Second Helping
Week 5
By Russ Lane
There was never a drastic television-worthy makeover of my kitchen as my understanding of food blossomed.
No half-naked men with four percent body fat waltzed in to help sort out a kitchen silenced with neglect. No burst of inspiration struck one weekend. Some transformations forgo a deluge and prefer instead a methodic trickle. My personal recipe book turned out to function the same way.
Though my large kitchen was well-stocked by just-out-of-college standards, in reality the only things that existed were my microwave and hand-me-down table with forest green placemats hiding scratches and a lamp shaped like a geriatric tea kettle that my mother somehow thought was adorable. The latter heated up food I usually brought home; the former was the dumping ground for my weathered gym bag and my messenger bag for work.
But as I ventured into the brave new culinary world of the range and oven, testing recipes and practicing better living through chopping, my usual approach of hide everything from sight and sort it out next spring didn’t support my new adventures and wild experiments.
I was inspired by all the restaurant kitchens I’d investigated – monochromatic wonders of efficiency that had tools when and where you needed them. I shoved the kitchen table to the side, and found a large cart at Home Depot that could serve as counter space and a space to plug in my steamer, blender and food processor, and store my pots, wok and sauté pans underneath.
Hooks adorned the side of my fridge that jutted up against my oven, full of multiple sets of measuring spoons and whisks. When all was said and done, I had everything within arm’s reach at all times.
I wasn’t fully conscious of it, but I was creating a space for myself in the same way my trainers created a space for me at the gym.
I still prefer the gym to outdoor workouts for that reason, and with my kitchen reborn as a place of work, I could start renovating my own repertoire for when I wasn’t testing recipes for the weekly newspaper food section.
When my experiments were underway I developed less a recipe book and more of a strategy for eating creatively and eating healthfully:
My pantry was divided in half: foundation foods and accent foods. Foundation foods lived up to their name and served as meal cornerstones. Hearty vegetables, black beans (from a can, rinsed and stored in a baggy in the fridge), eggs, cottage cheese, whole wheat couscous, yogurt, precooked chicken, brown rice and salad greens were my favorites, but ground turkey, tuna, buffalo, oatmeal and frozen fish all made guest appearances. I usually bought these groceries at Wal-Mart or as cheaply as possible.
Accent foods comprised the bulk of my food budget, but were all versatile enough I could change the flavors of my foundation foods on the fly. Various nuts (pine and almonds are my favorite) were kept in the freezer. Other accents usually on had were salsa, capers, hot sauce, obscene amounts of fresh garlic, goat cheese, peanut butter, chicken broth or stock, frozen berries, fresh lemons and limes, flax seed for texture, chili oil, Asian spices, olive oil, quality balsamic, dehydrated mushrooms, tahini, flavored oils, spices, granola and cream cheese.
My secret kitchen helpers were four or five different flavors of low-sugar whey protein. Champion Nutrition’s brand was among the cheapest and best-tasting. These served as sugar and flavor replacements – I bought oatmeal and yogurt plain and flavored them myself with whatever whey protein flavor was on hand.
Each night was spent determining how to mix and match my foundation and accent foods. Because my foundation foods were all versatile and my tools and accent flavors within arm’s reach, I could keep dishes simple, tasty, healthful and fast. And if dishes took a while to prepare, that just gave me time to think about the next day’s meals.
My concern was adding depth of flavor to each element of a meal; aside from making me think, techniques allowed me to keep rabbit food interesting. Roasting veggies or meats, toasting breads or seeds/nuts, and creating quick sauces to jazz up dreary chicken breasts or pairing them with tangy condiments were usually my route.
I found it was possible to balance flavor with health, gradually using less butter or skipping butter entirely. With any egg recipe I halve the amount of whole eggs used and opt for egg whites, and for someone who used to put cheese on anything edible, I only now added it when it would have a prominent role to play in the dish. I learned that half the time you don’t even taste cheese that’s thrown in, particularly with Southwestern salads.
Cutting techniques also change the qualities of the foods. I almost always chiffonade spinach, whether it’s for salads, stir fries or sandwiches. Stack a number of spinach leaves together, roll them tightly and slice the rolled stack thinly is the technique, and it gives tougher spinach varieties a delicate touch.
For every frozen meal I used to eat, I now make: oatmeal with chocolate whey protein, a teaspoon of peanut butter, topped with a dollop of strained yogurt; a lemon-tahini vinaigrette to pair with chopped mushrooms and spinach (simply replace the more common Dijon in the vinaigrette with tahini); goat cheese, sliced spinach and black bean burger sandwiches or toasted whole wheat English muffins garnished with crushed almonds; frittatas of countless variations; eggs cooked over a double boiler until they resemble custard more than scrambled eggs; roasted vegetables with fried capers or toasted garlic slices for crunch.
The meal makeover might have been extreme, but it was never instant. |
