Snack healthy

I'm not going to lie: I eat six times a day.

There is, of course, a method to my madness.  Based on personal experience I can tell you that eating a little bit every couple of hours helps to keep hunger at bay, and therefore helps you to eat less over the course of any given 24 hour period.  The idea is to eat smaller meals/snacks more often.  When it comes to snacking I try to mix it up...fruit, veggies, yogurt, granola bars...and muffins.

Muffins are the best.  They're just a little bit sweet and full of fibre, and super healthy when you make them yourself.  And, most importantly from the perspective of someone who lives alone, they freeze very well.

Why would anyone want to freeze a muffin?  Well, it is a fact of baking that those things you've created lose their freshness over time.  This can be a problem when combined with the fact that muffin recipes make 12 muffins at a time...meaning that in order to eat all the muffins before they get stale I would have to eat two muffins a day for the entire week.

I love muffins, but not that much.

To prevent muffin overload, I freeze the entire batch as soon as they've cooled.  Then whenever I'm in the mood for a snack I just pop one out of the freezer, microwave for 30 seconds, and before I know it I'm eating something delicious, satisfying, and healthy.

In order to keep myself from getting bored with any one variety of muffin I have several recipes in my rotation.  Some come from cookbooks, some from my mother, and others from the internet.  But what they all have in common is a set of basic ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, eggs, and oil.  Where the recipes differ is exactly what they use to fill all of these slots...all-purpose or whole wheat flour, the addition of bran or oatmeal, white or brown sugar, oil or milk (or fruit/veggie puree).  If you keep the basics on hand, all you will need to do for any recipe is buy the little things that make the recipe unique, making your life a lot easier.

The specific muffin recipe I'm going to share with you today is the one I've made the most recently...pistachio chai.  The batter is flavored with chai tea, then topped with roasted pistachios and a sweet glaze.

Ingredients
-1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/4 tsp salt
-2 or 3 chai blend tea bags (more tea=more chai flavor)
-1 cup buttermilk
-1/4 cup melted butter
-1 1/2 tsp vanilla, divided
-1 large egg
-1/2 cup shelled roasted pistachios, chopped
-1/2 cup powdered sugar
-1 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine dry ingredients (flour through salt) in a large bowl.  Tear open the tea bags and add the tea directly into the mixture; mix well.  Make a well in the centre.

In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients (buttermilk through egg); reserve 1/2 tsp of vanilla.  Mix well, then pour into the well in the centre of the dry ingredients.  Stir until just moist.

Divide batter evenly among greased muffin tins (recipe makes 12 muffins).  Sprinkle nuts over top, and bake for 15 minutes (until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean).

Let cool for 5 minutes in the tins, then cool completely on a rack.  To glaze, combine remaining 1/2 tsp vanilla with powdered sugar and water; drizzle over muffins.

Transfer muffins to an airtight container (or ziploc bag) and freeze immediately.  Now you have access to a quick, healthy, and delicious snack!

Keeping healthy snacks on hand means you're less likely to reach for a bag of chips or a chocolate bar!

Splurge.

We all have a weakness, and mine is chocolate.  However, as a woman who watches what she eats, there is not nearly enough of this sinfully delicious delight in my life.  This month has been especially hard since Cooking Light releases a new chocolate based recipe every day...oh Twitter, how you taunt me..... :(

But I got lucky: a friend recently celebrated a birthday, giving me an excuse to bake.

Given the Twitter taunting, I chose a recipe from the month of chocolate that featured cocoa (what I look for in a cupcake) and mixed it with cream cheese icing (a nod to my friend's cheesecake fetish).  The result: delicious!

For the cake...
-1 cup granulated sugar (I substituted 1 cup Splenda)
-2 eggs
-1/4 cup canola oil
-1/2 tsp vanilla
-1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/4 tsp salt
-1 tsp instant coffee (which I omitted this time)

-1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put the first four ingredients in a bowl, beat until well blended.  In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour through instant coffee) and mix well.  Add a small amount of the dry ingredients to the sugar mixture, stir until just blended.  Then add a small amount of buttermilk to the mixture, and stir until just blended.  Repeat these steps until all the ingredients are fully incorporated into the batter.  Spoon batter into greased muffin tins (makes 12 large-ish cupcakes).  Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs attached.  Remove from tin and cool completely before icing.

For the icing...
-1 cup icing sugar
-1/2 tsp vanilla
-1 (8 ounce) block softened cream cheese

Combine all three ingredients in a bowl and beat well until combined and smooth.  Chill for 5-10 minutes before spreading on the cupcakes...then enjoy!

There was enough frosting to generously cover each cupcake...and then I got to lick the bowl :)

Make your own take out, part 2: the toppings

I personally think that making crust is the easiest part of making pizza.  Feel free to disagree with me...I know that this statement does not seem immediately true.  Making pizza dough, after all, involves all kinds of ingredients and mixing and kneading and letting rise...all things that do not come to mind when you think of something as "easy."

But making the dough is only the first part of putting together a pizza: now you have to choose the topping.  And this is a place where it's easy to get overwhelmed.  What kind of sauce?  What meat?  What veggies?  What cheese?  All these questions mean that it's quite easy to get stuck in a rut where you use the exact same pizza toppings time after time after time.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.  But isn't is nice to change things up once in awhile?)

To get creative, think of your pizza not as a single thing but rather as the delicious marriage of several different layers: crust, sauce, meat, veggies, and cheese.  I'm going to give some different options for each category...when you put together your own pizza, start at the bottom and then work your way to the top.  Be creative, mix and match, and don't get discouraged if every now and then your combination doesn't quite work (making mistakes is an important part of learning how to cook).

Step One: Pick a Crust.  

Choose either the flax seed or classic crust from part 1.

Step Two: Sauce.

While we generally associate pizza with tomato sauce, it's not your only option.  Consider trying one of these instead...
-Salsa (for the tomato flavor with an added kick)
-Pesto (either spread a thin layer of basil pesto over the crust, or mix 1/4 cup pesto with 2 tbsp sour cream for a creamier option)
-Sour cream
-Salad dressings (the creamy ones...think caesar, ranch or blue cheese)
-Alfredo (store bought, or homemade if you're feeling ambitious)
-BBQ sauce
-Hummus
-Thai peanut sauce (teriyaki or sweet chili sauces would work as well)
-Olive oil (brush lightly over the crust...try with chopped fresh herbs or garlic!)

Step Three: Toppings
As a general rule: if you can think of it, then you can put it on a pizza.  So rather than list of the options for meat or veggie toppings, because that list would be infinitely long, I will advise you instead to keep your toppings limited to a particular theme.  Once you've chosen your sauce, ask yourself what you would eat with that sauce in the real world.  Then, put that real world combination on a pizza.  Think salsa with ground beef, onions, and green peppers; caesar dressing with grilled chicken and bacon; pesto with grilled veggies...the combinations are seemingly without end.

If you've already got a topping combination that you know and love, try making little changes.  If you usually use ham, try prosciutto.  If you like chicken on your pizza, why not toss it in BBQ or sweet chili sauce?  Love mushrooms?  Try cooking them with a little bit of garlic before adding them to your pizza.  Instead of just adding onions, why not caramelize them first.  There are any number of small changes that you can make...be adventurous!

Step Four: Cheese
I've separated this from the section on toppings mostly for the sake of organization, because when you are thinking about what kind of toppings would fit with the sauce you have chosen cheese naturally figures into that.  Don't be afraid to stray from the traditional world of mozzarella and parmesan...give gouda, crumbled blue cheese, or feta a try!

Once you've placed everything you desire on top of your pizza crust bake at 425 degrees F for about 15 minutes, until the crust is just golden.  Then enjoy the deliciousness that you have created!

Don't fret if you find these suggestions a little overwhelming.  To get your creative juices flowing, here are some of the pizzas that I have created recently.

Standard pizza sauce topped with chicken tossed in BBQ sauce, mushrooms sauteed with garlic, mozzarella and parmesan, green onions.

Pesto and sour cream sauce topped with prosciutto, artichokes and mushrooms sauteed with garlic and lemon, parmesan cheese.

Olive oil topped with caramelized onions and fennel, mild italian sausage, prosciutto, and gouda.

And don't forget that you can always turn to the internet for help...good luck, and happy cooking!

Space matters

When it comes to cooking dinner, the space you're cooking in matters: you have to want to spend time in your kitchen.  This might seem self-evident, but it's something that I bet you don't often think about.

For instance, it's really hard to motivate yourself to make something delicious for dinner when you know that such an endeavor involves having to search through a tangle of pots and pans to find the one that you need.  Most people also don't relish the thought of going digging through their cupboards to find ingredients...probably because these things are so precariously stacked that taking out one bag risks  upsetting them all.  And then there's the thought of dishes...and then your stovetop is kinda dirty, and your counters are a little gross...and before you know it you've managed to talk yourself out of whatever delicious meal you were thinking about making.

This is all to say that your kitchen has to be a friendly place.  before you can want to spend time in your kitchen, it has to be a friendly place.  There are several ways to make this happen...

First, when buying pots try and find a set that stacks together.  This way you can fit four pots into the same space as one, and finding the one you need is as easy as lifting it out of the nest.  Apply this nesting strategy to bowls and casserole dishes as well...it will help keep your cupboards tidy.

Bonus: my bowls have lids and double as extra food storage.

Second, invest in some kind of pantry organization system.  It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive...all you need are some containers that stack together in some kind of way.  I swear by Tupperware, but that's an investment (though you can get really good deals when it goes on sale).  You can also find similar things at Ikea or the dollar store.  Organize your cupboard in whatever way makes the most sense to you, the idea is that you can find what you're looking for when you're looking for it.

Before.  Finding what I needed required digging...

After.  Everything has a place, and I don't have to worry about a Jenga type topple if I try to pull things out in the wrong order!

Bonus to this kind of pantry organization: the ability to store more staple items.  Another often overlooked fact about cooking is that in order to make your own meals you have to have the ingredients on hand.  Seriously...there is nothing worse than settling down to cook after a busy day and realizing that your recipe calls for some basic ingredient that you don't have (and have no desire to go out and buy).  If your pantry is organized you can avoid this problem, because you can look and immediately see what you have to work with.

Finally, there's the cleaning thing.  I know that cooking makes dishes, and washing dishes sucks, but once you get into the habit there is something very zen about the process.  I tend to clean as I go...when I make something that has to spend time in the oven, I'll wash all the pre-oven dishes while the food bakes.  Likewise if I'm making a soup or stew that simmers for a long time, I'll wash whatever dishes I can to keep the end of the night work to a minimum.  As for the stove and the counters, all I can really say is this: if you wipe them down right after you've done your dishes, they will never really get *that* dirty.

The moral of the story is simple: if you want to cook more, make your kitchen into the kind of place that you want to spend time in.  Invest in tools that make your life easier, and maybe one day you'll love cooking as much as I do!