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turbogrill · 5 years

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How to Cook Healthy Meals Without a Recipe

BRITTANY RISHER UPDATED ON JANUARY 3, 2019

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(Image: Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision/GettyImages)

Despite our love for food porn, many Americans don’t make their own meals. Plenty of people say they just don’t have the time to cook, let alone also grocery shop and clean up after the meal. Others say they don’t have the equipment to make a meal or that cooking at home is expensive. Another common excuse is that people don’t know how to cook.

All of those can be legitimate reasons for not cooking, but making food at home doesn’t have to take hours, require fancy gadgets you’ll only use once or cost a ton of cash. Plus, it can be fairly easy to learn, too.

And the best part? You don’t need to follow a specific, complicated recipe. Yes, recipes can give you new ideas and inspiration, but for beginner cooks, staring down a list of 15 ingredients and multiple, lengthy steps can be enough to make you vow to never use more than the microwave and toaster.

Nothing against avocado toast, but why limit yourself? Follow this expert advice on how to cook healthy meals without a recipe, and you’ll be cooking and eating great at home for life.

Read more: 9 Easy No-Cook Dinner Recipes

1. Cook What You Love

The first step in learning how to cook is to figure out what you like to eat. “Make what you want, rather than what’s easy to make. That will entice you to cook,” says Jackie Newgent, RDN, culinary nutritionist and author of The All-Natural Diabetes Cookbook.

Also, think of the things you DO know how to make. Chances are there’s at least one thing. Maybe you can boil pasta in water, scramble eggs, make grilled cheese or microwave oatmeal. All of that is cooking, and from those skills, you can expand and experiment and learn how to make new dishes.

Next, choose a few of those dishes for each meal of the day. Dawn Jackson Blatner, RDN, author of The Superfood Swap, recommends picking two breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners and enjoying a different “delicious monotony” each week. “Most people who eat healthy have meals they eat on repetition,” she says.

Newgent suggests a similar idea but with a little more variety: two breakfasts, three lunches and four dinners. “That’s a good base, and once you are in that rhythm, you can play around a little bit,” she says.

If you’re still uncertain what to cook, here are some easy, healthy meal ideas for beginner cooks:

Pasta with no-sugar-added store-bought sauce (bonus points for adding chopped veggies or lean protein)

Protein bowls: a cooked grain (rice, quinoa, barley) with a protein (grilled chicken, tofu, canned tuna), vegetables and dressing

Omelets or scrambles (start with eggs, and then add your favorite toppings)

Tacos

Stir-fries

Entree salads

One-sheet meals (where you roast or bake a protein and vegetables at the same time)

(Image: Capelle.r/Moment/GettyImages)

2. Learn Some Beginner Cooking Techniques

Everyone has their own comfort level in the kitchen. But you don’t need to know how to sous-vide lamb or julienne carrots to start cooking. Try some of these easy, beginner-friendly cooking techniques and see what you like best:

Boiling: Fill a pot with water and cover with a lid, and then set it over high heat on the stove. Once the water bubbles, add the food you’re cooking (like pasta, vegetables or edamame).

Roasting: Place the meat, vegetables or potatoes on a baking sheet or dish and place it in the oven at about 350 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grilling: You can either fire up your backyard BBQ (that’s a whole other lesson!) or try grill pans. These let you enjoy that tasty seared flavor after you’ve put your outdoor grill away for winter. And it’s almost foolproof. Plus, double-sided grill pans save cooking time. Place on the stovetop, preheat for five minutes, and then brush the grill with oil. Place your food on the grill and cook until done.

Broiling: “Broiling is upside-down grilling,” Jackson Blatner says. Put your meal on a baking sheet, set the oven to “broil,” and you’ll have a tasty, fairly quick meal with some of the same blackened taste you get from grilling.

Sauteing: This calls for cooking food in a small amount of fat (like butter or oil) in a pan over medium-high heat. It’s a great way to cook vegetables for a side dish.

Stir-Frying: Although it’s similar to sauteing, stir-frying uses higher heat and requires more stirring so your ingredients cook evenly and they don’t stick to the pan.

Read more: 13 Meal-Prep Hacks to Save Time in the Kitchen

3. Master the Art of Grocery Shopping

As popular as meal prep seems to be on Instagram, you don’t have to do it. “I’m not a meal prep queen,” Jackson Blatner says, “and I never use a recipe, but I have a plan.” And that’s key for grocery shopping — unless you want to waste a lot of food and money or make multiple trips to the supermarket every week.

Set aside 10 minutes each week and figure out the meals you’ll have for the next seven days. You probably don’t need to make every single meal at home, but what will you need to cook and what will those meals be?

Then, check your pantry, fridge and freezer to see what you already have and if you’re running low on any staples. With all of that in mind, make your list and stick to it. Or here are a few recommendations from Jackson Blatner and Newgent to get your grocery list started.

Always Have These Staples on Hand

Whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa and whole-grain pasta (or frozen cooked brown rice and quinoa)

Whole-grain bread, tortillas, etc.

Plain oatmeal

Cereal (we’re not talking Lucky Charms here)

Canned, low-sodium beans

Canned or pouch, packed-in-water tuna and salmon

Low-sodium broth

Nut butters

Extra virgin olive oil

Vinegar

Salad dressing

Soy sauce

Salsa

Hot sauce (if you enjoy it)

No-sugar-added tomato sauce

Salt

Pepper

Dried herbs and spices

Dried fruit

Honey

Nuts

Seeds

Onions

Garlic

Potatoes and sweet potatoes

Frozen veggie burgers

Coffee

Tea

Buy These Fresh Items Weekly

Vegetables

Fruit

Avocado

Yogurt

Eggs

Milk or nondairy alternatives

Protein: chicken, beef, fish, tofu, tempeh, etc (you can also freeze some to keep on hand)

Lunch meat

Cheese

Read more: How to Grocery Shop Like a Nutritionist

(Image: bhofack2/iStock/GettyImages)

Get Creative With These Healthy Meal Suggestions

Kale Caesar Salad: Kale with salmon, Caesar dressing and DIY croutons made by toasting bread and cubing it

Vegetarian Tacos: Tortillas filled with canned black beans or vegetarian refried beans, shredded cabbage, salsa and guacamole

Pasta: Whole-grain or bean pasta with roasted vegetables and chicken, sprinkled with fresh Parmesan

Burrito Bowl: Brown rice, black beans, sauteed peppers and onions, fresh cilantro and avocado

Ranch Bowl: Brown rice with chicken, broccoli and ranch dressing

Veggie Omelet: Add any leftover cooked protein and vegetables, plus some shredded cheese

Soup: Cook diced vegetables in low-sodium broth and add leftover chicken, turkey or tofu

Sheet Pan Fish: Sprinkle tilapia, sweet potatoes and vegetables with seasonings, and then bake in the oven

Read more: 15 Healthy 10-Minute Dinner Ideas

Make Your Meals Your Own

Eating the same thing every single day is a surefire way to get bored and stop cooking. So once you feel confident with the basic versions of your recipes, it’s time to change it up to keep things exciting.

One easy way to do this is to change the seasonings. Using garlic and ginger powders gives chicken a Chinese flavor, while chili powder and fresh cilantro Mexican-izes your dish. You can also swap out different ingredients by changing the protein, grain and/or vegetable.

If you’re still stuck, search the internet, Jackson Blatner suggests (or Pinterest or Instagram). Type in “tacos” or “stir-fries” and let the photo results inspire you. Or think of your favorite restaurant meals and do your best to copy them. “It likely won’t be a perfect match, but you’re getting into the vibe of it,” Jackson Blatner says.

Above all, have fun and eat what you enjoy! “Always keep going back to the foods you like,” Newgent says. “If you incorporate those, you will be more apt to want to cook and eat those foods.”

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How to Cook Healthy Meals Without a Recipe published first on https://turbogrill.us/

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antoniaexu · 6 years

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A Bowl of Small Wontons

Every summer when I was young, as my family boarded our plane in San Francisco, my aunt stood 6,000 miles away in her kitchen in Shanghai, anticipating our arrival and dealing with her excitement in the best way she knew how: by preparing food. The week before we flew over, she had already texted my mother, asking us to send her a “menu” of Shanghainese delicacies we wanted to eat: like “vegetarian chicken” tossed with shiitake mushroom (xianggu suji), soy sauce braised pork chop (hongshao paigu), stir-fried rice cakes with spicy mustard root (zhacai chao niangao), or fried yellow croaker (xiao huangyu). That my aunt would painstakingly prepare them all, no matter the time and energy required, was a given. It’s my job, she asserted in response to our protests — which, understandably, quickly faltered at the mere thought of the mouthwatering dishes awaiting us.

Invariably, one of those dishes was wontons. Wontons (huntun) are a type of Chinese dumpling, most often placed in broth and sometimes accompanied by noodles, depending on regional preference. They traditionally contain a mixture of meat (chicken, pork) and sometimes vegetables (Chinese ji vegetable, cabbage, spinach) in a flour wrapper, which is then folded into various forms: a “monk’s cap,” a “coin purse,” a triangle, and on. They are one of those distinct dishes that can somehow remain tasty even in the hands of a mediocre chef. But wontons did not seem as exotic as the other, unique Shanghainese fare revolving in our minds, which explained why we sometimes forgot to add them to my aunt’s list.

Yet even when we did, she would buy them anyway, sending my uncle or peddling out on the bicycle herself, evading the unforgiving summer sun, to fetch a few bags from the local market. She was preparing for what I forgot was the inevitable: that, kept up by jetlag and the excitement of living in a different country, I would grow hungry at night, the unwelcome gurgles of an empty stomach emerging right before what should have been my bedtime. Still steaming from the shower, I would lie on the cool bamboo bedcover, trying to ward off my hunger to no avail. Just as the emptiness was becoming unbearable, a serendipitous knock would arrive on the door, and I would turn to see my aunt peering down at me with a knowing smile. Mimicking the local food peddlers, she would proceed to ask me what my “order of the night” was: perhaps egg fried rice, barley porridge, or ice cream? But, usually, what the question boiled down to was:

Large or small wontons?

There is a key distinction. Shanghainese cuisine, which belongs to the larger Su cuisine family in China, has two specialties of wonton. “Large” wontons more resemble the typical ones found sprinkled in Chinese restaurants across America. As the name suggests, each are the healthy size of around three inches, stuffed with meat and vegetables. Attention is placed on the filling’s flavor and texture. “Small” wontons, on the other hand, resemble a diminutive wad of tissue. To make them, you take a small scoop of minced pork, dab it in the middle of a wrapper, and then pinch the sheet around the meat, letting any excess wrapper trail behind. The wonton is thus mostly wrapper (pi): one finds that the soup clings more easily to the small wonton pi’s folds, making the experience like eating a hybrid of soup noodles and juicy dumplings all in one. The lesser proportion of filling also means small wonton are substantial enough to satisfy without rendering one uncomfortably stuffed. In short, they were the perfect breakfast, or, more often for me, late night meal.

I can’t remember my first experience trying small wonton in Shanghai; but at some point, they became a regular fixture in my aunt’s fridge. She didn’t make them herself, both because it was too time-consuming but also because she had tried and been unsuccessful. The small wonton had ended up sadly deformed, the pi sticky, the meat tough. Something which appeared so simple was surprisingly complex to create. So my aunt assiduously hunted around for a local vendor. I eventually visited the one she deemed worthy: a small stand in a row of twenty, where women in gloves and aprons deftly patted filling into wrapper, swiftly pressing down the ends and tossing the finished wonton into a pile. Stuff, fold, toss, repeat; they didn’t even look at their hands. Methodical, impersonal.

But my aunt, and by extension her cooking, is neither of those things. She is passionate and powerful, a personality that immediately brightens any situation. She laughs with her whole body. In fact, her body seemed to be constantly in motion whenever we visited: if not downing three cups of overly sweet coffee, then furiously chopping in the kitchen, or sprinting around sweeping up the room. Take a break! I’d say. Have some tea with me. And she’d turn and consider this for a while, before eventually joining me. I gradually understood that her hesitation emerged not from reluctance but from anxiety — that not enough was being done during the finite time we would be in Shanghai. While I sat sipping tea, enjoying the air conditioning caressing my neck, she was preoccupied with thoughts of the days hurtling by. I believe my aunt worried it was all too easy for us to forget her. For when we returned home, my parents became busy with work; I buried myself in school; and images of her, and Shanghai, would fade.

But food has a remarkable way of producing memories impossible to forget. So cooking became my aunt’s way of creating links that would guide us from wherever we were all the way back to her. The baby of her family, she had actually learned to cook late. Moreover, in deprived 1970s China, there was nothing to cook: the vegetables were half rotten, the fish nothing but bones. Cooking back then demanded the conjuring of the magnificent out of the sparse. It was only after my mother, the natural chef, went to America that my aunt took up the task of cooking for the whole family. Her skills, if not wholly innate, were forged from years of relentless practice. This effort came across in her cooking, which more than subtlety contained feeling. Her cooking was hearty in flavor, in helpings, and in expressions of warmth.

Whenever we visited, my mother would offer to help cook. But most of the time, my aunt said no. You should rest, she said, even though she was the one endlessly working. And if I offered, she would just look at me and amusedly shake her head. The dinner table overflowed with eagerness. Each meal would contain a wide spread of entrees, soups, and sides, all from our requested “menu,” and far more than we could finish. Yet even so, there would still be comforting seconds and thirds — just in case. So even if there were moments when, in her haste, the dishes ended up a little imperfect (the rice burnt, or the meat sliced too thick), how could we not still smile? For even in those moments — especially then — what shone through was her sincere desire to create and care for us. It was the most generous ingredient in her dishes.

But wontons were one of the foods she never failed to get right. In her hands, the mass-produced market wontons were transformed into the magnificent, a work unquestionably hers each time. After she finished cooking, a layer of sweat firmly affixed to her brow, my aunt would carefully walk into the bedroom with a tray, despite my mother’s protests. She’ll spill it. Let her eat in the kitchen. But my aunt would cheerfully ignore her, placing the tray in front of my crossed legs, her eyes twinkling. The tray held four things: a slightly chipped blue and white porcelain bowl; next to the bowl, a matching spoon; underneath the spoon, a neatly folded white napkin. Lastly, in the right corner sat a pepper grinder — white pepper, not black, because its distinct sharp fragrance balanced the earthiness of the meat. I looked at the comforting tableau in front of me, and then inevitably was drawn to at the bowl.

For the fragrance of the small wontons, shining in the dark brown soup, was incomparable. This was my aunt’s own invention: a smoky broth that consisted of fresh scallions, soy sauce and sesame oil blended with boiling water. Simple, but brimming with flavor. The soup gleamed at me as I reached for the grinder, scattering some pepper atop the wonton heap. Then, lifting the spoon, I carefully tasted the soup, and slid a slippery wonton into my mouth. How good the dish was was a revelation each time. I relished the clarity of the broth, the salty richness in the bits of pork, and how the pi’s texture always had “ngaw duh”: a Shanghainese term for a springy quality, hovering between dissolving tissue paper and rubber bands. I would take my time savoring, swallowing, and feeling joy and gratitude well up within me.

The whole time, my aunt would stand watching me, still wearing her apron. Happy to see me happy. Usually that late at night, she would be sleeping — she naturally woke up at five every morning, accustomed to going downstairs to make breakfast and take care of my grandparents. Yet she would still stay leaning against the door, a broad, sleepy smile hanging on her face. I, selfishly hungry but also self-conscious from the attention, fixated completely on the soup. Within a few minutes, the heat from the wontons would make me start to sweat, and during the process of eating, I would often stop at least three or four times to breathe and reflect, breathe and appreciate. But even with such breaks, the wontons disappeared far too quickly.

Do you want another bowl? My aunt would ask. I wanted to shake my head no. But more often, I nodded yes, persuaded by the wontons’ allure and my aunt’s keenness. So she would rush back to the kitchen, even as the hands on the clock inched to the right, and I began feeling guilty for the request. I worried about forcing my aunt to work; I worried, too, that I was greedy for taking so much food for myself — what about everyone else? But I sensed my aunt would say it didn’t matter. After all, it was the only time of the year I could eat small wonton, and the only time she could make me some. And over the years, I came to realize that nobody else in the house really ate the small wontons. They were waiting for me alone, waiting as my aunt cooked deep into the night. Waiting — for when they could transform, in her hands, into gently folded expressions of love that I would cherish long after the bowls became empty.

(written for COM 211: Reading and Writing Food from Homer to Julia Child, F’2017, with Leonard Barkan)

#creative nonfiction #essays #academic writing #writing

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