Last night was pretty simple, yet pretty great for food.
Breakfast/lunch were similar to previous days - sardines, then roast beef with broccoli and multicolored cauliflower (serious question: does eating multiple colors of the same vegetable count as part of efforts to "eat five different colored veggies").
The kids and my wife wanted pizza for dinner last night, but obviously that was not going to work for me. And we'd eaten all the defrosted ground beef with last night's burgers, so no chance of doing a Meatza (even though that would have been delicious and now I'm craving it).
I'd originally planned to do some chicken thigh-based meal on hamburger night, but the ground beef had been out longer and we needed to do something with it before the chicken. So last night, to use up that chicken, I cooked it up with julienned carrots with some bacon fat, pink Himalayan salt and pepper, in my favorite pan in the house: our cast-iron skillet.
And it was delicious. And there were no leftovers.
So while it wasn't a strict substitution like Meatza for Pizza or almond flour breading for wheat-based breading, it was awesomely satisfying.
I think it's a good idea to get a good solid handle on some quick and easy techniques (as opposed to recipes) so that you can take what you have and modify. I'm fortunate to have had parents who found it valuable to teach us to cook when we were younger, in that I know the basics (maybe a bit more than the basics) and I have a comfort in "winging it."
Some simple practice and trial-and-error is all we need to develop this - try making a couple of one-pan meals and observing how long it takes to cook up the various ingredients to get an idea of timing and heat levels. I find that cooking just about ANYTHING in a cast-iron skillet on medium heat with a good healthy fat will give you moist meat pretty easily - the real trick comes in when to add the veggies. And there are plenty of "intro to cooking" type books that can help you with the terminology.
Check a couple out or even take a class - community colleges and high schools and such do such classes pretty regularly. If you're in a foodie town like Columbus, some markets and stores even do classes like that.
And take over that kitchen! Don't be scared of it - just have fun with trying it out!
Breakfast/lunch were similar to previous days - sardines, then roast beef with broccoli and multicolored cauliflower (serious question: does eating multiple colors of the same vegetable count as part of efforts to "eat five different colored veggies").
The kids and my wife wanted pizza for dinner last night, but obviously that was not going to work for me. And we'd eaten all the defrosted ground beef with last night's burgers, so no chance of doing a Meatza (even though that would have been delicious and now I'm craving it).
I'd originally planned to do some chicken thigh-based meal on hamburger night, but the ground beef had been out longer and we needed to do something with it before the chicken. So last night, to use up that chicken, I cooked it up with julienned carrots with some bacon fat, pink Himalayan salt and pepper, in my favorite pan in the house: our cast-iron skillet.
And it was delicious. And there were no leftovers.
So while it wasn't a strict substitution like Meatza for Pizza or almond flour breading for wheat-based breading, it was awesomely satisfying.
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| Not your enemy. |
Some simple practice and trial-and-error is all we need to develop this - try making a couple of one-pan meals and observing how long it takes to cook up the various ingredients to get an idea of timing and heat levels. I find that cooking just about ANYTHING in a cast-iron skillet on medium heat with a good healthy fat will give you moist meat pretty easily - the real trick comes in when to add the veggies. And there are plenty of "intro to cooking" type books that can help you with the terminology.
Check a couple out or even take a class - community colleges and high schools and such do such classes pretty regularly. If you're in a foodie town like Columbus, some markets and stores even do classes like that.
And take over that kitchen! Don't be scared of it - just have fun with trying it out!
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