MATT LAUER, co-host:
This morning in our special series
HEALTHIER LIVING TODAY
, incorporating whole grains into your diet. It doesn't have to be boring or time consuming.
Mark Bittman
is a
New York Times
columnist and author of "How To Cook Everything," and he's got some easy recipes that'll please the whole family. Hey,
Mark
, good morning.
Mr. MARK BITTMAN (Author, "How To Cook Everything"):
Hey, Matt.
LAUER:
We know it's important to get grains in our diet. A lot of people don't like it, they don't know how to cook them. You've got three or four simple recipes, and I'm always honest with you. So you tell me about the recipes, I'm going to taste them...
Mr. BITTMAN:
All right, great.
LAUER:
...
and I
'll tell you whether they really taste good or it seems like you're just trying to force us to eat grains. All right?
Mr. BITTMAN:
I'm not going to force you to do anything. But the thing is that -- I think that people do like grains, they just don't know what to do with them. So this is a...
LAUER:
This is oatmeal quinoa, or quinoa oatmeal?
Mr. BITTMAN:
Just quinoa. It's quinoa cooked as a breakfast cereal with a little orange and some spices. We have cardamom and allspice and cinnamon here.
LAUER:
Quinoa,
tell me about it
as a grain.
Mr. BITTMAN:
It's the perfect grain. It's got tons of protein, it's very light, it cooks quickly.
LAUER:
It -- it's good.
Mr. BITTMAN:
It's like straw.
LAUER:
I'm not sure I'd want it for breakfast. Can I put
brown sugar
and syrup on that?
Mr. BITTMAN:
Maple syrup
or nuts or dried fruit.
LAUER:
OK.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Maple syrup
is my -- is my choice here.
LAUER:
I'm going to give that a pretty good.
Mr. BITTMAN:
All right, thank you.
LAUER:
OK, the next is...
Mr. BITTMAN:
With
maple syrup
, you'd like it more.
LAUER:
The next is bulgur and
tomato soup
. What is bulgur?
Mr. BITTMAN:
It's essentially a
vegetable soup
. Bulgur is toasted wheat and it cooks very, very quickly. You can actually eat is without cooking it. You can just soak it in hot water.
LAUER:
Is it going to dramatically change the taste of
tomato soup
?
Mr. BITTMAN:
But you cook it in the soup. No, it's a beautiful soup with a whole grain in it. A beautiful, simple
vegetable soup
with a whole grain in it.
LAUER:
I'm going to give that a nine.
Mr. BITTMAN:
A nine?
LAUER:
That's delicious. That's really good.
Mr. BITTMAN:
What's your scale, 100 or 10?
LAUER:
No. It's not -- it's 10. It's not bad. That's really good, that's a great lunch option. Polenta -- is polenta a whole grain?
Mr. BITTMAN:
Polenta is whole ground dried corn, yeah.
LAUER:
OK.
Mr. BITTMAN:
So it's corn meal. I'm going to skip this part. But what -- well, what you would do is cook the polenta, take it...
LAUER:
Is it easy to cook?
Mr. BITTMAN:
Yeah. You just boil it basically...
LAUER:
OK.
Mr. BITTMAN:
...and then you spread it out on a sheet, something like this, into a nice, round circle.
LAUER:
OK, and you're going to make polenta pizza here. I'll come around to meet you.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Very nice.
LAUER:
All right.
Mr. BITTMAN:
And then when we bake this, you get this gorgeous...
LAUER:
How long do you bake this?
Mr. BITTMAN:
About a half an hour. You get this gorgeous bright yellow circle you can cut into wedges.
LAUER:
Pizza crust
as you -- as you would say.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Pizza type thing. And this is an olive tomato compote kind of thing. And you can put anything you want on here, any vegetables at all.
LAUER:
Well, I think the good thing here is, I mean, first of all, kids might warm up to this one, not knowing they're getting whole grain. It looks like pizza. Let me see if it tastes like -- you put a little
Parmesan
?
Mr. BITTMAN:
A little
Parmesan
, but you could do mozzarella.
LAUER:
OK. I can't pick it up. It's a little hard to pick up so I'm going to scoop some of this.
Mr. BITTMAN:
That's why I gave you a fork.
LAUER:
There we go. And you're going to move -- oh, this isn't easy.
LAUER:
OK.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Nice work
.
LAUER:
Mm-hmm.
Nice work
covering that,
Joe
, that was really nice. Appreciate that. I'm going to give that a nine also.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Pretty good. All right, well.
LAUER:
That's delicious. I don't know if I'd call it pizza.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Well, it looks like pizza.
LAUER:
I'd call it polenta pie with vegetables on it.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Well, you call it whatever you want. It looks like pizza.
LAUER:
And real quickly, a dessert?
Mr. BITTMAN:
This is a classic crisp, pear crisp with an oat, nut,
brown sugar
topping. A little bit of cardamom in there for extra spice. You're going to love this because I know you have a sweet tooth.
LAUER:
OK. I love -- I love pear crisp anyway so this is good.
Mr. BITTMAN:
A little early for pears, but really nice.
LAUER:
That'll fool anybody.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Well, there's nothing to fool. That's a classic crisp.
LAUER:
That's great. Yeah. That's fantastic.
Mr. BITTMAN:
Now after the segment you have some syrup on the quinoa, you'll like it more.
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