Wednesday's GHI: Toaster Oven & Roasted Root Veggie Recipe

So you guys know how by now that being frugal is the name of the game for me. I try to save money wherever I can without feeling like I'm sacrificing. If it's worth the splurge, I'm all for it (I'm looking at you truffle salt), but if there's a cheaper alternative that doesn't feel like a sacrifice, you better believe I'm jumping on that.

Enter: toaster oven. When we were putting together our wedding registry, I knew that I wanted a toaster oven instead of just a regular pop-up bread toaster. At the time, I was really just thinking about the dinky little toaster oven that I grew up using (no offense Mom) that we would use to make cheesy bread as an after school snack, and I later started to use to make my decadent garlic bread recipe. It was this teeny little thing with heating elements on top and bottom, and my mom would put a piece of whole wheat bread in there with a slice of cheddar cheese, she'd cut up an apple, and voila - after-school snacks were served.

But in doing my research for our registry, I found that toaster ovens have come a very long way. And I found a model from Breville that I absolutely adore - it's their compact model, since we don't have a lot of counter space, but it's a full-feature design. The only thing it doesn't have is convection or pressure-cooking features, which I'm totally fine with. It has a bunch of settings, but the ones I use the most are toast, bake, broil, bagel, and defrost. It has two racks which can hold a lot of bread if I were to use it just for toast in the morning for a large crowd. But what it has that I love is a great bake / broil feature.

This is where we get into my frugality. It takes significantly less energy to heat up that little metal box to 350* than it does to heat up our standard-sized oven. And the energy is much more efficient - it's electricity through high efficiency heating elements vs. our gas oven. It also cooks more evenly and doesn't have as drastic of hot/cold spots as our gas oven does. So whenever I possibly can, I opt to use my toaster oven to bake rather than the conventional oven. I would say that I use the toaster oven more than 75% of the time I need to bake something. And this size oven is JUST big enough to fit a standard 12-inch frozen pizza (yes, we eat frozen pizzas every now and then... we're human too). I cook everything in there including meat and/or veggies I'm roasting, any type of broiling that needs to be done, desserts I'm baking (it's perfect to throw on just a couple of cookies, or bake up a quick cobbler to use fruit that's about to turn mushy). It fits my 8x8 glass pyrex baking dish and came with a broiling pan that I can use too. The cases where I'd opt for the regular oven instead of the toaster oven are if what I'm cooking is too big (either a roast, or anything in a 9x13 or one of my big gratin dishes), or if I need a dry heat. The gas oven provides a dryer heat because there's more circulation with the extra air that fills the big space, and the flames help it remain more dry. One example is if I'm making croutons, I'll most likely use the regular gas oven. But most of the recipes I've posted on the blog so far that were done in the oven have used the toaster oven.

The moral of the story is that I recommend a good toaster oven. You'll likely use it more than you think you will, it will simplify your time in the kitchen, and it will potentially save you money on your energy bills.

The recipe that I want to feature in my toaster oven is a Roasted Root Veggie Medley. It's super simple, but crazy healthy - tons of antioxidants, and lots of vitamins in the rich colored veggies!

Ingredients:
2 large beets - peeled and cubed
1 large sweet potato - scrubbed and cubed with peel left on
2 carrots - peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths (you can halve the lengths if they're too big), or ~1.5 cup baby carrots, halved
2 tbsp coconut oil
salt & pepper to taste

• Put the 2 tbsp of coconut oil into the bottom of your roasting pan, and put it in the oven while it's preheating to 400* and while you prep the other veggies
• After the veggies are cut and the oil is melted, toss the veggies in the pan with the oil to coat evenly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss together again
• Bake at 400* for about 45 minutes or until roasted, fork-tender, and browning on the outsides (take out the pan and mix up the veggies at least once during roasting)

Grilled Zucchini with Minted Lime Dressing

Mike grew up eating grilled zucchini that his dad would make "Greek style" which just means with olive oil and lemon juice. His dad would slice the zucchini lengthwise into long, thick strips, then drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, grill over high heat, then toss with lemon juice and a little more olive oil. Don't get me wrong, it's delicious. But I've recently found and adapted a recipe for grilled zucchini that... dare I say... I like even better! 

The inspiration for this recipe comes from a grilled squash and prosciutto recipe from Food & Wine's website that I made for Mike's 30th birthday party this year. But like most things I try to cook, I don't have all of the ingredients, so I adapt it to use whatever I have on hand. 

I started with 3 petite zucchini from the Madison farmer's market (which is my happy place, for the record). I sliced them on a bias on the mandolin between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thickness. Then I rubbed them down with olive oil, and Mike took them outside to grill them. While he was grilling, I made the dressing.

The dressing was so simple. I took the top 6 inches of 3 mint sprigs from my garden, and did a chiffonade on the leaves. This mint form my garden grew out of scraps. Last year I needed mint and what they had in the store was "living" herbs that still had a little root bulb. I bought no more mint from the store than what I used in this recipe, and it's grown into this bush you see here! 

Then since I didn't have lime zest, I used about 1 tbsp of lime juice from a bottle that I keep in the fridge. To that I added 1-2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, and about 1 tsp of garlic paste that I had in the fridge (if you remember from my garlic post, I had to go buy a tube of the stuff to do research, and I determined that it would be best to use in raw applications like dressings. So I put those cloves back and reached for the tube instead!). Otherwise I would have run 2 cloves through the garlic press. After adding a pinch of salt and pepper and giving it a good stir, the dressing was ready to go!

 And as long as I had the mint and the lime juice out, I whipped up a little mojito for myself... muddled mint with sugar and lime juice, add some rum, and simple syrup, and shake with ice. Pour into a glass with some soda water, and garnish with another fresh sprig of mint... it was the perfect dinner cocktail to compliment my zucchini.

 The last challenge is that I don't keep prosciutto laying around. That would be a crime... if I have prosciutto sitting in my fridge, it will be gone within 24 hours. But part of what makes this recipe so successful is the way that each of your different taste buds has something to do! Sweet from the zucchini and mint, sour from the lime, a little bitter from the pepper, umami from the garlic, and.... salt from the prosciutto! But without prosciutto, just adding some extra salt could have worked but it would have been lacking the extra umami that you get from the cured meat. So I scanned my fridge and found that I had some feta cheese - perfect!!! So after the zucchini was beautifully grilled, I drizzled on the dressing and tossed it all together. And lastly, took some of that salty feta and crumbled it into the smallest pieces possible and let it soften slightly over the hot zucchini. For a recipe that only took me a few minutes to throw together, this came out fantastic. I look forward to making it for a grill out we're having in a few weeks! 

All About Garlic

This is a subject so very near and dear to my heart... Garlic! It is my #1 favorite ingredient, I put it in everything I can get away with, I would figure out a way to put it in desserts if you would let me! 

Garlic is an incredible flavor additive, it can be the star of the dish if done properly, but it can also overpower a dish if not used carefully. I have some tips for getting the most of your garlic. 

You guys are getting a sense of how much I love garlic, so that means I'm going to have a lot lot say about it!! Grab a nice crisp white wine (I would suggest sauvignon blanc, of course. My go-to wine choice), some crusty garlic bread, and hunker down to learn a lot about my absolute favorite ingredient.

First, a note on garlic in some of its different forms. 

Dried

• Garlic powder: dehydrated garlic cloves that have been ground into a very fine powder resembling powdered sugar in consistency. 
• Granulated garlic: similar to garlic powder, but this has the consistency of regular sugar. 
• Garlic salt/garlic blend: typically granulated garlic mixed with salt in about a 50/50 mix. Other garlic "blends" may include other herbs and spices, often onion powder, parsley, basil, or others. 

My preference: granulated garlic. I like to be in strict control of the amount of sodium I put in my food. Because I don't really know how much of the garlic salt is garlic and how much is salt, that leaves some uncertainty which I don't appreciate. Also, you almost always season food with salt and pepper anyway, if for no reason out of habit, so you're double salting which will increase your sodium consumption unnecessarily and also affect the taste. So because of that, garlic salt or garlic blends are out in my book. The one exception to this is Lawry's seasoned salt which is basically salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and some sugar. The difference though is that I use it the same way that I would use salt, I don't think of it as a "spice." 

So that leaves powdered vs granulated. And this just comes down to personal preference, but I opt for granulated because it is easier to work with. The powdered tends to puff out when I try to pour it directly from the container and it makes a garlicky mess on my counter. Or it clogs my DIY spice rack container and is hard to get out - I have to shake a lot, and it tends to clump. So I prefer the granulated because it shakes nicely, pours beautiful (think sand falling through an hourglass). It also has a little more of that garlic bite, which I love. But if you don't want that, just use a little less and you can avoid it. I use granulated garlic when I'm making salads (my standard dressing that goes on 90% of my salads is olive oil, salt, granulated garlic, and either red wine or balsamic vinegar). It's also good in baked goods (when I want to make garlic rolls) or my go-to quickie dinner is gluten free pasta, some butter, granulated garlic, and parmesan cheese. So simple, but that's the best comfort food for me.

Prepared

Minced garlic: I grew up using this stuff. This is the pre-minced garlic that comes in those little glass containers with the blue lid and is floating in a mystery liquid. My parents used to buy this stuff from Sam's club because we went through so much of it! And from a convenience perspective, you can't beat it. You scoop out however much you need with a spoon, toss it in whatever you're making, and you're good to go. But from a flavor perspective, I've learned that this doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. Now that I've experienced the beauty of fresh garlic, I will never go back to this stuff. PLUS, if you read my last post about how to use a garlic press, you'll see my comment about most people leaving the "butts" on the cloves. This type of garlic still has the butts on when it was minced by a machine, so every once in a while you bite into this really unpleasant crunchy piece, which I do not enjoy. This goes for any size of cut garlic in mystery liquid (sliced, crushed, etc.)

Garlic Paste: This typically comes prepared in a tube, and I I had never actually used it before. But if I want to be the expert on all things garlic, I need to be well-versed! So while writing this post, I went and picked up a tube. Here's my report: it's just ok. It's not great, it's not the worst. But what I don't like is that the ingredient list is very long. Longer than it should be. It's got a lot of preservatives, salt, citric acid, etc. and you can taste those things. When I taste it raw, I can taste the acidity, I can taste the extra salt, but overall, it tastes somewhat similar to raw garlic (more similar than the jarred stuff). So when using this, adjust the recipe and use less salt, or a little less acidic ingredients like lemon or vinegar if applicable. Ok in raw applications and sauces, I would not recommend sauteing it.

Pre-peeled garlic: This comes as individual cloves that have already had the paper removed (butts are still on though! I seriously am the only person I know who seems to care about this :-P ) . I approve of these because there is no mystery liquid involved! And the process to remove the paper is strictly mechanical and does not involve any chemicals (see here) My friend and I used to buy a huge package of these from the Asian Markets in Koreatown on the northside of Chicago and split it because there's no way one of us could use that whole package, even with the way that I cook! 

So when it comes to using actual garlic (not dried), you know that I prefer fresh. Check out my post here to see how to prepare cloves to be worked with, and how to use the garlic press. The first few steps are the same (smashing, peeling, cutting off the butts) no matter what preparation technique you use, so here are some other ways you can prepare garlic, and why the difference matters.

Using Garlic
It is important to understand why preparing garlic in different ways matters. Over the next few weeks, my recipes will feature many of the different preparation styles I'm about to describe and you can taste the difference for yourselves if you cook along with me :) The reason there is a difference in flavor has everything to do with the essential oils contained in garlic. At a cellular level, the oils contain all their garlicky goodness. When you break down the cell wall, the oils are released and the flavor is let loose on your taste buds. So the more you break down the cell walls (i.e. the more damage you do to the clove), the more garlic flavor you're going to get. Keep this in mind - sometimes you want a more subtle flavor, so you don't want to do much to the clove. Sometimes you want a big garlic punch, so you're going to want to murder that thing.

First I'll describe different ways to cook it, then I'll get into different ways to prepare raw garlic for whatever cooking technique you're using.

Are you guys getting how much I LOVE garlic yet??!?!?!

Cooking Techniques
Roasting - This is one of my favorites! You take a whole head of garlic and slice the whole thing in half into a northern and southern hemisphere. 

Drizzle with olive oil, wrap in foil, and roast in the oven at 300 - 325 degrees for an hour. Every oven varies especially at low temps, so just watch it and see how long yours takes. The key here is low and slow - if you use too much heat, the outside of the cloves will brown before the insides are cooked. You want the whole thing to brown slowly and evenly. 

When it's roasted till brown, you literally squeeze the roasted cloves out of the paper in these delicious little packets of gooey garlicky goodness. No need to worry about the butts here, they stay attached to the base and only garlic comes out. When I do this, it always reminds me of that scene in The Little Mermaid when Ursula puts on her lipstick from some sea creature haha!! I'm such a Disney nerd!!!

Roasting garlic gives it the most amazing flavor. It becomes sweet, mild, and perfect. I use this as the base for my decadent garlic bread recipe. You can also use it as the base for all types of sauces, dips, spreads, whatever. 

Sauteing - The trickiest part about using garlic is not over-cooking it. Depending on how small the pieces are that you're using, garlic can be cooked in as little as 30 seconds, and burned in as few as 60-90. Burned garlic is not a flavor you want in your food. It is bitter, pervasive, and can ruin a dish, so be very careful! The most common rule of thumb is that as soon as you can smell the garlic, give it a few more seconds, and then you're done!! If you cook it longer than that, you've over-done it. You'll want to think about when you need to add the garlic to your dish, remembering that it should only cook in oil for about a minute. If you're making, say, a marinara sauce, you'll heat your olive oil until shimmering but not smoking, add in your diced onion, and when it's almost done cooking you toss in your minced garlic for about a minute. Then as soon as it becomes fragrant you add in your tomatoes and then simmer all afternoon. Once you add the liquid, the garlic is no longer "sauteing," it's now braising and not at risk of burning. But if you're doing an olive-oil only sauce for pasta, it cooks in the olive oil the whole time before being tossed with the pasta, so you'll want to add it right at the end before you're about to combine everything together. Make sense? Garlic + oil + heat = ~60 seconds of cook time, even if other dry-ish ingredients are involved. Once you add liquid, you're safe.

Using raw - There are only a handful of cases where I use raw garlic, and they're all dressings or sauces. This makes sense because it is a VERY strong flavor! Skordalia is a Greek garlic sauce that I am obsessed with... I need to learn how to make it from Mike's aunt!! It uses raw garlic. Tzatziki sauce uses raw garlic too (seeing a trend here...). Mike's cabbage salad I wrote about a couple of weeks ago uses a few cloves of raw garlic in the dressing. I recently made grilled zucchini and prosciutto skewers with a raw garlic-lime-mint dressing that was fantastic. The dressing in my favorite pasta salad calls for raw garlic too. I'll occasionally mix up a homemade salad dressing that uses raw garlic. I'll be including all of these recipes over time, since they're delicious. You see the pattern... usually in raw applications, dressings, and used sparingly.

Baking - There's not much you need to know about baking, except that the smaller the pieces are that you use, the more likely it is to burn while being baked since you have less control than when sauteing. For example when I do Greek chicken with lemon, olive oil, oregano, and garlic, I use the Smashed Clove technique, or I use slices. They burn less easily that way while still flavoring the dish.

Grilling - I would recommend against using garlic in something that will be going on the grill. Given the high temp of grilling, it's very likely to burn. I would recommend grilling your dish and then using garlic in a raw application as a dressing / sauce after grilled.

How to Prepare Raw Garlic

I'm writing this in order of "less mutilated" to "most mutilated" - aka most mild garlic flavor to most intense garlic flavor. 

From Left to Right: Sliced, Minced, Pressed

Whole clove - this is where you don't do anything to the clove besides peel the paper off of it. The time when you would use this is if you're making authentic garlic bread. I'm not talking about my decadent recipe described above... I'm talking about a crusty loaf of Italian bread sliced on a bias, grilled over a hot flame, kissed with some garlic, and brushed with fantastic quality extra virgin olive oil. This is the type of bread you'd use for a fresh bruschetta or with prosciutto and melon... I'm drooling. All you do is peel the paper off the clove, and then after your bread has been grilled (or under the broiler for a minute or two), take it out and rub the whole clove on the crusty side of the bread. That's it!! It's basically just going to take some of the essential oils from the part of the clove that gets a little torn up from the crusty bread, and it will give your bread the most delicious hint of garlic without being too overpowering. Then brush on some good quality olive oil, maybe a little salt and pepper, and you're done. This is the authentic way of making garlic bread, it's so simple and perfect... less is definitely more if you're working with quality ingredients!

Smashed clove - Follow steps 1 and 2 from my last garlic post - smash and peel. You can leave the butts on for this one because you'll never actually eat the clove itself. But when you smash it for this technique, really smash the crap out of it. This is the only "manipulation" of the clove you're going to do, so you want to release as many of the essential oils as possible and really bust it up while keeping it in tact. What you do with a whole smashed clove is flavor cooking oil. This will give you a great, subtle garlic flavor that will permeate the entire dish you're cooking. You measure out the oil required, toss in your couple of smashed cloves, saute until the cloves are just beginning to brown and have become very fragrant. This is the exception to the ~60 second rule, because you're cooking with whole cloves. Because there's much less surface area since it's still in tact, you need to cook it for longer to get the flavor you need. So as soon as the cloves begin to brown and turn fragrant, you scoop them out of the oil and discard them (or in my case, add them to the foil for your latest batch of roasted garlic!). You now have garlic-flavored olive oil that will give a beautiful, more subtle flavor.

Sliced - Slicing garlic is an awesome way to prepare it. You get a good amount of garlic flavor, but it's not too overpowering. This is somewhat counter-intuitive because the pieces of garlic are bigger, you'd assume you'll get these big bursts of garlic flavor. But remember that the longer you cook it low and slow, the more mild and sweet the flavor gets. So you'll slice garlic if you're going to be baking it or cooking it on the stove at a low temp for a longer time so it browns just slightly, but very evenly. I used sliced garlic to make this delicious shrimp tapas recipe that I brought with Mike and I on a picnic last summer. 

Minced - After slicing, if you keep running your knife through the pile of slices, you'll eventually end up with minced garlic. Mincing is knife cut that creates very small pieces of something. Technically you want all the pieces to be the same size, but who has time for that when you're working with such a teeny ingredient? So I just run my knife through it a bunch of times. For this, I like to use my German-style chef's knife, which is better for the continuous rocking motion that is used to mince. If you remember from my post about chef's knives, the curved bottom of the German style is better for this compared with the flat bottom of the Japanese style.

Pressed - See last garlic post.

Paste - You can make a garlic paste that can be used in raw applications (dressings), or is a great way to infuse a marinade with delicious garlic flavor. What you do is after you have the minced garlic on your cutting board, you'll add about 1 teaspoon of kosher salt for ever 2 cloves of garlic you minced. After adding the salt, you're going to scrape the garlic / salt mixture against your cutting board using the wide part of the blade of your knife. Almost like you're laying grout for tile, you scrape against the cutting board. Over and over again, pushing the paste off your knife and re-forming the pile as you go. The Kosher salt helps in cutting up the cell walls in the garlic and after a minute or two of this, a paste will form.

Side note on prep: If you're making a recipe that calls for garlic and other ingredients to go into a food processor, make sure you put in the garlic first and buzz it up for a minute or two by itself. Most recipes won't remember to tell you this important piece of information, but it's the way you need to do it. Otherwise if you add all the ingredients at the same time, your garlic is more likely to stay in some big pieces and not get as finely or evenly cut, which is not what you want. So always buzz your garlic for a few seconds first until it's evenly chopped in your food processor, then add your other ingredients and process away.

I know this was a novel, but this is one of my absolute favorite things to share about!! I hope you guys learned something new, and I can't wait to cook my way through all these recipes I promised you and share them with you in future posts!! Peace, love, and garlic.

Parmesan Crusted White Fish

I told you guys that I have 3 seafood recipes... one Asian-inspired, one Italian inspired for Salmon, and one Italian inspired for white fish. Here's the white fish recipe!!

It's a Parmesan "Crusted" Tilapia inspired from a recipe I found on Sparkpeople.com, which is a health and wellness website. The crust is in quotes because it's not a crunchy crust with any type of breading, it's more of just a Parmesan layer. Call it what you will, it's delicious.

The ingredients for the "crust" are:

~1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp softened butter

1.5 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp celery salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

(optional) Granulated garlic to taste

1/2 - 1 lb. fillets of any white fish (tilapia, sole, flounder, trout, snapper, etc.)

1. Preheat your broiler. Put aluminum foil on a baking sheet and spray with nonstick cooking spray

2. Combine all ingredients except the fish and set aside.

3. Arrange fillets in a single layer on prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat; flip fillets, and coat with the prepared Parmesan cheese mixture. Broil until golden and bubbly and the fish flakes easily with a fork. Avoid overcooking the fish! Use trial and error in your oven (or toaster oven in my case) - for mine, I actually do not pre-cook the fish, I just coat them with the topping and broil. But try it out for yourself and see how quickly your oven cooks it!

I hope you enjoy. Please leave your comments below!

I had some sole fillets in my freezer so that's what we used!

Starting from the top going around clockwise: Parmesan cheese, black pepper, celery salt, onion powder, dried basil, butter, mayonnaise

I top my fillets before baking. This time they were teeny fillets and I actually had to layer 2 of 3 on top of each other to get a piece of the size I wanted that would make sense to crust. If you're working with good sized fillets, follow directions above until you know how your oven cooks.

Delicious golden crust

Flowers from my overgrown sage

Veggie Stir Fry

Stir Fry is my version of "Weeknight Surprise" - any random leftover veggies in my fridge get sauteed, tossed with some tasty sauces, and served over noodles or rice, and deliciousness ensues. 

So tonight, what I had in my fridge was: Broccoli, orange peppers, frozen green beans, onions. In hindsight, I would have left out the green beans. Mike specifically requested we keep water chestnuts on hand from now on because they would have gone perfectly! I just want to share with you guys exactly what I did, but also let you know what I would have done. Would have liked to add snow peas or snap peas instead of the beans, and some chicken would have been a good addition. 

So when making a stir fry, the goal is to cook everything at a very high heat for not a very long time. You're not looking to braise your food (braising means cooking low and slow in liquid... think osso buco, or any kind of stew). You want to get a good amount of browning on the outside, which means caramelization, which means flavor. Brown food tastes good. And you don't want the veggies to be mushy, you want them to still have a little crunch. So to do this, you'll pre-heat your wok or huge sautee pan with 2-3 tbsp of canola oil and 2 tbsp sesame oil. Do not use olive oil here for two reasons. 1) it has too low of a smoke point (meaning you need to heat it up hotter than it can safely get. Over-heated olive oil creates carcinogenic free radicals... that means causes cancer) and 2) it has a strong flavor that doesn't mesh as well with Asian flavors as the neutral canola oil would. So go with your canola oil / sesame oil blend (both of which have a high smoke point, and sesame oil has an amazing flavor that goes so well with stir fries). Get it screaming hot, then first add your protein, if using any. Always season your protein with salt and pepper before cooking. If you're using land-based protein (beef, pork, chicken), you'll want to fully cook it through. If you're using shrimp or scallops, you'll want to cook them just till they start going opaque and pink (shrimp) or browning (scallops). Do not fully cook them at this stage, because you're going to heat them more later. So if you cook them all they way now, they'll be rubbery by the end. No bueno. Tofu counts as a protein here too (though I'll be putting up a post later about why I avoid soy-based products when possible and what alternatives I use).

After the protein is cooked and removed from the pan, add another couple of tablespoons of oil. It's almost time for your veggies, but we need to be strategic about it. If you throw all your veggies in at once, toss for a few minutes and serve, you'll wind up with unevenly cooked veggies. Some may be overdone, some may still taste raw. So you need to add the veggies at different times so that they all finish cooking at the same time. And as for the quantity? Whatever blend sounds good to you, but I probably used 10-12 cups of chopped veggies for this stir fry and this quantity of sauce (note: I did not have a protein, so add more sauce if you're using a protein).



Before the veggies though, you need to add the Asian Trinity: onions, garlic, and ginger - the base flavors of so many Asian dishes. For stir fry, I use sliced onions. I would recommend that you do these first so that they can brown on their own. Once you toss in the other veggies, the onions tend to not get the alone-time they need in the hot wok to brown up deliciously. After the onions have started to brown, add your garlic. For this recipe I used minced. Garlic should only cook alone in the pot for literally 30-60 seconds. As soon as the garlic becomes fragrant and you can smell wafts of that deliciousness, it's time to toss in more food. When you add more food, it brings the temperature down inside the pot, so you don't risk burning the garlic. If I had fresh ginger, I would have grated it and added it right after the garlic, but unfortunately I did not. So I used 1-2 tsp. of powdered ginger which I added with the sauces, it just depends on how much of that ginger bite you like.


After your seasonings are done, it's time to add your veggies. You should add them in order from hardest / sturdiest to softest / most delicate. So for my stir-fry, I started with the broccoli. If I had snow / sugar snap peas, I probably would have added them around now as well. After those cooked for a few minutes, I added the orange peppers, and lastly the green beans (previously cooked and frozen, so just needed to be heated through). 

It is important to add the sauces to the veggies and protein after everything has been browned. Once you add the sauces, things will start to braise and will no longer be able to brown, so do not do this step too soon.  At this point, if you cooked a protein, add it back in, add the sauces, toss to combine, and cook for another couple of minutes until the sauce thickens up. You can choose to either serve it over cooked brown rice, or like I did, toss in some boiled gluten free rice noodles, so they sop up all that delicious sauce.

By the way, the leftovers of this are amazing. I love stir fries because they are so versatile - you can use up whatever's in your fridge in a satisfying way. And when done right, they are quite healthy too!! Great way to get more produce, whole grain brown rice, and lean protein. Win-win-win!!!!

Base Recipe for Stir Fry
Ingredients:
2-3 tbsp canola (for veggies, and another 2-3 for protein)
2 tbsp sesame oil
~1 lb lean protein (sliced lean beef, sliced or cubed chicken, sliced or cubed pork, shrimp)

~8 cups chopped Asian-inspired vegetables (broccoli, snow peas, snap peas, peppers, water chestnut, zucchini, onions, carrots, etc. Think about what you can get at Flat Top or Stir Crazy, and add whatever you have)
2 medium onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp fresh, or 1-2 tsp powdered ginger

Stir-Fry Sauce: 
4 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)
*(optional) 1 tbsp sweet soy sauce
*(optional) 1 tsp sweet mirin

1) Heat canola oil in pan; season protein with salt and pepper. Cook till browned on all sides. Remove from pot, let drain on plate
2) Add remaining canola and sesame oil. Cook onions till just beginning to brown. Add garlic and fresh ginger (if using); cook for 30-60 seconds, then add veggies from hardest/sturdiest to softest/most delicate. Cook each type of veggie for a couple of minutes before adding new ones
3) Add all ingredients for sauce (including powdered ginger, if using). Return protein to wok, and toss to coat/combine. Cook for a few minutes to finish heating the protein and so that it absorbs some of the sauce
4) Either toss with noodles, or serve over whole grain brown rice

Enjoy!!

*I would use either one of these two optional ingredients, but not both. They are optional because they aren't pantry staples I expect everyone to have (read: you should have all the other ingredients. If you don't, you're missing a lot of flavor in your life. Hoisin sauce is my jam).

Me & Wheat

My Love/Hate Relationship with Wheat, and Why You Should Care

In April 2012 we were visiting our aunt and uncle in California. We ate and drank to our heart's content each day and each night, and had an absolute blast. Aunt Diane, a fellow health-nut, started to notice something... after a few of our meals, I complained of a stomach ache. 

I have suffered from frequent stomach aches for as long as I can remember. I bought Pepto-Bismol from Sam's club a few times a year... I kept some in my desk at work, in my purse, in my car, and on each floor of my house. I had it in pill form so I could bring it with when I travel for work, since the Sam's sized bottles are obviously more than 3 oz. 

I thought I just had a "sensitive stomach," but I never could figure out what triggered it. Maybe it was IBS, maybe something else. All I know is that stomach pain was a part of my life. And when I say pain, I mean pain... sharp, shooting pain all over my abdomen. Sometimes it woke me up at night it hurt so much. I asked my doctor about it at my physical in January 2012, and she goes "It could be a dietary thing. Do you know how to run a controlled experiment?" "Yes." "Ok, so do that. Testing one variable at a time, cut something out of your diet for a couple of months and see how it makes you feel. Start with Dairy or Wheat, then move on to soy, eggs, onions/garlic. No need to report back to me, just see what makes you feel better. If nothing helps, let me know and we'll start looking into if it's something more serious." I love that she trusted me and wasn't going to make me pay her several more office visit fees to tell me something I could figure out myself. Cheers, doc!

But I didn't do anything. All of the things she mentioned (except soy) are in some of my favorite foods. I don't know what my life would be like without Cheese. Hello, I went to the University of Wisconsin!!! And my favorite way to eat cheese is melted on something bread-based. Pokey sticks, grilled cheese, mac n cheese, brie en croute... I'm drooling now. And if you've ever eaten anything I've cooked, you know that I could not survive if I couldn't have garlic. It goes into EVERYTHING I make!! So I was in denial. I didn't want to think about my life without any of those foods, so I hunkered down and bought more of the pink stuff. 

Drooling. Right now. Ugh.

Now back to our trip to CA. Aunt Diane heard me complain about my stomach hurting for the 3rd time, and she noticed a trend. Burger for lunch, stomach ache that night. Pizza for dinner, stomach ache the next morning. Panini with extra with bread at the table for lunch, stomach ache and intense headache that night. Pork chops, risotto, and salad for dinner... felt like a champ. So she mentioned what she had noticed. She asked if I ever considered that I might have a gluten sensitivity. I said no (see paragraph above re: denial and love of various cheesy breads).

Fast forward to the Clean Eating & Fitness Challenges I participated in during the summer of 2013 (see "About Me" for the rundown). Each meal was basically lean protein and veggies of some sort. I can't even articulate how fantastic I felt. I had more energy, no headaches, I was more regular (sorry for TMI, but it's true), and miraculously... no stomach aches. I attributed this to the overall better diet, the Shakeology I was drinking, and the daily fitness, all of which definitely contributed to me feeling like a million bucks.

But the following week when my diet went into a tailspin, I realized what the missing piece was. I had a tough week at work and stress-ate like crazy, and I felt like crap every night. I realized then that the biggest thing that had changed about my diet was re-introducing refined flour. I had a lot of sandwiches, pasta, pizza, cheese and crackers, etc... When I realized this, I decided to finally take my doctor's advice and do that experiment. So I cut out wheat flour for a few weeks, and it worked. I felt fantastic. Even when I wasn't eating particularly "healthy" foods, I still felt great because in my opinion, it was the wheat that was causing me problems. 

There is a lot of controversy on this issue right now, so here is my take on it and also some background. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and some other grains. When developed, it becomes elastic. That's why you knead bread and pasta dough, to develop the gluten which gives these things their structure. That's why you don't want to over-beat biscuit dough or cake batter because you want the gluten to be relaxed, otherwise if it over-develops it will make your baked goods tough. 

People with Celiac disease have a severe intolerance to Gluten of any kind. It's an autoimmune disease which is triggered when gluten is consumed, and it damages the lining of the small intestine to the point where their body cannot absorb the nutrients necessary for survival. It is a really serious condition and people with Celiac need to be meticulous about ensuring their diet is 100% gluten free. If a friend has it, don't be surprised when they grill the server about the risk of cross-contamination due to preparation techniques used in the kitchen. They need to do this to stay healthy!! 

Then there are people with Gluten "sensitivities," which can vary in severity. Some people have reactions that are so serious that it makes them be as vigilant as someone with celiac about avoiding it. Then there is me. We know what my symptoms are... I get tummy aches. I also get headaches, fatigue, bloating, and some other unnamed GI issues. BUT, it's not life or death. So I am usually wheat free, but certainly not all the time. I just need to be prepared for the consequences.

I've read Wheat Belly. It's intense. I don't necessarily subscribe to that level of intensity for everyone, though I agree with some of its points about the fact that just replacing wheat with "gluten-free alternatives" is probably even less healthy for you than just eating whatever you were going to eat with wheat in the first place. This is because these gluten free alternatives are made from various other starches that are even more processed than wheat. I've read articles that say that people with a non-celiac sensitivity are actually reacting to the fibrous part of wheat, not the protein part of wheat (meaning the gluten alone isn't the issue, it's just actual wheat that causes problems) - this is the category that I believe I fall into. I've also recently read an article from "I F-ing Love Science" that says that non-celiac sensitivity is bogus. That any health benefits you feel from not eating wheat are actually attributed to eating a generally healthier and less processed diet that automatically occurs when you cut out wheat. That's probably a fair point.

But here's what this all has to do with you... eat what makes you feel good, don't eat what doesn't, and ignore the haters. I don't care that a website has potentially debunked non-celiac wheat sensitivity. I've never officially been diagnosed with anything, but I know that I feel fantastic when I don't eat wheat and I feel crummy when I do. I don't care if people think I'm just jumping on the latest nutritional band-wagon (I also love kale, so there is that). I just know what I need to cut out of my diet to feel my best, and you should absolutely discover this for yourself. Whether it's a certain type of food, not eating at a particular time of day, eating a few big meals or lots of little meals... do whatever makes you feel good. 

And you know what sometimes makes me feel good? A fantastic spaghetti carbonara (I'll post a recipe soon). So once in a while, when I'm prepared for the calories and the consequences, I'm going to bust out the Pepto-Bismol for old time's sake and enjoy my all-time favorite pasta dish. The difference is that now I'm in control. I no longer am a victim to random attacks of abdominal pain. I stopped buying Pepto-Bismol in bulk. And when I do eat wheat, you better believe it's something delicious, and the consequences are worth it to me every once in a while. So, suck it haters.

Update: Just found this interesting read that corroborates what I've written above about my sensitivity being wheat-based and not gluten-based. 

So, what are your diet quirks? What makes you feel crappy, what makes you feel great? Share below!