen lemon.

I have lemons in my freezer all the time.

And we're gonna squeeze that-- well, we're not gonna squeeze anything.

You take the lemon, see this right here?

See how we've gone into the pith, right into the meat of the lemon?

Just grate it.

You don't have to squeeze, you don't have to grate.

After you've done-- you know how you zest a lemon and it's sitting around in your fridge with nothing to do?

Keep 'em in the freezer.

Two things happen: your lemons don't go bad and you always have lemon juice.

Then we're gonna add some extra virgin olive oil to finish the dressing off, just a touch as your base.

Then some toasted sesame oil.

I don't really cook with toasted sesame oil.

I like to use it as a finish oil instead.

Some red wine vinegar.

Some brown rice vinegar.

I want a nice tart dressing here.

So it's gonna be sort of sharp, because the vegetables are so sweet.

And then we're gonna whisk this.

And when the vegetables are done in the oven, they're gonna bake at 350 for about 35 minutes, cool them ever so slightly, and then top them with the vinaigrette.

(theme music) There's no way we can have a show about your gut and not talk about the greatest probiotic on the planet.

Yes, we all take probiotics, but did you know you can just get them in your diet so easily?

This is miso.

Miso is a gift to us from the Japanese that contain soy beans, a grain, and rice, and then it's fermented until it turns into a paste.

This one is a barley miso, you can also get brown rice, and this one's the longest aged.

The longer it's aged, the more friendly bacteria and enzymes that become active.

This is a white miso.

It tastes like Parmigiano, although it has the same enzymes and bacteria as barley miso.

It's more of a sweeter, saltier flavor.

And this miso is chickpea leek.

For those of us who are sensitive to wheat and sensitive to soy, there's still an option for miso for you, so probiotics for everybody.

Okay, so our vegetable salad has come out of the oven and we're gonna quickly dress it.

And it does not look like a lot of dressing because, here's a heads-up, it isn't.

Because there's already some oil on here, so you just want to give the salad a little bit more flavor.

And the dish is hot, so you want to, you know, pay attention, and you just toss it to coat.

And then you can either serve this at room temperature or even chilled.

You can put it on a bed of arugula, serve it just as it is.

It's a really great way to get good, hearty vegetables into people.

Now, we're gonna make my favorite dish in the world.

It's called kimpira, which means "golden pieces."

And we take some avocado oil, because avocado's a high heat oil, but it doesn't have any flavor, and this has soy sauce as the seasoning and hot pepper, and I don't really like olive oil and hot pepper in soy sauce, but if you like it, go ahead and use it.

Olive oil's a high heat oil, but I really prefer something more mild flavored for this dish.

This is a Japanese dish, and it's just got everything you could possibly want.

We're gonna start with onions.

A little soy sauce, we're gonna season this dish as we go along.

It's meant to be spicy, salty, and a little bit oily.

So it's just perfection.

Every bite is a perfect bite.

Now we're gonna add some carrots, and to this, we'll add some hot spice.

Now, there's people who like hot spice and there's people who don't like hot spice.

This dish is meant to be spicy.

It stimulates circulation, you've got carrots for digestion.

This dish is blood-purifying, it's amazing.

But you gotta buckle down and make it hot.

You should be able to smell it, how hot it is, and not quite be able to catch your breath.

Then you know it's hot enough.

So we're gonna let that sweat while we get the rest of the veg ready.

We're gonna take some ginger and cut it into little matchstick pieces.

In case there's not enough heat, we can add some more.

(sizzling) And the matchsticks, this whole dish is in matchstick pieces, julienne, so you want to keep everything consistent so the dish cooks evenly.

Give that a little stir.

Smells amazing!

This is a burdock, and burdock comes from the thistle plant and is actually the root that grows into the ground.

And if you've walked through the forest and come out with bur on your pants, you know the little burs?

You've walked through burdock.

Nothing grows around it for four feet.

It pulls all the minerals from the soil that it can possibly take, is the highest vegetable in folic acid, and is a blood purifier.

This gives you everything.

Strength, focus, pure blood, yeah.

It tastes like a potato.

It never really gets super soft.

No matter how long you cook it, it's always sort of al dente.

We're gonna cut it into fine matchstick pieces so it cooks quickly.

It's a cold weather veggie.

You don't often find it in the summer months, because it's really heat-producing, and it can make you feel uncomfortable in hot weather.

A little more soy sauce.

So we've got roots for digestion, ginger for circulation, hot spice for circulation, and now we add the greatest anti-inflammatory of all time, simple, humble green cabbage.

And we're gonna shred it so it's sort of like cabbage matchsticks.

And what you want to do is turn the cabbage every so often so that the matchstick pieces of the cabbage are not too long.

You don't want somebody dribbling cabbage down their chin.

And cabbage is like the loaves and fishes of veggies.

No matter how much you put in a dish, it's like a lot.

So the cabbage goes in, that's our final thing.

And then we season it with soy sauce to its finish.

Now, my Japanese teacher, who taught me how to make this dish, it was so salty, so oily, so spicy that I could hardly eat it, but I kind of eased up a little bit, but you want to cook it just until the cabbage wilts.

You want the dish to have texture.

You don't want it to be sort of mushy.

So that's done.

As soon as your cabbage wilts a little bit.

So now we'll take it and plate this dish.

(mellow music) It smells so spicy and good.

I can't even believe it!

So what are you waiting for?

Let's get back to the cutting board, and I'll see you next time 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.

Additional funding is also provided by Old Yankee Cutting Boards, designed for durability and custom crafted by hand with Yankee pride and craftsmanship.

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, "Back to the Cutting Board," takes you on a journey to re-engage with the soul of cooking.

With more than 100 plant-based recipes, finding the joy in cooking has never been simpler.

To order your copy for $20 plus handling, call: Add Christina's iconic book, "Cooking the Whole Foods Way," with 500 delicious plant-based recipes.

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