Thanks to everyone who came to the AVH Heart Healthy Cooking demo with Chef Martin Oswald! What a great turnout. A special thanks to the AVH Foundation for sponsoring this wonderful community event, to Sandy Holmes for all your hard work, and to Chef Martin, for taking the time to teach us all how to eat healthfully and deliciously!
My favorite Top Tips from Chef Martin:
To preserve turmeric and have it ready every day, spend one day preparing it: put on rubber gloves (to avoid staining your fingers!), shred it, and put it in apple cider vinegar that you have just boiled. Turn off the heat immediately, and it’s done! Can store in a mason jar for a few months, and add to salads, soups, or other dishes daily. Good for about 3 months.
Lightly toast your herbs to bring out their flavor – “activates them”. Put in a pan over dry heat for just a minute or two, tossing frequently. Caution not to burn.
When cooking without fat or oil/butter, use about 20% more spices to add flavor
Don’t put herbs on your food if you’re putting it in the oven – they will burn. Add them afterwards.
If you’re making a soup/stew/chili and you want it to be thicker without adding butter/cream or even nuts (low-fat, heart disease reversal diet), add some left-over creamed soup you had. For example, cream a butternut squash soup, sweet potato soup, cauliflower, carrot, celery root soup, etc. All of these will be creamy without any fat after blending. Add a little bit to the soup you’re making, and you will get a creamier consistency.
It’s all about the flavor! Taste it, and get it right! More spices, more herbs, vinegar, lemon, pinch of salt.
When you say something out loud, it brings awareness to the moment and improves focus. Try it, when you feel you’re tuning out and not present. “Yes, Chef Martin!”
Plant – based diet and lifestyle promotes health and saves lives! Share with others and do it together! It’s too important not to.
Who is Chef Martin Oswald? He is the owner of two thriving restaurants in Aspen and Basalt, Colorado – Pyramid Bistro and Riverside Grill. He is the Chef Coordinator and master mind behind a new chain of health-promoting restaurants called Bolay in Florida, where he paired up with the founder of Outback Steakhouse, he trained under Wolfgang Puck, he was twice nominated Best Chef in the Country, and he’s world renowned with plant-based physicians, educators and leaders committed to improving health of the world. He is passionate about plant-based food for reversing disease and long-term health, and you can find him involved in multiple activities helping people learn to eat and live this way. Stop by if you’re in the Aspen or Basalt area, and get to know Chef Martin! Check out his website at pyramidbistro.com.
Christina Miller, MD, eatandlivehealthfully.com