Christina Cooks: Back to the Cutting Board

If you've ever asked the question, "Does this make me look fat?"

you probably already knew the answer.

Look, you'll find no body-shaming here, but like it or not, unhealthy obesity takes a toll on wellness.

It's not about stick-thin either.

Let's find our way to a healthy weight for you and your body as we go back to the cutting board today on Christina Cooks.

(upbeat 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 it all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will it all be delicious?

You bet.

You know, we live in a country where two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese.

That's a staggering number.

Compared to the rest of the world, it's a terrifying number because with that comes all sorts of complications with your health.

Now, I'm not shaming anybody here.

There's no body-shaming going on, but at some point, your cute heaviness becomes unhealthy for you.

So when you eat a sort of standard American diet, it's very hard to find your way to the weight that your body wants to be.

Not everybody's a size 2, not everybody's a size 20.

So you have to find your spot, and your body will find it if you eat foods that are appropriate for humans to eat.

And yes, sorry, boys and girls, that is plant-based.

That means no saturated fats, no white sugar, no white flour.

Sorry, but if you want to live your best life in your best wellness, this is how you do it.

So, is it yummy?

Uh, yeah!

So we're gonna make this first dish as like a one-pot meal, main course, easy to make, only one ingredient... Oh, wait, you can even find all the ingredients in your supermarket.

So, now, after you see this dish, there's gonna be no excuses.

So, we're gonna take our skillet and warm it up, and we're gonna add to it some avocado oil.

Now, you're thinking, "Oil?

I thought this was the diet show."

Well, the truth of the matter is, if you eat some good quality fat, your body will stay satisfied longer.

People who eat-- remember the no-fat diet, and we had those cookies that had no fat in them?

And so you'd look at them and eat a whole carton 'cause there was no fat?

If you eat a little fat in your diet, you feel satisfied longer, and because of plant-based diets, high fiber, it's a win-win-win-win-win!

You can't lose!

Okay, so, oil's getting warm, we're gonna add some white onions or yellow onions or red onions or shallots, whatever floats your boat, put it in there.

I'm gonna give them a quick stir and a splash of soy sauce.

We're gonna season everything right in the pan.

I could not make this easier for you.

So once the soy sauce is in there, these onions will start to sort of sweat and become sweet.

It's not important that it happens immediately.

It's gonna happen through the course of the dish.

The next thing we're gonna do is take some cabbage, and the cabbage is just standard green cabbage from the supermarket, okay?

And...oh, I forgot something.

Let's do this.

This is mirin.

Mirin is a Japanese condiment that tastes like sherry, but it's not.

It's actually a cooking wine that has salt added to it so that it's not alcoholic.

So if you don't want to use it, don't use it.

Use a broth, use water, you're fine.

So we're gonna kinda let everything simmer in this lovely, sweet, savory, oniony thing.

And then we're gonna take our tempeh.

Tempeh comes to us from Indonesia, and Indonesian tempeh is soybeans that have been cracked and partially cooked and then inoculated with the same starter they use to make Brie, and then it's fermented, and a mycelium forms around the soybeans, holding it together.

Now, in Indonesia, they say you can eat this just as it is.

I don't recommend it.

It really likes to be sauted and flavored and marinated, but I don't marinate things.

You know, if I can do it all in one pan, I'm doing it.

So, we're gonna take this tempeh and we're gonna cut it into thin slices.

Just like this.

Tempeh cooks really quickly.

Remember, it's fermented, so it's good for digestion, number one, and number two, it's pretty much cooked.

We just have to flavor it up.

So this is gonna go into the skillet, with a little more soy sauce.

You kind of season this dish as you go along to build depth of flavor.

Another gentle little stir, and this is gonna simmer for a few minutes while we get the cabbage ready.

Now, cabbage is just standard green cabbage from the supermarket.

No sweat.

You can find it anywhere.

Cabbage is the greatest anti-inflammatory of all time, and no matter what condition you're trying to change, it doesn't matter, whether it's arthritis, whether it's lose weight, sleep better, you have to get the body less inflamed, less chronically inflamed.

So, cabbage is the easiest way to do that.

Now, in a lot of natural modalities, we take cabbage and we use it topically on a bruise, on a low-grade fever, but imagine if it works so well on the body, how well it will work in the body.

So eating cabbage gives you that incredible benefit.

So add a touch more soy sauce.

When you're trying to get your body to the weight that it wants to be, the more you can flavor food, the more high fiber you can use, the better you're gonna feel about it because you won't be hungry all the time.

You're not eating in a deprived way.

So when you're cooking for weight loss, you want to build depth of flavor.

So we have all these lovely, flavorful things in there, and now we're gonna add some fresh ginger.

And by adding the fresh ginger, you, number one, stimulate circulation, and that's a good thing, and you also add yet another flavor component to the dish.

This is gonna go right in with our cabbage.

Then we're gonna saut this, and we're gonna let it sweat for just a couple minutes while we get the finishing touches ready.

So we're gonna take some kudzu, you can also use arrowroot.

Kudzu is a little better in this case because it's good for digestion, and anything we can do to make digestion better, we want to do, especially when you're trying to eat less and find your body's weight.

So you just dissolve this.

It's like using cornstarch except it's more alkalizing to the digestive tract, so it's a little better for you.

We're gonna add that in.

Add some sauerkraut, another fermented component for digestion.

A little fresh parsley.

Give this one final stir.

You don't want to cook the cabbage until it's mushy.

You want it to have a little bit of crispiness so that your body has to chew it, your teeth have to chew it, and your digestive tract has to work a little bit harder to digest it, that's good.

You want to stress your digestion in a good way.

And now we'll just take this, plate it up, and you have a main course that is very hard to beat for flavor, for components that make you healthy, anti-inflammatory.

It doesn't get better than this.

(bright music) -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.

I can't tell you guys the number of phone calls, emails, and letters we get to the office asking us all sorts of questions about food, how to get your feet on the path to wellness.

So, I have people coming in to ask questions, but every now and then, I bring in an expert to talk about something that you guys have all asked me about.

So today, I'm with Anthony Molino, who happens to be my trainer.

He's a personal trainer, Assistant Director of Nutrition at Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia, and the founder of Food Fitness.

-Hey, how are ya?

-Good.

(Christina) We're not training, it's amazing.

-All right.

-So, I have a question for you.

-Okay.

-As a vegan training, what do I need to be conscious of, both in nutrition and supplements?

-Or is it just-- -In terms of nutrition, it's just being well-balanced.

You know, the one thing that I like to stress is that the thought of whatever you put in your body, inevitably it's going to show up on the outside.

So you have to, you know, go back to the basics where the smaller meals, more frequent meals, and variety of foods, and the same thing with training, be instinctive enough to know when to mix it up and when to incorporate some different foods into the mix.

(Christina) Okay, but what about, like, everyone's obsessed with protein.

-Right.

-So, even as a vegan, do we need to be that obsessed?

You don't need to be that obsessed because the amount of protein in the past recommended, you know, grams per pound of lean mass, was extremely high, and we've realized that we don't need that much protein.

It's more about a balance, so I recommend, you know, 0.25 to 0.50 grams per pound of lean mass for protein, and you can get that as a vegan in a variety of grains and nuts and, you know, there are so many sources... (Christina) So like tofu, tempeh, all of that.

(Anthony) Absolutely, tofu, tempeh.

There's so many applications now that you can use to get the amount of protein that you need, so that's really not a concern anymore.

(Christina) Thanks so much, Anthony.

Thanks for coming and giving us all this great information.

So remember, it's not fat that makes you fat.

It's all the other food you eat, so get to the gym, work on your muscles, and eat well.

(upbeat music) Okay, so we're gonna make a salad.

Now, before you run from the room screaming, it's not gonna be a typical salad, and I know what you're thinking.

"Oh, sure, it's the weight loss show.

We're gonna get stuck with salads."

This is a great salad, you're gonna want this all the time, and not just for the ingredients that are in it, but because what those ingredients do for your wellness is gonna make you want to eat this salad.

So stay with me.

First thing to go is watercress.

Watercress is a bitter green.

Right, it's very good for the liver, and why is that important to you?

Because the liver is the gland that metabolizes your macronutrients: fat, protein, carbs.

Without your liver doing a good job, forget it, your body will never find its perfect weight, whether you're underweight or overweight.

So, we're gonna take it and just hand-tear it.

You don't want to cut watercress, you want to hand-tear it because otherwise it can become very, very bitter.

And bitter is good, but too bitter is not so good.

So we're gonna make a nice bed of watercress, just like that.

Next thing we're gonna do is take a pear.

Now, pears are, of all the tree fruit, one of the best fruits you can eat when you're trying to manage your weight, and that's because they contain compounds that can actually help to control blood sugar, as well as being super high in fiber and low on what's called the glycemic index, meaning that it doesn't give your blood a large glucose or fructose load, so you don't go crazy with cravings.

So we're gonna take this half of pear and just sort of fan it.

We're trying to make the salad pretty.

One of the things you want to do when you're cooking to change anything in your life is make your food gorgeous so that you want to eat it.

Now we'll take some toasted pecans.

You can toast them in the oven or in a pan, doesn't matter.

And we're gonna coarsely chop them so that it's more like confetti on your salad.

So then, just gonna sprinkle these on top, like this.

You could use as little or as many bits of nuts as you like, bearing in mind that they are calorically dense.

The next thing you're gonna do is take-- these are dried cranberries, and what we did was plump them in hot water, and you do that to pull some of the sugar out of them because it's dried fruit.

So they'll be nice and tart, and again, they'll help the liver to do its job metabolizing.

So they're gonna get sprinkled on top of the salad.

Again, you know, don't go crazy with the amount of them, but whatever you want to do.

And next, we're gonna make our salad dressing.

Super simple.

A little bit of extra-virgin olive oil so you get all the heart-healthy benefits, plus you get really good flavor, some mustard to, again, stimulate circulation so your body responds better, and you can see, everything is carefully measured.

A little salt.

A little bit of brown rice syrup for sweet taste, takes the edge off the mustard.

Brown rice syrup, as you know, is a low glycemic sweetener that's fermented, so it's good for digestion.

And the last thing we'll add to it, you can use wine vinegar or you can go for sweet, which means you take an organic orange, grate some of the zest, you don't need a ton, right, this is a salad dressing, and salad dressing shouldn't drown your salad, it should dress your salad.

So a little bit of zest.

Then you take and cut the same orange and take a quarter of it, a little bit of the juice, take your whisk and emulsify everything so it comes together.

Normally I do everything right on the salad because I'm lazy, but I really want this dressing to come together.

And then you just simply pour this right over top.

It's completely yummy and really helps your body to digest well and get to where you want to get to live your best life.

(gentle music) -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.

So I'm here today with April Nickerson, who's a friend of mine and a student, and I know you have a couple questions for me today.

(April) I do.

One of the biggest things is, after having a child, I put on some weight and it's hard to get it off being a working mom.

So I wanted to know if you had any ideas of how to jump-start weight loss.

There's so much information out there, I get confused.

(Christina) Of course.

So, the biggest struggle is, how do you sort of kick-start it so that you start to lose a little bit of excess, and then you get inspired to do the rest?

So, of course, you want to eat the best you can, you know, the healthiest and the most whole that you can, but there's a little recipe that you can do that will really help to do it, and it's not delicious, but it works.

You grate half a cup each of carrot and daikon radish, which you know daikon is the long white, and then you add a little bit of a Japanese plum, which is an ume plum, and you add a tiny bit of shredded nori, maybe two tablespoons, and then you add two cups of water, and you cook it over low heat, uncovered, for 10 minutes, and you drink and eat this, like, thick, peppery, spicy soup, and as you're eating it, you'll sweat and sweat and sweat, and you do this every day for about five days, and then at the end of those five days, you just eat really well, and then you can do it again if you had to after another five days.

And then you're done, and then what that does is give your body the message to sort of light a fire under your metabolism and start burning, and you lose some of that excess, and then you're ready to do the rest.

(April) Oh, okay, so it's like, kind of like a detox?

(Christina) Yeah, I don't really like the word "detox" or the-- because your body detoxes on its own.

What this does is take, I'm gonna say, energy that's stagnant and stimulate it to move.

Right, because when you hold baby weight, it kinda can get hard and stay there, so you're gonna stimulate it to start to move and melt, and you'll literally feel like you're melting 'cause you'll sweat while you're eating it and drinking it, and it really, really does the job.

Perfect, I can't wait to try it.

-Yeah, it's gonna be cool!

-Yes, thank you.

Okay, so, if you need to kick-start weight loss, go to my website and you can check out this recipe on your own and, uh, let me know how you're doing.

(bright music) Now, most people think dessert is off the table, pun fully intended, when it comes to achieving your ideal weight.

What if I told you that you could have a puffy, buttery, moist, delicious, chocolate cookie cake and still achieve the weight you want to?

What?!

Absolutely.

So, this is a madeleine pan.

They are called madeleine pans because they produce one and only one cake/cookie: madeleines.

It's a French pastry that's buttery and soft and everyone loves them, and they are about three bites.

European women are always lauded for how they can stay so thin and eat the way they do.

They know a very important secret, that after three bites, you no longer taste sugar, so every dessert is small-- three bites.

They get the satisfaction of having dessert nearly day, sometimes every meal, and still keep their weight where they want it to be.

So, this is a madeleine pan.

This is my grandmother's madeleine pan, so it has seen better days, but it is the best one I've ever used.

You can get whatever you want-- silicone, whatever-- but the metal pans are the best.

You want to make sure you use a brush and get into every little nook and cranny when you oil the pan so the madeleines don't stick, right, because we don't have eggs.

So, to make the dough, you're going to take melted and cooled vegan butter.

I don't care what kind you use, but it has to be melted and cooled.

You don't want it to be super hot or it'll cook the arrowroot.

Now we're gonna take two tablespoons of arrowroot.

This is our egg.

And six tablespoons of water.

One, two, three, four...

I can't measure and talk.

Okay, six.

Okay, then we're gonna take two tablespoons of cocoa powder.

This is one of those recipes, it doesn't matter how you mix it together, as long as it all gets mixed.

Cocoa powder.

It's my favorite kind of recipe because there's no, like, "Oh my goodness, I didn't do that."

Okay, then we're gonna add three quarters of a cup of coconut sugar.

Coconut sugar is a low glycemic index sweetener, so it's not gonna trigger your cravings if you have it.

About a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.

It should smell like perfume.

It should make you so happy that you'll want to dab it behind your ears and walk around smelling like a bakery.

And then, you just mix this together to create almost like a slurry.

Right, it's sort of a thin, milky... You can whisk if you want to.

I'm not a big whisker, sorry.

Not a big whisker.

You know, I dirty one spoon, that's the one.

Okay, next goes in a half teaspoon each of baking powder and soda.

This is gonna help them to rise and be light and poofy.

Okay, then, about a cup of flour.

Nice, generous cup of flour.

And always, when you bake, a pinch of salt.

It helps the cookie to be sweeter.

Then you're gonna go in and mix this, and you're gonna be quite surprised because the batter's not thick.

Cookie batter is often, you know, you have to put it and scoop it off your finger, it's thick.

This is almost like a cake batter, right, because each little madeleine is like your own personal little cake.

And with cocoa powder, it's chocolate.

I mean, seriously.

So once it comes together like this, it's really smooth and creamy.

Clean off your spoon.

And then you're gonna take your tablespoon measure and drop a tablespoon into each one of these little creviced holder-- pan, holders, whatever they are, like a muffin tin.

And don't overfill.

If you overfill these, what happens is the madeleines cook over the top and spread out over the pan, and when you try to take them out, you break them.

Madeleines are delicate.

If you are a novice baker but you're daring, go for it, just do it, make madeleines.

If you're a scaredy-cat baker, try something else first.

But these are a little temperamental.

They're French.

Nothing against the French.

I am trying to teach myself how to speak French.

But this batter amount that you're doing should give you about 12 madeleines, and a pan usually is a dozen.

And it doesn't seem like a lot, but they're so amazingly rich-tasting.

So this is gonna go to the oven for about 14 minutes at 350 until they all puff up and fill the tins.

Wait till you see.

(upbeat music) So, I get a lot of emails and I thought I would take a minute and answer one.

This one's from Damian in Santa Rosa, California, and Damian's asking me, "I'm new to cooking.

I don't really have time to chop.

My knife skills are stressing me out.

Can I just chop everything in a food processor?"

The answer is, "Sure, you can," but chopping's pretty Zen, so while you're using the food processor now, you really might want to develop those knife skills so that when you're in the kitchen, it's calm and peaceful and your cooking becomes really easy.

So one of the things I hear a lot is, "Yeah, but how do we know how well a plant-based diet works?"

Well, take a look at this.

This photo is my director, Scott Randolph, six months ago, and he said to me at one point, "I really want to change the way I eat.

I want to get my wellness where it should be."

And so, the change, for me, has been remarkable.

First time I saw him, I didn't realize it was him at first.

So, Scottie, come on, look at you!

How much?

-About 45 pounds.

-45 pounds, and how much of an effort has this been?

(Scott) No effort.

It's been real easy.

Well, when we first started, you kind of missed the chicken, but then really not so much because the food's really good.

I'm so proud of you, I'm so happy for you.

(Scott) It's been great, it's been great.

(Christina) And your whole family is sort of on board.

-Yes, they are, yeah.

-Wow, it's very cool.

And you know the statistics, guys.

If every man, woman, and child in America ate one meatless meal a week out of the 21 you eat, it's the equivalent of taking four to six million cars off the road.

So don't let Scottie carry all that burden.

And you, young man, deserve a cookie.

(Scott) Ah, yes!

These cookies are awesome.

(Christina) And you could eat those without guilt.

-Oh, yeah.

-Yeah.

-They are great.

-Buttery, right, like caky.

-I'm gonna take the plate back.

-Okay, here you go, honey.

All right, so what are you waiting for?

It's time to get back to the cutting board and make your life the way you want it to be, and I'll see you next time on Christina Cooks.

(upbeat 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.

To order both books for $39.95 plus handling, call: