3 Can't-Miss Recipes From Daphne Oz's New Cookbook - The Forecast (2024)

Daphne Oz wrote her new cookbook, “Eat Your Heart Out,” to take the perceived hard work out of eating healthy. “I desperately wanted to be able to provide people with a manual for an abundant way of looking at nourishing your body, but keeping pleasure front and center always,” says Oz. Below Oz shares her tips for keeping weeknight cooking stress-free, as well as three crowd-pleasing recipes from her new book.

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: What inspired you to write this latest cookbook and specifically on this idea of clean eating?

Daphne Oz: My idea around how I love and how I savor life through food and the simultaneous desire to fit in my clothes and feel good in my skin. There wasn’t a reset out there for people who love to eat the way that I do. So I really love that you just mentioned pleasure and adventure because those are two of the words I use all the time to talk about food and that really is how I color in my day. That really is how I savor the flavor of life, no pun intended. But I’m also deeply committed to this idea that food is medicine, it’s how I take care of my body, it’s how I nourish myself so that I can do and take care of all the people in my life that I love and care about. It’s how I nourish my family, obviously. And I felt like we have a tendency to make healthy living in general feel like work. It feels like a job. We’re very black and white about it. We’re very, you know, if it’s not painful, you’re not doing it well or enough or we treat any trade offs as an immediate failure.

And I think to myself, what a sad way to go through life. I desperately wanted to be able to provide people with a manual for an abundant way of looking at nourishing your body, but keeping pleasure front and center always. The literal back cover of the book is “Taking good care of ourselves should always be delicious” because that was the fundamental thesis here. And I love to see how well it’s done because it’s just so gratifying to know that, like, I am not the only one who felt like we were making it more work than it had to be. I’m not the only one who wanted to get back food confidence and intuitive eating in a way that let me really relax and feel as celebratory in the times that I was eating to fuel my body, as in the times that I was eating to indulge and fuel my love of celebrations. And I think really, more than anything, hopefully getting people confidence to get in the kitchen and do something really good for themselves.

KMC: What do you think are some misconceptions of clean eating?

DO: The reason I chose that terminology is it is very open to interpretation. I think it can be anything. It can be removing sugar from your diet or removing gluten from your diet. It could mean Paleo, it could mean only green things. [laughs] The book is 150 recipes free from gluten and free from refined sugar that you’re still going to want to totally eat your heart out from—deliciousness is front and center. You’re giving your body clean fuel that it knows how to process and knows how to derive energy from, and you’re always going to feel full. That was something else I was really committed to, like, I don’t want to be hungry all the time. I’m not a very nice person to be around when I’m hungry. So I wanted something that I could really sink my teeth into and eat a portion that I was comfortable with and also, have my body feeling like it’s running on premium, not garbage.

KMC: You mentioned there are 150 recipes. There’s amazing variety in this book. Are there any recipes that you find yourself going back to time and time again?

DO: So Mama’s Barbecue Chicken is one of the recipes that made its way into the book purely because it was the recipe that I was making all of the time. I was just taking leftover chicken and putting my barbecue sauce on it and broiling it. It reheats the chicken so fast, but it doesn’t have time to dry out. And the barbecue sauce gets really crusty and glistening, and delicious and sweetened, and candied almost. So I just made a real recipe out of it on how to make this wonderful chicken baked on the barbecue sauce in your oven in a way that still gets you the sensation of having had a gorgeous barbecue meal. So that’s definitely one that I go back to over and over.

As summer sets in—I cannot wait—I only make the corn, crab, avocado and cucumber salad during the summer because the corn is so incredible. Then you get this beautiful sensation of the sweetness and the savory and then wonderful mild crab and that little bit of avocado coming through. So that’s something I can’t wait to make all summer long.

I make the Middle Eastern egg salad a lot along with the chickpea faux tuna salad. Those are just like some classic lunch staples around here that I love. The banana pumpkin muffins—I make at least a batch a week. I talk about them being a love child between pumpkin pie and banana bread because unlike muffins that can be really crumbly and dry and fall apart in your hand, these are dense like pumpkin pie. They really fill you up and they’re so juicy and moist. They’re just fabulous.

KMC: I think we all fall into this rut sometimes where we just assume it’s easier to grab something on the way home or order in instead of making meals at home. What are your tips for avoiding some of those pitfalls and really taking the time in the kitchen to create something delicious that’s going to fuel your body and make you feel good?

DO: When you can find time to cook, it’s a time to double batch it. Any time I turn on the oven to do a long roast, I’m making two. I’m making two roast chickens and two trays of roasted vegetables, two lasagnas, or whatever it is. I do two of them, so I always have a fresh meal to have that day, and then I have the leftovers, which come in handy throughout the week. Things like the Cajun salmon burgers or the turkey meatloaf—those are things you make a big batch of when you have the time like on the weekend or on a monday night when you are getting yourself situated for the week. And then you have a patty or have a slice to augment or to add a big boost of protein to any meal that you’re making throughout the week. I think part of it is when you get home from work and you’re tired and you’re not feeling super creative, that’s not the time when you necessarily want to roll up sleeves and get working in the kitchen. The kitchen can and should be, and is for me, a place to relax. But it can only be that way if I set myself up for success and I can minimize the amount of work during the times when I know I’m not going to be stress free. So having the big batch of things already made that I can then portion out to have throughout the week really helps.

I’ll do the same thing where I’ll make a big batch of lentils or millet or quinoa on the weekends, as well as roasted veggies.

KMC: I think I know the answer to this, but are these recipes in the book kid approved?

DO: A lot of them are kid-approved like the two I mentioned, the Mama’s Barbeque Chicken and the Banana Pumpkin Muffins—I make them all the time because my kids are obsessed with them. The Magic Pancakes that are the first recipe in the book are because of my kids. I could not get them to eat oatmeal without making it candy. So I created these fancy pancakes just riffing on ways I could utilize something I wanted them to eat into something they wanted to eat. And so, yes, there’s a lot in here that’s great for kids, but I would never call it a kid cookbook.

Honestly, when you are cooking for a family, it’s never really just about you, Mom. But this is my love letter to moms and just busy women and men: Take good care of yourself because you deserve to feel good and you deserve to be able to take on life with the strength and the excitement and the vitality that we all crave. And it doesn’t have to be as hard as it can sometimes seem from the outside looking in when you’re trying to get on to a healthy eating plan or a healthy lifestyle. I thoroughly believe and subscribe to the idea that kids model off of their parents. So even if you start just by making these for you and having these foods readily available and around you, and convenient, your kids will start to pay attention too.

Read on for three of Oz’s recipes from “Eat Your Heart Out.”

Mediterranean Chicken Skewers

Chicken skewers are in heavy rotation around our house. It’s easy to turn out a small mountain of them if you’re always feeding a crowd like I am, and leftovers are amazing over any salad, chopped into casseroles, or eaten straight off the stick for a quick protein snack. This variation is always my favorite, an easy blend of oregano, cumin, and garlic that pairs beautifully with just about everything, and the lemon juice keeps the skewers extra tender and juicy.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon cracked coriander seeds or ½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
Juice from 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
¾ teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
Eight 10-inch wooden skewers, soaked in water
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

IN a large bowl, combine the olive oil, garlic, oregano, cumin, coriander seeds, paprika, lemon juice, and salt. Add the chicken, stir to coat, and let marinate for 30 minutes at room temperature.
PREHEAT a grill or grill pan to medium-high heat or preheat the oven to 375°F. If using the oven, line a sheet pan with foil.
THREAD the chicken pieces onto the skewers, allowing any excess marinade to drip off.
IF using the grill, grill the skewers until the chicken is charred on both sides and cooked through, 5 to 6 minutes per side, until a meat thermometer registers at 165°F.
IF using the oven, place the marinated skewers on the prepared sheet pan and cook for 14 to 16 minutes, flipping the skewers halfway through, until the chicken is cooked through and a meat thermometer registers 165°F.
SEASON with salt and pepper as desired and serve.

Asian Chopped Chicken Salad with Sweet Chili Soy Dressing

I often find myself trying to recreate favorite restaurant meals or meals that borrow elements of different dishes and put them together. This is one such mashup. I can’t resist a crunchy Chinese chicken salad with its mix of cabbage, nuts, mandarins, and crispy wontons. But whenever I’ve had it, the poached chicken breast always feels a little… lackluster. It’s okay, because the spicy mustard dressing makes up for it, but then I got to thinking… What if I used glorious, peanut-scented Thai chicken satay instead? I think you know where I’m going here. It turns out, if you combine that elegantly spiced bird with crisp cabbage and tender cashews in Sweet Chili Soy Dressing, you’re left with the happiest mouth on the block.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

SPICED CASHEWS
½ cup raw cashews
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon chile powder or pinch of cayenne
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric (optional)
Sea salt, to taste

CHOPPED SALAD
1 cups shredded purple cabbage
5 cups shredded napa cabbage
2 cups trimmed and halved sugar snap peas
4 to 5 scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced on the bias.
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
½ cup Sweet Chili Soy Dressing (get Daphne’s recipe on page 275)
1 recipe Peanut-Chili Chicken Skewers from page 188, to serve

PREHEAT the oven to 350°F.
TO make the spiced cashews, toss the cashews, grapeseed oil, cumin, chile powder, turmeric (if using), and salt in a medium bowl until evenly coated. Spread on a sheet pan and roast for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden and fragrant, tossing occasionally and rotating the pan halfway through. Let cool, then roughly chop and set aside.
TO make the chopped salad, combine the purple and napa cabbage in a large bowl. Add the sugar snap peas, cashews, scallions, and sesame seeds. Drizzle the dressing around the rim of the bowl and toss until lightly coated.
SERVE with the chicken skewers.

Blackberry and Plum Crumble

Is there anything better than a warm berry crumble, bubbling with thick, garnet juices and scattered with a sweet, crunchy, nutty topping? I think not. This is just like all the ones you’ve had before, only without all that pesky refined sugar and flour and stuff.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

OAT TOPPING
¾ cup almond flour
1 cup gluten-free rolled oats
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon Date Syrup (get Daphne’s recipe on page 244)
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ cup full-fat goat or sheep milk yogurt, to serve (optional)

BLACKBERRY AND PLUM FILLING
5 cups fresh blackberries
2 fresh ripe plums, pitted and sliced
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated (optional)
Zest and juice from 1 lemon (about 1 teaspoon zest and 2 tablespoons juice)
2 tablespoons Date Syrup (get Daphne’s recipe on page 244)
1 tablespoon tapioca flour

PREHEAT the oven to 350°F.
TO make the oat topping, combine the almond flour, oats, cinnamon, cardamom, sea salt, Date Syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla in a medium bowl until crumbly. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
MEANWHILE, make the blackberry filling. In a large bowl, mix the blackberries, plums, ginger (if using), lemon zest and juice, Date Syrup, and tapioca flour until combined. Place the filling into an 8×8 inch baking dish.
SPRINKLE the topping over the blackberry mixture. Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 15 minutes, until the crumble is golden and the filling is bubbling. Let cool for 10 minutes and serve with a dollop of sheep or goat milk yogurt (if using).