Ellie's Real Good Food

it's herbivore versus carnivore, and they're married.

I'm gonna help them stay that way with recipes that satisfy both vegetarians and meat lovers.

Lemon Tahini Sauce drizzled over Grilled Vegetables and Lamb Kabobs.

Panzanella With White Beans And Chicken Sausage.

Warm Spinach Salad with mushrooms and and my Forbidden Rice Bowl.

That's all happening right now, so sit tight.

(upbeat lively guitar) - [Voiceover] Funding for this series has been provided by.

- [Voiceover] We said goodbye to the day, and to the city, and drifted off into the twilight, and when we woke, we found that the whole world had reinvented itself.

- [Voiceover] The wonders of Europe await you.

Princess Cruises, come back new.

- [Voiceover] Luvo, full servings of fruits and veggies, nutritious whole grains and lean proteins, seasoned with bold herbs and spices.

Chef created meals, ready made for you in your grocer's freezer, Luvo, the next generation of frozen food.

(pleasant guitar strumming) - [Voiceover] Grapes from California.

Grown by families, for families.

- [Voiceover] And by the Natural Gourmet Institute for health and culinary arts.

Additional funding provided by the generous support of our Kickstarter donors.

A complete list is available at ElliesReadGoodFood.com.

- Hi, I'm Ellie Krieger, and this is Ellie's Real Good Food.

Vegetarians and meat lovers living under the same roof can be a challenging situation.

Amanda and Brad say their kitchen is a battlefield.

Amanda has been a vegetarian for 15 years, but her husband, Brad, is a real meat fan.

They are devoted to each other, but they can't find a path to harmony in the kitchen.

The couple has been making two separate meals every night, which means big grocery bills and chaos in the kitchen.

- Well, Brad's food is done first.

Like usual, I'm still over here trying to make my quinoa salad.

Mine always takes longer, so again, we're eating at different meal times, and we've still got a mess to clean up.

I love you, but I think eating vegetarian is more healthy, and I can't convince him to get off the meat train, and join me, so now it just takes double the time, double the dishes.

- More for me to clean up.

- Yes.

(laughs) (lively smooth jazz) - Brad and Amanda, it does not have to be that way, and I have so many solutions for you.

The first one just has three ingredients.

It's a lemon tahini sauce, and it could really transform your meal time.

So first of all, three ingredients, sesame tahini, and that's basically sesame paste, okay, so it's like peanut butter, but maybe with sesame seeds.

And because it's real natural, just like natural peanut butter, the oil kind of settles to the top, so you've just gotta give it a stir before you use it.

And I'm just gonna put a third of a cup into a bowl here.

And the thing that makes this so transformative for you guys is that tahini sauce, just like peanut butter, is packed with protein.

So when you drizzle it over vegetables, it gives you the protein that you need, Amanda, and Brad can just use it as a side dish, kind of thing, as a dressing for a salad or vegetables, and he can still have his meat alongside.

Anyway, in there also goes some parsley, ingredient number two, and some lemon juice, fresh lemon juice.

Now this is kind of an interesting part because you'll see it kind of seizes up at first, but you want to add a little bit of water, and you want to get it to the consistency, so about five tablespoons of water.

Adding a little more, so at first, you might panic when you look at it, you're like, oh no, it's seizing up, it's kind of not creamy at all, and I was expecting it to be creamy.

Well, if you keep adding a little water and whisking, it gets to be the consistency of almost like pancake batter or heavy cream.

Little bit of salt, so it's three ingredients.

Tahini, parsley, lemon juice, and I give myself salt, pepper, and some water for kind of free, so I don't count those.

I think that looks fabulous.

So you're gonna get the protein you need if you're a vegetarian, just by drizzling this over any vegetable, and the meat lovers can drizzle it over meat.

Any vegetables too, I hope.

So, I'm just gonna do that right here.

Just turns vegetables into a main meal.

All that great protein and real lemoniness from the tahini.

And it's delicious on lamb kabobs.

It is a three ingredient dish I know you're gonna love, and you can eat the same meal, imagine that.

(lively guitar music) I have the perfect salad for you.

It's a warm spinach salad, which normally has bacon in it, but this one has mushrooms, and this wonderful smokey flavor from smoked paprika, which gives a real bacony vibe that is shockingly satisfying and super simple to make, so I'm just slicing up these mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, any mix of mushrooms is fine.

And mushrooms have such a great meaty texture, so if you're craving meat, if you want that meaty feeling, that meaty texture, definitely mushrooms can get you there.

And this is oyster mushroom, but really, any variety will do, you can really just use plain, white button mushrooms if you want to for this as well, and I'm just gonna saute these.

I have one tablespoon of olive oil heating up here, which these will be into momentarily.

I mean, a warm spinach salad is like a classic recipe, right?

So it's basically spinach, fresh spinach leaves, and then you pour the dressing, the warm dressing, over it, and so the spinach wilts just perfectly.

It's a favorite, and this is a great way to have it that makes vegetarians and meat lovers happy.

(sizzling) Just let these cook down, and if you're really pressed for time, you could also buy an eight ounce package of pre-sliced mushrooms, that totally works too.

So here, I have soaking, some sun dried tomatoes, so I buy them not in oil, and for this recipe, it's really important to buy them just in the package, not in oil, because you want to soak them in a little bit of hot water, and it plumps them up, but also, this liquid, just simple water, hot water, that they're soaking in, will become part of this dressing.

This has a lot of flavor now, from those tomatoes.

We're gonna make use of that shortly, you'll see.

I'm just gonna slice these sun dried tomatoes, and here, that's another ingredient that gives a huge punch of umami flavor, so umami is that meaty flavor, and the sun dried tomatoes are amping up that umami punch.

This salad is basically an umami bomb, if you really think about it, and a bomb in the best possible way.

Okay, so I'll put that aside for a minute, and also, some red onion that I'm just gonna toss in, just kind of sprinkle around these onions into the spinach as it awaits it's warm, luscious, meaty dressing.

Looks pretty, okay.

Now we're just gonna have to wait for these to cook.

So when you're cooking mushrooms, you stir that often, they're going to first release their water, and so you'll see that liquid at the bottom of the pan, and then, the water will evaporate, and to brown, and that's when you start to get that real, great, brown flavor that you want from the mushrooms.

I like them kind of well done.

These are browning beautifully now, they ready.

And there's some brown stuff in the bottom of the pan, but that's all good because that's all great flavor that's gonna wind up in the dressing.

So in go sun dried tomatoes.

Clove of garlic, minced.

And a tablespoon of smoked paprika, and this is where really, makes a difference of it tasting hugely bacony because smoked paprika, of course, tastes smokey, so now we have the meatiness, and we have the smokiness, and that's the winning combination.

So I'm just gonna heat this through, and right away, that aroma is just like, boom, oh my goodness, it just gets you.

And it also gives it that great color too, that reddish brown.

Just get this all combined and heated through, and in goes about a half cup of this sun dried tomato soaking liquid, so you're getting all that flavor, and you're deglazing the pan.

(lively smooth jazz) Oh boy, this is just so good, I love this recipe.

Now I'm just gonna add a couple more tablespoons of oil because now this is making the dressing, basically.

Gonna take this off the heat at this point.

(lively smooth jazz) It'll still be warm.

I like to do sherry vinegar here.

For me, sherry vinegar is so perfect with mushrooms.

Just the right flavor with a little bit of sweetness.

And salt and pepper, and that's it.

About a half a teaspoon of salt.

Okay, this is ready to meet the spinach and onions.

Just get that all nicely combined.

(lively smooth jazz) Oh my goodness, it's so rich and meaty and smokey.

And you really would think there's meat in there.

If you're serving this to someone, who's used to having regular bacony dressing on their spinach salad, don't even tell them it's different.

Think they'll just enjoy it.

Give it a good toss, and let that spinach kind of wilt a little bit, just gently, so it keeps its bit of freshness, but softens so it's not raw, just to take the raw edge off.

Okay.

And so this is really the center point of a meal that is perfect for both vegetarians and carnivores because it becomes the center of a plate.

It's always great to put vegetables as the center of a plate.

So each person gets a nice heaping pile of fabulous spinach salad, warm dressing.

Get some of those goodies on top.

Here we go.

(lively smooth jazz) And then you can really customize it by choosing whatever protein you want.

So, for the vegetarian, you can do hard boiled egg, for example.

You can even do beans if you're a vegan.

And for the carnivore, some sliced grilled steak.

You can even make it ahead of time.

It can be room temperature, or it can be warm, and have that on the side.

So you're eating one meal but just customizing it your way.

It's a perfect solution.

(lively smooth jazz) I have another great recipe that will make both vegetarians and carnivores happy.

It's a panzanella with white beans.

And panzanella basically means bread salad, so I'm cutting up some gorgeous whole grain bread here.

I love to use a nice crusty loaf like this.

I just need about a cup-and-a-half of bread cubes.

So I'm going to make them, let's see, just get them going here.

And I'm gonna toast these up, so they're nice and crispy.

And then they get tossed in with all this, other salad ingredients kind of at the end, so they stay just crispy enough, but kind of yield to the juices in the salad.

And I'm using a nice, fresh loaf here, but this is also a great thing to do with leftover bread.

Always looking for great ways to use leftovers.

Actually, the whole salad is because you can really put in any vegetables that you want.

Anything that you might have a little extra of.

I think that looks like about enough there.

So I'm just gonna toast these in a skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil.

Extra virgin olive oil over a medium heat.

(lively upbeat jazz) Just gonna get them all kind of coated in the oil.

So I'm just let that toast, give it a shake every now and then.

In the meantime, just some classic vegetables that you find in typical panzanella salad, I have some beautiful grape tomatoes here that I've quartered, and I like everything to be in kind of small pieces because I want it to match the white beans.

And this is what makes this so perfect for pleasing vegetarians and carnivores.

Putting these white beans in adds that extra protein, that vegetable protein that's so important to get when you're a vegetarian.

And it's just one can of white cannellini beans or you can use Great Northern, and then I just drain them, rinse them, and I always buy low sodium beans because I can add salt later, but I like to be in control of the amount of salt that's in my recipes.

So those just go right in there, and now I'm gonna add some cucumber.

Also diced into those small pieces.

And I like to use a European cucumber.

Sometimes it's called English cucumber.

They come in plastic wrap, I took the wrap off, but that's how you can identify them in the store.

And I especially like them because they don't have a lot of seeds, and they're sort of lower in water.

They seem to have more of a cucumbery flavor to me.

But also, the skin is really thin, so it's really pleasant to leave on, and you don't have to bother to peel it.

And you do get a lot of nutrients from the skin, so that's a plus.

So let me give this a shake.

Toasting up well.

I'm gonna use a whole cucumber here.

These are looking done.

Shut the heat off, that looks pretty ready.

So you can make those ahead of time.

Okay, one more ingredient.

Just some scallions, and you can use red onion here if you want.

I'm using these scallions for their nice, gentle onion flavor.

Thinly sliced.

And these go in, okay.

So we have the fresh green scallion.

Now I'm not even gonna make a dressing.

It really just gets oil and vinegar, so I'll just drizzle it right on top.

Three tablespoons of olive oil, and here's where you break our really your nice tasting olive oil, the one that tastes super fruity and Mediterranean, extra virgin olive oil.

And some red wine vinegar.

Just about one-and-a-half tablespoons will give it a nice bright flavor.

And some thyme, some chopped thyme.

So you got herbs in there, fresh vegetables, hearty beans, pretty much has it all.

And you can make this ahead too because this will sit very well.

Right before you're gonna serve, you add your croutons and some fresh basil, so now we have three fresh herbs in there.

So you're just gonna get that kind of beautiful, herbal aroma right away.

It's a gorgeous salad.

Okay, little salt and pepper.

Half a teaspoon of salt and a few turns of pepper.

Mm, okay.

So this is just a gorgeous salad that's a complete meal for a vegetarian.

I'm gonna plate it off, so you can see how it will really work as one meal that will make everybody happy.

It has all that great protein from the beans, you get whole grain from the bread, all those wonderful vegetables, so you can eat that absolutely as a meal when you're a vegetarian, and then if you want some meat, it goes so well with things like chicken sausage.

I love these.

So you can plate it together.

And you can enjoy one meal that makes a carnivore and a vegetarian both happy.

(lively smooth jazz) In my house, we not only have taco night, we have rice bowl night.

It's sort of the same concept where you put out all the ingredients, and everyone can kind of build their own, and the rice bowl's perfect for that.

And I've just cooked up here some purple rice, mm.

It's a whole grain rice that literally has this gorgeous purple color.

It's also called forbidden rice, so these are actually forbidden rice bowls.

Just gonna let that continue to steam a bit while I make this dressing.

And the dressing's really easy.

It sort of really makes the whole rice bowl come together.

Just starts with some reduced sodium soy sauce, quarter cup, then two tablespoons of rice vinegar, and I get the unseasoned kind 'cause the seasoned one basically just means that it has sugar in it.

If you need some sweetener, you can add it, but I don't add any sweetener here.

Then two tablespoons of peanut oil.

And two teaspoons of toasted sesame oil.

So this dressing has a lovely, toasted flavor that is really unmistakable.

I mean, toasted sesame oil is really a fabulous flavor.

So just whisk that up.

And you can make this ahead of time, if you want to.

Mm, this sesame oil's so strong smelling in such a lovely way, the aroma is just intoxicating to me.

Just pour that into a little pitcher, and I'll show you how I serve this.

So what you do is sort of a la taco night.

You just put out all of the accoutrements, and you serve each person a bowl of rice.

This forbidden rice is a whole grain, and the purple color actually is antioxidants, so that's what's imparting the purple color, is antioxidants, so it's really, really rich in not only fiber and other nutrients, but these healing antioxidants, so I love that, and it just sort of has this wonderful sex appeal to it, so basically then you just serve it with all kinds of different vegetables.

I like to serve a variety of different textures.

So I like some lightly steamed spinach, and this could be warm or cold, and you could do kale if you want.

I like to do some carrots, shredded carrots.

You get something crisp and cool.

Another crisp and cool one, some bean sprouts.

Just sort of arrange them.

Everyone can just build their own, so no matter what your dietary preferences are, I like to put some peanuts on mine.

Sprinkle those all around for that great crunch, so you get all kinds of textures, cool, soft, crunchy, and that also is a great vegetarian protein.

You could use tofu on here.

I like to have something pickled, maybe pickled onions or this is kimchi, put that on there.

And then you could do some shredded chicken, maybe you have leftover if you're a meat eater, and or some egg, and then you just drizzle all over the dressing on it, and you have a great meal.

It's beautiful and totally something you could personalize.

Little of that dressing just seasons the whole thing beautifully.

Hot rice, cool vegetables, lots of textures going on.

So even if you have a vegetarian and a carnivore living in the same house, you can hit the sweet spot where delicious and healthy meet, right here.

Mm, it's just delicious, that's it.

(upbeat music) (laughs) It's always better to do this at home when you're not on camera and everyone's watching you.

(exhales) (singing) Luck be a lady tonight.

Blah, blah, blah, (laughs) basil.

- [Voiceover] For these recipes and much more, go to ElliesRealGoodFood.com.

Also, connect with Ellie on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Funding for this series has been provided by.

- [Voiceover] Luvo, full servings of fruits and veggies, nutritious whole grains and lean proteins, seasoned with bold herbs and spices.

Chef created meals ready made for you in your grocer's freezer.

Luvo, the next generation of frozen food.

- [Voiceover] Hi, you've reached Emma.

I'm out of the office right now but will get back to you just as soon as I possibly can.

- [Voiceover] For Discovery at Sea experiences, Princess Cruises, come back new.

(pleasant guitar strumming) - [Voiceover] Grapes from California.

Grown by families, for families.

- [Voiceover] And by the Natural Gourmet Institute for health and culinary arts.

Additional funding provided by the generous support of our Kickstarter donors.

A complete list is available at ElliesRealGoodFood.com Ellie's kitchen is provided by Clarke, New England's Sub-Zero and Wolf showroom and test kitchen.

(flute trill)