rock and hit someone who says they're avoiding carbs these days.

But eating well isn't about the extremes, it's about finding a healthy balance, and I have the recipes to help get you there deliciously.

French bread pizza.

Whole grain penne with chicken, mushrooms and spinach.

And basil pesto with spaghetti squash.

Plus, three ingredient quinoa pilaf.

And that's all coming up right here on Ellie's Real Good Food.

(guitar music) - [Voiceover] Funding for this series has been provided by - [Voiceover] Luvo, full servings of fruits and veggies, nutritious whole grains and lean proteins, seasoned with bold herbs and spices.

Chef created meals ready made for you, in your grocer's freezer.

Luvo, the next generation of frozen food.

- [Voiceover] Hi, you've reached Emma.

I'm out of the office right now, but will get back to you just as soon as I possibly can.

- [Voiceover] For exclusive Discovery at Sea experiences, Princess Cruises, come back new.

(guitar music) - [Voiceover] Grapes from California.

Grown by families for families.

- [Voiceover] And by the Natural Gourmet Institute.

For health and culinary arts.

Additional funding provided by the generous support of our Kickstarter donors.

A complete list is available at ElliesRealGoodFood.com.

- Hi, I'm Ellie Krieger, and this is Ellie's Real Good Food.

There's a lot of carb confusion out there.

When it comes to carbs, it's really all about choosing the best kinds and the right amounts.

Meet Inez, a mom and avid runner, who says that to manage her weight she avoids all grains and starches, with the exception of eating pasta before a race.

- For dinner tonight, I am actually cooking two meals, I'm making salmon for me, and then lettuce and asparagus, and then for the boys I'm making grilled chicken breasts because they're not fans of fish, and then mac and cheese and of course some tater tots.

It's become challenging and quite time consuming for me to have to cook two meals each night to satisfy my carb-free lifestyle and my boys.

- [Ellie] Unfortunately her strict diet leaves her feeling terribly run down so she's eager to find a better balance.

It just doesn't have to be this way.

So Inez is here with me on video chat and I'm so excited to talk with you.

Tell me a little bit about you said you started really dropping starches and grains out of your diet because you saw your weight increasing and that was a real solution for you, you thought?

- I saw the pounds just start packing on, you know, it was five pounds, five pounds, but you know, it adds up really quickly.

- Yeah, that's that middle age creep they all tell us about, right?

- Oh, yeah, right around my belly, was not fun, so I cut my carbs out completely, and which did definitely help take off the pounds.

- But when you say carbs, you're really talking about starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes and grains like bread and pasta, you're not talking about vegetables and fruits.

- No, not vegetables and fruits, just more of the whites.

- [Ellie] Okay.

- Like the bread, the pastas, et cetera.

- Vegetables like tomatoes and zucchini and mushrooms those are all carbohydrate foods also, but just not as concentrated carbohydrates.

But you were saying when you cut all of those grains and starches out of your diet, you actually you did lose weight but you also had some negative effects of that, too, huh?

- Well, absolutely, as a runner you need carbs in your diet, a nice proportion of carbs and protein.

I found myself struggling to complete the run.

- In your daily life, too, it affected you.

- Well absolutely, I get a lot meaner, and you know that's not really good for family life.

The problem is I don't really know that healthy balance to get what I need but also lose the weight.

- Right, well I'm so glad you reached out to me and joined me here 'cause I have so many great recipes for you, and I'm gonna show you this incredible pasta dish that's really balanced that you can eat, really, you need to replenish those muscles on a daily basis, not just once a week.

But definitely in balance where you're not overdoing it and then gaining weight.

And it's that balance that I think we're all searching for.

You're gonna love this dish, Inez.

I'm gonna get started cooking.

- Oh great, thank you.

- Whole grain penne with chicken, mushrooms, and spinach, so lots of vegetables, whole grains, and also really good lean protein, so it's beautifully balanced.

And I'm gonna start off by just putitng one tablespoon of olive oil into a skillet, here, and I'm gonna brown the chicken.

While that's heating up I'll just slice up some mushrooms, I already sliced some onions.

I was saying like vegetables are carbs, too, so when people say they're avoiding carbs, I really hope they're talking about mostly starches, not just vegetables.

And I love with pastas to do a lot of vegetables because then you get a big bowl of pasta but you're not eating so much grain.

I think one of the problems that we have is when we eat pasta we tend to eat a huge vat of it, you know, and then we eat it with bread, so we're just getting all out of balance.

- Ellie?

- Yeah.

- How much pasta should I eat in a serving, like what is a healthy amount?

- Generally, I go for 12 ounces of pasta for four people and that means the person ends up with about three ounces of pasta.

So for this I'm using 12 ounces of pasta, for four people.

- Thank you.

- Okay so while that's cooking I'm gonna finish chopping all these mushrooms.

I like to use a big variety of mushrooms, I have oyster mushrooms, cremini mushrooms, I have a portobello, just gives a really nice textural and taste variation.

Okay this chicken is ready.

So I'm pulling this chicken out of the pan.

And I'll put it back in the pasta at the end.

And I love when there are bits of that brown in the pan, because that just adds flavor to the sauce for the pasta in the end.

One tablespoon of oil in there again.

So are you the cook in your family, Inez?

- [Inez] Yes I am.

- [Ellie] And so do you cook starches and stuff?

Does your family is your family all on board?

- I do have to cook the carbs, obviously, for my son.

And then my husband will try the carb-free here and there, it's difficult sometimes, you know, when they're eating dessert, I know if I take one bite, forget it, it's gone.

- Yeah, and when you go to extremes, you tend to kind of create this binge mentality.

I'm gonna let these mushrooms and onions kinda sweat out, they'll release their liquid and start to brown and caramelize, and all the flavors will be beautifully developed.

So while that's happening, I'm cuttin' more vegetables, I like to put lots of vegetables in all of my dishes.

So I have sun-dried tomatoes here, and these add a really rich flavor, kind of meatiness.

Just slicing those up.

And I'm gonna cut this spinach.

So always thinking about color.

I always try to put lots of color in my dishes.

And this one's doing pretty well.

All right, I'm just gonna add some more wonderful flavors, big flavor of garlic, few cloves of minced garlic.

About a tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves.

I just love the flavor of fresh thyme.

Just gonna give this a stir, just about 30 seconds for that garlic.

Really important not to let the garlic burn, because then you'll wind up with bitter flavors.

So just 'til it softens.

And now one and a half cups of chicken broth.

I'm gonna turn the heat up to high.

And just let that boil down for a little bit, and concentrate.

You can see this gorgeous sauce forming already.

I always use low-sodium chicken broth, I'll add a little salt, but this way I'm controlling how much salt is in it, I don't want it to be super salty.

I like to add some crushed red pepper flakes.

For a little kick, not to make it spicy, but just to give it a little heat.

Just gonna let that reduce.

All right, so it is ready now.

For the next step.

- [Inez] Ooh!

- All right, I'm gonna add now sun-dried tomatoes and the spinach.

And the pasta's ready now, so I do this just as the pasta's ready, essentially.

I'm gonna get that drained.

So now the pasta goes in, and this is whole grain penne, but the thing is that's great about pasta, why you shouldn't really lump it in with other white carbs like white bread is first of all this is whole grain, but even regular pasta, even white pasta, is really a low glycemic index, it's a pretty high protein grain that it's made out of, a high protein type of wheat, the durum wheat, and so it's always better to have whole grain, you even get a slower release carbohydrate, but even white pasta is really it's not like white bread, it's better.

Oh, isn't this looking great?

- Delicious!

- I know, I'm getting you hungry.

Okay, I'm gonna put some parmesan cheese in here, and a little bit of salt, just a half a teaspoon of salt, and some pepper.

And when you cook the pasta, with the sauce at the end, then it can really absorb it.

So I always take my pasta off even two minutes before it becomes al dente, so I can cook it a little extra with the sauce.

So I'm gonna spoon you up a portion, just to show you what I think would be appropriate portion for you, there's no one portion that is perfect for everyone, it really depends on a lot factors, including of course how active you are.

This would serve four.

At about a quarter of this, so you see you're getting a good amount of pasta but you're getting a lot of vegetables, you're getting a lot of chicken, I'm gonna put a little cheese on top of that.

Besides, it is just absolutely delicious.

- That looks amazing.

- Now that's what I call fuel.

Come back in person sometime.

- Thank you.

- Spaghetti squash with basil pesto, so I've just gotten everything set up for the pesto.

And this is a spaghetti squash.

So you know I love pasta, right, that's like well established.

But it's also fun to get noodley in a healthy way with vegetables, and there's all kinds of machines that give you vegetable noodles now, with zucchini and so on, but nature has already done this for us with the spaghetti squash, because when you bake it up, you'll see, you get this kind of noodle shape, it just naturally forms into.

So I'll show you how it goes.

So this is what a spaghetti squash looks like.

And you just kind of cut it in half, you know the rind is pretty thick so you wanna put some muscle into it and be careful.

And it just looks like a pumpkin inside, basically, like any other squash.

The spaghetti part comes after you bake it, you'll see.

I'm just gonna take the seeds out, and it's really good idea to use like a grapefruit spoon for this, 'cause it helps you get those kinda stringy parts.

You don't wanna dig too deep into the flesh, just enough to get the seeds and the string out.

My daughter always loved to make squash.

Kids love to make squash.

I mean it's a fun process and you get to see what's inside.

Okay, both halves done.

Just gonna brush the cut side with a little oil.

Really any kind of oil is fine here.

And put it face down into a baking dish.

And then I put a little water in the pan, so that you won't get anything burnt on the bottom.

Just about a half inch of water.

And as it's baking you can check it and just make sure there's a little water in the pan.

Also helps keep the inside moist.

Kinda steams as it cooks.

So it's just gonna in at 375 until it's collapsed and tender.

Basil pesto, it's classic for a reason, because it's so good, and especially when you can gets lots of basil like in the summer time.

It's easy to start, just a couple cloves of garlic, and some pine nuts that I've toasted, you can use almonds here, so this is a fun thing also about pestos is you can really use lots of different variations if you want, but this is really the classic.

And I'm just gonna whir that up together to give it a head start.

Okay.

Now in goes three cups of basil leaves.

This is perfume to me.

Love the smell of basil.

I think I could make a perfume out of it, I'd be perfectly happy wearing it.

Some parmesan cheese.

Freshly grated.

And tablespoon of lemon juice.

Get this whirring.

And as it's going, drizzling in the olive oil.

Using about half a cup, extra virgin olive oil.

Glorious green sauce, it is delicious with so many things.

Okay so now I'm just gonna clean this up, and the squash will be ready and it will all come together beautifully, you'll see.

So the spaghetti squash is done, and it's been cooling for a little bit.

This is how you know it's ready, when it really kinda gives like that.

And inside it looks soft and luscious.

And so here's the spaghetti part.

This is so fun, and really, if I had like kids around I would just grab them and "come help me" 'cause they just love, it's so fun to watch them in awe of how this happens, you don't even have to do anything special, you don't have to have any special skills, it just makes its own noodles.

The thing about spaghetti squash, also, it has this very lovely mild kind of neutral flavor.

So it really goes well with just about any sauce you wanna use on it.

Now, spaghetti squash meets pesto.

Let's see how much I'll use here.

Kinda depends on the size of the squash, how much.

So I'll give a toss and see if that looks like enough.

I think that's enough.

Oh my goodness it smells so good.

That aroma's incredible.

Let's make sure it's evenly coated.

Add a little salt and pepper.

Serve some up.

So this is really great as a side dish with roasted meats, chicken.

Mound it in there.

I like to garnish it with a little more parm.

A little basil, a few little leaves.

And that is one healthy carbalicious dish.

I love this recipe, it's a three ingredient quinoa pilaf.

Sometimes you you know you're making a whole grain side and it's just so plain and you don't know how to season it.

Well this is a perfect way to season it, and you can change up the grain but here I'm using quinoa.

So that's one of my ingredients.

The other is scallion, so I'm gonna use part of this, the scallion, the dark green part, after as a garnish, and the light green part as kind of like an onion, you'll see.

And then my third ingredient is some toasted almonds.

And I get salt and pepper and oil free in my three-ingredient recipe.

So there you have it, it's simple and it's incredible flavorful.

So I'm gonna start off just by putting one tablespoon of oil, olive oil, into a saucepan, a medium size saucepan, 'cause I'm ultimately gonna cook the quinoa right in there.

And this is really a classic pilaf technique, where you start with some oil, and then an aromatic, it could be onion, it could be leeks, it could be garlic, in this case I'm using the whites of a scallion.

I'm just gonna get that softened.

So I love quinoa.

Quinoa is a whole grain, but well it's eaten as a grain.

It's actually botanically a seed.

It's really rich in protein, it comes from South America, it comes in different colors, too, which is really nice.

And it cooks up just like rice.

But there's one thing about quinoa is that it does naturally have this coating that has a slightly bitter flavor, so you wanna either buy it pre-rinsed which most of the packages sold in the U.S. are pre-rinsed already so you don't have to worry about it.

Just check for that on the label, that's what I do.

Or if you're not sure, just rinse it under water under cold water for a few minutes and then shake it dry right before you're gonna use it.

So these scallions are nicely softened.

And I'm just going to pour the quinoa in, this is one cup of quinoa.

And in this pilaf technique this is what you do.

You coat the grain with the oil, and get it toasting a little.

Really just for about one minute here.

And this just kind of amps up the flavor of the grain.

And so I'm just gonna add for this one cup of quinoa, one and three quarters of a cup of water, and you could use broth here if you want to as well.

But you don't have to, it has a lot of flavor like this.

So just like rice you bring that to a boil, then you reduce the heat to low, and you cook until it's tender, takes about 12 to 15 minutes.

So this is done, and then when it's finished you just fluff it with a fork like this.

I can smell that aromatic scallion.

And now I'm gonna put in the scallion greens.

Some salt and pepper.

And the almonds, which I've toasted up.

It's always worth that extra step of toasting the almonds just put 'em in a dry pan you don't need any extra oil, and you just toast 'em over a high heat, shakin' 'em frequently, or stirring, for about three to five minutes.

And this is a beautiful quinoa pilaf.

You can serve it with just about anything, roast chicken, pork tenderloin.

Hold back a little, to use as garnish.

And there's a tasty, beautiful, and easy way to get your whole grains.

Oh I just love French bread pizza.

A lot of people think that it's off limits when you're trying to eat healthy, well it's not, you can have it and I'm gonna show you how.

First of all I'm starting with a whole grain French bread, or Italian bread, just basically a baguette, a crusty loaf like this.

And very often you know they're huge.

And so I'm making four servings, so what I'm doing here right away is I'm gonna take off part of this bread, I'm putting it to the side, I'm gonna freeze that and then you have it for soup or another sandwich or another French bread pizza some other time.

So then I'm gonna cut this into four pieces.

So lengthwise and cross wise, I'm gonna cut the rest.

And again, always, I buy whole grain bread whenever I can find it.

And it's pretty much available in most stores nowadays.

And when you get whole grain, you're getting the fiber, you're getting these great anti-oxidants, plus more minerals, and so it absorbs more slowly into your system and it's just overall much better for you.

So here's my other really important trick for eating bread healthfully, especially kind of roll type or hero type bread like this.

Scoop it.

Scoop it.

If you scoop this out, first of all you can save the center for bread crumbs, croutons, things like that, so it's not gonna get wasted.

But you're basically making room for more of these other great ingredients, and I consider this space for more vegetables, personally, on my sandwich.

And I like lots of veggies on my pizza.

And also it really I measured actually, and it saves about 25% of the calories, so that's a lot.

Okay, so we have the four pieces of bread.

So it'll be basically everyone gets individual serving.

Now just some marinara sauce.

Just a couple of tablespoons, spreading that around.

And this is a fun thing, like, everyone can make their own, we like to do that in my house.

Just put out a lot of different toppings and fillings, and I like to keep it really veggie based, and it's fun for kids 'cause they can explore maybe slice up some mushrooms, some red peppers, some red onion.

Can even do pesto instead of the tomato sauce if you want.

Now the arugula.

I happen to love arugula, you could also do spinach, and you see here makes like such a nice little boat.

So you can also use chopped spinach here, you can use baby kale, that's good on here too.

And then of course mozzarella and some parmesan cheese, and I use part-skim mozzarella, and again here just don't go overboard.

Just sprinkle a nice amount on, you want it to be generous and want it to be melty and delicious, and you're getting protein and calcium with this cheese, but it doesn't have to be drowning in cheese.

Some parmesan.

And these just go into the oven, 425 for about 12 minutes 'til they're bubbly, and the outside is crisp, and you can smell that they're ready.

Ohh la la, pizza is ready.

Melty and crisp.

And very very hot right now.

These are delicious to serve with a salad, with soup like a minestrone soup would be great with this.

Mmm, now this right here is the sweet spot where delicious and healthy meet.

(laughs) It's so much better to do this at home when you're not on camera and everyone's watching you.

- This is really unfair, it's dinner time.

I'm watching you cook me a meal that I can't eat.

- (laughs) I'm really unfair, yes.

But there is a new way I can... That would be fun if we had it all cooked there and I could somehow ... Blah blah blah.

- [Voiceover] For these recipes and much more go to ElliesRealGoodFood.com.

Also, connect with Ellie on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Funding for this series has been provided by - [Voiceover] Hi, you've reached Emma.

I'm out of the office right now, but will get back to you just as soon as I possibly can.

- [Voiceover] For exclusive Discovery at Sea experiences, Princess Cruises, come back new.

- [Voiceover] Luvo, full servings of fruits and veggies, nutritious whole grains and lean proteins, seasoned with bold herbs and spices.

Chef created meals ready made for you, in your grocer's freezer.

Luvo, the next generation of frozen food.

- [Voiceover] Grapes from California.

Grown by families for families.

- [Voiceover] And by The Natural Gourmet Institute.

For health and culinary arts.

Additional funding provided by the generous support of our Kickstarter donors.

A complete list is available at ElliesRealGoodFood.com Ellie's kitchen is provided by Clarke, New England's Sub-Zero and Wolfe showroom and test kitchen.