Where's the Life Chef?

Hey gang, summer's almost over so I'm back to the grind! Here's where you can catch me for classes, demos and more:

8/7/10
Saint Philip AME Annual Health Fair
Join me for a free healthy cooking demo at Saint Philip AME Church during their annual health fair! Learn how healthy food choices can impact your well being without counting calories and weighing your food. Healthy cooking can be fun, easy and delicious! Cooking demo will be held from 10 a.m. to noon in the Youth Café. FREE

8/14/10
CRN’s Back to School Expo 2:30 p.m.
Cross Roads News presents this all-day expo at the Mall at Stonecrest will get you and the family ready for the exciting 2010/11 school year! I’ll be on the Demo Stage to show you some healthy snack and lunch ideas the kids will love to make and eat! Secret to getting kids to eat healthy? Get them in the kitchen! FREE

Free Family Workshops: Healthy Eating @ Oakhurst Community Garden
August 21 from 1-3pm
Families that come rotate through 3 different stations: Healthy Snacks, How to Eat Healthy on a Budget, and Nutrition 101/How to Read Food Labels. We are also collaborating with Les Dames d’Escoffier’s local chapter (local chefs committed to educational outreach), the Dekalb County Cooperative Extension, and volunteers from Emory University.

Arthritis Expo
8/26/10
A Healthworks program presented by Kaiser Permanente

Delta Dental
8/27/10
A Healthworks program presented by Kaiser Permanente


8/28/2010
Professional Kitchen Primer Hands On for Kids (Ages 10 - 17)
The Cook's Warehouse Decatur Store 10:30 AM - 1:30: PM
So you wanna be a professional chef? Think you have what it takes? Come learn the ins and outs of the professional kitchen, whet your knife skills, and transform basic culinary skills into a delicious final meal. Chef Asata Reid brings her professional experiences as a restaurant chef, personal chef, caterer and cooking instructor to help young ones explore a future in the culinary industry. On the menu this afternoon: Vegetable Soup with Handmade Dumplings, Spanish Inspired Chicken Pilaf, and Peach Crumble Turnovers with Dark Chocolate. Chefs-in-training will be introduced to the Mother Sauces, put their knife skills to work while learning basic soup making, break down a chicken, work with puff pastry, temper dark chocolate, and discuss the stations on a working kitchen line. Budding chefs can bring lots of questions and learn ways to turn their passion for food into a professional career. $50

Awaken 2010 Expo: Living Your Soul Purpose
Bliss Brunch
Promoting the exploration of the connection between spirituality and health and life path awakening. On an individual level, AWAKEN inspires and nurtures soul evolution, bringing attendees closer to purposeful living through the discovery of innate talents, gifts, and life path. On a collective level, AWAKEN creates the foundation for the journey of oneness recognized, honored, and realized, or the unification of one mind, one heart, one soul, united in consciousness with no earthly boundaries; in other words, collective soul evolution. View the event schedule and details here: www.awakenexpo.com


8/31 Carver YMCA
6:30-8pm
Art of Healthy Cooking Demo presented by Kaiser Permanente at the Villages at Carver Family YMCA. Learn how cheap and easy healthy cooking can be! No special purchases are needed to pull together fast and fantastic dishes that nourish your body and satisfy your taste buds. Low in fat and calories but high in flavor and charisma, these dishes will add to your healthy cooking repertoire. FREE


9/11/10
What’s Cooking? Natural Foods Classes noon-1:30 p.m.
Join me at Sevananda Natural Foods Market and learn how to transform organic and locally grown foods into delicious, nutritious meals that you’ll love! Our information-sharing sessions divulge a wealth of healing and wellness knowledge that will benefit you and your family. Discover how food truly feeds your body and soul. $10 members, $12, non-members.


9/21/2010
What’s For Dinner? - Foreign and Flavorful!
The Cook’s Warehouse Decatur Store 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Chef Asata Reid is back to help you answer the daily dilemma of “What’s for dinner?” with recipes that are fast, fresh and full of flavor. This class will help you master quick cooking techniques that shave minutes off your evening meal while preserving the wholesome goodness of all-natural ingredients. Forget meal planning and learn how to create smart dinner solutions from seasonal and local ingredients that will make your weekly menus pop with home-grown freshness. On the menu are 7-Minute Cilantro Crusted Flank Steak with a Black Rice Salad, Soft Tacos with Smokey Jalapeno Mayo, and Grilled Plums with Lemon Sorbet and Lavender Syrup. Chef Asata will also discuss ‘The Well Stocked Pantry’, essential items that make throwing together delicious and nutritious meals easy as pie. Healthy meals in a hurry never tasted so good! $45

10/9/10
What’s Cooking? Natural Food Classes noon-1:30 p.m.
Join me at Sevananda Natural Foods Market and learn how to transform organic and locally grown foods into delicious, nutritious meals that you’ll love! Our information-sharing sessions divulge a wealth of healing and wellness knowledge that will benefit you and your family. Discover how food truly feeds your body and soul. $10 members, $12, non-members.

Chef to Showcase Easy, Healthy & Tasty Meals for Kids

From CrossRoads News August 4, 2010

"Parents who want their children to eat better will get lots of help from life chef Asata Reid at the Aug. 14 Family & Back-to-School Expo at the Mall at Stonecrest.

Reid, a chef, food writer and culinary educator, will demonstrate quick and easy lunches and after-school snacks from the main stage in front of Macy’s at 2:30 p.m.

The mother of two boys says that lunch and snacks should be healthy, tasty and good for growing kids.

“Healthy eating is definitely not expensive and it’s not hard,” she said. “I will show parents and kids how easy and delicious healthy eating can be.”

Read the full article here: http://tinyurl.com/24vz3gw

Marscapone Stuffed Grilled Pears with Ginger Syrup

Here's a winner. A grilled/griddled fruit dessert that presents elegantly, tastes great, and is beyond easy to make. If you have some small dessert bowls, martini glasses or other creative service wear, use them to showcase this easy fruit based dessert. If you attended a recent What's Cooking? class at Sevananda Natural Foods Market, or the opening night of the National Black Arts Festival, then you got a chance to sample this dish. Here's how it goes:

Pears:

3 ripe pears, peeled, halved, seeds scooped out
2 Tbs butter or oil

Brush hot grill or griddle with oil or butter. Place pears on cooking surface, cut side down. Cook about 5 minutes on one side (or until carmelized to a golden brown). Flip pears over and continue cooking for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and arrange on a serving platter, cut side up.

Ginger Syrup:

1 cup brown or turbinado sugar
1 cup water
1" piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

Combine all three ingredients. Bring up to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Allow to continue cooking until reduced by half. Remove from heat and allow to thicken slightly.

Marscapone:

3 oz marcapone cheese
1/4-1/2 of the ginger syrup

Combine enough ginger syrup to sweeten the marscapone cheese. Refrigerate to chill until ready to serve.

Granola:

for garnish

TO SERVE:
Scoop a generous quenelle by using two spoons to make a football shaped ball out of the marscapone mixture. Place a scoop on top of each pear half. Top each quenelle with a generous sprinkling of crumbled granola for texture. Drizzle ginger syrup over each pear. The warm syrup will melt the marscapone to form a creamy, sweet sauce. Yum!

Sauteed Kale with Cannellini Beans

This dish uses French Onion Soup and spices found in the Vietnamese noodle dish called pho. I love pho, and it's typically made with a beef-based broth, but we go vegan by using a high quality French Onion Soup with its complex sweet/savory flavors compliments of the carmelized onions used in the base. A handful of ingredients, a boatload of nutrition and flavor that just goes on and on...

Check out the video too!

1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 large leaves kale, or about 2-3 cups, stemmed and roughly chopped
1 large can cannellini beans, or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp cinnamon
5 pieces star anise
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1 cup French Onion Soup
salt/pepper

Sweat onions and garlic with olive oil over medium high heat in a soup pot. Stir in chopped kale and rinsed beans. Season with cinnamon, star anise, red pepper, salt and black pepper. Add French Onion Soup, stir, cover and simmer until the kale is tender and a brilliant emerald green (about 10 minutes). Remove the star anise pieces and serve immediately.