This is a guest post by Chef Todd Mohr, who is hosting a FREE web cooking class on April 20! The webcast is only a week away and space is limited, so make sure you reserve your seat now by clicking here… (will open in a new window so you can keep reading!)

Cooking is not made easy when you’re still guessing. In fact, guessing at cooking increases the stress because guessing makes you unsure of the results to come. I’m going to give you a little cooking help by offering some tips on how to end your guessing.

One of the reasons that you guess is because it’s hard to believe something until you can actually see it. But I want to help you to wrap your head around the idea that you have to believe it first and then you’ll see it.

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Hope you liked that video! I’ve got one more for you…a TOMATO PIE video!

I have never met anyone who doesn’t like pizza. Especially not one as fresh and homemade as the one my friend Chef Todd demonstrates in this video (make sure you keep reading after you watch the video because you’re not going to believe what Chef Todd is doing next)

He actually calls it: Tomato Pie -- because it is BETTER than pizza. Check out the video, because he shows you EXACTLY how it’s done!

Speaking of showing you EXACTLY how it’s done…can you believe that Chef Todd’s FREE Live Video Webcast is coming up on April 20? You get to go in the guy’s kitchen and watch him work his magic LIVE while you ask questions!

The live video webcast is called…

“You CAN Cook Healthier, Better Tasting Meals at Home in Less Time than Take-Out”

Go claim your free spot in it right now by clicking here.

The live Webcast is on Tuesday, April 20th and he’ll be taking LIVE audience questions, too! So you definitely do NOT want to miss this -- especially if you are looking for a fool-proof way to get better meals done fast. I don’t know how many people he’s letting in, but I was one of the first to know about this webcast, so if you’re reading, you’ve got a jumpstart on everyone else…

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Folks, in this video, Chef Todd Mohr has come back again in his quest to enable you to change your life and change your body by applying simple cooking methods! At his online Web Cooking Classes site, you can learn exactly what it takes using an easy step-by-step system that gives you the power to create healthy and impressive meals…including the ability to….

-Change your outlook on cooking immediately without any experience!

-Gain the confidence to cook whatever you want, to great results, without guessing.

-Be a more creative cook, have more cooking ideas, cook different foods, and add a greater variety of flavor to the foods you cook.

-Develop a closer, healthier relationship with food by cooking with fresh ingredients to eliminate restaurant calories and frozen foods.

-Experience the joy of creating amazing meals for your friends and family.

-Know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and enjoy cooking as an art, not a chore.

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I need your help! We need more questions for Chef Todd for my Monday kitchen video interview with him…what are your cooking questions you’d like me to ask him? Please leave them in the comment box below this post!

If you’re like me, you’re avoiding making sauces!

And why?

Well, probably out of fear.

I know that’s what’s stopped me!

You always hear the horror stories of sauces “breaking” or”burning” or “separating” or just plain old not tasting good!

So I decided I wanted to overcome my fear, and I did what I’ve been doing quite a bit of lately. I asked my colleague Chef Todd Mohr for his advice on sauce-making.

My “a-ha” moment came pretty quickly because Chef Todd explained sauces to me in such an easy format, even I couldn’t miss it! Here’s what he said:

Sauces are all made up of 3 components:

Liquid
Provides the body of the sauce.  There are five liquids or bases on which sauces are built, resulting in the five “mother sauces” (leading sauces). Most frequently used sauces are based on stocks.

Thickening Agents
Sauce must cling to food, needs a thickening agent, must not leave a puddle on the plate and must not be too thick and pasty. Starches are the most commonly used thickeners. Fat is also used.

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I need your help! We need more questions for Chef Todd for my Monday kitchen video interview with him…what are your cooking questions you’d like me to ask him? Please leave them in the comment box below this post!

Yesterday, I promised to reveal to you Chef Todd’s quicker, simpler version of Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon, using his knowledge of basic cooking methods over Julia’s recipe.

Here’s what he wrote to me:

“Hi Ben,

Thanks for the challenge. It was an eye-opener and should turn out to be a great procedure for you to share with your subscribers.

When I look at the Julia and Julie Beef Bourguignon, I see two simple words – braising method.  To update this 40 year old recipe, here’s how I’d apply basic cooking methods and creativity to yield beef bourguignon (total time – one hour, using one pan!):

1)     Cooking by basic methods skips the first step of using a calculator to scale the recipe.  From standard portions, I know I need 4 ounces of protein per person, so the only measurement I’ll make is 8 ounces of beef to start.

2)     Julia Child’s recipe has me using 5 different pans.  This adds to clean-up time.  To start, I’d use one pan, my covered 12 inch braising pan.

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Be sure to check out the end of this post for even more from Chef Todd!

I finally saw “Julia and Julie”, the movie. You know the one, right?

It’s about how twenty-something home cook Julie Powell recreated 524 recipes in 365 days from Julia Child’s cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.

It’s a great movie, especially if you’re a fan of food, cooking, and Julia Child.

If only Hollywood could take over ALL cookbooks, because in Julia and Julie, every Julia Child recipe comes out perfectly on the first try for Julie Powell, a home cook with no culinary training!

She makes hollandaise perfectly the first time.

Her Spinach Souffle looks like a magazine photo on the first shot.

Hollywood makes everything easier.

I have great respect and admiration for Julia Child.  She brought high-level French cooking ideas to American households at the precise time that TV dinners and convenience foods were being mass-produced in the US.  Julia’s degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris enabled her to write these recipes because of her extensive culinary education combined with her passion for food and cooking.

In the movie, Julie Powell has no culinary education, but does have passion for food.

So I asked Chef Todd Mohr the following question:

“Is passion enough to be able to prepare every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook?”

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Along with each video in this series, I’ll be giving you extra tips from Chef Todd Mohr, and be sure to read the end of this post for a special announcement about Chef Todd coming onto the podcast! I still need your help!

During a discussion we recently had, Chef Todd told me that most people buy so many kitchen tools and gadgets that they don’t really need.

As a matter of fact, he recommends just 4 essential kitchen knives.

Here’s his synopsis of what you really need for successful kitchen prep:

French (Chef’s) knife- Offers the greatest versatility for most cutting and chopping. Used in a rocking motion where knife tip always touches the cutting board.

Boning knife - thinner, pointed, used for cleaning meats and removing bones.

Paring knife – small, short knife, most often used for cutting fruit. Used in one hand, pulling the edge toward your palm in opposition to pressure applied by the thumb

Slicing knife – longer knife with serrated edge, for cutting bread and slicing meats in a sawing fashion.

Proper knife skills are essential for the type of quick and easy kitchen prep that Chef Todd teaches. You’ve probably been to his website by now, but in case you haven’t, you should know that he gives out a bunch of other cooking secrets in other free videos on his website, along with online cooking classes! Click here to check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

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As you learned in the last video from my friend and fellow make-you-healthier villain, Chef Todd Mohr, those old Martha Stewart recipes don’t work!

And neither do many other popular cookbook recipes.

Why would these people and publishers have recipes that don’t work?

And who is Chef Todd to make such a bold claim?

Well, I posed this question to him and he explained to me that recipes don’t teach you to cook any more than having sheet music teaches you to play piano, which you learned if you watched part 1 of this video series.

Certainly, the step-by-step instructions of the best cookbook recipes can be reassuring to many home cooks.  It’s much easier to follow someone else’s opinion of how something should be cooked than to create your own recipe.

But the sacrifice you make in following a food TV network recipe is that you’re trying to duplicate what was originally created by some food TV show.

Your stove is different than the “test kitchen”.

Theirs is gas, yours is electric.

Your pans are made of a different metal than theirs were.

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Over the next 6 days here at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, in a series of free cooking videos, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine: the talented and highly entertaining Chef Todd Mohr from WebCookingClasses.com, a revolutionary, healthy cooking instructor who I met last week while I was in New York. And at the bottom of this post, I have a special question for you.

Why is Chef Todd Mohr so revolutionary, you ask?

Well, his philosophy on healthy cooking without recipes is totally unique. He has truly changed the way I view cooking and I know it will have the same impact on you.

You see, Chef Todd Mohr believes that most of us don’t really know how to cook!

Sure we can follow a recipe – sometimes, especially if we’ve made it before and figured out its “quirks.” But we don’t really know the techniques we used and, worse yet – we don’t understand the cooking methods that recipes call upon.

Why is this important?

Well…

As Chef Todd explained to me, and talks about in the video above, your cooking methods are EVERYTHING in Cooking!

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