Here’s a word from Carolyn about how it all started:

Prior to opening The Wholesome Chef kitchen, I was teaching cooking lessons in clients’ homes. While this was effective and great, there were a few barriers from reaching the people I knew wanted to learn more. I stumbled upon our new teaching kitchen by accident in February 2011. I signed the lease March 1st and began building the kitchen to fit my vision of teaching clients to cook real food in a comforting environment. The kitchen is designed to give clients an intimate lesson learning simple recipes utilizing local, organic foods. I’ve also designed The Wholesome Chef as a collaborative kitchen. In addition to my plant-based classes, I’ve invited all chefs and educators in the community to share their craft here.

Ultimately, my goals for The Wholesome Chef are simple: to empower the average busy person to integrate fresh foods into their daily lives. In the larger sense of the business, I would be thrilled to have multiple teaching kitchens to meet more people to fulfill our mision.

Since our first classes began in May this year, we’ve served a variety of clients in the Lexington area. I know I’ve done my job when our clients continue to come back for more classes. Beginning on September 1st, I will be hosting a monthly class entitled the “30 Day Real Food Challenge” that will be a 5 week course focusing on making positive changes in the kitchen.

I love my job!

Ingredients:

1 lb. roasted asparagus, cut into 2-3 in. pieces (see below for directions)

~3/4 lb. bowtie pasta (you could use the whole 1 lb. box, but I wanted a bigger asparagus to pasta ratio)

1 tbs. butter

1 tbs. olive oil, plus more for asparagus

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 tbs. lemon zest

1/4 C. fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1/2 C. light sour cream

1/2 C. Parmesan cheese, freshly grated is best

1/2 C. flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Asparagus Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Trim tough ends from asparagus by grabbing both ends and gently bending. The asparagus will snap off at the correct spot.

3. Place on baking sheet and drizzle with about 1-2 tbs. olive oil.

4. Season with salt and pepper, rolling asparagus around to coat.

5. Bake for 20 minutes and cut into 2-3 in. pieces for pasta.

Pasta Directions:

1. Follow instructions on box to cook pasta, save 1/4 C. pasta water for lemon sauce.

2. Heat butter and olive oil in large pan over medium heat.

3. Add garlic and stir for about 3 minutes, then add lemon zest and continue stirring another 3 minutes.

4. Pour in lemon juice, stirring about 2 minutes to combine.

5. Reduce heat to medium-low and add sour cream, stirring until you get an even consistency. Season with salt and pepper and then reduce heat to low until pasta is cooked.

6. Drain pasta, saving 1/4 C. water to add to sauce. Return pasta to large pot, add asparagus and lemon sauce.

7. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and parsley, stirring to combine.

Variations: I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure this would be excellent topped with toasted pine nuts. Also, it’d be great with grilled shrimp. Enjoy the lovely weather and yummy food!

-Jessie Cox

Chicken Salad Ingredients:

1/2 C. light mayo

1/2 C. light sour cream

1 tbs. water

1 tsp. curry powder

1 C. red grapes, halved

1 C. celery, chopped

1 1/2 C. red apple, chopped into 1/2 in. cubes

1 1/2 to 2 C. cooked and shredded chicken breast (about 2 medium chicken breasts)

1/8 C. green onion, chopped

1/8 C. dried cranberries

1 C. spicy walnuts (see below for recipe)

Directions:

1. Mix mayo, sour cream, water and curry in a small bowl.

2. Toss together grapes, celery, apple, chicken, green onions, and cranberries in a large bowl. Pour mayo-sour cream mixture over top, stirring to combine.

3. Sprinkle with spicy walnuts.

Enjoy immediately, or refrigerate for later (up to 3 days). This is great served by itself, in a sandwich, in a pita or over fresh lettuce. Yum!

Spicy Walnut Ingredients:

1 1/2 C. walnuts

2 tbs. vanilla extract

1 tbs. olive oil

1 tbs. dried rosemary

3/4 tsp. ground cinammon

3/4 tsp. sea salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix walnuts, vanilla and olive oil in medium bowl.

3. Mix rosemary, cinnamon, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper in a small bowl, then pour over walnuts.

4. Stir to mix and then transfer to baking sheet (lined with parchment paper for easy clean-up!)

5. Bake for 12 minutes or until nice and crunchy.

The extras make a great study snack!

-Jessie Cox

My mom was recently clearing out her “recipe drawer” and sent me a ton of new recipes to try… Here’s a super quick meal to prepare in advance and enjoy at lunch!

Ingredients:

1 tbs. red wine vinegar

1/4 C. olive oil

2 garlic gloves, minced

1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp. paprika

3/4 tbs. ground cumin

1, 15 oz. can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained

1 C. grape (or cherry) tomatoes, quartered

1/2 C. roasted red pepper from a jar, drained and chopped

3 oz. Monterrey Jack cheese, chopped into 1/4 in. cubes

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

Pita pockets

Romaine lettuce

Directions:

1. Mix red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, paprika and cumin in a small bowl.

2. Combine chickpeas, tomatoes, red bell pepper, cheese and thyme in a medium bowl.

3. Drizzle vinaigrette mixture over chickpea mixture, tossing ingredients together with a spoon. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve:

Toast pita (or microwave) until warm. Spoon about 1/2 C. chickpea salad mixture into pita. Serve with fresh Romaine lettuce. Enjoy

-Jessie Cox

After a full day in the classroom, I was ready for a cold-and-gloomy day nap. However, I’d only been home five minutes when my lovely wife had to rush off to work and leave me in charge of a significant amount of applesauce!

When you think of applesauce, what comes to mind? individually wrapped packages? any apple trees? Well, this is one area in which I’m willing to go straight old-fashioned. Felice and I headed up to Reed Valley Orchard on Friday, and we came home with 20 lbs. of “seconds”, or discounted, slightly bruised apples (in addition to 59 cent/lb. butternut squash). These near-perfect fruits are just the thing for baking or preserving.

Preserving? It may seem crazy, but it’s a fun way to save local produce (and you can’t beat it for the money). Felice had done the work of chopping apples, and I simply had to finish the cooking, load the jars, and boil the finished product for 15 min in a GIANT pot.

We ended up with nine pints and some change, the materials for which probably cost about 12 bucks!  This stuff is, of course, delicious. There’s no need to add sugar, flavoring, or preservatives, as long as you use decent apples and follow some trustworthy instructions.

Speaking of instruction, you might be interested to know where it’s available. Try the USDA publications at the National Center for Home Food Perservation, or check the schedule of classes at your local Cooperative Extension Office.

–thad salmon

This has always been frustrating for me, because I love cooking with fresh herbs. Like many of you, though, I’ve never really had a place where I could grow them. Well, that’s finally changed! The other day I borrowed some pots from my mom, got some soil and seedlings at Home Depot, and planted a mini-garden.

Now I have mint, basil, and Swiss chard, mostly because that is all Home Depot had left this late in the season. My experience with actually growing plants is rather thin, but I figured, “Hey, how hard could it be to grow a few herbs?”

I read the packaging on each plant, which told me that they would like sun, water, and living in the ground. Nothing too complicated there. I put my plants in some soil, gave them a little water, and sat back to watch them grow. Thinking I would water my plants every other day to try and conserve some water, I arrived home the second day to find my Swiss Chard wilted. I had managed to kill a plant in near record time! Desperately, I poured a large bowl of water into the pot, hoping to save the mint and the basil from what I was now sure was certain doom. Much to my surprise, the next morning when I woke up the Swiss Chard had bounced back, and has now regained its old form. (I will be watering it every day now.)

Growing just a few things on your porch takes very little time, of which we, as med students, have very little to begin with. If it sounds intriguing, just buy a small pot, fill it with some dirt, and pop in a couple of seeds. You might be surprised what can happen when you just add a little water.

–Campbell Grant

This leads me to ask a question that, in generations past, would have been an obvious one…who makes my food, and what the heck do they make it from?!  Of course, this line of questioning has recently become the spark for such movements as the locavores (only local foods, please!), the farmer’s market addicts and the raw food purists, among others.  Don’t misunderstand me, these folks are wonderful.   Enlightened.  Even downright cultish in their dedication to responsible eating.  My only beef with them, if you’ll pardon the bad food humor, is born out of pure distaste for rules.  And these movements have them in spades…

“Only eat foods grown within one hundred miles of your house.”

“Don’t buy anything processed unless it has five ingredients or less.”

“You mustn’t cook anything over 140 degrees Fahrenheit, or you risk

breaking down the nutrients in your food.”

…but perhaps I like my nutrients a bit broken down from time to time, or maybe I really don’t prefer the bouquet of Kentucky wine, or even (gasp) I would like to purchase something with a dreaded sixth ingredient.  It seems that all of these new-fangled rules have appeared to encourage a basic food sensibility that past generations had no need for, or perhaps with which they were innately equipped.  So, I propose a new rule: eat food.  That’s it!  Now, there’s a caveat, and that caveat contains (if you will allow me) a definition.   First, we must define “food,” which in the simplest terms is edible material that satisfies hunger and provides the body with nourishment.  And thus, the caveat is: eat whatever you desire, so long as it fits the definition of food.

It seems too easy, right?  But consider this.  The biggest screw-ups in our diet-obsessed society have occurred when food scientists attempted to flout this law.  Take trans fats, for instance.  Some intrepid chemist declared, “Ah, let’s take the basic idea of fats, which is to be a good source of absorbable calories, and turn it on its head!”  The result was a dangerous artificial compound that (shockingly) the body is not equipped to process and which may, ultimately, cause cancer.  Yum.  And yet again, in marches Splenda, the newest attempt to make food that really isn’t food.  Have we learned nothing?  When it comes to foods from the fifth food group, I’ll take slimy and homemade over “mechanically separated pork product” any day.

–SmilesinKY

Where else will you find (mostly) healthy recipes with 5 ingredients, ready in 10 minutes, for meals that add up to $2 per day? I’ll admit: so far, I’ve only tried the self-saucing ginger pudding. It was excellent. However, the sauteed chickpeas with cauliflower seems like a smart mix.

Try exploring this site. Use the search box to see if there’s a variation on your favorite recipe that might fit more easily as a weeknight meal. There’s only one downside: many measurements are by weight. If you get stuck, there are helpful conversions here.

Go ahead, check it out!
www.thestonesoup.com

We’ll talk about what to look for as you shop, menu planning, and vegetarian/vegan options. It’s guaranteed to be a helpful experience.

The size of this tour is somewhat limited, so send an e-mail to chefmed.uk@gmail.com if you’d like to jump on. Then we’ll send you the details!

5across is a bi-monthly gathering of entrepeneurs, investors, and service providers in from the Lexington business community. At each meeting, 5 local entrepeneurs gives a 5-slide, 5-minute presentation (starting at 5pm). A panel of judges determines which pitch merits the $500 prize.

This money would act as a seed grant to fund chefMed until our program becomes self-sustaining. $500 would be a huge help!

5 across is presented by Awesome, Inc. and the Lexington Venture Club, and the meeting will be held at 348 E Main Street in Lexington. We would love for you to come out in support. Tickets are available at 5across.org