Sunday, March 27, 2011
View My Blog on The Veggie Queen Website
I have not abandoned you and hope that you will come join me where I currently post quite irregularly. I shoot for at least once a month but since I have been working on my next cookbook, The New Fast Food: The Veggie Queen Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less Than 30 Minutes, time has been limited. I hope to get back to more regular blogging when my ebook is released and the manuscript is happily resting with the publisher. Stay tuned...
You can also catch up with me on Facebook and Twitter.
Feel free to email me with any questions. I look forward to having you around.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Want to see The Veggie Queeen on the Oprah Winfrey Network?
You can vote a number of times for the same video. Should you lose the link, just go to browse videos, enter Jill and cooking, and you'll find me. I'd also love to hear any of your comments.
Additionally, I want to let you know that my blog has now officially moved to my new-ish website at http://www.theveggiequeen.com. You can find the blog under the blog tab or by clicking here. You can also sign up to receive new blog posts by clicking on the orange RSS feed button on the page. If you receive the feeds from this blog, please do that so that you can keep up with what I'm doing, in case I don't end up on the Oprah Winfrey Network any time soon.
I'd like your votes but honestly I see myself as a better candidate for PBS. I am all about doing vegetable, food and nutrition education and I'm not into hype or commercials.
Thanks for your support.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Where Has the Time Gone?
As much as I'd like to say that I NEVER get ill, that's just not the case. I live in the world and sometimes those nasty germs and viruses get me, just like they do you. I take as many precautions as possibly but short of going the Howard Hughes route, I live in the world and as they say things happen.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
The Veggie Queen Sprouts Again
- you put the seeds in a jar with a screened lid or piece of cheesecloth secured with a rubber band,
- soak,
- rinse,
- put in a bowl on an angle in a cabinet and then rinse twice a day
- When ready, place the jar in a spot with indirect sunlight and let the sprouts green up by absorbing light and turning it into chlorophyll.
But for the past 16 months, I have been using the Sprout Master Mini Triple Sprouter which is like a little stacked sprout house which is available from a place called The Sprout House where I buy most of my exotic sprout seeds. I purchase the usual beans and grains in bulk at my local natural foods store and send away for mixes (check out the Veggie Queen mix) and exotic seeds such as broccoli, clover, radish and many more.
I have discovered why my compact sprout system works better for me than the jar method. I recently made mung bean sprouts and put them in the cabinet to sprout in the dark. Twenty four hours later I realized that I had not remembered to rinse them. They were still OK but had a forgotten longer they may have stopped sprouting or rotted which is a big waste. I see my Sproutmaster on the counter top and remember to rinse the seeds which is vitally important.
I also discovered that the seeds seem to sprout better in the Sproutmaster than in the jar so I ended up putting my "jar seeds" into the Sproutmaster to finish sprouting. I made this salad with all those sprouts (no apologies for no photo since I made it for the McDougall program participants and didn't stop to take a photo. Believe me, it was beautiful. If you were there and want to comment, please do. I have to wait a few days for new sprouts before I can shoot the photo so... in the interest of time and getting this post up -- NO photo of the actual recipe).
Contact Rita at The Sprout House if you want to become a great sprouter like me. For the month of March you'll get a free pound of St. Patrick's mix with your sprouter. (Note: I am an affiliate of the Sprout House but only recommend people and products that I personally love.)
Rainbow Sprout Salad
Serves 4
I recently ate something like this at a mushroom hunting potluck. I had already likely eaten too much but it was too beautiful and tasty to pass up. Vary the ingredients based on what you have available.
1 1/2 cups mung bean sprouts
1 1/2 cups lentil sprouts
1 cup shredded red cabbage
½ cup shredded carrots
3 tablespoons toasted sunflower seeds
3 tablespoons dried cranberries or raisins (optional)
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons water
1-2 teaspoons mellow white miso
1-2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1-2 teaspoons agave syrup (optional)
Combine all the vegetables in a bowl and toss, adding sunflower seeds and dried fruit, if using.
In a small bowl, combine orange juice, zest, water, miso, mustard and agave syrup, if using. Combine dressing with sprouts and vegetables right before serving.
© 2010 The Veggie Queen™, Jill Nussinow, MS, RD http://www.theveggiequeen.com
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sonoma County Restaurant Week February 22nd to 28th, 2010
Coming up in less than 2 weeks, is the first Sonoma County Restaurant Week. It's a chance to try a number of different restaurants -- certainly more than 25 of them are participating. I have a few that I'd like to revisit since it's been a long time, and some that I'd like to try. The best part of the the week is that you can choose from set menus that are either $19, $29 or $39. So you know what you're getting into.
On my list for the week are Sizzling Tandoor for some mighty-tasty Indian fare in Santa Rosa, Peter Lowell's in Sebastopol for organic, local ingredients hot out of their wood-fired oven, HopMonk Tavern also in Sebastopol, Barndiva in Healdsburg where I haven't been for ages but will gladly go for the Hen of the Woods 'shroom entree, Dempsey's in Petaluma where I know that I can pair the food with great beer and Bistro des Copains in Occidental would make my list for sure if they had a vegetarian entree but sadly they don't have one listed. Since there are only 7 days in a week, and I am already busy one of the nights, I am going to have to make some choices as to where to eat during this week. Usually, it's at home but I will make some exceptions.
Remember that my choices are based on the restaurant offering what sounds like a good vegetarian or vegan option. There are plenty of others that might appeal to you. Remember that you are supporting a vibrant community of farmers and restaurateurs when you go out for Sonoma County Restaurant Week. Hope to see you out there somewhere.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Michael Pollan and The Veggie Queen Agree on Vegtables and Cooking
- Foods are the sum of their nutrient parts. Nutrients matter.
- You need experts to tell you how to eat. He likens this process to religion - and discusses the relationship of food and health.
- Nutritionism divides foods into good and evil nutrients which has led us to where we are now in terms of the obesity epidemic.
- The whole point of eating is health. Food and eating are on the ruining your health or saving your life spectrum. But what about other perfectly legitimate reasons for eating such as pleasure, community, cultural identity?
Pollan said, "I don't think that science knows enough to tell us what to eat." Agreed -- nutrition science is young. That's why I prefer to follow Mother Nature's need. He likens where we are to surgery in the year 1650 -- "it's interesting to watch but you don't want them to work on you yet," he says.
He suggests that if we tune into nature more and look at our past, we can likely figure out a better way to eat.
People who eat an incredible range of traditional diets around the world do not suffer from the chronic modern diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, that are rampant in the US population who eat the SAD (Standard American Diet) of mostly processed food.
And we can roll back the effects of the SAD diet by changing how you eat.
Here are some of the 64 rules in Food Rules that Pollan shared. Remember:
Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.
Avoid foods that make health claims, need a package and a big marketing budget.
The healthiest food is in the produce section. AT this point in the talk, I am smiling wide and patting myself on the back (at least figuratively). He said, "Don't be fooled by the silence of the yams, that they won't contribute to your health."
Don't buy any foods that you see advertised on television. (Big marketing budget at work.)
If it came from a plant, eat it. Woo hoo. Now I am internally cheering.
If it grew in a plant or a laboratory, avoid it. (Please say no to Monsanto as they destroy our food system.)
Rule Number 63: Plant a garden. Make it a large vegetable garden if you have the space, or a window box garden if you don't have room. Get away from fast, cheap and easy food. You'll eat what your garden yields. And you'll save money.(Oh, yes.) A recent study showed that a $70 investment in a garden yields about $700 worth of food. And it will put you in touch with the earth.
Rule Number 64: COOK. It's the easiest way to take back control of your diet and to know where your food comes from. (At this point, I was floating, and thinking that this talk was too good to be true except it could have been me up there wowing the crowd.)
While I wish that it were me or some other Registered Dietitian, with the ability to see beyond nutrients and look at food for the goodness that it provides, doing the bidding and getting people interested in their food, I salute Michael Pollan for all that he’s done to help people wake people up to the state of our food and what we eat. I hope that all that he's doing will make a big difference. It already has for me.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Raw Kale Salad: A Green Time of Year
Then he asked me if I'd seen chard, and since I was right at the Triple T Ranch and Farm booth, I pointed to the basket of Swiss chard. He went over to it, and I remarked, "Why don't you use kale, there's lots of it here today?" He walked away and I have no idea what he did.
The Veggie Queen’s Raw Kale Salad
Serves 2-4
This is easy to make and you’ll get a great dose of greens. Use your favorites types, put in extras to suit your taste. The only limit to what goes into this salad is your imagination. When you massage the greens, be sure to add the love.
2-3 teaspoons raw tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons miso (my favorite is South River Miso – brown rice or or mellow white works well) or Bragg’s liquid amino acids
1 teaspoon agave, or more to taste
1 apple, sliced thin, julienned or grated
Remove leaves from large ribs and slice thinly. Put into a large bowl. Add the tahini, lemon juice and miso. Put your hands into the bowl and massage the greens until they are wilted, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the agave syrup and apple. Stir well to combine. This tastes best when eaten immediately.
Note: you can also add sunflower seeds or dried fruit to this salad, or go more savory by adding crushed garlic and sliced onion and omitting the apple.
Notice how the greens shrink by about half when they are massaged with the tahini, miso and lemon juice. If you are eating this by yourself, make half a batch at once.
Let me know how you like this salad by leaving a comment here on this blog, below, or sending me an email at jill at theveggiequeen.com.