We can suck the joy out of food like nobody else.

And fear?

Yikes.

Everything will kill us.

Breathe, kids.

It's time to talk about the reality of healthy eating.

It's delicious, simple, and nourishes you like nothing else.

So stay tuned for some yummy food and some serious myth-busting as we go back to the cutting board today on Christina Cooks.

(uplifting 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 it all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will they all be delicious?

You bet.

So, um, people are generally terrified when it comes to food, and nobody can make you more terrified than people who advocate healthy eating.

Everything will kill us.

But in reality, something will, in fact, kill us one day, but it's not gonna be gluten or pasta or sweets.

It's gonna be something else like World War Twelve.

So, we're gonna start, uh, with my favorite course, dessert.

So, dessert is not something you need to be afraid of.

Dessert is something you need to eat in moderation, whatever that means for you, and you have to use better ingredients, and chances are, you're not gonna be able to buy dessert.

You're gonna have to make it yourself to get the ingredients that you want.

So, in this pan I have dried cherries cooking.

And dried cherries need to be soaked before you can cook them because, otherwise, they'll just be too, sort of, chewy like little bits of leather.

So we have them in this pan simmering.

We're gonna add to it some orange zest to kind of freshen the flavor and give us a little...

I don't want to say zest, but zest.

So this goes in, about the zest of half an orange.

And, then, we'll take a little bit of brown rice syrup which is a glucose-based liquid sweetener, and that's gonna take the edge of the tartness off the cherries.

And we're gonna let those simmer while we make the dough.

These are called...

In Jewish cuisine, these are called "hamantaschen."

In Italian cuisine, they're called "orecchie di Aman," and there's an "H" on it, but in Italian, the "H" is silent.

So my Italian friends say things like, "We are going hup the ill," 'cause they don't say the "H." So, these are orecchie di Aman.

And, so, they're very simple.

They're a pocket cookie that instead of being baked as the Jewish version is, they're fried, 'cause who doesn't like fried dough?

So, in here, we will take and add some vegan butter.

Whatever brand you like.

Couple tablespoons.

This is gonna make the dough soft.

So about two tablespoons.

Two generous tablespoons.

Then, we'll add some coconut sugar to make the dough a little more like a shortbread.

So about three tablespoons, because I don't need my dough to be super sweet 'cause the filling is sweet, so don't get carried away.

A touch of vanilla extract.

Really good vanilla.

Like, it smells so good you want to dab it behind your ears and walk around smelling like a bakery.

And you can use cinnamon or not.

When I'm using citrus, just so you know, I don't use cinnamon and zest of citrus.

I just don't care for it.

If you like it, go ahead.

So we're gonna let this, uh, mix, and this is where we all hold our breath because machines and me, not a good mix at all.

But this one, so far, so good.

They're right, you just push the on button.

So now we're gonna add some flour, and that's gonna be about a cup and a half roughly of-- I use sprouted whole wheat flour because it digests really easily in the body.

You get to have your cake and eat it 'cause it digests like a veggie.

And we'll add some baking powder so that they rise and a little salt to make it sweet.

And now we start to slowly pulse this.

And this is what I need you to see is, as we do this and it starts to come together, we slowly add water until the dough pulls together and makes a ball that runs around the inside of the bowl.

And it's not much water.

See how it's starting?

I think we're there.

And so this is sort of kneading your dough.

And the dough comes out not too sticky and just the way you need it to be.

All right.

So, now, I have to get this out of the way.

Okay.

That's gonna go there.

And now we'll take parchment because now we're gonna roll this dough out.

So we're gonna take the dough, add a tiny bit of flour just so it doesn't stick.

I love making these.

Now we take the dough.

You see how it's very soft and pliable?

But it's not sticking to my hands.

It's perfect.

Don't you love when TV chefs say that?

Better be perfect.

It's your job.

A little more flour so nothing sticks.

And you're gonna pat this into a disc.

This is a very, very soft, almost shortbready kind of dough.

Now we're gonna take another piece... ...and we're gonna roll it out.

Okay.

And the thing is to make sure that your dough is even.

Make sure that... ...it's not too thick in one part and too thin in another part because that will leave you very unhappy.

But don't make the dough too thin.

This is not a pie crust.

So the trick is, you pull this off and you flip it over, and this is how you guarantee that the parchment doesn't stick.

Then, using a glass with a wide mouth, you... ...cut.

We're gonna make three.

Okay?

Now, then, we're gonna take a little bit of arrowroot, dissolve it with some cold water, just a little bit.

You want to add just enough cold water to, um, dissolve it so you don't have lumps.

And we're gonna use this to thicken our filling.

And you're gonna stir it till it thickens.

Okay.

Then, in this pan, we have extra virgin olive oil.

And, yes, I'm gonna pan-fry in extra virgin olive oil.

Now what we're gonna do... is take our filling... (clinking) ...and take a little filling and put it right in the center of the cookie.

It's about a teaspoon worth of filling, right?

These are small.

These are compact little-- They're almost like raviolis, right?

Okay.

Then... Take away our extra dough, and we'll use this later.

And then you're gonna take... That's too much filling.

Then you're gonna take... Mamma mia.

Okay.

You're gonna take this and curl it over to make, like, um, like a dumpling like that.

And the juice of the cherries is gonna help you to, um... (clinking) ...seal it.

Normally, you'd use water.

We're not gonna do that.

So you're just gonna go like this, go in here and close it.

And the last one...

Okay, now we're gonna take a fork just to make sure we're sealed, just like you would make a dumpling, right, or a samosa.

But this is Italian version, and Italians like nothing better than fried dough.

Now you're gonna pick up each little cookie into the hot oil.

And there's that sound.

If your oil is good and hot, the cookies won't stay in very long and they won't become oily.

If you leave them in a long time, they will become oily.

(bubbling) So then we're gonna take them... ...flip them over once.

Gonna have to work for it if you want fried dough, right?

So once they've puffed up a little bit and turned a nice golden brown, you're gonna take them right to your plate.

These are such a lovely, lovely, decadent treat, so... And then what I like to do is just sprinkle them with a little bit of coconut sugar to finish 'em off, and you have lovely, a lovely, lovely, lovely dessert that's rich, but just three bites.

Perfect.

♪ -Can a vegetable be a fruit?

-A fruit can be a vegetable.

What?

It can be both?

What happens if you swallow the seeds?

(unintelligible).

-I don't get it.

-I am so confused.

♪ (Christina) So, we get a lot of questions and a lot of letters and a lot of e-mails into our office.

People are confused about so many things, and a lot of them involve trends that are happening in food right now.

So I thought, "Rather than try to get it into a cooking segment, why don't I have people come on and we talk about some of the things that are bothering you or troubling you or that you wish you understood a little bit better."

So I'm here with a friend of mine, Debra Hart, and you seem to have an entire family epidemic of Crohn's disease which is a digestive immune disorder.

-Mm-hm.

-So, how can I help ya?

Well, my main question that I'd like to talk to you about is what role food, in particular gluten, might play in symptoms or development of the disease, or what is your take on gluten with... (Christina) Well, gluten is just a protein.

You know, we've turned gluten into this villain that is the cause of all our ills, and the fact is, it's just a protein.

And the reason that wheat became flour is because wheat is so hard to digest because of the gluten and the fiber.

So we made it into flour, but gluten still exists.

So, there are celiac people.

There are gluten-intolerant people.

With celiac, it's an autoimmune that the fibers don't form in the small intestines to digest gluten.

Gluten-intolerant is similar, but it's not celiac.

It's called "non-gluten intolerant," so what happens with-- "non-celiac gluten intolerance," and what happens for them is if they eat gluten, they'll feel poorly for a little while, but it goes away.

Celiac people will become very sick.

The rest is gluten sensitivity, and what that means is that gluten can inflame the intestines when you eat it for a short period of time.

My experience with people with Crohn's is that going to a plant-based, surprisingly high carbohydrate-rich diet cooked a little more softly helps to distress the intestines in a good way so that the intestines remember to do their job.

And with Crohn's, that's important.

Very often with Crohn's, they take away all fiber, -no raw vegetables, right?

-Mm-hm.

(Christina) And I'm kind of okay with the raw veggies, but they need some whole grains to make the intestines work well.

Then you have the inflammatory foods like hot spice, sugar, white flour, even milk chocolate can make them feel worse, dairy foods.

So the role of diet is to bring the diet into like a centering place where they can feel nourished and absorb a little better.

So food has to be cooked a little softer, pureed soup, so that they get all of the nutrition and not work so hard to digest it and not feel so inflamed.

-Does that help you?

-It does.

It's very confusing when you read today.

You don't know, you know, whether you can have an intolerance and not have that register on some test or, um, so it is very confusing because you... (Christina) Well, what happens very often with things like Crohn's is, gluten can aggravate it, but it can't make the condition worse.

So a lot of times, people do it just so that they don't have symptoms anymore.

So I hope this helped you.

-It has, thank you so much.

-Great.

So, remember, when you're struggling with a digestive disorder, make choices that support your digestion and don't aggravate it, and take those foods that are more aggravating and try to eliminate them or minimize them so you digest at your best.

So, one of the things people are afraid of the most, I find, after sweets, is carbohydrates of any kind.

Everyone is on some kind of low-carb diet.

Well, there's no need to worry about them.

It's the quality of the carbs that you're getting.

And if my nonna was here, she'd say, "What do you mean you don't eat pasta?"

So, we're gonna make gnocchi today which are not "ga-nocchis" but they are gnocchis.

And gnocchis are little, light pillows of pasta, and they are delicious.

We're gonna make one kind here and one kind I've made already, but we have to make two sauces, so stay with me.

I'm gonna make a puttanesca.

And puttanesca originated in Naples.

And it was made by shall we say working girls, and they--the legend is that they made this sauce in between clients to keep their energy high.

You may use that as you like.

So, what we're gonna do is take some extra virgin olive oil and some garlic, right?

It goes right in along with capers and olives, both high in pantothenic acid which helps to keep your energy high, so the girls weren't wrong.

And some crushed tomatoes.

Now this is gonna cook until, you know, the tomatoes are heated through.

This is a very quick sauce.

They were making it in between clients.

And the classic recipe does have, um, anchovies, but being a vegan, yeah, not so much.

So we use olives and capers and a tiny bit of salt.

And if you want, you can spice things up and have a spicy puttanesca, which is also lovely, but you want to make sure your hot spice cooks a little bit in the sauce.

Okay, so my grandmother used to serve this sauce over her potato gnocchi, which are sort of a classic Italian gnocchi, and that's these right here.

In the wintertime, because we didn't have fresh basil anymore, she used to make a butternut squash gnocchi, and the way she did that was she took semolina flour, about a cup... ...roughly... ...a little bit of salt... and then she would cook white rice until it was really, really soft, and then she'd put it through a ricer.

And she'd put that in along with her butternut squash... ...and a little bit of olive oil.

And then she'd mix this together to create a soft dough.

And then this dough gets kneaded once it comes together for about ten minutes.

And when we made gnocchi as kids and in the family, we always did them with people, with friends, with our cousins, so gnocchi is one of those things that's a really nice group activity.

So once your dough comes together...

If you want to keep your kitchen neat, you just knead it right in the bowl.

And once the dough comes together, you'll see, it's like this beautiful sort of... elastic dough.

And so now that it's together, we have a pot of boiling water.

And you want to salt the water like seawater, meaning a nice amount of salt.

Because what you want to do is flavor your pasta.

Okay, so... Now we're gonna take the gnocchi, we're gonna lay it on our board and take a small piece, and we're gonna begin to roll it.

You can flour your board or not.

If it needs to be floured, make sure you use the same kind of flour that you used to make it which is semolina.

And you roll it out.

Now some people like to use a fork and make, you know, crevices on their gnocchi.

My grandmother was one of those people who just made them, cut them, and threw them into boiling water.

So we're gonna make two ropes... ...and then throw these into boiling salted water.

Okay, so here's our second one.

And you want to make sure that they're consistent in size so that you have, you know, a nice sort of-- you don't have some that are doughy and some that are too big.

And just finish cutting those.

Okay.

Now, we have our water almost at a boil.

And while we wait for that to finish boiling, we're gonna take some extra virgin olive oil, because when you make a squash gnocchi, the one thing you don't want to do is serve it with tomato sauce.

There's just something that makes you go, "That doesn't work."

So we're gonna take some oil and just lightly warm it with some garlic... ...and a little bit of salt.

So we're gonna put the gnocchi in the boiling water, and the way you cook fresh pasta, you just have to pay attention.

Right, they go in, the water is boiling, and as soon as they start to rise to the surface of the water, they're done.

The basil oil is just about ready.

Once you hear that little sizzle, you take fresh basil leaves, throw it right on top of the oil and turn the oil off.

Now, let's get these gnocchis out.

Make sure you drain them pretty well so that when the oil goes on top, they don't look... watery.

Okay.

So there's our gnocchi.

We'll scoop a little bit of basil oil on top.

You want the basil to look a little bit cooked.

♪ Wait, so why don't we do this as a group activity?

Come with me.

♪ So I thought it would be a cool idea to show you what makes Christina Cooks cook.

We have Carl on camera, better known as not Scott; Norm on lighting, who makes it look bright and happy in here; Kristen, who is a goddess of makeup and hair; Casey on sound, slate man, who does the obvious, he slates; Dani, who's from New Jersey and whose husband knows my entire family from Kearny; Eileen, our production coordinator, so this is all her fault; and Terry, our assistant director; Matt on Steadicam, and my husband and Scotty are back there somewhere.

And don't forget our special little Andrew.

So, we're here at Walnut Hill College, and this is really what keeps Christina Cooks cooking.

This is my kitchen crew.

These guys are the reason it looks as easy as I make it look.

I'm gonna set down my puttanesca sauce.

This is Shannon.

Shannon drives all the way from Maryland to help us out, and she's an absolute wonder in the kitchen.

We have Michele Gambino.

Yup, Gambino.

I've known her for 27 years, and I'm gonna tell you right here, don't cross her.

We've worked together for so many years.

It's--she's like my sister.

In fact, she is my sister.

In fact, I'd rather have her than my sister.

And now we have Lisa, who's a long-time student and a fabulous cook and baker.

We have Heather, who is a student of mine here at Walnut Hill College who graduated, and I somehow corrupted her into becoming a vegan.

And then we have our executive chef, Eric Russo, who is my partner in crime along with my husband in everything that I do.

Now, a little bit about these potato gnocchi.

I sort of lit on them a little bit in the beginning, but my grandmother used to say that when people made gnocchi, we called them "lead balloons" because they weighed very heavy in the belly, or they called them "silver bullets" or whatever.

But my grandmother's trick to making them light and airy was instead of boiling the potatoes, she would roast them on a bed of salt.

And what that did was wrinkle the skin and pull the moisture out of the potato so that they're very dry.

And, so, when you mix this in with your flour with a little oil and water, you ended up with a super-light gnocchi like we have here that these guys are making.

So the best way to do fresh gnocchi is to get your water boiling and drop them into a strainer.

Like, just like-- just a flour strainer kind of thing.

And you don't want to cook too many at a time.

And these are gonna go into boiled, salted water.

Now, the gnocchi are not strongly seasoned.

You season your water.

When you cook pasta, you season your water, okay?

And that makes all the difference because it makes the pasta have flavor.

So we're gonna take these that we have, and we're gonna drop them into boiling water, keeping them in the strainer.

So, basically, we're gonna drop the strainer into the water.

And you're gonna do this until you start to see them rise to the top, and it happens pretty quickly because they're fresh.

They're gonna take maybe a minute to cook.

So, as they're cooking, I check them because what you don't want is gnocchi that are doughy, and you don't want them to be too mushy because then they also taste doughy.

You don't want them to be what my grandmother used to call "mushade."

So now you take them out and just give them a shake 'cause you want the starch.

Right into a bowl.

That's a perfect seasoning and serving of gnocchi.

Then I'm gonna take 'em back here.

I'm gonna take some of our puttanesca that we cooked because it's perfect with potato gnocchi.

And this would be what my grandmother calls "northern style," right?

We didn't stir the gravy in.

We put it on top so it looks really beautiful, but if she were here, she'd say, "What's wrong with you?

You have to stir the gravy in."

But it looks prettier, don't you think?

So we're gonna take a little fresh basil, drop it on top.

(mellow music) ♪ And as we say, what are ya 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: 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: 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: ♪ (bright music)