Healthy Recipes the Family Will Love - #ChooseDreams

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to the hangout today where we're celebrating healthy family recipes. And you know, we're all about bringing the family back to the dinner table and not only just feeding them, but feeding them better. You know, we all need to start eating a little healthier. We all need to think about our futures, and the way we're going to do that is by creating some really delicious, appealing-looking meals. And today we're running an event that is part of the Choose Dreams campaign, and Sunday Supper has partnered up with American Family Insurance. And then, you know, they're all about helping us to live longer because, you know, that's what it's about, enjoying life. And I've got some great guests today with me, and in fact, Isabelle from Sunday Supper is here, so I'm going to say hi. How you doing, Isabelle? It's good to see you.

Doing great. Thanks, Dennis. Excited for this event. You know, I just can't say enough about Choose Dreams and American Family and just how much fun the Sunday Supper family has enjoyed working with them and really focusing on just great nutritious recipes.

Absolutely. You know, it's nice to see a company like that really embracing the philosophy of especially, you know, getting the families back and feeding them better. So, and we also have our other friends today, and I'm just going to go right next to Katie Compton. How you doing, Katie? It's been a little while.

Just a short time.

Just a short time. Good to see you. And I will see you soon. You'll be at the conference as well, won't you?

Indeed I will.

Good to see you again. And Renee, how you doing today?

I'm doing just great. How are you?

I am wonderful. Florida is sunny. I've kind of adapted to the heat already. I was outside after a rain a couple days ago and I went, oh, I need a jacket. I came inside and saw it was 82 degrees and went, oh no. There's something wrong with me. I've adapted too quickly. How's Georgia?

Oh, it's hot, it's humid, and I can't wait to get away from it for a few days and go to such a fun, wonderful, and informative conference.

You know, you're absolutely right. That was so nice last year, so much fun, so many great people, so many wonderful sponsors, and a very nice cool atmosphere where we work. And dress in layers if you're going because it was a little chilly my first year in Florida, my first summer, and people went, "What were you thinking?" And I said, "I'm thinking I'm in Florida." But they do love their air conditioning, so that's good to know.

Not so much inside.

And all the way on the other end of me, I have Cindy Kirschner. How you doing, Cindy?

Hey, Chef Dennis. How's everybody today?

Ah, doing good. Happy to be here. Happy to be talking about some recipes and things today. So we're just going to get this part started and dive into it. If you have questions, please leave them in the comments section underneath this picture. If you have recipes you'd like to share, you can put a link in there too. I'll turn the image share on and you can share some images there. We'll just start talking about some good eats, some healthy eats, and what we like to do to get our families eating. So, Isabelle, I'm going to turn it back to you and let you dive in here a little bit.

Talking about some recipes.

Oh, well, thanks, Dennis.

You know, I have to say, one of the tips that I learned last time that Katie and I did that Hangout, I am in love with Zoodles. And whoever would have thought she introduced me to something new. What a fun thing to cook with the family and a fun thing for kids. I just absolutely love that, Katie.

Yay! I love them too.

Absolutely, such a great recipe, just filled with that zoodles or zucchini noodles and just, you know, a really natural, great sauce. Like I said, that, you know, really even the kids love. Great choice, thank you.

Glad to be of service.

Katie, can you do anything else on that, on that to make other kind of noodles out of other vegetables, or is that about it?

Yeah, you can use, you could do cucumber noodles for like a salad with some feta and tomatoes. I want to try that next. That's one thing I want to do. You could do potatoes through it and do an oven-baked, like kind of French fries, if you will, a little bit healthier than frying them in a deep fryer, and you still get the crispiness because they're so thin. I'm trying to think of what else I wanted to put through there. Lots of different things. I just want to spiral.

Could you spiral fruit like apples or pears too?

Yeah, you could do that. I've seen them do that before as well, pears and apples, and make like a crumble or a pie with them.

What a good idea.

Into salads too, I would think they would be very nice.

Oh yes, that too. Oh yeah. Ooh, I like pears on spring mix salad. Ooh, that would be really good. You're giving me ideas.

When I was teaching culinary and I would teach salads, I said there's components to a salad that you need. One of them was fruit, one of them was nuts, and one of them was cheese. I said it doesn't matter which way you go with it, but you pick those other components that'll turn just a regular, normal, maybe blah salad into something very special.

Mm-hmm.

I agree, and I love the combination of the sweet of the fruit and then that salty of the cheese, or even throwing in a little bit of nuts. That is like by far my favorite salad combinations.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm all about salads right now in the heat of summer. It's like that's what I want to eat for dinner a lot of the times is just an entrée-sized salad because it's so refreshing. Filled with good stuff.

Katie, we have a comment here and they want to know where do you find the tool to make those? Bobby—

the one that I bought was at Williams-Sonoma, and, but I know there's a lot of different spiralizing tools out there. The one that I got has 3 different, like, shapes that you can do, and, but then there's other ones that are more basic, but you could probably only spiralize, like, zucchinis or something that's a little bit more simple in shape. But yeah, I found mine at Williams-Sonoma personally.

What are the other shapes they do?

Well, I did the thin noodles. They also have a thicker one that's like maybe double the size of that, and then they have a ribbon cutter, so it's like flat and like, like a ribbon. So it's thin and flat, kind of nice.

Well, that would be nice too. That would be interesting. You could, I mean, do a little healthy sauté with those almost. And add in some garlic and some seasonings. That would make a nice base for other, even grilled meats. You know, it's another way to present a noodle that isn't a noodle and make you think you're eating a noodle.

Yeah, the thing that amazed me the most is that when you bit into them, it was truly like al dente pasta. Like, I was like, oh wow, this has a really great texture and crunch to it.

Here's Brianna, she mentioned she loves them, still has to hide zoodles in with the regular noodles for her little zucchini hater.

Aww.

Tammy Forcier is here, says, "I think it's a great way to get kids to eat some veggies. Thanks, Katie Compton." So it is all about sneaking them in there sometimes, and it is all about getting them to try things because Sometimes after you get kids to try it, they realize, or even adults, because I've seen plenty of adults that won't eat things too, you know, they realize that they're not that bad for them or they don't taste that bad and they'll try them. And people eat with their eyes, so making something attractive and tasty is a win-win.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So Cindy, hit us with your best tip.

Well, I like to do things like veggie slurries instead of putting cornstarch and flour and oil and adding all that to thicken up your soups. Take some of your veggies like corn or potatoes, even broccoli, put them in a blender with a little bit of water and get a slurry going and put that back in your soups and back in your stews and it will thicken it up naturally and adds all that goodness to it and you don't have to— you can do away with the flour and the extra oil and get all that extra veggie flavors in there.

You know, absolutely. It's funny that you say that because I'm Portuguese and the Portuguese soups that I grew up on were all creamy, and I never, you know, knew obviously until I was older that usually that came from, you know, a potato base, a vegetable base, even bean base where you puree it and then you put it back. So, you know, typically in Portuguese cuisine, you don't really thicken it up by using, you know, the butter and the flour and the creams. You thicken it up by using vegetables.

Absolutely.

I love that tip.

Purees are a great way to go with those. I think, Katie, in fact, you had talked about those in our last Hangout. You talked about adding purees to different foods, if I'm not mistaken. It's a great way to thicken up. It's a great way to make sauces. Let's take a step back and think about how being a chef, when I created a sauce, it was either a butter-based, it was a cream-based, it was rich, it was fattening, it was just over the top. Take one of these pureed vegetables and maybe mix it in with some Greek Greek yogurt or a little nonfat sour cream or lower fat product, and you can make a really interesting, tasty sauce for things.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I agree. One of the things that we've been doing is actually slicing vegetables really thin and then getting them in the oven with just a little bit of sea salt, making them crispy. So instead of using your traditional breads and crackers, putting the toppings on those Again, it's amazing how when you start introducing that into your family, everyone starts getting used to it, and now everyone's actually asking for it instead of our traditional— what we would normally use, bread or crackers.

They make great snacks, too. The nice thing about those— I got turned on first with chickpeas. When I found out you could roast chickpeas, I was like—

I love chickpeas.

Honestly, I wouldn't go near a chickpea. I hated them.

Really?

I just did not like them. Then I tasted hummus. I had to make hummus. Somebody said, "Make hummus." I went, "I've never made hummus." I winged it and made it. I went, "This is pretty tasty." Then I heard about roasting chickpeas, and I went, "Oh my God, these are really good." The nice thing about roasting those things like that is you can change them from being just salt and pepper to being sweet. Or being spicy. So you can make some interesting mixes that are great snack alternatives, and kids love those.

Absolutely. And, you know, even just simple fruit. I mean, it's amazing how by just, you know, having those fruit bowls out for your kids, and, you know, they eventually start to snack on that. You know, one of my kids' favorite is yogurt with like pineapple and raspberries or sliced cherries, a little bit of almonds, and drizzled with honey. You know, what a great snack to come home to, you know, after school or a great breakfast, and they absolutely love it. And, um, you know, I think it's like you said, Dennis Littley, it's just, you know, it's a little bit of different flavor. It's that sweet and the salty, just a great combination. So, so much of it is really just making those initial introductions and little by little, you know, gradual changes.

Yeah, and you know, I know we've kind of trained our palates to be very salt-oriented. I think the kids are very susceptible to that. When we give them something to eat, if it's just natural, sometimes they go, "Mmm, it doesn't taste like anything." If you just do something like you said, even making chips out of them and adding some different flavors to them, getting them used to eating it, and then go, "Now, this is what a carrot tastes like," or, "This is what this tastes like real, out of the ground. Taste it now and see what you think about it." Absolutely. We've had some nice comments here, and I'll pop a few up. Tammy again says, "Cindy Kirschner, that's such a great idea. I've never thickened a soup that way before. I love that it's healthy and you get good taste." Cindy, when did you start, or when did you figure that out, or when did you start doing that?

I used to experiment with that. I made a corn gazpacho last year that I absolutely decide it's only going to be thickened that way. And takes a while to play with things. It does take a while to play with it to get the texture that you actually want. But that's part of it. You get it down to where you know, and the next time, boom, you have it and it's all ready to go. And same with fruit. You can do the same thing with fruit and add other things and you don't have to leave a little chunky. There's nothing wrong with that. Leaving a little chunky. So as you make—

gazpacho sounds wonderful. Tell us a little bit more about that.

The corn gazpacho I made for a veggie cook-off. Every year I'm in the veggie cook-off for the Pennsylvania, State of Pennsylvania Veggie Association. And I made a corn gazpacho with some spice, little bit spicy croutons. That's where the fire came in, just a little bit of hot sauce. And pretty much it was a whole blender meal and cold, refreshing, and you did get a little bit of that heat, a little bit of lime and All together, it was a great way to use summer vegetables and make you get that corn off, especially right now you can get big bags of corn fairly inexpensive, which is another great thing about summer and getting out there and getting those fresh veggies and how much better they are for you.

Did you roast the corn or cook it at all first?

I didn't. I used— because I made this earlier before corn was actually in season, I used frozen corn.

Uncooked.

You can use raw corn or just slightly steamed. I wouldn't have it mushy, but yeah, you don't really need to cook it. You get all the goodness right there. You don't lose any in the water. You could grill it. You could use grilled corn. It would give you a different flavor. I think that would be good also.

Okay, here's another nice comment from Denise. "My 9-year-old daughter is the pickiest eater, but if I leave a bowl of fruit out, she will graze all day on healthy things. Cherries, peaches, nectarines are her favorite. You know, I'll graze on that all day too. I know, you know, it's not just for kids, but it's nice to have something fresh.

Absolutely. Cindy, so I have to ask you, how do you make that puree? And I ask because I always laugh because most people I would think would do it like in a blender or in a food processor and then put it in. But my mom's trick is, and she makes the best soup, So you take one of those wands and you put it right in as the soup, you know, is cooking. And that's how she does it. So she never even transports it from one to another. And like you said, she likes to leave it a little bit chunky. So she just does it enough that there's still, you know, some of the chunks of the potato in there.

Oh, I love immersion blenders. They're like one of the best things ever. You don't— and you take them out, rinse them off, and they're done. Easy cleanup. There's no dishwasher or taking everything apart. I love using those. Yeah, and you can get it just the right— pulse it a little bit, right? Yeah, no, that's perfect.

I just think that's such a great mom tip.

What were you saying, Renee?

I love an immersion blender. I've had one for years and years and years, and that— it just— I mean, it's a fantastic tool to have handy around the kitchen.

Do you use it a lot?

Well, I go in spurts. I seem to use it more when I'm doing soups and things in the colder months, but you know, I just love it because, you know, if you just want to, you can just do it for a second if you want to, like you had said, you know, using vegetables to kind of give it a creamy-like feel or whatever and not chop up things too much, or you can just go wild and make it all smooth and everything. I mean, I just They're the niftiest tool. I've even whipped cream and stuff with it if I just want a little bit. I have a cup that I put it in and just do a tiny bit of cream, and you can do a single serving of real whipped cream really quick without messing up a blender and a bowl and all that stuff.

That's a great idea. I never thought of using it.

Yeah, I love these quick and easy tips. They're just fantastic. That's what I'm all about. The easier, the better. Okay.

Anything that makes our life easy and tasty is a a good thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

Here's Heather King saying, the only problem about living up north is fresh vegetables and fruits are only available for a short season. That's why I can have so many fruits and vegetables when we can have fresh salsa, sauces, and jams all winter long.

Good point.

Ah, absolutely. Freeze and preserve, canning or anything to keep that stuff going all year.

Absolutely, absolutely. Speaking of, has anyone been eating cherries this year? Am I the only one that the cherries this year have been amazing? I can't get over them. I mean, we can't keep them in our house because we're just going through them so quickly.

Did you see the strawberry cherries?

Yes, for the first time.

Who knew?

I haven't seen those. I need to keep my eye out.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

They were very tasty, but I didn't really notice any strawberry flavor. But the Rainier cherries were unbelievable. The yellow cherries, they were just really good this year.

Yeah, I would say the strawberry cherries, to me, they still tasted like a cherry, but they were just huge.

Yeah, they were.

It was a humongous cherry.

Very juicy. A lot of liquid in them.

Yeah, I have just been so impressed this year with the cherries. They're just fantastic.

Of course, now we're in a little bit of an orange drought in Florida because it is the summer. I know when I bought my oranges last month at the store, at the place where I go, they said, well, you know, we'll have some, but there really won't be many more until it cools off a little.

You got a tip for getting rid of cherry stains? A little bit of vinegar and a little bit of baking soda on your fingers, rub it into a paste, boom, stains are gone.

Ooh.

Oh my gosh, I had no idea that it was that easy.

Does that work on counters and stuff too, Cindy?

Yes, it does. I always make a paste like that and rubs it out. But I use my hands when I push it through, push cherries through like a mesh strainer to get the juice out and then just use a snack, snack on what's left. But yeah, I look at my hands and go, okay, and you know, rub it off and it's gone.

That's great. What a fantastic tip. So it's beyond food. I love those natural home remedies.

Okay, and if you guys, again, if you have any questions for our panel or any tips you'd like to share, leave them in the comment section and we will post them and get to them. So, and thank everyone for being here today. And here's a comment from Tammy Northrop. Oh, the cherries are awesome. I was so surprised that my 2-year-old grandson absolutely loves them. He had some for the first time this past weekend and couldn't get enough.

It's absolutely true, and they are so sweet this year that you just can't get over that sweet taste when you bite into it.

Susan Palmer says she's been eating her weight in them.

I love it. Hey, if you have to eat something and love it, that's a great thing to overindulge in.

And Brianne was talking about— I think she was talking about green smoothies before, and she was telling Bobby she pretty much just tosses in baby spinach, whatever fruit is around, a little Greek yogurt, some milk or coconut water, and just eyeball it. Watermelon, pineapple are popular around here lately. And that's a great idea for vegetable and fruit smoothies. I think the whole trick to those veggie smoothies is putting fruits in to disguise them a little bit and to make them more palatable. It works for me. So if it works for me— because the first time someone handed me a green smoothie, I was like, "Oh no." But you put enough fruit in it, I can drink it.

My kids love making smoothies, so yeah, absolutely.

Does anyone else— has anyone been using coconut water?

I have not. I use coconut oil.

You use coconut oil, yeah.

Yeah, me too.

I do use that as well. That's got a lot of uses. I've been seeing more recipes with coconut oil in them, or people just— not coconut oil, coconut water, or using that as a replacement for liquid. You see a lot of it out in the stores now. It really looks like it's becoming the new trend.

Absolutely. I have not tried that, though, but hey, always willing to try something new.

Absolutely. The only problem with that is Lisa doesn't like coconut, so I can't sneak that into too many things.

It's a pretty strong taste if you don't like it.

I love coconut.

I love coconut too. There's always coconut in my freezer, and I've got a thing of coconut oil in the cabinet. I love coconut.

I've got a bag full of toasted coconut I made the other day, and I've been sprinkling it on different things depending on what I'm cooking. Like I cooked up a big batch of toasted coconut and store it and use it for a couple days. Yummy.

Did you start with fresh coconut, Katie?

Huh?

Did you start with fresh?

No, mine's sweet and bad, but it's good for a little extra crunch and whatnot.

I have never used fresh, that's why I was asking. I don't know.

Just the bag. I love coconut.

Here's a question from Dion Baldwin. She was thinking of canning cherries, but she needs some tips, recipes, or suggestions. Where are our canners?

I've never done it. I don't know. Who's a canner? Renee, do you?

I've never canned anything in my life. I posted a recipe recently on my blog about cherries in syrup, which you You could can if you knew how to can. Unfortunately, I'm just, you know, I'm down with either you freeze it or— that's all I can do to save things. But the cherries in syrup last for about a month in your refrigerator, so you've got plenty of time to use them for different things.

Well, Heather King is saying that her favorite cherry jam or cherry item to can is Amaretto Cherry Jam. It's amazing. I also do plain cherry jam, which is pretty yummy. You can eat them in simple syrup. As well. So, Dionne, I think you want to talk to Heather about this. She may be able to answer more of your questions.

She's the canning pro.

I think Heather is the canning queen.

Yes, or you'll have to come to the conference this year, the Food and Wine Conference. Marissa McClellan will be there, and she is just fantastic. Two cookbooks, Food in Jars cookbooks that are just amazing. So I can't wait to talk to her and see what she recommends.

I know, I know. I got to see her. I've met her since she was from Philadelphia, and I went to enough conferences and some other meetups, and I did get to talk to her. She's really, really pretty amazing with the canning stuff. I thought one year I tried it and I was going to be like Little House on the Prairie, and it's just not my strong suit. So my canning supplies are still here, but I haven't brought them back out.

You know, I haven't really— I have not I have not tried it, but everyone who does says it's so easy and so simple that it's definitely one of those that's on my list to try, but I have not done it yet.

My parents canned all the time, but unfortunately I never seemed to be around when they were doing that, so I never watched or helped or anything in that process, so I'm I don't know what I'm doing.

I know. My mother did, too. We had a pretty good-sized farm when I was growing up, and she froze vegetables. We had fresh vegetables all winter long and canned stuff. She even made her own soap, which was pretty strange, but she did, too. Okay. Here's another comment from Winnie Young. I love using coconut oil. "solid form to replace butter in some of my pie crusts." That's a good tip.

Oh yeah, especially if it's a coconut pie.

Mm-hmm.

Coconut from top to bottom. Can't get enough coconut.

Liz Burt was saying she finds excuses to bake coconut desserts for friends. Send one to me.

Yeah, sign me up.

Absolutely.

Alright guys, well, we're coming close to the close of this hangout. We've had a pretty good chat here about some healthy eating and about some foods and things we like to do, and it's topping off today's event, which was sharing our recipes, our pictures, and stories about healthy eating. Recipes that we like for the family. So that's still going on. We had a lot of nice recipes today shared. So if you're looking, check the hashtag #ChooseDreams and you'll pull up all the recipes that were shared today for the event. And you'll find some really nice things that you and your family might enjoy. So, Isabelle, any last words before we leave? Anything you'd like to share with us?

I just have to say, looking through all the recipes that were posted, What great and fantastic recipes. And I would say, you know, the one thing that we love to do as a family to throw in those extra veggies is we love flatbreads or really thin crust pizza. And you would be amazed how many veggies you could top those with and how delicious they just are. So that's my tip of the day.

Katie, any last tips you'd like to leave us with or thoughts?

Oh, it's been fun. It's been fun.

Yeah, he got me on the spot.

No problem. Well, thanks for showing up there, Renee. Thank you so much. Any last tips you'd like to share with us or healthy eating ideas?

Well, I always lighten up things by either roasting or grilling instead of deep frying. Yeah. So, you know, just think about a little bit of olive oil, just a touch. Put it in the oven or put it on the grill for a few minutes and it's just as good if not better than deep fried.

I like how you think, Renee.

And I'm a Southerner, so hey.

That's a stretch for a Southerner. For someone who probably grew up using lard too.

I have lard in my pantry right now, so I still use it.

Praise the Lord.

I swear.

Cindy, any last ideas or tips you'd like to share with us?

Well, the Italian in me won't let me give up pasta. Sorry, I've got to have pasta here and there. And I like to like throw a little spinach, little carrots in it when you're making fresh pasta, and it just kind of gives it a little extra oomph. And you're still getting that pasta flavor, but you're kind of sneaking some veggies in also.

Yeah, I don't think I could ever give up pasta. And you know, everything in moderation is the big thing. And there's also some really excellent corn pastas out there now if you're looking for alternatives too. Well guys, thank you so much for stopping by today. We had a wonderful time chatting with you. Keep checking those #ChooseDreams. Remember the hashtag #ChooseDreams and check back with us later and look to see how many other recipes are out there. Please, you can post your pictures right in this event stream here if you have any. We'll see you next time. That we share some healthy family recipes. Have a great day.