Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have a certain point of view, a certain way to plate food, certain ingredients that I like to use.
When I was first approached for 'Pass the Plate,' I was thrilled because I love to cook. And I love to cook healthy. The reason I started cooking was because I would go to restaurants and have just amazing food but feel so heavy and gross. I would go home and try to cook the same thing, but a healthy version.
At home, I never plate. Things go in the middle of the table, and you serve yourself. In the restaurant, every day I plate things, but at home, I want to enjoy my company.
Often for hors d'oeuvres, I serve room temperature vegetables, something like that, so that the main course might be quite rich but the first course has balanced it out.
To the extent we push meat a little bit to the side and move vegetables to the center of our diet, we're also going to be a lot healthier.
One of the things I do as a food writer is to take a classic recipe made with meat, look at it a whole lot, and tinker with it according to my taste.
I never pile a plate to the point where it overflows. I'd rather have a small plate with small portions and then get up for more if I'm still hungry.
Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors.
If you see how a plant grows and you taste it in situ you have a perfect example of how it should taste on the plate.
We need to take vegetables out of the role of side dish, even in low-fat, vegetarian diets, whose calories are generally derived mainly from grains and other starches.