Christina Cooks: Back to the Cutting Board

(mellow music) Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Penlope Cruz, Anna Magnani.

What do all these beauties have in common?

The Mediterranean diet, baby.

Let's take a page from their book and sample some of the world's sexiest diet 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 they all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will they all be delicious?

Yes, they will.

So, in my opinion, there is nothing sexier than Italian food.

Just not.

And I'm sure other cultures think their food is sexy, too, but being Italian and Irish-- but the Irish side didn't really cook, so that's not very sexy.

The Italian side cooked.

I'm telling you, nothing sexier than Italian food, and this is an amazing dish.

It's called Penne All' Arrabiata, which means Angry Penne.

But it's not really angry.

The dish comes to us from Rome, and in Rome, they make this dish so spicy that your face turns red, so it got its name from looking like you're angry 'cause your face is red.

Why does your face get red?

Because of red chili flakes.

A lot.

This gravy gets your attention.

There's a good teaspoon or more of chili flakes.

Turn on the olive oil, in goes some garlic.

We're just gonna let the sizzle build, and then we're gonna add some crushed tomatoes.

This gravy is A, easy, B, easy, and C, easy.

And sexy?

I don't think there's anything sexier than cooking with that little trickle of sweat down your back, or eating with that little trickle of sweat down your back.

So the penne's cooking, it takes about seven minutes.

Don't cook your penne for too long.

If you cook your pasta until it's "mushade," as we say in Italian, it becomes an insulin trigger, so then you go from the penne to the baked potato to the cookie, back to the penne, back to the cookie, back to the bread.

Nothing sexy about that.

If you cook your penne al dente, all your pasta al dente, then you can eat a small amount and be like an Italian and get to eat a lot of it.

Often.

So, these are crushed cherry tomatoes, canned cherry tomatoes from Sardinia that I crush the old-fashioned way like this.

Can you use a stick blender?

Sure.

But I prefer to get my hands dirty.

And I want this gravy to be a little course in texture.

It kind of helps to offset the heat.

Not at all.

If you make your gravy too hot, though-- let's say you make it and it's like, wow, you can't breathe hot, you can always add a touch of white wine to take the heat down.

But remember, this is called Arrabiata for a reason.

It's meant to be hot and make you a little bit sweaty and red in the face.

So you can see that our garlic and our hot spice is simmering, so now the gravy goes in, the tomatoes to make the gravy.

Now we add a touch of salt, just enough to bring out the sweetness in the tomatoes.

Give this a stir, and this is gonna simmer for five minutes, the same amount of time that's left on cooking our penne.

(theme music) Ooh, it smells spicy!

So, my penne's ready, so it goes right from the pan, the cooking water, right into the gravy.

You want that starch.

Please, please don't rinse your pasta.

Take it right from the cooking water right into your gravy so that the starch helps the gravy to stick to the pasta.

Now, I need somebody to taste and to tell me if my arrabiata is arrabiata enough.

Hmm, let me--no, no, no.

I need somebody strong.

I need a woman, of course!

Danielle!

How do you feel about tasting some arrabiata?

Grab that fork right there.

I'm gonna have you go right into the serving bowl, hun.

-All right.

-Okay, let me know how that tastes to you.

-Okay, here I go.

-Here you go.

-Delicious.

-Delicious, hot... -Very good!

-...spicy, so you want to make some sexy food?

This is the dish for you.

More.

So I have a great treat for you guys today.

With me is Sarah, who is the executive chef and owner of Nourish, which is a restaurant in South Philadelphia, a vegan restaurant, and our worlds have circled each other for many years, but we actually just met a couple weeks ago, which is pretty interesting.

And I invited her on the show because we really share a vision of how food can have an impact on the world in which we live, and so I invited her with me to make a simple recipe that everyone can make at home that's delicious and sexy, but also you can do it, but it's going to allow us to talk about your vision of what you see happening.

-So welcome!

-Thank you, thank you so much -for having me.

-It's so nice to have you here.

(Sarah) Yes, it's wonderful to finally meet.

Like you said, we've been doing many of the same things for many years and traveling in similar places as well and just enjoying the love of food along the way.

(Christina) And you've been-- you've had restaurants -pretty much all over.

-Yeah, in a couple different places.

I owned one in Belize, also one in Jamaica, different times living there, and then here in Philadelphia, I've owned two restaurants.

(Christina) Right.

So, and now you're at Nourish... -Yes.

-...and always, as we always, we both do, thinking about how to expand the message and get it out there, so you counsel, you help people in many, many ways with food.

(Sarah) Absolutely, yeah, I see food as nutrition and food as medicine, so looking at it and just really offering that to people and educating people with the opportunity to see plant-based foods as something to heal them and to really change the dynamics of their households -across all of their lives.

-And it's funny, 'cause people think of healthy food as very unsexy, and in fact, there's nothing sexier than health and being healthy.

-So what are we making?

-Today we're making a cilantro lime veggie quinoa salad.

So it's great for just eating on the side, or it can even be a main entre.

(Christina) Because quinoa is a complete protein.

-Absolutely, it's perfect.

-So you wanted a nice high-heat oil, so avocado oil, or can you also use grapeseed for this?

(Sarah) We could use grapeseed or avocado.

I use a lot of alkaline foods, because I feel like alkaline foods are really just beneficial and really great for your body, so I try to use the avocado oil or grapeseed oil.

-Okay.

-And they have -really great flavors, too.

-They do.

(Sarah) So we're just gonna start, and we just start by heating that up and then putting the onions and peppers in, so this should be a little bit-- you want to have that sizzle as well, so when it hits the pan, the oil doesn't really soak into the vegetables and more so just kind of cooks it and gives that aromatic flavor for everything else.

That's why you hear that sizzle.

-There's that sound.

-That's what you want to hear, -for sure.

-Spoon?

(Sarah) Yeah, absolutely.

So the onions and peppers I usually try to put together first.

(sizzling) Just stir those lightly.

(Christina) And is it because they have the strongest aromatic that you want to kind of cook them down -to their sweetness?

-Absolutely, use that as like the seasoning, 'cause we don't necessarily always do wanting to add a lot of different variety of seasonings, 'cause the fruits and vegetables, or the vegetables already have flavor in them.

(Christina) And if you use them fresh, they're gonna give you what you want anyway.

-Exactly.

-So what's next?

(Sarah) We can put--let's start adding the seasonings that we do have here.

So we'll just use the pink Himalayan salt.

(Christina) Okay.

I like to use the onion powder as well, too.

Even though we have onion there, it's just nice to add-- -To kind of boost it, right?

-Absolutely.

(Christina) Okay.

And then do you want you lemon pepper seasoning -or not yet?

-Yeah, we'll do that now, and it's just great to give it a little bit of a zest as well just to give it a flavor.

And you could really change the flavor of that as well, too.

I've done this with a Cajun seasoning, just different variety of things, -but this is a really nice one.

-Or even just straight hot, -right?

-Absolutely.

-Cayenne pepper is a great one.

-Carrot or beans next?

(Sarah) We can do both at the same time.

-Okay.

-Yup.

(Christina) So we have cooked black beans going in, another source of protein, carrots, of course, a nice sweet root.

That'll keep us feeling strong and, you know... (Sarah) I like to add a little bit of water here now as well, because then with cooking the beans, the flavor then will go inside of the beans.

-Tell me when?

-Yup.

That's probably good, and I'll turn it up a little bit just to really sizzle all that in there and get the carrots cooking as well, too.

(Christina) And you're just using simple button mushrooms?

-Yup!

-In?

(Sarah) Yeah, we can wait a few moments just to cook up the carrots a little bit, but really, all this stuff could be eaten raw as well, too.

-That's true.

-So it doesn't have to even -be cooked that long.

-And since it's a salad, it's okay if it's a little crunchy.

(Sarah) And you can serve this warm or cold, too, -which is kinda nice.

-Great.

(Sarah) So yeah, mushrooms can go in any time as well.

And I always like to add a variety of different colors.

I think food should be an array of colors -and it's just bright-- -It should be as beautiful as it is delicious, because people eat with their eyes first, right?

And if your food doesn't look appealing or sexy, you're not gonna want to eat it.

-So you ready for your kale?

-Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm gonna take-- that's why I love adding the greens to everything I pretty much see, especially with plant-based food.

I really feel like we should have greens with everything.

With kale, a lot of people aren't real familiar with it.

It's real easy, you just slide right up and you don't use the stalk, so it's a really easy way to peel the kale.

(Christina) You know, when I started eating this way, all I knew was kale was the garnish on a salad bar.

I didn't think you really ate it.

(Sarah) Right, for so long we saw that as on the side of the plate.

(Christina) And now it's like, oh, I eat kale!

(Sarah) And then everybody else usually leaves it on the side, -but we utilize it now.

-We eat it.

-Yes, we do.

-When you realize what an important source of nutrition it is, -it's amazing.

-Yeah, I really look at food and really see it and try to-- instead of just food stuff, but really look at the different nutrients that we're getting in our foods, having a variety of-- (Christina) I mean, a dish like this has everything!

-Mhm.

-All the minerals you need, all the protein that you need, which Americans, of course, are obsessed with.

(Sarah) Right, absolutely, especially if plant-based, -they always question that.

-Where do you get your protein?

-Right, absolutely.

-Hear it all the time.

-Where do you get your protein?

-Yeah, yeah, for sure, and quinoa is a great source of that.

-It yields about-- -And a complete protein.

(Sarah) Mhm, it's like 21 grams of protein, something like that, so it's pretty great, and it's absolutely delicious, too, and alkaline, again, if you're looking for alkaline foods.

(Christina) And I love that you're just wilting the kale a tiny bit.

(Sarah) Yeah, just lightly at the very end, you put it in there, and really it's such a simple, basic recipe, it's really great for anybody when you're learning to add new recipes and new menu items to your menu, you have that.

And then we can just add the quinoa at any time and it's--have the salad.

Again, you can serve this warm or cold.

-Get the quinoa in there.

-This is one thing my family started to eat when-- for years, I was vegan and people wouldn't eat our food, you know, -for so long.

-Oh, for years!

I remember inviting my trainer over for dinner, and afterwards, he said to me, "I was so excited, this tasted like food.

And I didn't know whether I should eat before I came to the house or go out to eat after, but this was like food."

(Sarah) It's really great that now it's becoming so much more popular and it's normalizing vegan food, and that's what we really want to be doing with a variety of the different restaurants.

(Christina) I'm gonna give you a bigger spoon to serve up.

The smell is-- if you guys were only here.

It smells so delicious and looks gorgeous.

See, for me, a dish like this is so beautiful that you gotta be a hardcore resister to say, "I'm not even gonna try it."

-Do you know what I mean?

-Absolutely, yes.

Delicious, I hope everybody can try a little bit of it -and enjoy it as well.

-And it took nothing to make.

Nothing.

We didn't even break a sweat.

So, you really have to figure out a way to do this in your life.

-Sarah, thank you so much.

-It's an honor, -thank you.

-Thanks for joining me.

I can't wait to see you at your restaurant again, -which you know I will.

-Wonderful.

(Christina) And up next, a great dessert.

-Can a vegetable be a fruit?

-A fruit can be a vegetable.

(boy) What?

It can be both?

(girl) What happens if you swallow the seeds?

(unintelligible) -I don't get it.

-I am so confused.

So living a healthy lifestyle brings with it massive confusion for people.

There are so many facts and statistics and theories and conspiracies and all kinds of stuff out there, so I've invited some experts to join me on the show to help to clear things up, and with me today is Todd Nappolitano.

I consider him my own, personal Mr. Wizard or Mr. Science.

The other day, I was reading an article about the EU and sustainability and how they're advising organic growers to move more towards biotech, because it's not sustainable the way it is.

We can't feed people the way it's going because they have to clear too much land and we're losing too many forests, and that just seems-- I don't know, there's something creepy about it to me, and I'm wondering if you can enlighten me.

Yeah, I'll flesh it out a little bit for you, because we hear the word "sustainability" now constantly in the food science industry.

And the EU has the 2031 plan where we're looking to basically feed the world to end hunger in the next 10 years... -Which would be great!

-...for billions of people, 'cause the slope on that population growth is exceeding our ability to meet that demand for nutritious food.

So what happens in the EU is usually well ahead of what happens in the United States regarding regulations.

And we all know that there's a bioengineered or GMO law, labeling disclosure law coming to the United States effective January 2022.

The EU is well ahead of that.

They also have banned what they call gene editing.

-Okay.

-In the United States, it is not considered GMO.

It is considered GMO in the EU.

The difference is pretty straightforward, but not a lot of people are aware of it yet, and that's at the crux of the debate you're talking-- -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-So what the EU and many member states have really done is gone back to reexamine the definition of bioengineered.

And what I'd like you and your audience to take away is the key definition is that it's in the laboratory.

It's human manipulation of our DNA in such a way that would never happen in nature.

-Right.

-Conversely, gene editing is basically exactly what happens in nature.

(Christina) Almost like when farmers would breed plants to create a different-- (Todd) "Conventional breeding techniques."

-Right, within the species.

-That's exactly right.

(Christina) It's not like a salmon and a strawberry -meeting up at a bar.

-It doesn't happen that-- well, it happens that way in the lab, it doesn't happen that way out in nature.

-In a bar.

-And so gene editing, what they really refer to it as is genetic scissors.

You can go in now and splice any part of the gene to get a desired trait, whether it be-- -More nutritious.

-It could be nutrition, it could be resistance to drought, it could be resistance to acidic soil.

(Christina) Which is gonna become important now.

(Todd) Absolutely, and so what happens is, in fact, the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry went to two scientists for CRISPR.

CRISPR is the code of Cas9 technology.

So what happens is we can manipulate the genes in such a way that it mimics traditional breeding methods and technologies.

(Christina) So it's not the same as starting it like in a Petri dish.

This is editing within what would happen in nature.

(Todd) And that's the key differentiator.

(Christina) And is that the key to what we're now calling sustainability?

It has to be the technological-- (Christina) Because our soil is compromised, we do have drought, we have climate change.

(Todd) A lack of water, a lack of fertilizer, you know, the lack of biodiversity, so we need to meet the situation in the ground, in the air, and in the ocean and in the rivers in order to solve the problem of sustainability.

And to do that, gene editing poses the best way to build a crop, for example, that can run step to step with where the Earth is today.

(Christina) I have to tell you, I'm so glad that I asked you this question and I'm so glad I sent you this article, because you've completely cleared it up and I'm not so terrified now.

So when you read these articles that scare you, try to find somebody who can really make it make sense for you so that you can proceed as the world exists today.

So I had to come up with a sort of very special cake to do a live stream with a friend of mine who's a chef in Pompeii.

So I came up with a pink ros prosecco cake that's not only sexy but good for you as well.

So let's make it together.

So we're going to take a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil.

This is an olive oil based cake.

And what I like about olive oil cakes is how light they are, the moisture in the crumb, and the fact that they're healthy for us.

Oh, this is a bigger cake, so we're gonna do a half cup, sorry.

I do this every time I make-- 'cause I usually make these cakes as minis, so this is a bigger one.

So I'm gonna put a half cup in, and then we're gonna take about eight tablespoons of coconut sugar.

And coconut sugar... is a low glycemic index granular sugar that's a one to one sub for white sugar that actually tastes like brown sugar and not like coconut, which is great.

So we'll take a little bit of apple cider vinegar, which is gonna help to lift the cake, some vanilla, and we're gonna whisk those together.

And this is sort of the base, the liquid base.

To this liquid base, we'll add about a half cup of almond flour, which is gonna give us a sort of dense, moist crumb, which is really nice.

And then we'll add another two cups of sprouted whole wheat flour, and sprouted whole wheat flour tastes very much like regular whole wheat flour, but because it's sprouted, it gives you a lighter end result.

So that's a cup and a half, one more will give us two cups.

We'll add a pinch of salt to make it sweet.

Then we'll add a teaspoon of baking-- two teaspoons of baking powder and a half teaspoon of baking soda and a teaspoon of arrowroot, which is gonna help to bind the cake.

Then we'll take and add one egg replacer.

Now, the one I use requires a little bit of water to dissolve it, and sometimes they say-- well, not sometimes, but the package says you should dissolve this and let it sit for a couple of minutes.

I never do that.

I just dissolve it and stir it right into the cake.

It works every time, this is really reliable.

So whatever egg replacer you like that you can rely on that really works will really give this cake a nice lift, so you really want to do that.

So we dissolve this, it goes in.

It doesn't have to be perfectly dissolved, because you're gonna whisk again anyway.

And then the key ingredient to the cake, pink prosecco.

So we're gonna add it by quarter cups, and get myself to about a cup of liquid.

And you see it really sort of foams up.

This is gonna give your cake a little bit of a boozy flavor, but mostly what it's gonna give you is lift and a lovely back flavor to your cake.

And at first your batter will be a little thick.

Just keep adding.

I usually don't use water when I use this, because I want that flavor, but you could also do a mix to get the batter that you want.

You could use water and prosecco, you can use oat milk and prosecco, but I would rather just use prosecco.

And once you have a nice thick batter like this, and it comes together for you, I'm gonna add one more quarter cup.

Okay.

When your batter's too thick, you'll end up with a dense cake.

I want a cake that's light.

And I'm not a sifter or a whisker, so, you know-- unless I have to.

This is perfect.

So now you're gonna take an oiled Bundt pan.

Even if you have a Bundt pan that people say you don't need to oil, oil it anyway.

Put your batter in.

See how nice and smooth that just sort of runs from the bowl right in?

It's gorgeous.

Then use your spoon to kind of make the batter even.

And this is gonna go into the oven for about 30 minutes at 350.

And once your cake comes out of the oven, what you want to do is give it a little bit of a finish, if you will.

So I like to dress it with fresh fruit, in this case, it's gonna be strawberries, and what I'm doing is taking some brown rice syrup and just quickly heating it just enough to loosen it a little so that it'll spoon really evenly.

And once it loosens... we're just gonna take it right from the pan and drizzle it right over our cake.

And it just adds that touch of sexy elegance that we want from dessert.

(soft music) 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.

(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, call: