Tag: smoothie

  • Experience Nutrition: Behind the Scenes for The List TV Shoot

    Experience Nutrition: Behind the Scenes for The List TV Shoot

    By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author

    As an entrepreneur, I am totally living my passion. Connecting with our local Arizona farmers and chef friends, and having so much fun every day enjoying real whole foods.

    I am so humbled to be invited to appear on tv segments with The List TV Show, produced by Scripps, right here in Phoenix, Arizona, and aired in 41 markets across the USA.

    In the recent February 2019 segment our focus was the HMR Diet, rated as the #1 weight loss diet by US News & World Report. Our angle was to create 3 different meals taking into account the 3 2 5 philosophy of HMR. That is, eat 3 Shakes a Day, 2 Entrees a Day, and 5 Servings of Veggies and Fruit a Day.

    Pre-Production with the Producer

    The producer, Olivia Schneider and I wanted all of the meals to be simple to prepare and in keeping with my plant-based focus. For the shake, we decided to make home-made cashew milk as the base for a raspberry smoothie. For the Entree we chose a Farm-to-Table Veggie Bowl with Brown Rice, and for the Veggies, it’s a colorful Farm-to-Table Roots and Greens Salad with a vibrant rainbow of veggies.

    Farm-to-Table Just Harvested Produce for the Shoot

    A few days prior the tv shoot — as soon as the recipes were approved –I reached out to my passionate urban farmer friend, Billy Anthony at The Farm at South Mountain. Billy supplied us with literally “just-harvested” produce for the shoot including all kinds of beautiful roots, greens, veggies, edible flowers, and even a floral arrangement.

    A Quick Look at The Farm at South Mountain Soil & Seed Garden

    Billy was kind enough to organize and label the produce, so the different types of unique veggies and greens would be perfectly clear. Even the edible flowers were labeled.


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    Thanks to Billy for the beautiful farm-to-table floral arrangement for our kitchen set.

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    Day Before the Shoot: Finalize the Recipes

    A little more than 24 hours before the shoot, I started to intuitively decide which veggies would make sense with the two different veggie dishes: Roasted Farm-to-Table Veggie Bowl and Rainbow Salad. And, we finalized the recipes that we’d be filming.

    Food for the Shoot

    Incredibly beautiful just-harvested produce from the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain.




    Day of Shoot Food Pre-Production

    The morning of the shoot started quite early, around 6am as I began to cook and prep food for the shoot, so we’d be ready with the final components of each of the dishes for on-camera. Just for fun, my pre-shoot cooking check-list.

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    Behind the scene out-takes from Pre-Prep


    A video look at the pre-production prep for The List TV Shoot…all set for the Crew.


    The Kitchen Set

    Right at 1pm, when I had just finished cooking and organizing the pre-prep food, the crew arrived and set up my kitchen for the shoot.

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    We all loved the edible flowers. Thanks so much to urban farmer, Billy Anthony at The Farm at South Mountain.

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    On Set: The Make your Own Shake: Raspberry Goji Berry Cashew Milk Smoothie


    On Set: The Farm-to-Table Roasted Veggie Bowl


    On Set: The Beautiful Farm-to-Table Roots & Greens Salad


    The beautiful dishes we created, with plating by  The List TV Show Co-Host Segun Oduolowu.

    Now, lets’ take a look at the beautiful dishes we creating during the shoot. During the segment, I guided The List co-host Segun Oduolowu to plate the dishes. Thanks again to urban farmer, Billy Anthony  for the beautiful food grown at the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain. Thanks so much to The List for the opportunity to work together to bring these “create your own dishes” to your viewers.

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    Please join the Experience Nutrition Blog and come back for the step-by-step photos of the creating of the recipes created in for this tv segment with The List.


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    INTERESTED IN PLANT-BASED COOKING RETREAT IN SEDONA, September 13-16, 2019. CLICK TO LEARN MORE


    Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook, “A New View of Healthy Eating:  Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”


    COOKING CLASSES AT THE FARM AT SOUTH MOUNTAIN IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA


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    Purchase Tickets for Spring Farm-to-Table Plant-Based Intuitive Cooking with Melanie Albert and Soil & Seed Garden Farmer Billy Anthony. The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona, Sunday, March 3, 2019, 10:30am-1pm


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    Purchase Tickets for Raw Farm-to-Table Plant-Based Intuitive Cooking with Melanie Albert and Soil & Seed Garden Farmer Billy Anthony. The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona, Sunday, April 7, 2019, 10:30am-1pm


    BB-05-Kids-MelanieAlbert-A-DSC_0453 (2)Purchase Tickets for Farm-to-Table Kids Food Art Cooking at The Farm at South Mountain with Melanie Albert, Sunday, March 24, 2019, 11am-noon

     

     


    Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.

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    Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019

    Join our Simple Daily Plant-Based Eating Tips Facebook Page

     

     

     

  • A New View of Healthy Eating: Daily Healthy Recipes by Melanie Albert: Smoothie Mise en Place

    by Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC

    As I sit here late tonight with the beautiful full moon above my home in Phoenix, with a beautiful cloud ring around it, I really want to be outside looking forward to the Super Blue Blood Moon. Thus, tonight’s blog will be very short.

    This morning while making my Superfood Smoothie, I realized that I actually almost always set up my “mise en place” when I cook, prepare, and plate food. Even with today’s smoothie, I mindfully put my ingredients into place before “plating” (if you want to call it plating) my smoothie.

    My Smoothie Mise en Place

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    Today’s Superfood Smoothie

    Excerpt from “A New View of Healthy Eating”

    Mise en Place: Be Organized When You Cook

    Mise en Place (French pronunciation: [mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) is a French phrase that means “putting in place,” as in “setting up.”

    Mise en Place is used in the kitchen to “set up” all the ingredients needed to prepare a dish before we start cooking. The purpose is to be organized when we cook, with everything ready so that it’s easier to cook. Mise en Place is a useful cooking technique to incorporate when you are cooking in your kitchen for both complex and simple recipes.

    With the Mise en Place concept, before we start cooking we get all the ingredients ready, sliced, diced, measured, and organized. To be super organized, we can even set up our ingredients in order of use in the cooking process, which is especially beneficial when cooking a fast-paced meal like a stir-fry or a recipe with a lot of ingredients.

    4 Reasons to Love Mise en Place 

    1. Be prepared and calm. You will not be scrambling around your kitchen during the middle of the cooking process, looking for that one ingredient you really need. Also, you will be so organized that you won’t need to rush out to purchase a missing ingredient.
    2. Cook when cooking. You will not need to quickly chop food you might have forgotten about right in the middle of the cooking process. You will mindfully enjoy cooking your meal.
    3. Save time. As an example, if you are mincing onions or garlic for several dishes, you can mince them at the same time while setting up your Mise en Place.
    4. Cook mindfully and clutter-free. Cooking is much more enjoyable in a neat, clutter-free environment. Your cooking process will be mindful and beautiful when you cook in an organized fashion.

    ACTION: I invite you to use the Mise en Place process when you cook to bring more mindfulness, organization, and calm to your cooking. Would love to see your Mise en Place photos on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

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