I Think I’m Turning Japanese Part 1
I was blindfolded…
and I had to taste weird, slimy, and smelly foods from the asian market!
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Culinary Ninja
I’ve been bustin ninja moves recently and here’s why!
Kor180, a new boutique fitness studio, recently hired me as the head chef, or “Culinary Ninja”.
Yes I’m wearing pants in that picture…and yes I was trying to wear 80′s clothes. (even though I never got to experience that era)
Since joing the Kor180 team I’ve planned the most amazing events and put out some of the best food Austin TX has every seen. We introduced the A-List of Austin to the Kor180 Concept with a dinner cooked by Chef Jesse Barber & Myself…and we launched the first studio with a completely raw vegan menu!
What’s next?
1. Cooking Videos!
I’ll be filming weekly cooking videos featuring my recipes and content from other Kor180 team members!
2. Member Exclusive KorKitchen Content
KorKitchen will give Kor180 members weekly grocery lists, shopping lists, and inspiration! Videos, Featured Chefs, and Healthy Products make this a one of a kind program.
3. Blogs
Pictures galore, Fun food facts, and cool videos will be on kor180.com!
4. Trips around the world!
I’m planning – OM | SURF | GIVE which will be a kor180 member event in Costa Rica this July! We’ll practice yoga, learn how to surf, and do humanitarian work.
I just wanted to introduce you to this new brand and let you know about my exciting new position! Here’s the kor180 Essence Video -
New blogs and videos will be coming right here to my blog, so stay tuned!
Share Your Story! (My thoughts at midnight)
Hey everyone!
Let’s start being real, being ourselves, and loving life.
Comment below!!
Healthy No Bake Cookies!
My girlfriend @Marahartt inspired me to make these cookies!
because my experience with no bake cookies looks like this:
They just weren’t very pleasant…..Too sweet, Crazy texture, and nothing like a cookie. Plus they were no where close to healthy since they were packed with powdered sugar, sweetened coconut, and milk chocolate.
Well welcome to my world folks, where I make recipes as healthy as possible. Those cookies above (if you can even call them cookies) were a thing of the past. (occasionally i’m in the mood for unhealthy…but that’s another blog.) The no bake cookies I’ve created for you today are Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Soy Free, Vegan, and just plain wonderful. If that doesn’t sell you though, I have some powerful ingredients just waiting to make you happy and healthy.
Introducing! The new and improved: Healthy No Bake Cookie
Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup toasted shredded unsweetened coconut
- 1/2 cup ground flax seed
- 1/2 cup dairy free semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup raw unsalted almond butter
- 1/3 cup Agave Nectar
- 2 tbsp. Chia Seeds
- 2 tbsp. minced crystalized ginger
- 1/4 cup dried goji berries
- 2 tbsp. Black currant juice
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Why ground Flax Seed?
Many nutrition experts prefer ground flax seed over whole flax seed because the ground is easier for our bodies to digest. In this recipe I needed something to bind the cookies together, and the health benefits of Flax Seed made it my number one choice. Flax seed is full of fiber, omega-3 fatty acids and phytochemicals called lignans.
Why Chia Seeds?
I’m a lover of chia seeds because they really give you a boost of energy…that lasts! But that’s not the only benefit of putting these in my recipe. Chia seeds also have more omega-3′s than Atlantic Salmon, more antioxidants than fresh blueberries, and more calcium then 2% milk. I try to sneak chia seeds into everything that I can. More recipes will come with these as the star.
Why Goji Berries?
More and more people are using these berries…and honestly…I just wanted to try them in a recipe! I have never used them before, so I thought this was the perfect time! The cool thing though is goji berries are packed with nutritional benefits: tons of Antioxidants, essential minerals, amino acids and 4 unique polysaccharides (complex carbohydrates). I bought my goji berries dehydrated..and then I rehydrated them in black currant juice. Feel free to rehydrate them in whatever liquid you would like! If you can’t find these tasty little berries…dried cranberries are and excellent alternative!
How To
- Start by re-hydrating the goji berries in the black currant juice. You can really use any kind of juice, or even water to re-hydrate the berries…black currant juice is just what I had available. Place the berries into a small bowl and then cover with the liquid for about 30 minutes.
- In a nice sized bowl, mix the oats, toasted coconut, ground flax seed, chocolate chips, chia seeds, and ginger. (to toast the coconut, spread it out on a small baking sheet and toast at 425 degrees for about 5 minutes, or until nicely browned…but not burned!) …also, make sure to chop the crystalized ginger into very small pieces. This is a sticky ingredient, so I like to use scissors and snip small pieces right into the bowl.
- Once the goji berries are nice and plump, drain them from the juice remaining in the bowl and then add them to the mix. give it a quick toss and then get ready to add the next ingredients!
- In goes the almond butter, Agave, and vanilla. Using a silicon spatula, just gently mix all of the ingredients together!
- Once everything is nicely incorporated…use a 1 tbsp. measure and make your cookies. This recipe makes about 30. Roll each tbsp. full of the cookie mix into a ball and then flatten it into a round cookie shape.
- I place my finished cookies on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and then refrigerate them for at least 2 hours.
Once these healthy no bake cookies are finished…share them with a friend, eat them with your breakfast, eat them as a snack, eat them as dessert, eat them on a bus, eat them on a plane, eat them on a jog, eat them at a party….
Obviously there are no limits here.
Feel free to experiment with other dried fruits or berries…chopped apricots, mango, or blueberries would be fantastic in these cookies!
Make sure to tweet me with your questions.
If you like this recipe and what I do here on my blog, leave a comment below!
Tonight on my radio show
Hitting the airwaves with me tonight is two amazing ladies. Michelle Kosmicki, an autism advocate, and Dannie Elwood from Behaven Kids. Michelle has a dream of creating planned autism communities. She’ll be talking about how most of us spend our lives planning all kinds of things…wedding, parties, meals, etc. But everything drastically changes when you have a child with autism. We’ll be learning a ton of information about what autism really is, and how you can potentially help people with this developmental disorder. Dannie on the other hand helps children with behavioral problems. Behaven Kids offers a range of behavioral health services that give all children and families hope and help, including the Specialized Day Program, counseling, child behavior coaching, training/workshops, parenting books and more.
Listen in tonight for this great show by tuning your radio to 89.3 KZUM, if you’re in the Lincoln Nebraska area, or you can always visit kzum.org to listen live from anywhere in the world. We go live at 6:30pm CST, and if you have questions for these ladies you can leave them in the comments, tweet me, or post on my Facebook wall.
Here’s a video of Michelle Kosmicki giving a talk at TedxLincoln
Here’s a video from Behaven Kids
Awkward
None of the definitions for the word awkward are attractive.
So why are we always attracted to awkward things? Embarrassing stories, weird TV shows, “different” people. I mean Lady ga ga isn’t just famous for her music. All of us are automatically attracted to things that are just plain AWKWARD!
If you know me well then you know I like to change the meaning of certain words. I like to turn something normally bad into something great! So with the word awkward I need to do some remodeling.
I’m not going to tell you about my whole remodel now, because I’m doing a presentation next week on this subject that you’ll get to see when I post it! (Click here for details) But I do want to tell you a little bit about it. (:
Awkwardness = automatic attraction. “Normal” people these days (and I use the word normal very loosely) are being drawn towards things that are “not normal.” Take Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern as an example. Foods that people would normally shun are now being accepted! Cricket Pesto, Brain Tacos, Scorpion on a stick…They are turning from “not normal” to “Normal” because everyone has been drawn toward the awkwardness of eating these foods. This doesn’t mean people are eating them all the time…it just means that they are now becoming comfortable. Andrew Zimmern is the one that’s benefiting from all of this now because he was the barrier braker…he was the awkward one…he was the one showing the not normal to the normal people. Because he broke down the wall between normal and not normal food, he’s benefiting from the respect and the credibility that it gave him.
So here’s what I’m telling you-
Being awkward is no more than breaking the boundaries of being “normal”. Our society today has a pretty strict definition of what it takes to be “normal” which means that we are not always OURSELVES! Awkward people that we look up to today, whether it’s on TV or even at school/work stand out to us because they are confident in who they are. Confidence I believe works hand in hand with awkwardness, and I want you to embrace your awkwardness and re create what normal truly is!
These are my new definitions for the word awkward-
1. Having confidence that allows you to embrace your strengths and your weaknesses to influence and gain respect from people.
2. Grabbing the attention of people by doing something thought of as “not normal”
3. Breaking down barriers by being yourself and not caring who knows!
Example: person #1- “Man this guacamole is goo…BAM! (fall on your butt)”
person #2- “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, have a nice trip? See you next fall”
person #1- “Man I’m clumsy, but that sure grabbed your attention huh!?”
person #2- “Yea, I respect how you just got up when you fell…that’s a lesson for all of us to learn in life.”
Cheesy example I know…but I like it.
Make sure to look out for my Attraction of Awkwardness talk! I’ll post it in a week or two.
Paula and the Diabetes Factory
I have loved this woman ever since i met her….through my TV. When I first started watching the food network I was literally glued to the screen when Paula’s show came on. Casseroles made with everything under the sun, decadent desserts, and the constant view of fried food made me feel like I was in her kitchen! Sometimes I could even swear that I smelled her chicken fried steak cooking. She has been the closest to creating smellovision I believe.
Recently though there has been some NOT SO SHOCKING news about this wonderful woman that has been confirmed. This morning (January 17th) Paula announced on the “Today” show that she has had Type 2 Diabetes since 2008.
“You can have diabetes and have a piece of cake. You cannot have diabetes and eat a whole cake.” -Paula Deen
My first question Did she really use to eat a whole cake at a time?
My second question Why did she wait until now to tell us all about this?
The answer to my first question is an obvious yes but the answer to my second question has people in an uproar! Paula claims that she never came clean about having diabetes because she knew very little about the disease and wanted to make sure she was sharing the correct facts with people. Okayyyyy……so here’s my third question Why did it take you 3 years to learn about diabetes?
You want to know the answer to my third question? Just read this paragraph from The Associated Press:
“Deen is the pitch person for Novo Nordisk’s new online program, Diabetes in a New Light, which offers tips on food preparation, stress management and working with doctors on treatment. She has contributed diabetes-friendly recipes to the website and takes the company’s drug Victoza, a once-daily noninsulin injection that had global sales of $734 million in the first nine months of 2011.”
It takes a long time to put a deal together like this! Sure she had to learn about the disease, change her diet, change her recipes, and get her family on board. (one of her sons is now hosting “not my mommas meals” on the cooking channel) But the thing that I’m sure took the longest was finding out a way to make money off of her diabetes. Thank you Novo Nordisk.
Now I’m not bashing her…even though it might sound like I am. Everyone is in business to make money…and if you were in Paula’s place I guarantee you’d be making millions off of this too. I don’t judge, I think it’s great that she has come clean about this…I even think it’s great that she made a deal with the drug company! I respect her as a business woman and a culinary Icon. Before you go against this southern butter bell, think about what you would do as a cooking celebrity with diabetes. You’d start a whole new line of recipes right? You’d try to partner with a drug company right? …That’s what I thought.
The one thing I hope she does is change her diet for the better. Pills aren’t the way to go…you can truly cure diabetes with the right kind of diet. And remember Paula! A diet isn’t something that you go on to lose a couple pounds…It’s a way of life! So drop the pills, drop the gluten, and eat your vegetables.
No matter what, I still love you!
100 Dreams
Happy monday everyone!
Here’s my challenge to you this week: Create a list of your 100 dreams
Below are my 100 dreams to help spark your imagination. Just think of anything you’ve ever wanted to do! I’ll be crossing these off throughout my whole life, and every year I update and revise my dreams.
Share your dreams with me if you’d like!
My 100 Dreams
- Inspire other people to follow their dreams by passionately pursuing each of mine.
- Have a TV show on Food Network because that’s what first inspired me to cook.
- Open a restaurant that focuses on serving healthy food and helps families become healthy.
- Successfully host and promote my radio show and podcast so It’s very well known and respected.
- Become a more focused entrepreneur
- Create my website so that it’s extremely unique and engaging with many new and returning guests.
- Own a food truck that serves healthy food that tastes AMAZING.
- Workout 6 days a week, or every chance I get. Even if I don’t feel like it.
- Have 10,000 twitter followers…and then any number beyond will be like a dream.
- Eat dinner with Alton Brown
- Get a meaningful and cool tattoo.
- Go skydiving in the Swiss Alps
- Move to California for college and always have a place to live there.
- Create an online cooking show with a big sponsor. (Kitchen Aid, BHG, Vitamix)
- Always be as unique and creative as possible.
- Get my pilots license.
- Spend a month in Vietnam.
- Build a house on LOTS of land.
- Live where I can see tons of starts at night.
- Win a James Beard Award!
- Be a guest on Good Morning America.
- Be a guest on the Today Show.
- Be a guest on the Rachel Ray Show.
- Be a guest on the Ellen Show.
- Eat dinner and have awesome conversation with Jose Andres.
- Meet and talk with Jamie Oliver and then partner in some kind of project.
- Get a huge sponsor to support our Fatplate radio show.
- Open restaurant incubators in Lincoln and beyond.
- Purchase farmland and grow all kinds of healthy and delicious foods.
- Open a restaurant that uses only food from the farm.
- Syndicate one of my radio shows.
- WRITE A BOOK! Write more than one book actually, and get them done fast! Then be a New York Times Best Selling Author.
- Go to New York City and visit Food Network and Chelsea’s Market.
- Make a time capsule.
- Go back to the Grand Wailea on Maui every 5 years.
- Live in Spain for 1 year.
- Go on a cruise to Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize again.
- Buy a small house/shack in the Caribbean.
- Visit Atlantis in Nassau again.
- Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef.
- Go vegan for a week.
- Workout on the beach.
- Dye my hair a crazy color.
- Cook with and eat bugs.
- Eat a piece of fish or other sea life on the boat that caught it.
- Compete on Iron Chef America.
- Go to Culinary School.
- Get a degree in nutrition and dietetics.
- Throw a BIG party for all the close people in my life that helped me become who I am.
- Be the keynote speaker at the UCLA extension restaurant industry conference.
- Create a speaking tour and go all over the United States.
- Get 1,000 “Likes” on facebook.
- Have a destination wedding.
- Create a color-coding system for food that is served in schools. With the mission being to educate students about nutrition without them really knowing their learning.
- Go on a speaking tour with a political figure.
- Eat dinner with Anthony Bourdain.
- Have 4 children.
- Be a mentor to many people.
- Visit South Africa.
- Always remember to give back to the community!
- Always start by telling people why I’m doing what I’m doing, not just the details about what I’m doing.
- Buy a boat and Jet Ski!
- Have a cabin on a lake in Nebraska.
- Meet the President and First Lady.
- Eat my way through Europe.
- Cook with an old Greek lady in her kitchen.
- Never become part of a pyramid scheme business.
- Always remember to BE MYSELF.
- Remember who my true friends are and let them always know how thankful I am for them being in my life.
- Go up to Grand Island and cook with my grandma, and talk to my grandpa who I haven’t seen since I don’t know when.
- Watch the sunset on the airplane beach in St. Martin.
- Own sugar gliders again.
- Go in one of those shark cages where I can see a great white up close and personal in its own environment.
- Be involved with the UCLA extension restaurant industry conference every year.
- Visit a black sand beach.
- Have lunch with….drum roll please…Oprah!
- Have my podcast do AMAZING on iTunes.
- Buy the person behind me in a drive through at a coffee shop their drink(s).
- Re-design the idea of what a kitchen should look like.
- Build a mobile kitchen for speaking engagements that’s unique and cool!
- Own a range rover
- Own a FJ cruiser.
- Help my mom open up a business.
- Create a HUGE healthy eating campaign and partner with big name entertainers.
- Buy a pair of TOM’s sunglasses.
- Allow a needy family to always eat free in my restaurant.
- Be mentioned in a lady gaga tweet. LOL.
- Eat dinner with Andrew Zimmern.
- Be a New York Times and LA Times contributor for food and nutrition.
- Randomly be cast in a movie.
- Always hand write and mail thank you letters.
- Go on a cruise through the Mediterranean.
- Learn how to play the guitar.
- Go on an African Safari and see a giraffe.
- Own a “pocket pig” as a pet.
- Design a line of cooking tools.
- Be the spokes person for a BIG non-profit organization.
- Have a unique and fun office space. A one of a kind office atmosphere.
- Look at the stars from a boat out in the middle of the ocean.
- Always remember Success is a journey, not a destination.
