kimbureh:

@thoughtfulproxy and I talked about food, and easy and healthy recipes. So now I wanna share some of my thoughts on fast and tasty cooking. Also I wanna add, even though I am a high-carb, fruit and veggie lover, I am writing this while a pound of french fries are in the oven- so whether or not you deem my recipes below as ~healthy~ is up to you! 😀

• First off: Eating a salad with meals makes SUCH a big difference in my experience! It doesn’t have to be a big bowl, it can also be a carrot or a few cucumber sticks with hummus if you are into that. My pro tip: wash the whole salad at once and keep it in a tightly wrapped plastic bag in your fridge. This way you will only have to grab it everytime you have a full meal or want a fresh snack. Have tomatoes in stock, especially the small tasty ones, they will make u wanna eat those greens with more delight. Also, a tasty vinegar. But then again: If you can’t have salads for whatever reason (yes, tiredness/laziness is a reason!), just roll with it, be gentle to yourself.
• An awesome salad sauce that itself is already a salad, and can be a dip too: blend half an avocado, a tomato, a thick slice of cucumber, vinegar, salt, pepper. If it’s too thick, instead of adding water or oil, add more cucumber and/or tomato, it increases the water content AND adds more of the ‘healthy stuff’! I love this sauce, it’s so delicious!
• Make your cooked veggies delicious too with the right seasoning. Steamed or stir-fried veggies can be yum, or very boring. Here’s an easy and tasty sauce: soysauce, sugar/stevia, chili. Add a little water if you use sugar since it won’t dissolve in the salty soysauce. You want it creamy? Add tahini. You want to give it a stronger taste? Add onions and garlic, deglaze with a vinegar/sour component of your choice.
• If you are cooking something and it just won’t taste that good no matter how much seasoning you throw at it, keep in mind the secret of tasty cooking: Add something sweet and/or something sour. You can deglaze stir-fried onions with lemon juice and have both tastes at the same time. I typically use rice vinegar + stevia, because it’s easy to keep in stock. The sweet component can be just anything, go wild! Try a few drops of maple syrup along with chili, salt and pepper. Or try a small blended date with soysauce and chili. Or add a piece of chocolate to your hot chili. Experiment with grated ginger, it’s fruity and hot at the same time.
• Seriously, I’ve been cooking every day for over ten years, but understanding the sweet/sour components made my cooking improve so much. I cook low fat and low salt, since those things don’t feel good for me (unless I eat french fries like today :D). Sweet components: lemon and grapefruit have sour components too, their juice is perfect to deglaze. Mango is yum in currys, a small date can add a neutral tasting sweetness since it’s not so fruity. Tomatos are fruits too! A thick tomato paste also brings a lot of umami taste. Very ripe bananas in pancake dough are a delicious ingredient if you don’t wanna use eggs. Jam or dried berries can be used in gravy. Sour components: There are so many different vinegars to try! Balsamic vinegar can be very sweet at times, rice vinegar adds a very ‘round’ and mild taste. My new favorite is bread drink that is also incredibly fruity. Besides that, lemons etc have already been mentioned. Worcester sauce has a lot of vinegar too, just like ketchup. You wonder why ketchup tastes so good? The sweet and sour components plus umami!
• @thoughtfulproxy, you said you like asparagus. Here’s a japanese recipe that is far less fatty than the (german) traditional way of eating asparagus (which would be lots of melted butter/white sauce, smoked ham, omelette and potatos). Here’s the recipe: stir-fry asparagus, grated garlic and ginger. Add vegetable stock, sugar/stevia, sake(just any vinegar will do), salt, pepper, a little bit of starch (stir it up in a cup with cold water. warm water makes the sauce not smooth). Eat short grain rice with it, if you wanna stick to the japanese style, but I think any rice would do, or even pasta.
• Texture! This part is often overlooked by home cooks (like myself). The texture of our food is important for how it tastes. You can steam a sweetpotato, and it will become mush. You can also stir-fry a sweetpotato and it has a little of this crispy crunch to it. Which way you like it, is your thing, but before you decide you don’t like a vegetable, try to prepare it with a different texture! Many people tend to overcook vegetables, so experiment with the cooking time as well!
• You can eat the same thing for days. Honestly, you are not gonna die. If you find a seasoning/sauce that you like, prepare all sorts of vegetables with it. Or, the other way round, prepare the same veggies with different sauces as much as you like. In the beginning I felt compelled to eat different stuff every day and it was exhausting. That is not necessary, you won’t die of malnutrition just because you eat veggies and potatoes every day.
• Eat with joy. Can’t enjoy your meal? Then it’s not good for you. Forcing yourself is not healthy, no matter how healthy the food is for your body, it is unhealthy for your mind. Prepare and eat your food with joy, your feelings about your food are part of your nutrition too! And if you don’t have the energy to feel positive, allow yourself that. Not everyday can be full of joy, especially if you cook everyday or have to learn the skills in the first place.

Thanks Kimbureh!!!!! I’mma tag this so I can find it in the future!!