Rival Marketing and how2heroes were honored to host Dr. Christopher Gardner and the Stanford Club of Boston last Monday night. Dr Gardner, who holds a PhD in Nutrition Science and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford, gave a dynamic talk on eating healthier and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. He enlightened the group by informing them that eating healthy for health’s may not be enough motivation for some people. But if you bring in social, ethical, cultural and environmental issues of food and food production, food choices become more important and effective.

After Dr. Gardner’s talk, we escorted Dr. Gardner and all the attendess to our Kitchen Studio where we created and served some of our favorite healthy, simple, meatless recipes. how2heroes and Rival CEO Lynne Viera gave a cooking demo on Romesco Sauce and discussed its versatility for serving it with just about anything (on vegetables, shrimp, chicken, etc) much like our other condiment of the evening, Greek Tzatziki (cucumber-yogurt condiment). She discussed how the best way to eat healthy is to use what’s in season and therefore most flavorful. Based on the positive reaction of the guests and the lack of leftovers, we think we were successful in demonstrating that you can eat healthy and fully enjoy your food without adding unhealthy fat and extra calories.

We’d like to thank Stanford alumnus Addie Swartz and Stanford Boston President Brian Mariscal for coordinating the event and inviting Dr. Gardner and such a fun, engaging group of Stanford alumni to our office & kitchen space. We’d also like to thank Chloe Rosen and Brianna Burg for being Lynne’s sous chefs. They were such a great help!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mushrooom Burgers
adapted from “Super Immunity,” by Joel Fuhrman

Ingredients:

• 6 cups mushrooms (cremini recommended), finely minced

• 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats)

• 1 cup ground walnuts

• 1/4 cup water

• 1/4 cup tomato paste

• 1/2 red pepper, finely minced

• 1 cup diced onion

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 tbsp fresh thyme, roughly chopped

• 1 tbsp fresh basil, roughly chopped

• 2/3 cup fresh spinach, sautéed in water and squeezed dry

• freshly ground pepper & salt to taste

How-to:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small saute pan, cook onions and garlic in 1/4 cup water until onion is translucent (about 3-5 minutes)

3. Add mushrooms and peppers, cover and cook until tender (about 3-5 minutes)

4. Add spinach and fresh herbs and cook until wilted (1 minute)

5. Add salt & pepper to taste

6. In a small bowl, whisk together water and tomato paste and add to mushroom mixture

7. Combine oatmeal and walnut in a large bowl

8. Take mushroom mixture from pan and pour into large bowl. Mix all ingredients together with your hands or a wooden spoon and form into burgers

9. Bake mushroom burgers for 10-15 minutes each side or until very firm on the outside

Serve with your condiment of choice. We used Tzatziki (Greek yogurt & cucumber spread) and Romesco (Spanish roasted vegetable & almond condiment). Mixture can be made up to 1 day ahead and stored in the refrigerator until ready to cook.