Merry Christmas From My Kitchen to Yours!

      I love the Holiday Season where everyone wants to get together and share joys, laughter and food. Why not organize a cooking gathering with your peers and colleagues? That's exactly what happened with the Hong Kong chapter of the American Overseas Dietetic Association this year. We had loads of fun and the theme was Holiday Treats: Gluten-Free Baking. I was pretty excited to see what we could do all together and also have dinner on time, since we only rented the venue for 3 hours. It was a pretty action-packed night, we had to finish the gingerbread decorating at home but at least we had a chance to exchange presents! I was honored that they asked me to lead an evening of cooking with dietitians! 

           This event was afterwork on a weeknight and I knew we needed some healthy snacks for dietitians to munch on while we cooked and baked together. I prepared a veggie crudité platter with a hummus dip and a mixed green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and red kidney means. We can never overdose on vegetables! 

           Who doesn't like pizza and cookies?! Since the main food trend nowadays is a gluten-free one, I have gathered, tested and tweaked some of the more interesting pizza crust recipes that incorporated a lot of veggies into our meal that night. I can't wait to share these with you in my upcoming posts! I have revealed some insights of going gluten-free and whether of not you need to adapt to this diet in a previous post, please refer to:" The Gluten-Free Fad Has Landed On The Pearl!"

         While we waited for the gluten-free pizza crusts to bake I demonstrated how I prepared the crusts and also we had a gingerbread men making session. This was my favorite part of the night where we all participated. I am sure the dietitians loved getting their hands dirty with a slight aroma gingerbread in the air. 

                Just as we were about to finish with cutting the cookies, the pizza crusts were ready to be dressed with the number of toppings I have prepared ahead of time. There were two different types of crusts with different toppings. I was happy to have a more traditional pizza flavor on the zucchini crust and one that was not so traditional on the cauliflower crust. 

        My fellow dietitians were so enthusiastic and helpful, I enjoyed every moment of this too. They helped me spread the tomato sauce, mushrooms, pepperoni, red peppers and shredded cheese onto the zucchini crust. I was also aided when it came to adding BBQ sauce, chicken, onions and cheese to the one with the cauliflower crust. They both turned out so delicious, it was difficult to choose a favorite!

                                                     

       After both lovely pizzas came out of the oven, another 2 went in. We then shared an intimate dinner together devouring those delights we just made while waiting for the gingerbread men to bake. 

 

          The gingerbread was baked and cooled in no time and gave us a chance to do a little decoration before our dessert was served.  Our gluten-free black bean brownie is also available as a recipe in a previous post of mine. You must try this at home, I am not kidding and you would be surprised. 

          There's nothing better than a little sweet ending to a holiday party. I was amazed at how quickly the dessert was eaten and then we finally moved onto our last activity of the night, exchanging of holiday gifts!

               I hope everybody had as much fun as I did. Wendy Wu, the #HappyDietitian was so sweet to have compiled a few precious moments of our event into a short movie, which you can view by clicking here! 
                Brown Rice Meets the Pearl wishes you a Merry Merry Christmas! Happy Cooking, happy eating and happy exercising!