James Beard Awards 2012

And the winner is...

Best New Restaurant
Next, Chicago

Outstanding Chef
Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park, New York

Outstanding Pastry Chef
Mindy Segal of Mindy's Hot Chocolate, Chicago

Outstanding Restaurant
Boulevard, San Francisco

Outstanding Restaurateur
Tom Douglas of Tom Douglas Restaurants, Seattle

Outstanding Service
La Grenouille, New York

Outstanding Wine & Spirits Professional
Paul Grieco of Terroir, New York

Outstanding Wine Program
No. 9 Park, Boston

Outstanding Bar Program
PDT, New York

Rising Star Chef Of The Year
Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar, New York

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REGIONAL CHEF AWARDS

Great Lakes
Bruce Sherman of North Pond, Chicago

Mid-Atlantic
Maricel Presilla of Cucharamama, Hoboken, NJ

Midwest
Tory Miller of L'Etoile in Madison, WI

New York City
Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, New York

Northeast
Tim Cushman of O Ya, Boston

Northwest
Matt Dillon of Sitka & Spruce, Seattle

Pacific
Matt Molina of Osteria Mozza, Los Angeles

South
Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, AL

Southeast (tie)
Hugh Acheson of Five and Ten, Athens, GA & Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene, Atlanta, GA

Southwest
Paul Qui of Uchiko, Austin, Texas

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James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award
Wolfgang Puck

James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year
Charlie Trotter

Give Quinoa A Try

Quinoa: pronounced keen-wah

It's known as the "Gold of the Incas," it has all 9 essential amino acids (protein building blocks that we can't make in our bodies, so we need to get them from food), and one cup contains all the magnesium we need for a day.

Since there is such a high protein value, quinoa makes a perfect meatless monday meal.  Just toss in some stir-fried veggies and you've got yourself a easy nutritious dinner.

Magnesium is an essential mineral that helps supports bone health and it's involved in many enzyme reactions in our body.  It has also be found to relax the blood vessels associated with migraines.

Quinoa is a good source of fiber and iron too.  It's also gluten-free for all of you with an allergy.

Quinoa is very easy cook!  If you buy it in bulk/plain, simply add 1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water in a saucepan, or you could use low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth.  I usually add 1 cup water and 1 cup chicken broth for some extra flavor.  Bring everything to a boil and let it simmer for around 15 minutes.  Should be fluffy and slightly translucent when ready to eat.

I like to keep things interesting, so I've been adding vegetables and extra seasonings to the plain dried quinoa mix.  Things I've tried (not all at once): diced red pepper, dried basil, oregano, rosemary, fresh black pepper, diced carrots, diced celery, and diced fresh garlic.

Once everything is cooked, I've also tried adding in sauteed mushrooms, snow peas, grated parmesan cheese and various meats.

You can find 16 ounces of plain organic quinoa at Trader Joe's for around 3 or 4 dollars.   I'm sure
Whole Foods sells it in bulk, though I've never looked for it there.  I did however recently buy a package of rosemary quinoa mix ($3.50) from Whole Foods by Near East.  I have always loved Near East products, especially their taboule, so I thought I'd give this a try.

Afternoon snack

There is nothing wrong with a little afternoon snack -- as long as it is not Doritos.  (sorry!)

May I recommend a granny smith apple sliced up with a few shakes of cinnamon? Nutritious, tasty, and curbs the hunger pangs until dinner.  Still feeling unsatisfied, fine, add all natural/unsalted peanut butter or almond butter too.

Added nutritional bonus: lots of antioxidants

Chix Soup +++

Chicken soup is still my panacea. 

So even though yesterday's weather seemed more like summer rather than winter, (which by the way, is the season we are still technically in) I thought I'd post about a soup I recently made.  I took a basic chicken soup recipe and turned it into chix soup plus, because, why not make it a bit more nutritious?

It's quick and easy, and you don't need to make your own chicken stock, which I often dread.

chix soup +++

serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts

2.5 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium-sized onion

3-4 cloves garlic, diced

3 celery stalks, chopped

1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

3 cups kale, roughly chopped

10 grape tomatoes, halved

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

3 cups low-sodium chicken broth

3 cups water

Sea salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper.  In soup pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat and cook chicken through about 4 minutes per side until golden brown.  Remove chicken and set aside for later.

2. Add celery, garlic, and onion to the pot and cook until tender, about 7-8 minutes.

3. Pour in the apple cider vinegar and then add the sweet potatoes, kale, tomatoes, chicken broth, and water.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes.

4. Tear chicken with hands for a pulled effect.  Stir chicken into the pot to heat it for a few minutes.

5. Serve and enjoy :)

Quick Fixes

I was thinking about all of the ways that I've already altered my lifestyle to encourage a "healthier" me. I thought I'd share 25 quick fixes that you could all start doing at anytime to help improve your health.  Some of these may seem really obvious and I bet many of them you already do, but this is just a little on-going list I'd like to start on how to eat healthier and simpler long-term.  I could easily write a paragraph on each one of these items, so please feel free to leave a comment and request such information.  For now, I thought I'd keep it as simple as possible.

Good luck making the switches!

1. White rice to brown rice, black rice or brown grain blends; which may include long grain rice varieties.  Trader Joe's sells a great "Brown Rice Medley" that costs around $1.99 for a bag.

2. Regular pasta to whole grain pasta.  There are definitely times when I still eat regular pasta, for example, when I make lasagna or order homemade pasta at a restaurant, but for the most part, it's only whole grain pasta for me.

3. Soda to seltzer.  Duh.

4. Any other cooking oils/sprays to only extra virgin olive oil or canola oil.

I am probably bias, but grown and bottled olive oils
from Italy are the best

5. White bread to whole grain bread (check the food label to make sure the first ingredient is "whole ...")  You should be getting 4 - 6 grams of fiber in each slice.  May I recommend Trader Joe's Fiber Multigrain.

6. Salted peanut butter to unsalted peanut butter.  May I also recommend trying almond, sunflower seed, or any other type of nut-butter.

7. Cooking with heavy cream or whole milk to using plain yogurt instead.  Substitute yogurt in place of cream in almost any recipe.

8. Any other kind of milk to organic fat-free milk.

9. Soy sauce to only low-sodium soy sauce.  Use sparingly.

10. Salt shaker to just fresh pepper or fresh squeezed lemon for flavor.

11. Packaged trail mix to making your own trail mix -- use unsalted almonds, pecans, walnuts, dark chocolate chips, and crasins (no sugar added, all natural, if you can find them).  This will save you calories, various preservatives, and money.

12. Any type of condiment or spread on your sandwich (not that I ever used these anyways) to sliced avocado.

13. Any other kind of yogurt to fat-free Greek yogurt.  Try Fage, Oikos, or Chobani.

14. Ground beef to ground turkey (again, not for every dish all the time, but give it a try for most).

15. 1 yolk for every 2-3 egg whites.  When I make scrambled eggs, I use 1 whole egg and one or two additional egg whites.

16. Pork bacon or pork sausage to turkey bacon or turkey sausage, this is a mega fat-reduction.

17. When making any recipe that calls for sugar, I often only add half as much as the recipe calls for.  Sometimes less.  You could also play around with adding just a little bit of honey in some cases.

18. Butter to, well, still butter.  Just use less.  Much less.

19. White potatoes to sweet potatoes.  You can still enjoy white potatoes every once and while, but for the most part, incorporate sweet potatoes as their nutrients are sky high.

Roast sweet potatoes with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh pepper

20. Milk chocolate or white chocolate to dark chocolate.  Go ahead and try at least 70 - 85%.  This is my favorite!

21. Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.

22. Exercise every day for at least 30 minutes.  Take the stairs, get off the subway at an earlier stop and walk, clean your filthy apartment/house/basement/garage, plant a garden, walk the dog longer, play, join a yoga/pilates studio, go skiing, don't drive -- walk or ride your bike, go out dancing, go for a hike, just go outside for an adventure.

23. Buy lean cuts of meat (like tenderloins, sirloins, top round steaks) and buy skinless chicken.

24. Go meatless at least once a week.

Shop at your local farmers market as often as you can

25. Buy more "real" foods (not food-like substances, processed foods, packaged foods etc...)

Enjoy what you EAT!