Happy New Year … (and a secret)

Happy, happy, happy (and healthy) new year to you

I won’t take up much of your time. Everyone is busy today. There’s wine to drink, resolutions to write, and trees to un-decorate.

First, I’d like to congratulate you for being a subscriber. At some point you decided that you wanted to learn more about eating more veggies. Hooray for you

But I know that life is busy. Could you use a little help, motivation, and cool new veggie meal ideas?

I’ve got just the thing to solve that New Year’s Resolution problem that you’ve probably got. Did you dream up a goal for this year that includes “eat better, eat more meals at home, reduce soda, increase exercise, eat 5-9 servings of fruit/veggies a day like the food guide says I should.”

Let me tell you about The Veggie Club.

Imagine a private members’ only website where you can get access to whacks of recipes with veggies front-and-centre.

The step-by-step recipes save you money, too. Healthy AND inexpensive.

The illustrated recipe for Sausage Minestrone makes a spectacular dinner for $1.35/serving, and it’s 354 calories per bowl, with 18 grams of protein.

The recipe for Homemade Vegetable Soup is $0.88/bowl, with 101 calories and 1 gram of fat.

Anyway, I don’t want to spam you with a long sales letter tonight

(There’s wine to drink and trees to un-decorate, and I must get to both of those right now…)

But if you were perhaps thinking that maybe, probably, you were sort of hoping to ideally eat better this year, get more veggies into your diet, start to reduce your grocery budget, and be in a community of like-minded people… then you must might want to sign up for The Veggie Club tonight.

Do it right now before you make one more resolution. www.OneRoastVegetable.com/02.html.

OK. That’s it from me

I don’t wanna nag you. It’s just that I know that tonight is EXACTLY the right time to be thinking about the year ahead, your goals, how you want to be feeling come mid-June.

If I check back with you in mid-June, will you be able to say that you have been successful in your goals to eat better? I hope so www.OneRoastVegetable.com/02.html

All best, time to tackle that tree.
me

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu
Owner & Head Tomato
OneRoastVegetable.com / The Veggie Club

PS/ Here’s the secret. Glad you read right to the end

My secret is about the Back to Basics cooking class that’s starting soon … (http://www.oneroastvegetable.com/backtobasics.htm) Since this is the first time I’m holding this class, all of my Veggie Club subscribers will be able to take this class completely F’REE of charge.

So if you were smart, like I know you are, then you’d go RIGHT NOW and sign up for a Veggie Club Membership (I’d take the 3-month one or the yearly subscription if I was you). Then you’ll be a Veggie Club Member when it’s time to register for the Back to Basics class.

And you’ll be able to take the class for F’REE. It’s my New Year’s gift to you You gotta like that! www.OneRoastVegetable.com/02.html

Day #26 Gift > Back to Basics: Thirteen Minute Fish & Rice

Thanks to everyone who emailed to tell me about their favourite holiday foods. For Suzi, it’s cinnamon rolls, for Beth it’s gingerbread houses, for Kristina it’s homemade tamales.  I couldn’t have arranged for a better range of answers, could I?  Bruce also emailed that he liked creamed peas and carrots (and he sent along a recipe I’m going to try).  Amber likes homemade fudge, and Lauri’s got a thing for shrimp.

My favourite holiday food is stuffing.  I only make it once a year, for Christmas dinner, and it’s an un-healthy mixture of butter, soft bread, onions, celery, mushrooms and the killer ingredient — ground savoury (it’s like sage, or poultry seasoning). I bake it in a pan with a light lid made out of tinfoil, so that it partly steams and partly gets crunchy corners.  Best mixed into chicken salad sandwiches the next day, with cranberries and mayo.

Now.  Back to the gifts. Don’t forget to post your comments below.

Today’s gift:

In keeping with my 29 days of gifts, today’s gift is a simple trick for a healthy dinner for Fish and Rice.

In January I’m launching a Back-to-Basics class that covers all those things we (maybe) learned in Home Economics in high school, but have since forgotten…

And one of those topics is timing — like how to get the meal on the table so that it’s all ready at the same time — without running around with your head flying off from stress.

So tonight I’m going to share with you my favourite “perfectly timed” 13 minute dinner.

And I’ll give you the trick right up front:  basmati rice cooked on the stovetop and a filet of fish baked in the oven both take exactly 13 minutes to cook.  Add in a bit of time for soaking the rice, and you’ve got dinner in 25 minutes.

Thirteen Minute Fish & Rice
Serves 4, easily doubled or reduced

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup basmati rice (125 mL)
3/4 cup chicken broth (or water) (190 mL)
4 filets of fish
orange marmalade
clove of garlic
grainy mustard
green veggie

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Soak 1/2 cup basmati rice in cool water. Not all rice needs to soak first, basmati does.  Let it soak 5-10 minutes, and up to 25 minutes if you’ve got extra time, but it’s not required.

Drain rice. Plop drained rice into a small pot with a tight fitting lid. Using the same measuring cup you used to measure the rice, add 1.5 measures of chicken broth, veggie broth, or water to the rice in the pot.  If you used 1/2 cup of rice, then you’ll need 3/4 cup of liquid.

Do not start cooking the rice yet.

Line a pan with tinfoil, and place your fish filets on the foil, skin side down. (I love trout or salmon, but other dense white fish would work too).

Mix together a couple tablespoons of orange marmalade with a half clove of garlic and a teaspoon of grainy mustard.  Smear over the fish.

Put the rice on high heat and bring it to a hard boil with the lid off.  AS SOON AS it starts to boil hard, immediately reduce the heat to minimum, and put the top on the pot. Stick the fish in the oven.

Set your timer for 13 minutes.

That’s it

You can add in another pot for a veggie too, like broccoli or brussels sprouts or green beens. Cook them in a 1/2 inch of water, bring to a boil at the same time as the rice, also reduce to minimum and put the lid on. Cook for the same 13 minutes.  If you want asparagus, it cooks faster so start it later, maybe half-way through.

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More to come in January’s Back to Basics course including quiche, chicken broth from scratch, how to store lettuce, and apple crisp with cinnamon ice cream.  If you’d like to be on the list to get more information, you can sign up here > http://www.OneRoastVegetable.com/backtobasics.htm

All best,
Shelley

Day #16 Gift > Back to Basics: Boiling the perfect egg

In January, I’m launching a Back-to-Basics class that covers all those things we (maybe) learned in Home Economics in high school school, but have since forgotten…

I hardly remember any of the calculus I studied, so is it any wonder that we can’t remember other things? (OK, hard boiling an egg is perhaps slightly more useful than rotating an imaginary object in space around the ‘z’ axis, but you get the picture).

Brandi sent me this email:  “If I had to pick something I struggle with, it would be consistently making the perfect hard-cooked egg. The photo of your eggs in the nicoise salad (photo a, below) are the hard cooked eggs of my dreams. Every time I need to make eggs like that, I need to look it up. So the ability to have a quick, printable reference would be fantastic.”

OK, so today’s preview lesson is how to hard boil the perfect egg. Yes, you can do it. Really, you can. You won’t look like an idiot. You won’t have to throw the eggs out. It’ll work. Here’s what I do, and it works every single time for me.

1. Start with a pot and some eggs and some cold water.  Place the eggs in the pot and ALMOST cover with them with cold water. A tiny bit if egg can be showing through the top of the water (photo b, above).

2. Now put your pot on the stove, and turn the heat to high.  When the water comes to a very hard, full boil, remove the pot from element completely, turn off the heat, and let the eggs sit in the water for 15 minutes. (I usually say 13-15, but you can go for 15 just to ensure they’re completely cooked and next time when you have more confidence pull them out at 13-14).  Go for 15 minutes if you want hard boiled eggs for sandwiches, and stop at 13 minutes if you want the yolk to be a tiny bit soft for a salad.

3. At 13 (or 15 minutes), pour off all the hot water, add in a bunch of very cold water to stop the cooking process.  Let sit until cool enough to handle.  Then you can peel and serve.

So to recap, start with cold water, do NOT cover with water completely, once they start to boil hard then you remove them from the heat all together, wait 13-15 minutes (don’t touch the pan). Then change the water to cold water (just until they’re cool enough to peel). Then you can peel and serve   OK, now you’re making me hungry!

All best,
Shelley

PS Lessons in the full “Back-to-Basics” class will include my tricks for making the best hard boiled egg sandwich, as well as foolproof soft-boiled and fried eggs… and oh yeah, I’ve got a really great (and dead simple) recipe for quiche that I can’t wait to share with you. Yippee, this is going to be so much fun!

Day #13 Gift > Back-to-Basics: How to measure flour

In mid-January I’m going to be launching a new part of the site called “Back to Basics.” It’s a 14-week class all about learning those bits you’ve never really mastered — how to store celery, how to whip cream, cook fish properly, hard boil an egg, make gravy, make muffins … all those bits and pieces that would make life SO much easier. Meal planning anyone?

OK, so to get you started, here’s a preview lesson just in time for Christmas short breads.

Be sure to post your comments below and let me know what you think about this lesson, and what TOPICS you’d like the new class to ABSOLUTELY include.

Today’s Back-to-Basics lesson is how to measure dry ingredients (like flour).

HERE’S HOW:

Lightly spoon the dry ingredient (such as flour, corn starch or white sugar) into the measuring cup (a). Fill it so there’s extra on top (b). Using the flat side of a knife, gently scrape off the excess (c). You will now have a flat, level surface (d).

This method of measuring dry ingredients we’ll call spoon+level. If you dig your measuring cup into a bag of flour to scoop it out, and then level it off, you will have much too much flour (dig+level).

All best & happy Sunday,

me