Posted By Sara Francis Posted 5 hours ago

Eating appetizing food while getting all the right nutrients is the premise for a new recipe book by Cochrane-based author Patrician Green and her sister Carolyn Hemming of Toronto.

“Quinoa: the Everyday Super Food 365″ shows the average consumer how to incorporate the rice-like seed into all kinds of foods from salads, to main courses, breakfasts, desserts and even baby food.

“Our goal is to bridge the gap between traditional eating habit and increasingly nutritious food choices,” said Patricia Green, a Saskatoon-native who’s made Cochrane her home with her husband and two children for the last 3.5 years.

“Growing up, everything was homemade and then when you have your own family you want to instill those values in them as well with healthy eating,” said Green.

Quinoa is gluten-free seed high in protein, iron, fiber and has a low glyecmic index. It’s an environmentally-friendly crop that grows in drought conditions in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

“It’s complete protein with all eight essential amino acids so it is a very efficient food,” said Green. “When people go and buy their foods and they are looking at how much nutrient value is in it, quinoa is one of those items where they can say I’m really getting my nutrients for the dollar.”

Green started preparing meals for her family using quinoa six years ago after a vegetarian friend introduced her to it. she then introduced it to her health-conscious sister who trains for marathons and got her cooking with it. Together they started collecting and creating quinoa-based recipes and eventually submitted their compilation to a publisher.

“There was no book on the market that targeted the average consumer like myself and my children who are average eaters, they are not extreme vegetarians, they like the tastes that everybody else enjoys,” said Green.

White quinoa is neutral and can be used in place of white rice, while black and red varities are similar to wild rice. the simplest way to prepare quinoa is in a rice cooker and then slowly incorporating it into breakfast cereals, salads and shakes. it also comes in the form of flour and flakes.

While the books boasts 170 tried and true recipes Green recommends her favourite — fresh cucumber and toasted almond salad with dill or her moist chocolate cake.

“It is just made with a quinoa seed, it is cooked like you would rice, then you can put it in your blender and mix it with your dry. you don’t even know it’s not white flour and you don’t know it’s not a regular chocolate cake.”

In April, Smith, who owns Table Fifty-Two and Art and Soul (in Washington, D.C.) and former personal chef to Oprah Winfrey, will have a TV series, “Craving Comfort,” on TLC. (The premise, he said, is he travels the country “in search of the most delicious, comfy food” in America.)

But wait, there’s more: The Chicago Culinary Museum and Chefs Hall of Fame recently announced that Smith will be its 2010 inductee, joining Bayless, Carrie Nahabedian, Jimmy Bannos and Charlie Trotter.

Here’s an edited version of a conversation with Smith.

Q: Congratulations on the hall of fame news. When did you find out? I found out about a month ago, and I was just like, “Wow.” I couldn’t believe it and thought it was really great because the other people in the hall of fame are these amazing chefs, and this is quite an honor for someone who doesn’t have the classic training they do. I have worked for incredible people, but my food has been comfort food, and that’s my focus. And that’s what I do. but it’s important that comfort food is recognized too. That’s the food we all relate with; that’s what our mothers made for us.

Q: most days I would rather have comfort food. I think all of us would. It speaks to our soul. Anything that connects you to how you were raised does. Mac and cheese is maybe our biggest seller (at Table Fifty-Two), but the thing is, we have this big, fancy oven that cooks it at a high temperature, and doing that at home is not practical. but it’s close to that experience. I think this honor also honors all the women in my life who raised me and taught me how to cook these things. I think, “Wow, we are serving my great-grandmother’s cobbler chocolate cake,” and to think that’s a recipe that came from the countryside of northern Florida, it’s remarkable.

Q: have you ever been to a hall of fame, any hall of fame? The Country Music Hall of Fame.

Q: Are you going to donate anything to this hall of fame when it opens? I’m sure, when the time comes.

I have probably one of the largest cookbook collections in Chicago, and that will go to one of the schools.

I’ll probably donate things from my travels and my other stints. I met the people working on the gay and lesbian museum in Washington, (proposed by a former Smithsonian collection specialist) and you know what they said to me? They said, “If the Smithsonian has Julia Child’s kitchen, then we want yours!” They said I can be their Julia! I was a little overwhelmed. They said I was the most well-known openly gay chef in America. It was sweet. I’d never thought of myself that way.

But I just had dinner with (writer and Raleigh native) Armistead Maupin. He wanted to meet me. He said, “It’s amazing what you, an openly gay man from the South, have done.” I never think of that. Coming from him, and having this amazing vegan dinner with him, America’s foremost gay writer, it was remarkable.

Q: by the way, happy 50th. Oh, it means a lot. Not only am I turning 50, I am at least 50 poundslighter. I just lost 85 pounds. It was my goal to lose 50 for my 50th. I thought it would help me to be a better mentor to the kids, and it would just be better personally if I want to have the ability to keep doing what I do. I had to take better care of myself. Chefs are notorious for not taking care of themselves. we lead complicated lives; we eat too much and drink too much. we love to serve others, but often wait until it’s too late to do it ourselves. And now I feel better.

And yet here I sit.

The fellows, editor in chief and food and nutrition editor, respectively, of Men’s Health magazine, have put together another compelling volume that shows how we can all bypass the hyper-caloric, fat- , sugar- and salt-laden offerings from fast-food joints and quick-serve restaurants to make our diets more healthful and nutritious.

In past iterations, they’ve followed a formula, comparing a better-for-you offering (eat this) with something quite horrible (not that). in their new book, “Cook this, Not that!” (Rodale, 2009), they advise taking what for some is a drastic measure: learning to cook.

The premise is that by simply mastering a few basic but tasty recipes and substituting them for takeout or other meals prepared by others, we can seize control of what we eat, how many calories we consume and how much we spend. The authors make an excellent case for eating in: in the time it takes for a pizza or some Chinese food to be delivered or for the family to pile into the car and drive to a restaurant, any of us can cook a delicious, satisfying and nutritious meal in our kitchen.

The book features more than 200 recipes, each illustrated with a full-page color photo and contrasted with a restaurant favorite. None takes more than 20 or 30 minutes to cook. The Spinach Salad With Warm Bacon Dressing, with 220 calories, 11 grams of fat (three of them saturated) and 560 milligrams of sodium per serving, is offered as a substitute for the Grilled Shrimp ‘N Spinach Salad from Applebee’s, which delivers 1,040 calories, 11 grams of saturated fat and 2,380 milligrams of sodium (more than the government’s dietary guidelines budgets for a full day).

Some features of “Cook this, Not that!” are aimed at the reluctant or novice cook: There’s a chapter with a guide to outfitting a kitchen for just $331, for instance. But because Goulding was a professional chef before he joined Men’s Health, he’s made these recipes worthwhile for more-seasoned cooks, too. one example: a more healthful version of chicken fried rice than the kind you’d get at P.F. Chang’s, which at the time the book was written contained an ungodly 4,548 milligrams of sodium. (The restaurant chain apparently has since reduced the dish’s sodium content.) The homemade version has 720 milligrams.

One thing I love about the “Cook This” approach is its emphasis on fresh, whole ingredients and its embrace of delicious items (such as the bacon in that spinach salad) that many diet and nutrition guides would consider off-limits.

“We’re all about honest, simple food,” the authors write. “And we’re not afraid to use the real ingredients delicious food demands.” they eschew light mayonnaise, Splenda, fat-free half-and-half and “sneaky tricks like folding pureed broccoli into your brownies, using Fiber one cereal as breading, or replacing butter with applesauce in the chocolate cookies.”

See why I like these books so much?

Like the others in the series, this book is packed with handy tips (top your pancakes with easy-to-make fruit compote instead of maple syrup) and graphic guides to selecting the best foods, from meats and dairy products to pantry staples. and it isn’t afraid to play favorites: Breyers all Natural ice cream is singled out as the “go-to brand for all your ice cream needs” because milk, rather than cream, is the first ingredient; it thus has fewer calories and fat than other brands.

“The first six books were telling people how to make smart choices when in a compromising position,” Goulding told me over the phone. “They were about mitigating damage” when your only dining option is the food court.

The new book, he said, is “not about cutting out foods you really love, but about learning to produce them in an environment in which you’re in control.” that control lets you take charge of how much butter, salt and sugar you consume, said Goulding.

So, do the authors practice what they preach? Zinczenko said via e-mail, “I cook occasionally, but not as much as Matt.” Goulding said that, even with his busy schedule, he tries to cook dinner five nights a week.

But even those who feel they can’t manage that frequency can improve their diets by just cooking more often. “You’d have to try very hard,” he said, “not to do better than what restaurants do for you day in and day out.”