First off, in case it is not completely obvious, I really enjoy and am grateful for what I get to eat. I am also very grateful to have as few compromises as possible to deal with when buying, selecting, and preparing meals. At this point, it is difficult for me to understand why someone would complain about “having to eat healthy” or being upset about not eating fast food or cupcakes or whatever. While this new article on Dragon Door from Senior RKC Dr. Chris Holder is about our attitudes toward training, I think that this same approach may also work well for people struggling to make a transition towards eating better. Please give it a read!
So… here’s how I cook and also partially prepare food for the next few days all at once… without it being really much of a chore. Please understand, that at the end of the week the simple task of cooking can be very welcome. I realize not everyone enjoys this, but if you do, and you’re cooking for only 1-3 people, then this is a really easy way to get a lot done in a small amount of time (while snacking).
Ingredients for everything:
- Hummus
- Giant seedless cucumber
- Beefsteak tomato
- Large yellow or white onion
- Red wine vinegar
- Olive oil
- Salt and Pepper
- Coconut oil
- 1-1.5lbs of chicken breast
- 1 can coconut milk
- Hot curry powder (Whole Foods Muchi Curry powder)
- Optional chopped fresh cilantro
- Cauliflower
- Small bag frozen mixed veggies (Cascadian Farm)
- Chia seeds
- Cinnamon
- Packet of stevia (optional)
Extra ingredients for my copy of Whole Foods “detox salad” tomorrow…
- Bundle of curley parsley
- One large broccoli stem and floret
- Whole lemon
- One to two carrots
- Kelp granules
- Sunflower seeds
- Currants
I started out with some pre-prepared hummus and “chips” made from half an organic seedless cucumber. I sliced half of the cucumber very thinly to make the chips and started snacking. Then I cubed the other half of it and added it to a medum bowl, where I also added 1 chopped beefsteak tomato (organic tomatoes actually looked good this week). Next I sliced up an entire large yellow onion. Half of the slices were very thin, and I cut them up a little more before adding them to the bowl with the cucumber and tomato. I then added about 2-3 tbsp of red wine vinegar and about 1 tbsp of olive oil (I say “about” because unless I’m developing or testing a recipe for you, I do most of this by sight) along with fresh ground black pepper and ground salt.* I then seal this bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to marinate. It’s good as is, or if you want to get fancy, toss in some cubes of feta cheese and some kalamata olives when you serve it either later today or tomorrow afternoon. If you have a bell pepper, you can cut it up and add half to the salad and set aside the other half for the curry.
Speaking of the curry**… I started to heat up (on medium) the large, and fairly deep cast iron skillet with about 1 tbsp of coconut oil. While heating it up, I cut up the chicken pieces into bite size pieces with kitchen shears right over the container they were packaged in while it was still inside a plastic grocery bag (this seems strange but cuts down on the risk of cross-contamination when you have limited counterspace like I do. Sometimes I’ll even do this whole thing with the packaging in the sink). I then salted/peppered the pieces right in there before transferring them to the now heated pan along with the other half of the chopped onion. I gently browned the pieces of chicken and onion until they were no longer pink then added 1/2 of the can of coconut milk, and entirely too much (on purpose because I like it hot) of the curry powder… probably about 1.5-2 tbsp, plus a generous shake (1tsp) of turmeric because of it’s great color and health benefits. After giving that a quick stir, I bundled up the chicken packaging, threw it away, rinsed out the sink, washed my hands with soap (chicken hands no good).
Then poured the remaining half of the can of coconut milk in to a medium-small pyrex bowl. I added about 2 tbsp of chia seeds to that, a heavy dash of Ceylon cinnamon, and a packet of Onnit stevia. After stirring it well, I sealed it and put it in the fridge. (Yay! A rich dessert which will be fully ready whenever I want to eat it this weekend. In theory there would be enough to share, especially if served with some chopped berries.)
I checked and stirred the chicken, adjusting the heat so that the “sauce” would slightly reduce without drying out too much and/or burning on the bottom of the pan.
Next, I washed the head of cauliflower and cut it in half. Half was put into a sealed bowl and the fridge for making my version of Whole Food’s Detox Salad tomorrow. The other half of the cauliflower I chopped thinly and then chopped again, to kind of approximate “rice” This was tossed into the chicken mixture, stirred well to coat, and then a lid placed on the pan. I adjusted the heat down a little since there was enough residual heat to get it going. As the cauliflower started to cook, I added half*** of the Cascadian Farm frozen mixed veggies (the veggie pieces are very small) to the chicken and broccoli, stirred, adjusted the heat slightly up, then put the lid back on. While this gently simmered to thaw the veggies, I began to gather and wash the other items for the “detox salad” for tomorrow, the parsley, a large stem/fleurtte of broccoli, a carrot and placed them in the large sealed bowl with the cauliflower, and put the whole thing in the fridge.
I gave the chicken and veggies a final stir, was happy with the reduction of the sauce and saw that it was perfectly portioned for two large dinner servings. I put each in a bowl with a topping of chopped cilantro (optional). Since the coconut milk/chia seeds still need to sit, tonight’s dessert was half a Hail Merry Chocolate Miracle Tart.
Tomorrow I will eat the tomato/cucumber salad with a side of some kind of meat or fish (let’s hope rainbow trout looks good… or whatever looks best in the meat or fish departments) for lunch, and assemble the “detox salad” while the meat is cooking so it has time to marinate and let the flavors meld by the time I get around to eating dinner (did someone say lamb chops??) Since I use a food processor to chop the veggies for the “detox salad” I like to see what else I can make with it since I have to wash the darned thing anyway. Chances are after the salad is made I’ll blend up a few things like black bean hummus, and various salad dressings or “sandwich spreads” for the inside of collard wraps. I hate washing the food processor so I try to do as much with it as possible with a simple rinse between tasks before I finally soak and soap it up.
*A few years ago I splurged on a matched pair of 9″ “u-select” Peugeot salt and pepper mills, they each have grind size adjustment markings on the bottom and can be easily adjusted for the task at hand. This is certainly not essential, but I love the ability to switch the particle sizes of salt and pepper on the fly. And while it’s funny to think that I spent about $100 on the home use of salt and pepper, I use them both several times a day, and I enjoy them both very much. It’s like a little built in mental “oh yay!” for every home meal. Should also note that they have a special “home” in the cabinet that protects them from heat and moisture while keeping them very accessible at all times.
**Some talk about homemade curry: I had about zero exposure to Indian food until college, not sure what the story was but my folks seem to have had bad 1970s curry overload at some point (there was hushed mention of disasterous “curried fruit” at their friend’s wedding!? Not sure but it sounds like for a few formative years in their early adult life they got curried-out. Fair enough, a bad curry is a very bad bad thing.) So, I discovered Indian food, as well as Japanese curry while in school.
Then also while I was in college (late 90s) a couple of us got into making this vegetable and sometimes chicken curry using a box of Japanese curry sauce. It came in a solid brown bar, not unlike a giant candy bar. It had a very nice balance of flavor and always came out with a velvety, perfect sauce… which made me suspicious. Years later I realized it was made with lard. While I don’t have any particular gribes about lard these days (if it’s organic… and if it’s organic heritage pork lard I may brag about it LOL) but at the time I am pretty sure my friends and I would have completely freaked out. I also mention this because a few months ago I was vexed about the organic curry sauce options at various stores. While it is pretty obvious that I am not sparing any expense with my groceries (it can actually get pretty ridiculous if I am honest about it) I also do not like to waste either money or food. The options for simmer sauces, sauce packets and pouches in gourmet stores and Whole Foods were not impressing me with either their ingredients, especially for the prices (which usually started at $4 and went up from there). Not to mention the last time I used a prefab sauce like this, it wasn’t enough for the amount of meat and veggies I wanted to prepare.
Then I finally realized that half a can of coconut milk and waaaay more curry powder than recommended on any package (plus a little more salt that you may think) was the answer. I hate to say it, but if your curry is a bit bland, try adding some salt… when you do, you may flash back to your more recent visit to an Indian Buffet Lunch and suddenly realize why you drank so much water… and that it was unrelated to the hot spices. Salt is the lynchpin of curry in my experience. The other good news about half a can of coconut milk plus curry powder/salt/etc. is that it seems to work wonderfully well with meat, vegetables, lentils, etc. A couple of weeks ago I used this approach to cook a bunch of vegetables which were in the “cook these now before they go bad” category. The eggplant cubed cooked down and added a very nice texture to the sauce. Since I had to cook them and travel, I portioned it all out after cooking, gave some to my vegetarian friend (since my curries no longer contain lard!) and put the rest in the freezer labeled “curry side dish”.
Speaking of food labels. I like hardboiled eggs, and I make sure to mark the carton that contains the cooked eggs by paperclipping this little laminated picture of John Woo’s action classic onto the carton. Probably won’t find that “kitchen tip” on Pinterest HAHAHAHAHA!
***The other half of the bag of mixed frozen vegetables was carefully sealed and placed back in the refrigerator to be used in a future batch of Russian Salad Olivier, aka a great way to use some leftover roast chicken and turn it into a real one-dish-meal treat!! Hmm I need to update the Salad Olivier recipe soon…..
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