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Eat Fresh Food
Do you have a teen or tween in your life? The only cookbook written precisely for them is by my dear friend Rozanne Gold: “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs.” Both Rozanne and I are on a campaign to get EVERYONE, not just kids, to EAT FRESH FOOD. If it comes in a package from a manufacturer, don’t eat it. Okay, with the exception of ice cream.
Rozanne is known as the Queen of Simplicity, a good background for this enterprise. She’s written nine books, starting with “Recipes 1-2-3,” in which every one of her hundreds of recipes uses only three ingredients, not to mention “Little Meals,” her first cookbook, based on the Little Meals menu she developed for the Rainbow Room when it reopened in 1987. Back then it was a revolutionary idea to eat several small plates of food instead of one big one. Now, 22 years later, it’s the fashion.
Rozanne may have topped herself, however, with “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs,” published by Bloomsbury ($21.99). To help, she had her own teen chef in the house, her daughter Shayna, plus Shayna’s friends, all of whom she consulted while developing the recipes, to pin down teen tastes and skill levels. All the teens not only kitchen and taste-tested the recipes but cooked for the book’s colorful photographs, which are not merely decoration, but instructive. Nearly every page is filled with how-to photographs that are so dynamic they leave the impression that you’ve watched the video version of the cookbook.
What do I know about teen tastes? Next to nothing. But the obvious point of “Eat Fresh Food” is to wean teens away from their generally fat and sugar-loaded snacks and favorites and get them to eat (and cook) fresh and healthful food. If this book is any indication, teen tastes seem to veer in the Italian and Asian direction, but they are also accepting of other strong flavors. After all, our American kids are raised in a multi-cultural society. So, yes, there are the obvious kid favorites like pizza (with a quick and easy baking powder crust), tacos (with fish!), and a few pastas, but also Asian-leaning dishes with ginger and scallions, and some Indian flavors.
Among the 80 recipes, there are more vegetable dishes than most teens would admit to liking, but Rozanne knows that studies show that children and teens are more likely to eat their veggies when they participate in their preparation. Some of the recipes that can even be at the center of a vegetarian menu include BBQ Onion and Smoked Gouda Quesadillas, Chickpea Burgers with Fresh Mango Salsa, and Asian Summer Rolls with Fun Sauce, which is made with ginger, scallions, sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar and a touch of honey. Rozanne also tucks vegetables into unexpected places, for instance Mac-and-Cheese with Cauliflower and Creamy Red Pepper Sauce and Spicy Sesame Noodles with Crunchy Snow Peas. Teen carnivores will love Rozanne’s Pita Fajitas and, personally, I can’t wait to make Bombay Sliders with Hurry Curry Sauce.
Yes, I have been cooking from the book. I lately need a change from my own repertoire, and Rozanne’s books always give me some new flavor profiles and kitchen methods. The other night, for instance, I made her “New Kind of Chicken ‘Parm’ with Roasted Grape Tomatoes.” I made it exactly as written with two exceptions. I left off the final mozzarella, as I didn’t have any in the house and I didn’t need the extra calories anyway. And I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts. I had those in the freezer, and I don’t really like chicken breasts. The dish was delicious with thighs, and still relatively low in fat compared to normally fried chicken parmigiana. And I learned a new method for cooking the chicken that I have already used outside the “Parm” conceit. That is: Brush the chicken with seasoned olive oil and bake on a sheet for merely 10 minutes in a 500-degree oven. Rozanne’s full recipe follows. (I have since tried the method on chicken breasts, and it was so good and easy that I think I can even tolerate chicken breasts when cooked this way.)
I have lately been intrigued by oil-based cakes – particularly olive oil cakes. (There’s a food-processor Olive Oil Pound Cake in the archives). In fact, Rozanne bakes a famous Venetian Wine Cake with olive oil that used to be produced by a large commercial baker and sold retail. She’s never published the recipe for that, but in “Eat Fresh Food” there’s another olive oil cake recipe that she calls “Grape and Pignoli Breakfast Cake.”
I made the cake in the afternoon for dinner, but, as the name implies, it was better the next morning for breakfast. It’s a simple batter cake that you can mix without a machine, with just a fork or a whisk, and its texture is something like a muffin’s, though wide and flat. It’s baked in a false-bottom tart pan. Here’s another case where Rozanne taught me something beyond the specific recipe that I can play with later. I loved the cake with the sweet red grapes Rozanne calls for– teens apparently love arranging them in concentric circles – and pine nuts, but I aim next time to try it with apples tossed with cinnamon sugar and topped with walnuts. Another good combo should be pears and pecans. I’ve also been wondering how this batter cake would take to having chocolate chips dropped on top. Now there’s a teen sensation. I’m going into the kitchen to whip up one right now.
A NEW KIND OF CHICKEN “PARM”
From Rozanne Gold’s “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs”
Serves 6
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large clove garlic
12 ounces grape tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
Large pinch of red pepper flakes
6 6-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 1/4 cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
5 ounces fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
Put the olive oil in a small bowl. Push the garlic through a press and add to the oil with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Put the tomatoes in another bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the “garlic oil,” the oregano, and the pepper flakes. Stir.
Coat the chicken on all sides with the remaining “garlic oil.”
Put 1 cup of the cheese on a large plate. Dip one side of each chicken breast in the cheese to coat completely. Place the chicken, cheese side up, on one half of a rimmed baking sheet.
Place the tomatoes on the other half of the sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the chicken is just firm to the touch.
Place the overlapping slices of mozzarella on top of the chicken and pop back into the oven until melted. (Or put it under the broiler for 30 seconds.) Transfer the chicken to plates.
Top with the tomatoes and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese.
RED GRAPE AND PIGNOLI BREAKFAST CAKE
From Rozanne Gold’s “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs”
Serves 10
12 ounces seedless red grapes
2 extra-large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup, plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 cup self-rising flour
3 tablespoons pignoli nuts (pine nuts)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Wash the grapes and discard the stems. Dry grapes well and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, 1/2 cup olive oil, lemon zest, and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Blend thoroughly. Stir in the flour and mix well until smooth.
Use 1 tablespoon oil to grease a 9-inch tart or pie tin with a removable bottom and pour in the batter. Place the grapes evenly about 1/4-inch apart in concentric circles on top of the batter to cover the entire surface. Press the grapes halfway into the batter. Scatter pignoli nuts evenly on the cake and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of sugar.
Bake for 45 minutes, until golden and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool before removing from pan.
