Earth Fest 2016 -- Free food event at USC and more Trish and Erik updates!

Ever wish someone would make your family a healthy, satisfying and absolutely delicious meal Monday to Thursday night so you don’t have to?  Better yet, they’d also buy your groceries and clean your kitchen.  Then, when it’s time for dinner, all you have to do is reheat it.  And wouldn’t it be amazing if these meals would also help you lose weight without trying? 

Erik's roasted cauliflower soup we served to a family we're personally cooking for.  It's SO good!  

Well, Erik (my husband and number one chef) and I are working on it.  We’ve started cooking for families in the Columbia, SC area so they don’t have to (roasted cauliflower soup above). It’s very rewarding and exciting but also a lot of work while we’re both working full-time jobs which have also been very exciting.  In fact, I just finished my second time cooking on live tv!

Trisha preparing to go live on the Emmy award-winning Making It Grow.

I just had the extreme pleasure of demoing a farro vegetable salad on “Making It Grow” on South Carolina Public Television (SCEtv).  Honestly, it was so exciting.  It’s a gardening and food show so naturally I was in heaven!  Plus, the host, Amanda McNulty is an a-mazing woman.  Even if you’re not in SC but love gardening, you’ll learn lots from the show.  I did!

Trisha and Amanda McNulty, host of Making It Grow on SCEtv

If you're on my email list you'll be the first to get the episode once it’s online, but until then, I wanted to let you in on an awesome, free event Columbia’s Cooking is hosting at USC in Columbia, SC “Earth Fest 2016 — How Your Palate Affects the Planet.”  I’ve created the event with Kirby Beal, an MPH candidate as her Preceptor.  If you’re in the area, please come and meet Erik and I and enjoy some free food and amazing presentations and workshops on how communities can determine the shape of their food system.  

Erik and I will be serving a free lunch featuring Anson Mills and City Roots, SC grown and organic products at Earth Fest 2016.  

You can also meet Casey McCurry at Earth Fest.  She's our Program Coordinator at Columbia's Cooking.  She's a great plant-based cook and the backbone to our organization.  I love her!

Casey McCurry, Columbia's Cooking Program Coordinator, happily serving a veggie lasagna with a cashew basil cheese and vegan cesar salad with our home-made and oil-free croutons.  

I hope you find these updates exciting and if you're in town, please come visit us for lots of free info!

Tonight's 15 minute dinner - gnocchi

Sometimes, I just don’t want to cook and tonight, was one of those nights.  Know the feeling?  I’m home and hungry, but still don’t want to spend time in the kitchen.  Too many other things to do (including relax).  However, I still want to eat healthy.  What’s a girl to do?  

Eat gnocchi.

Yes, the Italian potato pasta that’s filling, scrumptious AND only takes 15 minutes to cook from start to finish.  Bam.

I’m definitely not talking home-made gnocchi here, but at Trader Joe’s, you can buy a package of vegan, oil-free gnocchi for about two dollars!  Many grocery stores carry gnocchi (ranges in price) and it’s worth buying and keeping a few stashed in the house for those nights when ya just don’t feel like cookin.

Gnocchi only takes 2-3 minutes to cook once it’s added to boiling water.  You know it's done when all the gnocchi have floated to the top of the pot.  

While your brining water to a boil, open a jar of pre-made pasta sauce (always stashed in the house) and then, your bare basics are covered.  Just add any of these spices to the sauce — red pepper chili flakes, basil, chives, garlic powder, onion powder or bay leaf; then toss in a few dark leafy greens (arugula, spinach, kale) or any cut veggies lying around, for an extra nutritional kick.  Then, just add the sauce to the gnocchi and bam! you’re done!   

You can add a slice of toast with spread avocado on-top too if you like (tastes just like butter).

Take Control Now

What's your go-to 15 minute dinner?  

How to Cook Spaghetti Squash

I love winter squash… acorn, hubbard, butternut, buttercup (my favorite), golden nugget, sweet dumpling, and the list goes on.  Winter squash are Foundational Filling Foods, they’re excellent for weight-loss, they’re comforting, hearty, beautiful and sweetly delicious (learn more about winter squash here).

But spaghetti squash is in a world of its own.  No other can compete.  Why?  Well it’s name says it all.  Once you cook spaghetti squash and pull at its flesh with a fork, it looks and feels just like spaghetti, but it's a filling vegetable! 

I want you to take advantage of this super simple and delicious winter squash… I want you to make it!  Here’s how to do just that.

How to Cook Spaghetti Squash

Step 1:  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Step 2:  Using a large chef’s knife, slice the spaghetti squash in half length wise.

Step 3:  Scoop seeds out with spoon and discard.

Step 4:  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon mat.

Step 5:  Season squash with salt and pepper.

Step 6:  Place both squash halves flesh side up on pan and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Step 7:  Remove from oven, flip over so flesh side is down and bake for another 20 minutes.  

Step 8:  Remove from oven and test to ensure it’s thoroughly cooked.  To test, pierce with a paring knife and if there’s little resistance, it’s done!  If not, continue to bake for 10 minutes increments until done.  It should like like this when done…

Step 9:  Turn into pasta!  Take a fork, and pull at the flesh of the squash.  Careful, as it's still hot.  Shreds of squash pasta will form.  Transfer to a bowl and enjoy plain or top with your favorite sauce. 

We topped our spaghetti squash off with doctored up jarred marinara.  We sautéed julienned onion and pepper in veg stock before adding them to the marinara.  Then we ripped up a few kalamata olives and tossed them in the sauce with a bay leaf.  It’s important to eat dark leafy greens every day so we clipped some kale from our garden and sautéed it with garlic, veg stock and lemon.  Here’s how it came out.  It was delicious!

Know there’s numerous ways to bake spaghetti squash, this just happens to be our favorite.

Take Control Now Challenge

Share your favorite way to eat spaghetti squash OR buy a spaghetti squash and cook this week.  It’s yummy plain, or add your favorite vegan marinara or Bolognese sauce.  Share your insights by clicking ‘comment’ below.   

How to Properly Dice an Onion

One of the most important cooking skills is knowing how to properly dice an onion.  Whether you're starting a saute, cutting onions for a salad or for chili, onions add immense flavor and nutrition to all different types of cuisines.  If you want to succeed in the kitchen, knowing how to cut an onion is a must.  Learn how in less than 3 minutes in the below video or scroll down for written instructions.  Then complete our Take Control Now onion challenge and let us know how it goes by commenting below. 

How to Properly Dice an Onion

1.  Cut off the papery end of the onion.  This is the end that grows upward, out of the soil, when growing in the garden.  This is the "northern" tip of the onion.

2.  Cut the onion in half from north to south.

3.  Remove the papery, non-edible skin from both halves.

4. Starting on the western side of the onion, make a cut from the root end toward the equator, being sure not to cut completely through the root or southern end of the onion.  Doing so will keep the onion together while cutting, making it a lot easier to complete your dice cuts. Continue to make parallel, equal distant cuts, cutting south to north.

5.   Make equal distant, horizontal cuts from the equator towards the root, using your thumb and pointer finger to hold and secure the onion on the top of the onion, above your knife.  These cuts are perpendicular to the first cuts made in step 4.

6.  Now make equal distant cuts parallel to the equator.  Move from the equator toward the root or southern end.  Now, equal sized dices of onion should fall onto the cutting board, ready to be used.

** It's much easier to understand if you watch the video above :)

Take Control Now Onion Challenege

Dice every onion you need to prepare this week by using this method.  It takes practice.  Then let us know your thoughts by clicking comment below.  Share insights or questions.  We'll answer :)  

The 3 essential components of a successful exercise program

I think you’d agree sticking to doctor’s appointments is important.  You’ll even leave work in the middle of the day to make a doctor’s appointment.  I do the same.  

I visit the doc so frequently though my staff knows not to schedule meetings around these appointments on my work calendar and when I’m visiting family I don't cancel doctors appointments either.  I can't afford to -- my health is at serious risk otherwise!  I visit the doctor about 5 times a week.

I visit the doctor at yoga; I visit the doctor at kettle bell class, at the dance studio, biking or playing ultimate frisbee.  Yes -- exercise is my physician and I treat workout appointments as importantly as I would doctor’s appointments.  Because they are!

I am a better me when I exercise regularly (and you’ll be a better you when you do too).  I have more energy, think more clearly, I feel better about myself, I eat and sleep better and I’m more pleasurable to be around.  

Not only that, exercise is imperative for improved health and continual or sustained weight-loss.  One reason people reach a weight-loss plateau after they’ve successfully adopted optimal eating behaviors, is a non-existent or incorrect exercise regimen (don’t know how to eat right? Watch one of my earliest and most popular videos “How to Achieve Accelerated Weight Loss” here).

Once you’ve learned how to eat in abundance without portion control or calorie counting, you need to know how to start, improve and stick to a regular exercise program (no protein shakes included).  Here's exactly what you need to include for a successful exercise program...

The 3 essential components of a successful exercise program

1.  Intensity.

Intensity relates to how hard your body is working while exercising.  

The intensity of your workouts should always be increasing or continuously be challenging for fitness to improve over time.  For example, if you do bicep curls with weights every week, the amount of weight should be increasing every 1-2 weeks.  If you walk every week, increase the intensity by adding hills or stairs.  For fitness to improve, you have to continuously challenge your body over time.

You know you've reached your ideal intensity when you could talk out loud, but rather wouldn't.  This is called the talk test and is an effective measure of whether or not you're in your target heart rate.  If you're gasping for air and can hardly breathe, you're working too hard and need to take it down a notch.  If you can carry on a full conversation or sing a song, you aren't working hard enough and need to step it up.

2.  Duration.

Duration refers to the length of workouts.  If you've been walking 3 times a week for 30 minutes a day, try walking for 45 minutes 3 times a week next week (and adding hand weights or hills to increase intensity as well).

The CDC recommends that for the greatest health benefits, adults spend 5 hours a week exercising at a moderate aerobic intensity and 2 days of strength training.  Or, spending 2.5 hours exercising at vigorous aerobic intensity with 2 or more strength training days. 

3.  Frequency.

Frequency refers to how many times a week you workout.  If you currently walk 3 times a week for 30 minutes a day, walk 4 times the next week and 5 times the week after.  Be sure to increase the duration and intensity of your exercise at the appropriate rate every week too.

Take Control Now Action Step

What's most challenging about exercise for you and how have you overcome this barrier in the past?

Answer by clicking 'comment' below.