Cooking healthy for dummies?

You can grill or bake up quite a few days worth of chicken breasts, round steaks or pork loin in less than an hour. Season them to taste, let them cool and put them in some tupperware. You can eat them as they are, slice them up for wraps, or dice them and put them into scrambled eggs or stir fry. Keep some salad greens, fresh veggies and fruit on hand and you can eat very well and healthy with minimal preparation time.

I prefer quinoa to cous cous, it's much lower GI, cooked in a similar way to rice, and the body digests it as a vegetable protein rather than a grain based carb like rice or pasta... SO much better for you. You can sprinkle it in salads, make up a big portion with veg in it, I use mine instead of rice or pasta all the time. Helped me loads when I was first starting out dieting.

I love to use my friends and family as a resource when I cook new things. I started young and have a passion for cooking but it still surprises me to see how all the different people in my life go about cooking the same things in different ways. Just ask if you can watch. You'll have a fun time visiting and learn something new.

Get yourself a red and white checkered Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. They are super user friendly and have loads of instructional info, tips, tricks, and pictures. The newer ones also have little labels at the top of each recipe that say wether it is easy, low-fat, vegetarian, fast, etc. And a meat thermometer, for sure, till you have some practice under your belt.

Cooking really is fun, and therapeutic. The ultimate bonus is, who knows what tastes/looks good to you better than you?!

Good luck, have fun, and if you'd like to add me feel free. I'm always down to help with cooking questions. :happy:

Also check out local stores that sell cooking stuff... like Williams Sonoma. They often have periodic cooking classes for free as a marketing technique.

I like How2Heroes website, they have recipes for healthy cooking, and every recipe has a video that show you exactly how to cook it... It's pretty much easy... Enjoy

Link
http://how2heroes.com/videos/healthy-eating

Look up Clean Eating by Tosca Reno. Clean earing is simple eating. But you can still be simple with flavourful herbs and spices.

if you have a crock pot, you could throw chicken breast and salsa in it and set the timer or buy some beef stew meat, throw in a bunch of veggies and set the timer. There are all kinds of things you can do with a crock pot and that way you know that the food is "done". You can google crock pot recipes for other ideas.

Soup is so easy to make, can be made cheaply, fills you up, can be frozen and is generally low in calories. Just search online and you'll find loads of recipes. Don't be afraid to experiment by adding vegetables/pulses that you like. Have fun with the cooking. Once you get into it I'm sure you'll enjoy it

Google is your friend! Google "basic cooking terms" and you'll get some great reference lists. You can also go into your local bookstore and look for the cooking-for-dummies type cookbooks.
"cook until done" is a matter of safet for meats, and personal preference for veggies, pastas, grains & beans. The container will give you a range of times (like 30-45 minutes). Take a spoon, fish out a bean, noodle or a few grains, let it cool a sec, and see how you like the texture. Want it softer? Leave it in longer.
For meat, ground meat is REALLY easy to cook and tell when it's done, because it all turns fom pink to grey (turkey) or brown (beef). Just open a package, slap it in a frying pan over medium heat, and stab repeatedly with a big spoon to break it up into small pieces. Repeat until you know it's all the same cooked color (even the insides of the lumps), and if you're still not sure, you can even leave it a couple more minutes just to be safe. Then use in soup, pasta, burritos--the possibilities are endless. Or you can get a jar of your favorite sauce, pour it over some chicken breasts and veggies in a casserole dish, and bake it at 350 for an hour. I do this a lot with curry sauces I don't know how o make on my own.
Quinoa is a great thing to have on hand. If you're not familiar with it, it's a whole grain that is high in protein. A good alternative to rice or pasta, depending on the dish. Pronounced "keen-wah". You can make a pot of it that will last you a week, and just top it with other things. it makes a great salad with hopped cucumbers & tomatoes, too.
Google "simple stir fry"--stir fry intimidated me for so long, but it's really not hard at all. Chop your veggies in order of hardness. The harder veggies take longer to cook, so those go in first while you're chopping the others. And you don't need a wok (special stir fry pan); any regular frying pan will do. Stir fry is GREAT on top of quinoa. Once you get comfy with it, you can play around with different spices & flavorings.
Soups are easy to make -- it's basically just a lot of chopping veggies & waiting for it all to simmer together into a delicious pot 'o goodness. Plus veggie soup freezes well, so you can make a big pot of it and bring in smaller servings for lunch, or have thm for dinner in a month. The Pyrex 2-cup bowls are pefec for that. Once you get comfortable with the basics, you'll find it's easy to come up with your own recipes. Until then, check out the top row in the soup aisle at your local grocery store. There are a lot of soup mixes to be had; grab a couple to try & follow the directions. Try to stick to ones that have food ingredients, not a bunch of chemicals -- once you figure out what you like, you can start recreating them from scratch for even cheaper.
Learn how to make eggs. Again, Google is your friend on this one. Eggs are such a great basic that you can dress up in so many ways. Ommlettes, quiche, frittata...they're all just eggs in one form or another.