I love structure.

My home is orderly, and my kitchen is immaculate.

I think of it as a sacred space.

There are rules of the kitchen that you must abide by if you want to nourish with love and serenity.

Sounds like a lot to ask of a kitchen, right?

We'll talk about how to be in the kitchen as we go back to the cutting board today on Christina Cooks.

(upbeat music) ♪ (announcer) Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties, sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by Old Yankee cutting boards, designed for durability and custom-crafted by hand with Yankee pride and craftsmanship.

♪ Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by: Hi, I'm Christina Pirello, and this is Christina Cooks, where each week we take fresh, seasonal ingredients and whip them into amazing dishes.

Will they all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will they all be delicious?

Yeah.

So, many people struggle with cooking.

I mean, even home cooking now, when we're cooking more than ever, everyone struggles with cooking, and a lot of it is that there's no rules in the kitchen.

And while there's no rules in the kitchen, there are rules of the kitchen, which is more based in organization and convenience.

You know, if you have one thing over here, and one thing over there, and one thing over there, and one thing over there, and you're runnin' around like a maniac to make a dish, no fun.

You wanna organize yourself so that your pantry's in one place, your excess pantry's in another place.

Everything should be within a couple steps so that when you're cooking you're not exhausted.

And we're gonna keep things simple and elegant, which is always what works best.

So the first thing we're gonna do is cook some somen noodles.

Somen noodles are Japanese noodles made from buckwheat and wheat flour, and they cook very quickly almost like a Japanese capellini, right?

So what we're gonna do, we have boiling water, we're gonna salt it.

You always salt water when you cook pasta.

Always 'cause pasta tastes like, eh, nothing, even noodles.

So, they're gonna go in.

These are gonna cook pretty quickly.

And while they are cooking, in like a minute or two, five, something like that, a minute, or two, five.

We're gonna take some scallions, and I take off the root because it's not a nice mouth feel.

So you wanna take off the root, and then, I'm gonna cut the scallions into sort of like half-inch pieces.

This recipe, if it was any easier, it would make itself.

And then we just cut the scallions all the way to the top.

You want the green part that tastes, you know, like scallions.

Then, bring our mixing bowl over, and that goes in.

Now we're gonna make the rest of the dressing right in the bowl with the scallions.

I'm gonna start with sesame tahini.

Tahini is sort of like in the peanut butter family, but made from sesame seeds.

And it should be, really good tahini should be runny, not like peanut butter.

The reason hummus that's made in Israel is so great is 'cause the tahini is runny, and that gives you a lighter texture because tahini can be almost chalky if it's too thick, right?

Now we'll add some toasted sesame oil.

As I use a finishing oil, I don't usually cook with toasted sesame oil, it's a little too toasted sesame oil.

We're gonna use a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil 'cause, you know.

Some brown rice vinegar to give it a little bit of edge.

Some soy sauce for salt.

(lid popping) Little bit.

And a tiny bit of brown rice syrup to make the dish a little bit sweet, and I like that.

It kinda makes the dish a little more satisfying when there's a little bit of a finish of sweet, but that, like, wasn't even a teaspoon.

And then we mix it, and it should get nice and thin.

If it's too thick, you can thin it with a tiny bit of water, but try not to do that.

Okay, so that's our dressing, it's done.

So now, in that short amount of time, our noodles are finished.

So you wanna take them outta the water, right, as they're cooked.

If there's any clumps, you just sort of stir them around, but somen noodles cook really fast, really fast.

Like capellini, right, it cooks really fast.

So these are Japanese noodles, and Japanese noodles, unlike Italian noodles, Italian noodles when they dry them, they're rolled in flour.

Japanese noodles are rolled in salt.

So these really should be rinsed, or they'll affect the flavor of your final dish.

So, uh, rinse boy.

Hi, Eric!

This is Eric, who's my backstage chef, Eric Russo, with my other crew.

Uh, could we rinse these?

Take 'em downstairs and rinse 'em?

(Eric) Right away.

(laughing) Ready?

(Eric) I come back upstairs?

Of course!

-Why, thank you!

-Rinsed for you.

Okay.

Now that your noodles are rinsed, you're gonna put them right into the bowl on top of the dressing.

And the water from rinsing them will help to thin your dressing.

That's why don't add water if you don't have to.

And then you just mix these around until they're coated with the sesame dressing.

It's really simple.

And if you're feeling messy, or lazy, and you don't wanna follow the rules of presentation, you could serve this dish right in the bowl where you mix them.

But it's a little too casual, don't you think?

So we're gonna get a nice serving bowl, take our tongs, serve the noodles into a nicer bowl that doesn't have tahini all over it.

Noodles are, like, the greatest thing in the world.

If they're not casual enough for you, then I don't know what's wrong with ya, but.

So they go on top, get all the scallions that you can.

Take your mixing bowl, and put the rest of the scallions on top.

And then to finish them, to give them a little bit of drama because who doesn't like drama in the kitchen, a tiny bit of toasted black sesame seeds.

It'll give it a nice texture and be a beautiful finish.

And this can be a side dish, a main course, a simple lunch.

This is it.

This is one of the best and easiest dishes, and it should be everything that's in your pantry.

(upbeat music) ♪ -Can a vegetable be a fruit?

-A fruit can be a vegetable.

What?

It can be both?

What happens if you swallow the seeds?

Aren't the seeds a fruit?

-I don't get it.

-I am so confused.

♪ So, we get so many phone calls, so many emails, and so many letters from people who are really struggling with how do they put their feet on the path to wellness?

So rather than try to keep answering questions, as I do, I thought I'd bring some people on who have some really good questions that all of you might be thinking about.

So I'm here today with April Nickerson, who's a friend of mine and a student, and I know you have a couple questions for me today.

So, I'm a single mom of a four-year-old, and I work 40-plus hours a week.

One of the hardest things I find is getting a healthy meal in every single day.

So, any hints or anything to help me get started where I can meal prep or anything like that to make my job easier so we can eat healthy?

-And still have a life.

-Yes.

-And still have a life.

-And not, like, -never leave the kitchen.

-Correct!

(Christina) So the first thing I would advise you to do is get a book, and write down your meals.

And what that does is, you plan your meals for, let's say, every five days, or a week if you only shop once a week.

And what that does is help you shop in a way that you don't have extra food that you throw out, which is great, and it also helps you to look at your menu and go, "Oh, I can make this soup on Monday, and have it again on Wednesday, and freeze it for Friday.

Or, I can make rice on Monday, and have it as fried rice on Wednesday, and a rice salad on the weekend."

And then so you kind of can mix and match your menus that way by cooking longer-cook dishes ahead, like beans, root vegetables, soups, and some grains.

The only thing you can't do ahead is, like, lightly steaming greens so they're fresh, but you don't wanna do that anyway.

It takes 30 seconds.

And that gives you, like, the freshness you need so that you're not always eating leftovers.

And then, you can mix and match, you can do all your prep.

Let's say you have an evening that's-- you're just gonna watch a movie.

Put the movie on, and go in the kitchen and prep.

Dice some onions, dice some carrots, some celery.

Put them in little baggies in the fridge, and each night just, like, pick from them to put a soup together, or a stir fry, or whatever, so that you get a jump on your prep.

In the end, meal prep is your greatest gift because you can have things diced, you can have some soups frozen.

If you have an easy day, make two or three soups so you're not always eating the same thing.

And then, you know, freeze 'em in portions, so that you always have them, and you can pull-- And as you get better in the kitchen, it's gonna become easier anyway.

And as your child gets older, you know, it's all gonna get easier.

It's now when you have to figure out how to make a diary, plan your menus, shop accordingly, and prep ahead when you can.

-Okay?

-Perfect.

-All right.

-Thank you.

So, meal prep is easy, just plan accordingly, write down your menus, and it'll be a snap before you know it.

(upbeat music) ♪ One of the things that people are most afraid of in the kitchen is making a pie crust, which is ridiculous 'cause it's flour, water, and oil, but everyone's afraid to make a pie crust.

So when you are cooking, first of all, relax.

The first rule of the kitchen is relax.

It's dinner, not world peace.

So, relax, drop your shoulders, and cook.

So what I'm doing here is we're gonna make a savory and sweet French tart called a galette.

And so what I'm doing is I have red onions cooking in extra virgin olive oil and a little bit of salt so that they can caramelize and become dark, and you can see that they're becoming a little bit darker as they're cooking.

Now, the sweet part that we add to this are dried cherries.

And what we did was soak them in warm water to do what's called plumping, and then you drain them.

And what that does is take away some of the excess sugar so that they're not crazy sweet.

So, you want a little tartness in the sweet on here.

So you just mix those in, and once they're in, you're just gonna let this sweat over, like, a low-ish heat.

Now we're gonna come over here and do the hard part, which is the crust.

So I'm gonna take about two cups of flour.

Now, any of you who know me know that my idea of measuring is "about two cups."

When people bake, we have been absolutely conditioned to believe that it's an alchemy, it's a science, you can't do it unless you're a rocket scientist, and the truth is that's not true.

You just have to have a passion for it, and you develop a feel.

So we're adding a little bit of baking powder, about a teaspoon, to help it to puff up just a little bit.

And a touch of salt, which is gonna allow us to make it sweet.

Now we're gonna add some extra virgin olive oil, (food sizzling) about--to two cups, you're gonna use about an eighth of a cup, not a ton.

(food sizzling) Okay.

And once you get your oil in there, I like to drizzle my oil in, and not sort of dump it because now I'm gonna start to mix.

And what I want to find is that it gets a little bit like wet sand, but not too wet because then it becomes, you know, tragic, tragically oily.

So I've got, like, little peas in the bottom of the flour here.

So now we're gonna add in some water, and we're gonna do it slowly.

When you make a pie crust, here's the key.

When you make the pie crust, you add your water slowly because if you make your crust too wet, then what happens is you have to start adding flour, and now your pie crust becomes like a Frisbee, or a hockey puck.

So you wanna do this gently.

And it's gonna take about however long it takes to get the water right.

And then you mix this together, and it should just gather, just gather, like this.

It's just come together, and then you stop mixing.

If you over-mix, then you have to do what's called resting the dough, and we don't wanna have to do that.

So you're gonna take it outta the bowl, and you're just gonna kinda run it around your hands a little bit, right?

If it sticks to you at all, it's easy to fix.

We're gonna take a sheet of parchment paper... (paper crinkling) ...and we're gonna dust it with a tiny bit of flour.

This is optional, you don't have to do it.

(patting) Put our crust down, and cover it with another piece of parchment.

And now you're gonna roll this out.

Now, there are chefs who will tell you that you have to roll a pastry in one direction because of the threads of gluten.

The truth of the matter is dough has no idea what direction you're rolling it in, so just roll it.

And you want to get it into a semi-round shape.

The key, you see me keep stopping and sort of running my hand over it, the key is to get it equal in thickness.

You don't want a dough that's thick in one part and thin in the other because what happens then is your crust will be doughy.

So that's the only sort of thing that could throw you off with a pie crust.

Then, this is a secret my grandmother taught me, you take away the parchment, lay it back, flip it over, and you won't have any stickage.

It's the best trick ever.

We're gonna slide this onto a pizza tray.

And then you wanna take a kitchen scissor, and cut any parchment paper that's hanging over the side because you don't want that to burn in the oven because it could cause the whole thing to burn.

Just wanna take away that excess like that.

Now we're gonna take our filling, which is, I don't know, I'm gonna go with perfect.

And using a slotted spoon-- because this allows me to have a little more control than just sort of dumping it from the skillet-- you're gonna put your filling, and keep it sort of in the center of the dough.

Like, you wanna leave a good inch, maybe, two inches, around the side.

Then, using your parchment as a guide, you're gonna pull this up, and pull it up again and make a pleat.

Then you're gonna pull it up again, and make another pleat.

And then, two more times.

And what this will do is create the shape of what's known as a galette, which is a French country tart.

And it's not gonna be perfect.

It's not gonna be elegant.

They're kind of country, and relaxed, and casual.

They're elegant in the way that it's beautiful filling inside a dough.

This is gonna bake for about 30 minutes at 350 until the filling is bubbling and the crust is golden brown.

(upbeat music) ♪ I love getting emails from viewers and asking me questions.

They keep me sharp and on my toes.

This one's from Michelle in West Deptford, New Jersey, and she wants to know the impact of animal food on how your skin ages.

Well, the problem with animal food is it's saturated fat, and saturated fat can plug your cells, your pores, the cell membrane around your cells, preventing your body from detoxing and from taking in the moisture that it needs.

So in my opinion, for the best skin you could possibly have, the less animal food the better.

♪ So after 30, 35 minutes, what you have is this nice, firm crust and a lovely, sweet and savory center.

And this, I serve this with soup and a salad and call it dinner.

♪ So you can't have a great, calm, serene kitchen unless you have certain tools at hand.

We all know we need a great knife, a great knife, a great wooden cutting board, and some wonderful wooden spoons to stir with.

We kinda know that, you gotta have them.

But then it comes to cookware, I get this question all the time.

You need an everyday set of stainless steel, everything from saucepans to skillet.

Then you need a cast iron skillet.

I happen to like plain cast iron, but also these ceramic-coated cast iron.

The heat is so nice and even.

This is a green, non-stick pan meaning it's coated, but there's no outgassing, so you're perfectly safe when you use this as a non-stick pan.

And, of course, we know organize, organize, organize.

So you need storage containers, like Mason jars, or sealed containers to keep all your dry goods right where you can see them so cooking is a breeze.

♪ And now, cake.

Everybody panics about baking, which is why I've done it twice in this show-- crust, and now cake.

If you wanna have sort of a sure-fire way to do a cake, you wanna get a Bundt pan because they seem to be sure-fire.

The hole in the center, I don't know what it is, but you can always make a Bundt cake.

So, what we're gonna do is take two and a half cups of whole wheat pastry, or sprouted whole wheat flour, right?

It's gonna go into our mixing bowl.

And again, it's, you know, sort of measured.

Try not to panic too much.

Then we'll take two teaspoons of baking powder, which is gonna help the cake to rise.

And one teaspoon of baking soda, which helps the baking powder to do its job better.

A pinch of salt so the cake is sweet.

And then we're gonna add two tablespoons of cocoa powder and two tablespoons of espresso.

And what the espresso's gonna do is not keep you up nights, but what it's gonna do is help you to taste the chocolate in a more sort of intense way.

It's an easy trick.

If you don't wanna use it, don't use it.

And then we're gonna whisk it-- but you're gonna miss out on the cake-- and then we're gonna whisk this.

When I tell you not to use something, I don't mean really don't use it, I mean make the effort.

But if you're feeling particularly overwhelmed, and you don't have espresso, leave it out.

Now we're gonna add a teaspoon of vanilla.

How do we measure a teaspoon?

One thousand one, more or less.

Now, we'll add a cup of coconut sugar.

(clinking) Perfect.

I'm gonna whisk this again.

(scraping) (clinking) And now we'll add a quarter cup of avocado oil.

You can also use olive oil, and turn this into an olive oil cake.

Avocado oil's gonna give me a nice buttery crumb, which is nice in a cake, especially a chocolate cake.

And now, we'll slowly add water.

A lot of people like to bake with various non-dairy milks.

It's okay, you can do that, but I really like to save the calories and bake with water.

You're gonna use about a cup to start.

And depending on how you store your flour, which is another rule of the kitchen-- if you store your flour in the freezer, it's gonna be a little bit wetter, and you'll require less liquid.

If you store your flour in a pantry, you may end up needing more liquid.

So once it's about 80 percent mixed, we'll add in some chocolate chips, and kind of mix them in, fold them in.

Don't over-mix your batter!

As soon as your dough comes together, stop.

I know we like to mix, we like to mix, and mix.

Don't mix.

Oil your cake pan and preheat your oven before you start to bake because if you let a whole-grain flour cake batter sit while your oven preheats or you oil the pan, it absorbs a ton of moisture, and your cake will be like a hockey puck.

So, you'll bring it to a party, and you'll have people doubling as a doorstop.

Okay, so then you put your dough in, and you're gonna take your spoon and just kinda run it around the batter so that the batter's even.

A lot of times you'll see chefs take the cake and slam it on the counter to make it even, but we don't have eggs.

Don't do that.

So you'll just kinda turn it like this.

And this is gonna go into the oven for about 35 minutes, until you touch the top and it springs back to the touch, at 350.

(upbeat music) ♪ After the cake has cooled and it's ready to go-- you can't do the next step until it's cooled-- we're gonna take some water and some brown rice syrup that's been boiled, and pour this over a few more chocolate chips.

You don't need a lot of this.

And we want just enough liquid to melt the chocolate into, like, a thin glaze.

This is called a ganache.

If you do it with cream, it's a real ganache.

We're making a sort of, I don't know, just sort of a chocolate glaze.

And when you first do it, your glaze will be a little on the thin side.

(whisk scraping) So you just wanna let that sit for a minute.

And while that sits, you're gonna take strawberries.

You're gonna take the strawberries, and you're just gonna make what's called a strawberry fan.

You cut the strawberry just up to the green-- we only need two-- but don't cut it all the way through.

And you just kind of press it, and you have this beautiful decoration for your cake.

So now, we'll take-- and just actually, just right from the bowl-- take your ganache, and just pour it over the cake.

And it'll run down the sides, and into the center, and onto the dish.

Then you take a spoon and just kind of help it along.

(upbeat music) Take your strawberries on either side.

And you have a simple, easy to make, perfect chocolate cake.

♪ So what are you waiting for?

Let's get back to the cutting board, and I'll see you next time on Christina Cooks.

♪ ♪ (announcer) Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties, sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by Old Yankee cutting boards, designed for durability and custom-crafted by hand with Yankee pride and craftsmanship.

♪ Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by: You can find today's recipes and learn more by visiting our website at christinacooks.com, and by following Christina on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

♪ The companion cookbook, Back to the Cutting Board, takes you on a journey to re-engage with the soul of cooking.

With more than 100 plant-based recipes, finding the joy in cooking has never been simpler.

To order your copy for $20 plus handling, call 800-266-5815.

Add Christina's iconic book, Cooking the Whole Foods Way, with 500 delicious plant-based recipes.

To order both books for $39.95 plus handling, call 800-266-5815.

♪