Immediately after posting that I was starting this blog, I pulled out my new favorite cookbook and started planning for the rest of the week.
If you’re a novice cook like I am, go out and buy Cooking Light: Way To Cook. It’s some of the best money you’ve ever spent. It breaks down all the information that has ever scared you away from cooking fun foods and makes it all feel doable. So doable that I was able to fill up my first healthy shopping cart…
- My first healthy buggy full of food!
And I wasn’t even intimidated. There were a few different steps and lots of foods to chop in tonight’s dinner recipe. This normally would scare me away. I wouldn’t even look at it. But not today. Today, I cooked real food and I cooked it well.
In an attempt to have a less fattening food base than my usual beef and pork, I decided to make Cooking Light‘s shrimp and corn relish. Per the book’s suggestion, I put it on top of rice for a fulfilling and DELICIOUS meal!
The Dinner Process
About 45 minutes before I expected John to get in from work (but about 2 1/2 hours before he really did), I cooked brown rice to serve as the base for the dish.
Needs butter. Too bad that's not healthy. Good thing Earth Balance tastes just like it.
As soon as John got home, I learned that he doesn’t like brown rice, so next time we’re going to try it over sauteed spinach. I think that’ll be great too. I, however, love brown rice, but I think it needs some flavor. I added Earth Balance, which I found out tonight is just as good as butter but so much healthier! Yet another great discovery today.
Next, I made the sauce by simply squeezing lots of lime juice and mixing it with fish sauce and agave nectar. The recipe called for sugar, but I will always switch to agave nectar when possible because it provides the same sweet taste with only 1/3 the amount of sweetener.
Then on to the relish. I chopped up some shallots and a jalapeno and minced a few cloves of garlic. The book even taught me how to properly chop, mince, etc. Then I shucked some corn (Cooking Light: Way to Cook also showed me how to shuck corn) and prepared cilantro to finish off the relish.
The into a wok with some Smart Balance Omega 3 oil…
Wok. Best piece of cookware ever.
Throw over the rice.
It tastes a lot better than it looks.
And we had an easy, restaurant-quality meal at home.
It was scrumptious. And very gratifying. Now for dessert.
Peach Yogurt made from almond milk. I don't like real yogurt. This is so much better!
Make it Easy!
**If you still think this meal sounds intimidating, no problem. To make this dinner more easily, use packaged corn, bottled lime juice, pre-minced garlic, frozen shrimp, dried cilantro, and minute rice. The stir fry literally takes 5 minutes of cook time and does not require any experience cooking shrimp or stir fry before.**
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Sounds interesting! Good for you and your new ambitions!