(audience applauding) This crazy,
marathon running, clocked top chef, super top chef.
(audience applauding)
Were you in culinary school here?
This is How old were you?
You used to look, that's Richard Blais.
That is Richard.
That's this man.
Yes that is me.
The hair; still amazing.
(audience laughing)
And you got all of it, baby, you look good.
I was really impressed with the fact that he,
I talked to him backstage,
he's kept this weight off for 12 years.
12, 15 years, something like that.
That is outstanding. (audience applauding)
So, what period was that in your life
and how did you lose the weight?
I mean, in that picture, I'm opening my first restaurant,
and I'm really living #thatcheflife, you know, like,
I'm working all day long, I'm tasting all of my food
and then because I love cooking, like we all do,
I love eating, I would get off of work after I ate all day,
and then I would enjoy myself, I'd sit down,
it'd be two in the morning, I'm having a bottle of wine,
a whole pizza,
and I'm doing that 90, 100, 200 days in a row.
Amazing. Yes.
So this really saved your health, your life,
your longevity, I mean,
was exercise a big part of this?
Cause I know at this point, he runs marathons.
I am, well this is, I don't wanna do a humble brag,
but I am getting ready to run
my seventh New York City Marathon this fall.
(audience applauding)
So you gotta do both.
And that's a part of it, but yet honestly, the fitness,
obviously, Bob you know it's important,
but also a big part of it happens in the kitchen.
This is gonna be a plant based meat alternative right here.
There's onions, and garlic in here.
So the same way you would cook, like, ground beef
for, like, a classic lasagna.
And then I'm gonna add some store bought marinara.
This is a jarred one we bought that's prepared.
No added sugar, no added salt.
We have our meat sauce for our lasagna,
now we are gonna move over to what is going to be
sort of the cheesy elements of it, right.
So that white sauce is a béchamel,
and that is like cream, milk, flour, okay,
but I've replaced that with just steamed cauliflower.
Smell that.
And a little bit of the water from the steaming process,
and I'm adding some salt, a little pepper,
a little bit of nutmeg cause that's your
And then, nutritional yeast.
And then the nutritional yeast, right?
And the nutritional yeast.
That gives it that cheesy taste right?
Absolutely.
We're just gonna blend this up.
(blender roaring)
And that becomes a creamy mixture,
that's gonna be our béchamel replacement,
and then we are gonna have a ricotta replacement.
This is a cashew cheese, right.
Wow.
So, cashew cheese is basically a little bit
of yeast extract and just pureed cashews, right.
Wow.
If you look at this, it looks like hummus or ricotta.
It does, it really does.
Then we're gonna mix a little bit of dried oregano,
a little bit of chopped parsley,
and this is gonna be our ricotta for it.
And then I was gonna do this recipe
with, like, a gluten free noodle, which you can do,
but we'll just keep it real veg focused.
Yes.
We're just gonna use eggplant.
Plates of eggplant So we shave it like pasta.
That's going to be on here,
and we already started the layer.
We have meat, the béchamel, the cheese,
and now we're gonna put a layer of
Am I going to do that or no?
Do that.
the impasta eggplant on there.
Yeah that works.
You can go either way,
you're just trying to cover.
Exactly, you're covering it.
And then, Rach, you wanna just Sure babe.
Go with the meat, the plant based meat sauce.
The meat free meat sauce.
Exactly.
And then we'll drop the béchamel in on top of that.
It looks like lasagna, (audience applauding)
smells like lasagna.
So wait, is that the béchamel?
That's the cauliflower béchamel.
Yeah, this is the béchamel.
You wanna just dot some of that ricotta on this
as well. Sure babe.
And I'll pop this in the oven.
I think this is gonna work.
We'll just do that, spread that around.
Bob, you wanna sprinkle some?
Maybe we'll even sprinkle a little bit of that parsley,
I'm going rogue.
We'll sprinkle a little bit of that.
Audible on the field, in the kitchen.
This is what chefs do when they're in the kitchen, right.
I'm gonna pop this in our oven over here.
So that doesn't have to be laid out,
it's just going to melt and turn into...
Yes.
Okay.
And become that beautiful thing.
I like to let it rest
cause it's usually a bit easier to cut.
(audience applauding)