Sam Talbot - 100% Real: 100 Insanely Good Recipes for Clean Food Made Fresh

NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS OR FLAVORS

100% REAL

100 INSANELY GOOD RECIPES FOR CLEAN FOOD MADE FRESH

SAM TALBOT

For the ones who remain different, stay messy,
keep your hearts hungry and your souls thirsty.
Dont lose the weird; its why we love you. Do it
your way because nobody else can.

For my mom, Diane, the sweetest, most
compassionate, bravest, badass woman I know

For Joel, my manager, my dearest friend,
my calendar, and my consigliere

CONTENTS

Morning Essentials for the Grind

Sandwiches, Salads, and Spreads

Banging Bowls

Food for the HUSTLE

Proteins On the Ground and Out of the Surf

The Vegetable Fix

Sweet Thang, Maybe I Shouldn't...Yeah, of Course You Should

INTRODUCTION

I suppose its because Im both a chef and a type 1 diabetic that Im forever being asked questions about what I eat. People want to know which diet I follow: Paleo? Vegetarian? Vegan? What foods are you allowed to eat? they ask me. What foods are absolutely forbidden? Are you gluten-free? Dairy-free? Sugar-free? Fun-free? Taste-free?

The simple answer to all these questions is: none of the above. What I eat, simply put, is 100% real food. While Ive learned things from all of the eating styles Im asked about, and while following a specific diet for a month or more at various times in my life has taught me a lot about what I can eat to still feel well and balanced, I have chosen a much simpler philosophyto eat real food.

Thats the philosophy. In practice, sure, some of the real food I eat is gluten-free. Almost all of it is dairy-free and sugar-free. Some of what I eat may look like the Paleo diet, while a great deal of what I eatmost of what I eat, in factis plant based: a whole lot of vegetables and fruits. But the bottom line is still that fundamentally simple guideline: at mealtime or snack time, in a restaurant or at home, for a fancy banquet or for something I just slap together when I get in the mood, I eat real food. It gives me more energy, lets me control my weight, keeps my mood high, and enables me to stay in tune with the day-to-day grind.

Just what I mean by real food, why its the basis of lifetime health, and how it opens a world of lip-smacking meal experiences to last a lifetimea healthy, fulfilling lifetimeis what this book is all about.

Sure, Im talking about food that is as whole and as natural as it can be and that you get as fresh and locally as possibleas close to its source and as close to nature as can be managed. As a chef, I am here to tell you that striving for local and natural does not mean limiting yourself in any way. Real food represents the greatest variety of tastes, textures, and flavors of any diet plan and offers the most possibilities for creativity in the kitchen. This book will show you that in a hundred different ways100 recipes for 100 different meals, snacks, and special occasions.

Ive been putting these recipes together for some time, because since I was a kid, eating real food has been absolutely natural to me. I still remember my first taste of farm-fresh eggs and just-picked vegetables. I was visiting my grandparents in rural Ohio, and the eggs and veggies came from a neighbors farm. Wow. Tasting them was an eye-opener. Meanwhile, back home on the South Carolina coast, I learned to use a fishing rod about the same time I learned to draw with crayons, and the snapper, bass, and blue crab I brought home for my mother to prepare were barely out of the water when we sat down to eat them. Straight off the farm and right out of the water, this was real food, tastier and more satisfying to me by far than the trans-fatty snacks or sugar-laden cereals or prepackaged meals I really couldnt eat as I grew older because of my diabetes. Freshness became a kind of gold standard I would seek out for the rest of my life; I wanted everything I consumed to have that same taste of genuineness.

By the time I was in high school, I had my first cooking job, and as cooking became my passion, it also became my vocation. Now that Ive been at it for a while, I can confirm that the closer our eating can stay to nature, the better off we are in terms of health and the more delicious our meals will be. Mama Nature has simply given us something that is divine; the more we can rely on her gifts, the better off well be. Nature wont let you down.

But of course, no food can really be forbidden. Trying to outlaw even a single fruit didnt work in the Garden of Eden, and it wont work today. Besides, eating shouldnt be restrictive, nerve-racking, or crazy complicated. Its eating, after allsomething we all have to do pretty much every day. No point getting nutty about it. Fortunately, however, eating can and should be one of the great joys of lifeand, as youll see in the pages that follow, a creative adventure as well.

They say that if nondiabetics ate the way we diabetics have to eat, theyd be the healthiest people on earth, and the rates of obesity, heart disease, and other debilitating ailments would plummet. What I know for sure is this: there is nothing better for us and nothing that tastes better than 100% real food.

WHATS REAL AND WHATS NOT?

What do I mean by 100% real food?

Mussels just off the boat certainly qualify. So do tomatoes somebody pulled off the vine an hour ago. Fruits and vegetables in season, fresh as they can be... eggs from the farm... a many-colored salad with pea shoots and raspberries picked just this morning... or a honey crunch granola with blueberries, coconut, and lime that you made yourself: they all constitute 100% real food.

But so does pizza. It was invented by peasants in southern Italy who couldnt afford to throw out their homemade bread even after it got stale. So they hacked off a slice, went out into the garden and grabbed a tomato off the vine, layered on a hunk of cheese they made from water buffalo milk, drizzled olive oil over it, and stuffed the whole thing into the oven. What a conceptall sorts of real foods put togetherand what a fantastic result.

You can say the same for a . All 100% realall pretty close to the way nature created them and tasting of it too.

What do I mean by foods that are not real? Certainly topping the list are the so-called fabricated foodsmeat analogs, for example, or imitation dairy products. The U.S. Patent Office describes fabricated foods as prepared by shaping a blend of edible textured protein particles, including single cell protein, bound together with a whey protein concentrate composition having more than 30% protein which is capable of forming a gel at 15% solids within 30 minutes when heated at 85C. I dont know about you, but as meal descriptions go, that one is a major turnoffsomething I really, really would not like to put into my mouth for any reason.

So Hamburger Helper does not make my personal list of real food. But if you crave the taste of hamburger and pasta, it is just as easy to get it from real food. Use some organic ground beef, mix it into just about any form of pasta, add a bit of cheese, and you have the taste you want but in a form that is even more delicious than the packaged kindand is far better for your health.