Cooking for Diabetics and South Beach clients

One of the many different things we prepare in our kitchen is our Tuesday/Friday deliveries of the South Beach diet menu. This is also a Diabetic compliant menu and let me tell you, this is the way to eat! No deprivation here!

I love preparing this menu!

Basically the client tells me what they don't like and what their favorite things are and then I pretty much cook whatever is fresh at the market within their guidelines. Today I'm very happy because of the 2 South Beach clients I have today (along with several others for my Spa menu) there is only one dislike for cucumbers and that is super easy to accommodate! I can let my creativity just flow as I create healthy low carb items.

Here's my menu for today: In the first photo you see Wild Sockeye Salmon with a Sesame and Soy glaze served with Asian stirfry vegetables. Then there is an Amond crusted Chicken breast served on a bed of haricot verts. Ground nuts make a great substitute for crunchy breading without the carbs plus you get those good monosaturated fats and nutrients that are in the almonds. The third entree is a grilled Pork Tenderloin with fresh thyme and grilled seasonal vegetables. Grilling really adds a lot of flavor which is really important when you are cutting out fats or lowering your calories.

The second photo has some marinated and grilled Chicken breast served over roasted asparagus. Again, roasting caramelizes the surface bringing out lots of flavor. I put a light coating of Tarragon oil on them and then blast them at 450 degrees for about 4 minutes. Since my clients will be heating this up at home when they are ready for dinner, its important to have everything cooked with the intention that it will be heated and finish cooking in that process. I've also got some Jumbo Prawns that I have tossed in lemon flavored oil with fresh lemon zest and Greek herbs. Flash grill them on the charbroiler and served on a bed of veggies. These are the largest shrimp, about 11-13 to a lb. We also have some Mediterranean Beef meatballs. These are delicious! They've got lean grass fed beef, kalamata olives, peppercini, feta cheese and pine nuts with lots of fresh herbs and kale and a touch of flax meal instead of bread crumbs. These are served with one of my all time favorite sauces. Puttanesca. These 2 menu items are very likely to show up in a retail or wholesale grocer in the near future as we are doing recipe development for a company that provides foods for 11 western states.

Here is a really simple recipe that I can share with you that will make a quick and delicious dinner:

style="font-family:Verdana;">Fresh Fish with Sourcream and Dill sauce - 4 portions

5 oz portions of Wild Halibut (I prefer to make this with Halibut or Cod, but have also done it with sole and salmon)

1/2 cup of Chardonnay

1/4 cup of finely minced red onion or shallot

2 tablespoons fresh dill

1 tablespoon fresh parsley

2/3 cup light sour cream (you may use regular if you prefer)

salt and pepper to taste

Wash and dry your fresh fish, marinate in the Chardonnay for 15 minutes. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and top with the sourcream/onion/dill mixture

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.

This is a great dish and will work for Chicken as well. Serve with bright colorful vegetables. Today I served this with roasted grape tomato relish and roasted asparagus.

The breakfasts for the next 4 days are Smoked Salmon scrambles and Scrambled eggs with Asparagus and cheese.

The snacks that went with this order were Ricotta creme desserts - I made an Almond flavored one, and a chocolate Almond. Cottage cheese and then veggies with cheese and veggies with roasted red pepper hummus, they also had berries with yogurt. The key to this dietary plan is to have 3 meals and 2 snacks a day at regular intervals so that your blood sugar remains level. I'm finding more and more Diabetics are eating this way, its really a healthy way to eat for anyone!

All freshly prepared food makes it easy for someone who is struggling with keeping their blood sugar stable and hopefully we can make life just a little bit easier for them. Okay, a LOT easier for them!

Recipes? only a concept

There are two trains of thoughts on cooking. Those who believe that a recipe must be followed to a T. No deviations. I will accept that only the first time a recipe is created, so that you know what the intent of the dish was to be. But for the most part, I fall into the catagory of Recipe as concept. By this, I mean I rarely follow recipes. To me a recipe is meant to be an idea that in its original form was pretty good. Good enough for someone to take the time to write it down so that they could repeat it again or perhaps share it. But for a true foodie or a creative chef or cook, a recipe is merely a starting point. Such is the recipe I have created below which I believe is better than the original one that was served at the Space Needle restaurant when I worked there many years ago.

To me, what matters most is using seasonal ingredients and then combining them with fresh herbs and or spices, wine or lemon for acidity to create a memorable dish. Today my special ingredient is Saffron. Saffron is the stamins of the crocus plant and originates in Spain. Its the world's most expensive spice because as you can imagine, harvesting crocus stamins is a painstakingly time consuming job! You don't need much to get that old world flavor and rich golden color. Its important to bloom the saffron in hot liquid. This allows for the stamins to steep like tea and release their color and flavor. Now, I have tried to skip this step, just adding saffron threads to risotto or some other dish, but the result is not the same, you will not release as much of the color and flavor without this step.

I think its really important to layer flavors. By this I mean that at every stage of the cooking process you are adding flavor. I do this by starting my cooking process using flavored oils. I have about 15 different flavors of oil in my kitchen. They are made using food grade essential oils in single flavors plus a base oil. My base oil is usually olive oil or sometimes grape seed oil, I may also use expeller pressed canola oil on occasion depending on the flavor I am adding. If I am using Rosemary essential oil, I will use an olive oil base. If it's Lemon or Tangerine, I will use canola or grapeseed oil as those have less flavor on their own.

Other ways to add flavor is by toasting. I am toasting Israeli couscous for this recipe. Its a small round pasta that has a nice mouth feel texture. Typically when I use Israeli couscous, I don't cook it like I would cook a pasta. I start with flavored oil in the pan, caramelize onions, then add shallot and or garlic, my toasted couscous and then fish stock, wine, tomatoes and herbs. I toast my couscous in a pan by itself, preferably cast iron and just a small amount of oil until golden, add it to the pan with the onions and stock and then simmer on low until barely tender or al dente.

The recipe:

Halibut and Salmon Galon

4 Strips of fresh Sockeye Salmon and Wild Halibut cut into strips about 5 inches by 1.5 inch (approximate) 2 strips of each. Weave the strips together like you would a lattice pie top. Turn in the ends to form a compact round. Rub with lemon oil, salt and pepper. Bake in a preheated oven for 10 minutes or until desired doneness. I prefer my fish MR.

You could also make this into one large woven entree for a dinner party - its a beautiful presentation.

The sauce:

Fish stock - 1.5 cups, reduced to 1 cup
1 generous pinch of saffron threads
2 T butter - I always use unsalted butter
1 t minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
zest and juice of one lemon
1 T Sweet Glutenous rice flour

In saute pan, melt 1 T butter and saute garlic just until translucent, do not brown. Add fish stock and reduce, add saffron and lemon zest and juice. In 2 T of fish stock or water make a slurry of the SGR flour as a thickener, continue cooking down for a couple minutes. Finish the sauce with remaining butter. Drizzle over fish and top with fresh parsley.

As mentioned this dish is a concept. I put fresh zucchini and red onion as well as canned diced tomatoes and additional fish stock in my couscous but use whatever seasonal ingredients you have on hand. Clam juice can be substituted for fish stock or you could also use vegetable or chicken stock.

Experiment in the kitchen! If its good enough to repeat, write it down.

The Culinary Cooperative

I think that people are intrinsicly good and that given the chance to give back, they would do it if they had the time or the ability to do so. Many times we find our lives so busy that its hard to fit in family time or relaxation time for ourselves, let alone support charities. However, if the opportunity was there to allow you to contribute and it was right there in your work environment, it could easily be incorporated into each of our lives on a daily basis. That is what I am hopeful to do with this project.

The Culinary Cooperative is a vision I have had for several years. The concept isn't original, but the umbrella of what it will eventually emcompass is. My goal is to create a shared use commercial kitchen space that will be available for rent for either long term or short term for food based businesses. This project was in full swing this past winter and we even had located a restaurant space to convert and were in the process of getting loans in place when the banking industry fell through the floor and no one was lending to small businesses. My disappointment was more for the many businesses that needed to have this type of space than for my self. I knew that when the timing was right, I would try again and it was a mere setback.

The Culinary Cooperative will be more than just a kitchen space. It will have room for many businesses to make their artisan food products, run their catering businesses or meal delivery services or sell their food to other businesses. There will be a production area and a teaching kitchen which will be used for teaching various cooking classes to both public and private groups, team building and perhaps most importantly, to recipients of the food banks. It is our vision that all the the chefs and food entrepreneurs in this kitchen space will give back a bit of their time with community service. Our committment will be to helping food bank recipients become more empowered by teaching them how to take items off of the shelf and perhaps pairing it with Farmer's surpluses or unusual fresh items that they may not be familiar with and showing them several healthy meals they can create using those ingredients. Besides a kitchen space, storage area and teaching kitchen, it will have a business center with computer and printer and resource library, an area to meet with potential clients and a community herb garden. We'll have speakers that have topics of interest for new business owners and the ability to use our collective buying power to get the best pricing for food deliveries or make purchases directly from farmers. This kitchen will not only be part of a neighborhood, but it will be part of the greater community in that the chefs and food businesses will become part of the local fabric with our local foods and our giving back to the community.

Today I received a phone call that may put this project from the back burner to the front burner again. We are in conversations on getting grants written to fund this project as there is a great need for this type of service to help small businesses have a place to produce their food products and run their businesses from that is clean, certified and reasonably priced. I will keep you up to date as the talks progress. Its a great day! The heat wave is tolerable today and this is very good news. I'm a happy chef!

New Orleans, an experience in food and culture

New Orleans is a city like no other. It has more heart and soul than most of us experience on a daily basis. The culture is historical and can be experienced with all of our senses as we did recently during our National Chef convention this past week.














Almond Financier with Plum Ice cream at Bayona's

















Pan Roasted Triple Tail Fish with fresh field pea
ragout and smokey tomato butter
















Chefs - Rebecca Connolly, Debra Lane, Karla Bildt
Cathy Garrosino, Sara Myron, Bill Furr, Conni Brownell

New Orleans is more than an American city. It is a unique culture where music and food come together. Music is a vital ingredient to this city and walking through the warm French quarter in the evening, the sound of a mixture of Blues and Jazz permiates the air with the smells of spice from the food of the region. A 3 piece band with a trumpet, bass and banjo at Steamboat Willie's immersed us in the culture that is New Orleans. A clear voice from a bygone era reminded me of an old radio show. Bluesy songs that told a story of hard times and lost loves intermixed with spoken stories. A little haven in the center of a wild nightlife. It seemed like this was the place where adults could come to experience New Orleans through the eyes of a local. Music can touch your soul in that a song can take you back to your first love, to a youthful experience or to a memory frozen in time that comes flooding back whenever you hear that particular song.

Food does the same thing in that you will experience it through many senses and one bite of a peach pie takes me back to my grandmother's table as a small child. Its more than fuel, its the fabric of our society. Its cultural, its community, it's love.

Food can be art on a plate. I can really appreciate the creativity that goes into this kind of food, the care, the artistry, the technique and the talent. But New Orleans is more than high brow dining. It's got soulful food that comes from people who have lived in this area for generations and prepare their food from memory cooking along side their family members and with much love and yes, you can taste the love! Gumbo, Jambalaya, Crawfish and grits, Creole and Cajun with French and African American influences on the food and culture. The food and the music become one. New Orleans is more than a southern city, it has a unique culture that is vibrant and passionate! This type of food is like my grandmother's table. Equally delicious as the artfully prepared plate, but comforting and full of love. Shared with friends who appreciate all that goes into good food is an added element of joy. Good food prepared well can be simple or elaborate, the key is good ingredients plus love create good food.

You cannot think of New Orleans without thinking of the horrors of Katrina and what this area has been through. Much of the area we were going through was under 5 feet of water. Its seems unimaginable in this very metropolitan city. We happened to be visiting while there were over 37,000 teenagers in the city and most of them were at our hotel. While we experienced the inconvenience of having clogged up elevator lines and lines 50 deep for Pralines or Beignets, it was heartwarming to know that these young people were there to do good works. They were there to help rebuild and reclaim the city as it was. The city and the area must be preserved and rebuilt. It is a great American city with so much culture and soul and everyone should experience it. I hope to return some day and I'm very happy to be bringing a little of the culture back to the Pacific Northwest with me through food.

A heartwarming thanks for the teenagers who were there to help. For that I am grateful.