Tag Archives: Rocco DiSpirito

Chef Rocco’s Thanksgiving Recipes from Biggest Loser

Everyone has that family member who assumes the role of chef on Thanksgiving. Imagine that person being Chef Rocco DiSpirito. He surprised the Biggest Loser contestants during week 10 with a Thanksgiving spread that had Heba nearly in tears. “This is one temptation I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid,” she groaned, as she looked at the table covered with a turkey and all the trimmings.

Rocco assured them their 10 weeks of hard work would not be in vain, and that they wouldn’t have to put one bite of those traditionally calorie- and fat-laden recipes in their mouths. Instead, he was going to teach them how to make the “healthy alter egos” of these recipes. We have each one of those five recipes to share with you. (more…)

Chef Rocco Creates 7 Recipes for Biggest Loser

Chef Rocco is joining the Biggest Loser competition once again. Just as he did in Season 5, he is lending the Biggest Loser: Families troupe some guidance on eating healthy, without sacrificing flavor, variety or even your budget.

chef rocco biggest loser

He shared seven recipes, for less than $7/serving, for the seven teams during the Week 2 cooking challenge. Each team offered up their best cooks, and then Rocco asked the non-cooks to follow him to the grocery store and prepare his recipes.

Rocco advised that anyone leading a healthy lifestyle should shop the perimeter of their grocery store. It is there that all the fresh food resides. He explained that the deeper you go into the aisles, you’ll find “more processed, less healthy, more expensive” food items. Who needs that when these recipes taste amazing, will fill you up, and best of all- have low calories, zero fat and zero salt.

chef rocco biggest loser

Tom’s Curried Turkey and Cauliflower Soup

Heba’s Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

heba and chef rocco

Amy P.’s Quinoa Pasta with Pesto and Tomatoes

Jerry’s Pork and Vegetable Stir Fry

Amy C.’s Tiny Turkey Meatball with Chickpea Soup

Michelle’s Grilled Chicken with Mango Salsa

Brady’s Mussles Stew

Enjoy this clip of Chef Rocco working with the contestants- you didn’t see this last night!

Sign-up today for the Biggest Loser Updates Newsletter– where you’ll never miss Bernie’s video recaps, eliminated contestant interviews, Villain of the Week, Quote of the Week, Weight Loss Tracker, Biggest Loser Recipes and so much more!

Biggest Loser: Episodes 6 and 7

First, let me give a snapshot of episode six, which I managed to not blog about last weeks. Due to some technical difficulties I didn’t get to catch the show until right before last night’s Biggest Loser came on. So, Episode 6: Mark the mean little shark on the blue team won the chocolate-candy temptation giving him the power to trade team members. He chose to keep the teams exactly as they were. The black team continued their “little engine that could” mentality, frequently referring to themselves as “David” and the blue team as “Goliath.”  They certainly aren’t exaggerating there. But the black team has buckets more heart that the blue team- that’s where they get their edge. I thoroughly enjoyed the cook-off for Chef Rocco. That’s one element that’s missing from Biggest Loser that I wish they’d give a few minutes to in each episode- the food and recipes. It’s obviously an important subject and something that people watching at home could probably more easily implement than attempting to approach those exercises unsupervised. So the little engine did it- black team won the challenge and the weigh in, with sweet little Bernie taking Biggest Loser of the week! Don’t you just want to pinch his cheeks? He’s adorable. Back on track… the blue team went down in a blaze of dispute and glory as they all agreed to send Trent home and then turned around and voted Momma Jackie out. Dan… Jackie… Not. Happy. But they played it cool and….

… enter Episode 7 from last night. Dan decided if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. He “told” them he was over it and that he forgave the guys for letting his mom go after they had “sworn on their children’s lives” that they’d save Jackie. Looks like Mark, Jay, Roger and Trent had their fingers crossed behind their backs. So the Goliath team pulled it back together and put their head back in the game. Black team was coming down off their high of beating Blue when they headed to their challenge. They had to support the amount of weight they’d lost so far while balancing over a lake. Allison, the host, was giving her always too-dramatic play-by-play of the event. But it’s reality TV and that’s her job, so I’ve learned to just accept it. Mark the mean little shark totally snapped at her basically telling her to be quiet, to stop over dramatizing everything because this wasn’t a soap opera. So shocked! Moments later Mark was the first to fall in and soon after all of the black team was in the water helping the Blue team to win yet another challenge over Goliath. Go David!

They were still all sweating it heading into the weigh in. Which turned out to be the most jaw-dropping weigh in yet. Blue was picked to win since Black had last week and the coaches continued to remind us that you can’t lose that kind of weight two weeks in a row. So it wasn’t that they had lost that amount of weight two weeks in a row that helped the Black team win a second weigh-in, but that the Blue team didn’t pull that kind of weight. Jay weighed in and missed the win by one measly pound. ONE! While everyone was reeling from that, Coach Bob walked out. When you’re the coach- do you get to do that? I thought you had to stand strong and support your team through thick and then. Rather, he left them there hanging.

You’ve never seen a bigger group of men cry than when they sat in the elimination room to say goodbye to Trent. He’s one I believe will go home and come back Biggest Loser at-home winner. He’d lost more than any other contestant at 80-some pounds and more than anyone, his head and heart were in Biggest Loser for all the right reasons.

Next week- They are sending everyone home. What looks to be a week-long temptation at their own homes around their old vices and crutches. The previews do not make it look pretty… devastating in fact.

Cry of the Week- NONE! No tears this week. Too much drama.

Quote of the Week- Something about Jillian calling Bernie her “little monkey” just made me giggle.