Jill Nussinow, aka The Veggie Queen™ is a Registered Dietitian who has been teaching plant-based, whole foods cooking almost 30 years at Santa Rosa Junior College and elsewhere throughout the US and beyond. She is the author of three award-winning cookbooks: Nutrition CHAMPS: The Veggie Queen’s Guide to Eating and Cooking for Optimum Health, Happiness, Energy and Vitality, The New Fast Food: The Veggie Queen Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less than 30 Minutes, and The Veggie Queen: Vegetables Get the Royal Treatment, and, and stars in the DVD: Pressure Cooking: A Fresh Look, Delicious Dishes in Minutes. Her next book Vegan Under Pressure will be released later this year.
You will find her frequenting local farmers markets weekly. One of her favorite things is to see what she can cook up in her pressure cookers with what’s fresh at the market. Jill also loves mushroom hunting and teaching fermentation classes.
Chic Vegan: What motivated you to become vegan? Was it an overnight switch or more gradual shift?
Jill Nussinow: I was already a vegetarian for many years. Almost 15 years ago I started teaching the McDougall program and I found that I didn’t care much about eating non-vegan foods so I stopped eating them. It was a gradual shift and a shift in consciousness that caused the change.
CV: When people learn that you are vegan, what is the #1 question they ask and what is your response?
JN: Oh, you know… Where do I get my protein? My answer: From food.
They generally don’t ask many questions, possibly because they know that I have a lot of energy and I am rarely sick. The proof is in the (vegan) pudding.
They will comment, however, about how they could NEVER give up cheese, milk, eggs or some other animal food. I just say, “You will when you are ready.”
CV: You’re known as “The Veggie Queen”. Where did that nickname come from?
JN: The original name of my business was The Vegetarian Connection but between that and my difficult last name, it was too hard for people to remember and spell. I was teaching at a cooking school and I was introduced as our resident Veggie Queen. As soon as I heard it, I knew that the name was mine.
CV: Tell me a little bit about your book Nutrition CHAMPS and what inspired you to write it.
JN: Nutrition CHAMPS was a labor of love – the love of plant-foods and new way to get people to think about eating. I want people to focus on eating many nutrient-dense foods. I also wanted to get my fellow vegan authors, recipe developers and bloggers on board with their ideas for the CHAMPS foods; cruiciferous vegetables, herb and spices, alliums, mushrooms, pulses (peas, beans and lentils) and seeds and nuts.
It is also the most nutrition-oriented of my books which makes the Registered Dietitian in me happy. Often I forget to mention that I am an RD since I wear my culinary educator and cooking teacher hat so often.
CV: Do you have any favorite recipes in the book?
JN: I have a lot of favorite recipes in the book, many of which are not mine. I often get tired of my own recipes. Here are some of those that I like of my own:
- Garlicky Lemon Spinach Salad with Sunflower Seeds, Olives and Sprouted Beans. It hits a lot of high notes and I love salad.
- The Veggie Queen’s Raw Kale Salad. No comment necessary although I am a bit of a tahini and miso addict so that explains this.
- Lentil Mushroom and Walnut Pate.
- Cocoa Spice Roasted Squash
- Rich Mushroom Gravy
- Braised Cabbage with Cumin – it’s so simple and so tasty.
- Here are the others that I like because they are unique.
- Cinnamon Roasted Radishes from Amie Valpone
- Coconut Chickpea Crepes with Smoky Herbed Mushrooms – Erin Wysocarski
- Gutsy Greek Gigantes Beans with Greens, Oregano and Mint – Ellen Kanner
- Wonder Spread – Dreena Burton
- Taco Nut “Meat” – Carolyn Scott Hamilton
- Blueberry Gel – Fran Costigan
And I could very well go on.
CV: What inspires you to create a new recipe?
JN: I am generally inspired by what is growing and what grows together in season. Or I might be inspired by an herb or a spice or a particular mushroom that is growing. Or it might come to me in a dream. The natural world and life inspire me.
CV: Do you have any advice for aspiring vegan cookbook authors?
JN: Know that you are in it for the long haul. You can either publish your book on your own which can be fairly fast, or you can get a publisher and it will take much longer. Before you are ready for a book you need a whole lot of close-to-perfected recipes. Write down what you do, measure carefully and keep on doing it. It’s an exciting life and requires work but what better message to put out into the world than compassionate cuisine that changes many lives?
CV: What is your favorite vegan indulgence?
JN: Miyoko’s Kitchen cheese, Chao cheese sparingly and dark chocolate most often.
CV: What vegan product could you not live without?
JN: Do vegetables and other real foods count? There isn’t a product made that I must have, other than tahini, miso and umeboshi vinegar. And if I had to, I could live without them, too. But I doubt that I could live well without vegetables, especially greens, raw and cooked.
CV: What can we expect from you next? Is there another cookbook in the works?
JN: You can expect that this year I might actually have time to write more blog posts. I have another book, Vegan Under Pressure (Houghton Mifflin) coming out later this year or early next year. I am still amazingly enamored with pressure cooking, almost 20 years after I started doing it and teaching it. The food is just oh so tasty and fast. It also eco-friendly.
