Cooking 101

Goooood mornnning cupcakes!

Today's post is cooking 101 with Tori! First off let me tell you that you don't have to be a chef to make awesome food! You also do not have to have tons and tons of time to cook. Basically, do what fits your lifestyle. I am a graduate student and I do not have a lot of time to cook during the week. I have found meal prepping on the weekends to be a lifesaver. If you do have time to cook during the week it is nice to plan your meals on the weekends so you can buy the right foods to stock your fridge and pantry with. For example, on Saturday you sit down and decide you want to make zoodles, turkey burgers, tacos, chicken breasts, and breakfast for dinner for the five nights during the week. Next you need to decide what you want with those main dishes as well as if you want to use the left overs as lunch during the week. This will help you decide how much food to buy. You also want to consider how many people you will be feeding. For myself, a pound of lean ground turkey will make me 4-5 portions. On the other hand, when I am making food for my boyfriend and I a pound of lean turkey burger may only make 3 portions because Cory can eat a lot of food if he is hungry! So let me show you what I do when making a grocery list (this is only for 2 days... normally I do it for 5 days):

Monday: 

• Breakfast= 2 eggs, avocado, and a banana
• Lunch= cilantro lime chicken burger with carrots and homemade guac
• Dinner= zoodles with spicy chicken sausage
• coconut water

Tuesday:

• Breakfast= 2 eggs, apple with almond butter
• Lunch= cilantro lime chicken burger with sautéed vegetables 
• Dinner= leftover zoodles from Monday
• coconut water

From the meal plan, I make the grocery list. 

Grocery List:

• 4 eggs
• 2 avocado
• 1 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 pkg. of cilantro lime chicken burgers
• 1 bag of carrots
• 4-6 zucchinis
• 1 pkg. spicy chicken sausage
• 1 jar of almond butter- or homemade if you can't find that doesn't have anything added
• 1 pkg. of mushrooms
• 1 red onion
• 1 stalk of celery
• coconut water

I like to sort my list by the layout of the grocery store, so for me this list would look more like this:

Produce:

• 2 avocados
• 1 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 bag of carrots
• 4-6 zucchinis
• 1 pkg. of mushrooms
• 1 red onion
• 1 stalk of celery

Proteins:

• 4 eggs
• 1 pkg. of spicy chicken sausage
• 1 pkg. cilantro lime chicken burgers

Other:

• almond butter
• coconut water

Okay... now on to the fun part... COOKING!

If you can notice, I like to make up my own recipes and get creative in the kitchen. That is why I do not always have the recipes for everything I make. I can tell you what all is in some things, but the measurements are a little different!

Tips:

-When cooking, always make sure you add some type of cooking oil to your pan so that the food does not stick. I like to use coconut oil because it can be used at higher temperatures and also is better for you than some other cooking oils. Also, make sure your pan is hot before adding any food items to it (this also helps prevent food from sticking... make sure you do not put your non-stick skillets and cooking pans in the dishwasher because this will take off the non-stick. Always hand wash those!)

-Get creative! Spice things up! Try new things. I tried prosciutto for the first time last week, and I decided it would pair great with an avocado slice, garlic powder, and a jalapeno. This is how I created a healthier stuffed jalapeno pepper! 

-If you are scared or nervous about making up your own recipes, get on pinterest or google and you can find a million different recipes. 

-Do not say you cannot cook, anyone can cook! Yes, it does take practice to get better, but so does everything else in this world. I didn't start off cooking as well as I do now. It takes time and patience!

-Cook for others. Food brings happiness! It is always nice when someone makes you a delicious dinner or brings you breakfast in bed!

-Re-create a less healthy dinner. For example, last night I wanted to make spaghetti for dinner. To make my dinner healthier, I made zucchini noodles (zoodles). I made my own sauce out of tomato paste, garlic powder, chives, and pink Himalayan salt (on a side note, most pasta sauces have added sugar... why in the world does there need to be sugar in pasta sauce!? This is why I like to make my own.) I topped the zoodles with spicy chicken sausage (I like check the labels of premade meats as well because they often times have added sugar). Here is a picture of the final product:

Here is another example of making food healthier. This morning for breakfast, I made pancakes. These pancakes are made from almond flour, apples, bananas, coconut, and almond butter blended together and cooked on a griddle with coconut oil. 

Here was a creative breakfast I made: 1 stuffed jalapeno that I talked about earlier in the post, leftover vegetables from a dinner, edamame (also leftover), an egg, and homemade guac. This breakfast took seriously about 2 minutes to cook and put together. Eating healthy does not have to be hard or time consuming. 

With that being said, I would like to answer some cooking questions for you all, so comment below and let me know what questions you have!

Later Taters!