Hello everyone! I am a 28y/o woman, 5'6", highest weight close to 180, and I've now surpassed my original goal weight of 135 and am now chugging down towards 125. There are a lot of things that have contributed to this (tracking CICO, quitting smoking weed every day, no longer being such a fucking alcoholic) but one of the biggest ones is learning to cook. I've slowly gone from someone who consumes a LOT of takeout to someone who cooks, all the time, with fresh vegetables, from scratch.
And honestly, the biggest push towards doing this for me was investing in real, actual, physical cookbooks. One of my favorite "change point" memories is actually going to the huge university bookstore near my house, going to the cookbook section, pulling everything that looked interesting off the shelf, and flipping through all the pages for literally hours until I found a few that met my qualifications. Specifically:
a. had recipes and pictures that looked really, really delicious
b. hit the health halfway point between "bacon wrapped around fried chicken" and "lettuce covered in stevia"
c. contained ingredients I could reasonably afford
d. would stretch my cooking skills/make me learn new ones but was still achievable.
I see a lot of threads where people post individual recipes, and some where people post favorite websites or blogs. But I don't see much discussion of actual cookbooks and I think that's too bad! I find that if I find a cookbook where the more "basic" recipes really line up with my tastebuds, I'm more willing to try (and more likely to end up liking) the more "out there" recipes. Also, many people do not know this, but actual cookbooks almost always have an "intro" section on cooking basics - what you should keep in your pantry, what tools are most important and how to use them, how to keep different vegetables fresh, paying attention to things in season, etc. Even if you're a relatively experienced cook, it's interesting to read different people's takes on these things!
I also personally just find cookbooks more inspiring than online recipes. There's nothing like laying in bed next to a stack of your favorite cookbooks, flipping through the pages, looking to hit on something special where you say "wow, now THAT looks interesting!". The pages of the really good recipes are the ones that end up dog-eared and covered in sauce. You can scribble in notes and adjustments. It's wonderful.
Below, a few of my favorite cookbooks. I would truly love to hear of yours! I'm hankering for a new one or two...
Eating from the Ground Up - Alana Chernila
This is my ALL TIME FAVORITE COOKBOOK. I have now gotten 5 people in my life to buy this cookbook. Several have proceeded to buy it for friends or usually mothers. It is a book devoted to the love of vegetables, and for those of you who think "yuck, vegetables", I cannot recommend any book to you more than this one. The author worked at a vegetable stand for many years, and these recipes are the result of her experimenting so she could tell her customers what the best ways to eat everything are. The entire first section is called "barely recipes", and it's pretty much the best simple way to prepare a TON of different vegetables. She's not obsessed with making everything as healthy as possible and it's not vegetarian - there's plenty of bacon, butter, and cheese. But you really come to appreciate the flavor and bite of every veggie in it. And once you move to the later sections, recipes like "Polenta with All the Greens" (and spoiler alert, plenty of breadcrumbs and white cheddar), "Fennel with Citrus, Mint, and Ricotta", and even "Carrot Celebration Cake" will completely win over your heart. If you hate vegetables and wish you didn't, buy this book. If you love vegetables and want to find new, delicious ways to prepare them, or even learn about veggies you didn't know existed (this woman LOVES hakurei turnips) then buy this book. Do yourself a favor. Buy this book.
Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express - Mark Bittman
Kitchen Express is a great cookbook for someone who likes to eat a wide and complex variety of foods but really has no idea how to cook and gets annoyed at the thought of spending hours following a recipe with a million exact and complicated steps. This cookbook is less "add 1/2 cup carrots and stir for 12 minutes" and more "add a handful of carrots and stir until they're soft." The recipes are incredibly varied as far as flavor goes, taking inspiration from a lot of cuisines, but manage to also be very simple and quick to prepare (hence, you know, kitchen express). I love this cookbook because so many "simple cooking" books seem to sacrifice rich complex flavor for simplicity and bro if I was just gonna dump broccoli on chicken breast I wouldn't need to buy a book first. If you're an aspiring foodie-cook but new and short on time, go for this. Oh, and the recipes are all ordered by season! However, there are reference sections for "brown bag lunches", "finger foods", "good for kids", "party recipes", "picnics", etc.
Buddha Bowls - Kelli Foster
Do you want to pretend you are a Cool Instagram Girl? Well now you can! This is an entire cookbook devoted to the concept of a Buddha Bowl, aka, a ton of really delicious nourishing stuff all shoved into one bowl together. IF YOU DO OMAD, I really recommend this one. This book is also incredible for people wanting to pack more interesting varied lunches. It really upped my meal prepping. It's another good for people who don't like vegetables very much but wish they ate them more, or people who have only 2-3 veggies that they like and want to expand their palette. It also has pretty pictures. And honestly, pretty pictures have gotten me to try a lot of new things. This was my first cookbook I didn't get as a present from a family member and so it also holds a special place in my heart for that.
Food Lab - Kenji Lopez-Alt
Do you hate everything that isn't science? Well, then this is the book for you. Food Lab is a TOME of a cookbook, where Kenji figures out the best way to prepare pretty much everything via experiment and study, tells you how to do it, AND explains the science of why. Although this book has many sections, what I find myself coming back to it again and again for is preparing different kinds of meat. His recipe for pork tenderloin is, I believe, the best meat-based dish I have ever prepared. But what's incredible is his exquisite detail in perfecting the basics. Take, for example, his section on hardboiling an egg. He places eggs into boiling water for 30 second intervals, then removes them from the water, bisects them, photographs them, and puts the entire thing into a visual so you can look at all these eggies and pick the one you think looks best and then know exactly how much boiling time it takes to get an egg to that amount of cooked. And then also explains egg proteins and what happens to them in boiling water. Neat! This book is also great because if you, like me, read a complicated recipe and then feel slightly annoyed and wonder if you are being tricked, because you don't know WHY the steps are there and you're a little suspicious they aren't necessary, Kenji a. specifically experiments to make sure it's all necessary and then b. tells you what it all does, and what happens if you don't do it. They are incredible recipes.
XX Dinners - Schori Taylor
This is a different kind of cookbook. It contains recipes for 20 different 3-5 course meals, 5 meals per season. The ingredients are expensive and hard to find. The recipes take a long time and constant attention. However, they are very clearly laid out with the intention of being read/used by people who aren't very experienced in the kitchen, and they all turn out AMAZING. I basically have this cookbook to impress people who come over for dinner. It works really, really, really well.
The reason I also think people should own at least one cookbook like this is that it makes a new kind of celebration meal that isn't McDonalds/Burger King/skittles/whatever. It's deeply indulgent and a rare treat, but truly rewarding. An honorable marker of a festive occasion.
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2xInC7m
No comments:
Post a Comment