Day #20 Gift > Shortbread Video

Today’s gift to you is a video.  I know you all LOVE the videos.  Well, this one ties in nicely with some previous posts.

Remember when I was at Day #2 of this 29 days of giving thing, that was the day I gave you my recipe for Easy Bar Shortbreads.  I make them every year, only at Christmas time, and they’re easy and very yummy.

Right away, Veggie Club member Suzi tried the recipe, and then she emailed me: “I made your short bread bars for my work Christmas party… and they were a BIG hit.”

On Day #13 I had a preview lesson for the Back-to-Basics class that’s coming up in January.  The little lesson was all about the RIGHT way to measure flour, and there are loads of comments on the blog about that one, thanks!

So today, to tie it all together, I’ve got a video of me making the shortbreads that includes demonstrating the flour measuring part.

I’d be happy if you were to forward this email to anyone you know who might benefit from it, and encourage them to sign up at www.OneRoastVegetable.com to also follow along with the Back-to-Basics lessons (and other great veggie ideas).

Ready to start cooking? Don’t forget to leave a comment below

All best,
Shelley

Your Emergency Food Kit > The 8 things you need to make a delicious meal at any time

Our very own Chef Melissa (previous editor for Cooking Light magazine) has such a great column this month that I thought I’d share it with everyone, not just “members.”

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Your Emergency Food Kit: The 8 things you need to make a delicious meal at any time

It’s happened to the best of us — you’ve started to cook a meal, only to realize that you’re missing a key ingredient. Or you’ve got company coming over, and in your haste to get the meal done in time you’ve burned the entrée.

These situations qualify as a food emergency, and if you don’t have time to run to the store [and you're trying to avoid having takeout delivered], you could have a culinary disaster on your hands.

While a professional chef could whip up a five-star feast with pepper, ground beef and a jar of olives, the rest of us lack the hands-on experience that it takes to get that kind of miracle happen. However, if you make an effort to have these eight ingredients on hand at all times, you’ll be able to whip up an impressive meal on-the-fly:

1. Canned beans. Throw together a quick chili by stirring in chopped root vegetables (the frozen varieties will do in a pinch) and/or ground beef, turkey, chicken or tofu. Add some of your own spices, such as cumin, chili powder, and garlic powder, to deepen the complexity of the flavors.
2. Cornbread mix. Make a hearty batch of cornbread to serve on the side, or mix into muffins for a more impressive presentation. Add eggs and creamed corn, and you’ll have a fluffy corn soufflé.
3. Eggs. Cornbread soufflé is just the beginning of what eggs can accomplish: Mixed with a salad dressing or a tangy mustard, eggs help create a coating that breadcrumbs adhere to beautifully. Scrambled into a stir-fry, they provided added texture, taste and protein.
4. Paprika. This all-purpose red spice adds a kick to just about anything. Mixed with salt and pepper, you have a flavorful rub that can be used on meats and sprinkled onto roasted vegetables.
5. Olive oil. Vegetable oil is a great go-to oil, but olive oil adds an extra layer of flavor to sautéed or roasted vegetables. Rubbed into meats before grilling, olive oil produces a crunchy outer coating.
6. Onions. Sweet onions (also known as Vidalias) are perhaps the most versatile — the mellow flavor won’t overwhelm a dish, making a great addition to vegetables and roast meats. Red onions make for a colorful garnish, and white and Spanish onions pack a powerful flavor punch.
7. Potatoes. Baked potatoes make a filling side dish or a main meal when stuffed with hearty toppings. Sliced and oven-baked, they make a delicious, low-fat accompaniment to casual meals. Bake them with cheese and eggs for a hearty casserole. Add them to a soup or stew for stick-to-your-ribs comfort food. Julienne and sauté them with peppers for a savory hash. The possibilities are (almost) endless! And if you’ve added too much salt to a soup or stew, try this trick: cut up a potato and let it sit in the mixture for a few minutes — the potato will soak up the excess salt. Just don’t forget to take the potatoes out before you serve.
8. Balsamic Vinegar. As the base of a marinade, this vinegar adds a touch of tang to meats and firm tofu. Drizzle over vegetables–Brussels sprouts are especially nice–and sauté for a quick weeknight veggie side. Out of dressing? Whisk together balsamic vinegar, olive oil, diced shallots and a squeeze of lemon juice for a salad topping that rivals anything pre-bottled from the grocery store.

… Written by Chef Melissa, expert contributor for “The Veggie Club”

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And thanks to everyone for the great response to last night’s email about the new one-year pricing for “The Veggie Club” … 4 of the 7 dozen homemade cookies that I’m giving away have already been claimed! Three more to go Yes, you read correctly, homemade cookies. Mailed right to your door. From me. Really http://www.oneroastvegetable.com/02.html

All best, Shelley
Owner/Head Tomato
www.One Roast Vegetable.com

Why bother cooking at all?

Bobbie wrote me and told me that she was saving all my recipes in a nice three-ring binder, but that she hadn’t made any of them yet.

And in fact she doesn’t do any cooking at all. She wrote: “I never cooked. I never found the need since I had/have no husband nor do I children or siblings, so all the reasons to cook a meal are not there for me.”

Well, I can think of a few reasons to make dinner, even if it’s just for one. Start by asking yourself these three questions:

Question 1: “AM I HAPPY?”

Are you happy with the way your life is going? Great. Or maybe somewhere along the line, the life you are living began to move away from the hopes you originally had. Is this the life you imagined for yourself? Are you happy? Because small adjustments can make really BIG changes in how you feel. For example, what if dinner was the most important part of your day, cooking for yourself (or your family) because you wanted to. Making a simple, stress-free nourishing meal is one of the ways you take care of yourself and your loved ones. I was single twice in my life for longish periods of time, and I still made dinner. Yeah, sometimes I ate popcorn. But 3-4 times a week I made a real meal for one (or for two, and invited somebody over, or I had the rest for lunch).

One of the easiest ways to impress yourself is to put a simple, healthy dinner on the table. And then say “Yeah, I made this!”

Question 2: “CAN I HONESTLY SAY THAT I LIKE THE FOOD I’M EATING NOW?”

If you’re not the one who is cooking your dinners, then I’d like you to honestly ask yourself if the food you’re eating is yummy.

If someone is cooking for you, do you like what they’re choosing to serve you? Is the chicken cooked how you like it? Skin crispy, or boneless/skinless? Everyone has their own food idiosyncrasies and if you’re cooking for yourself you can indulge them. For example, I think olives are poisonous and so I don’t cook with them. My sister doesn’t like orange flavoured food but is OK with lemon-y stuff. André doesn’t put salt on anything, even hard boiled eggs.

So if you’re cooking for yourself, you can have it “your way.” You can make what you like and you can cook it just-so. (And really, one of the joys of cooking for only one, is that you can do weird things … like Gary who puts molasses on his corn-on-the-cob… and no one will raise an eyebrow).

Question 3: “AM I AT A GOOD WEIGHT FOR MY AGE / LIFESTYLE?”

I’m not talking about fitting into your skinny jeans. And if you’re a gramma, you maybe want to have a bit of padding for cuddling grandkids. I’m talking about being overweight. Because if you have some pounds you’d like to lose, so that you can be living that happy life we were talking about above in Question #1, then cooking for yourself is the greatest idea. You can remove that chicken skin, you can cook with low fat ingredients, you can control your own portions, you can add a ton of veggies to that beef stew so that there’s more carrots and mushrooms than meat. You can put fennel and apple and leeks and chicken broth in the oven and braise them until you have a great side for fish.

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So, here’s what I would say. Collect recipes, do your research, and take your time. But one day you should ask yourself the questions above: Are you happy? Is the food you’re now eating fantastic? Do you have some weight to lose?

If you’re doing OK with all of these, then maybe cooking just isn’t for you. But let me know if you think you could be happier, eating more yummy food, and a few pounds lighter. ‘Cause I’ve got a few ideas on how to make that happen

All best,

Shelley (Head Tomato)
www.OneRoastVegetable.com

PS/ In keeping with this theme, we’re going to be talking about motivation, cleaning your kitchen, and simple meal planning on next Friday’s teleclass “Kill Kitchen Klutter.” Watch your email for registration information early this coming week.

Shelley’s meal plan (April 12)

Look, I finally have a week without homemade veggie burgers I need a break! Here’s what we were eating this week in the test kitchen:

Monday: Celery roumalade, pâté with pistachios, steak frites. OK, perhaps not the most veggie-filled meal I’ve had this week, but my hero Suzanne Falter-Barnes was in town and we just had to go out for dinner at L’Express and eat our way through the menu (the nice thing about girl-eating is that we shared everything). Do you know Suzanne from her website How Much Joy? I think she’s just the best. Here’s my cleverly disguised affiliate link to her site.

Tuesday: Trial #1 of Beet salad with oranges and goat cheese. This salad wasn’t bad, the vinaigrette was a bit too vinegary for me, and the beet flavour was a bit flat. And I LOVE beets. So I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more beety-punch. I’ll try this recipe again with adjustments.

Thursday: Grant’s chicken (roast chicken with a kicker spice rub), basmati rice, and Tinfoil Carrots which is Recipe 1.11 from The Veggie Club.

Friday: Thai curried chicken, with mushrooms, carrots, and baby red potatoes. Our favourite Friday night, one-pot dinner. This is the recipe that I try to make only every few weeks, but I think André could eat it every night.

Saturday: Trial #3 of Pasta with carrots, beets, feta and white wine. Trying to keep this recipe low fat, but high flavour. Last time I made it with goat cheese and it turned out a bit sticky (and not really low fat…).

Sunday: Vegetarian corn chowder with homemade spicy cheese crackers.

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Are you a member of The Veggie Club? Not yet? I don’t want to torture you, but here’s what you’re missing this week on the private membership site… New article from Doctor Kristie about how to eat well when you’re travelling. A new slide show from ‘yours truly’ on how to prepare Tinfoil Carrots step-by-step. The full version of the Tinfoil Carrots recipe (Recipe 1.11), including nutritional information AND price per serving. Coming tomorrow, I’ll be responding to a letter from Bobbie where she asks “Why bother cooking at all?” Then later this week, a new illustrated recipe for Salad Niçoise (where the key ingredients are green beans, tuna and baby new potatoes). Yikes, it’s a busy week, because then our monthly teleclass on Friday night is “Kill Kitchen Clutter.”

So long as you’re on THIS LIST, you’ll be notified on May 1st when The Veggie Club opens again for new members.

All best and happy veggies,
Shelley (Head Tomato)

Shelley’s menu plan for this week (April 7)

Hi there, just a quick post to let you know what we were eating this week.

MONDAY > Chicken pitas with cucumber and yogurt sauce (this was trial #1, and it wasn’t great, but it gave me some ideas for next time. Maybe marinated chicken with Greek salad in a pita with tzatziki …)

TUESDAY > Lasagne with tomato and sausage. I love this recipe, it’s definitely comfort food, and is great the next day for lunch. It’s missing a veggie or two though, so we save it for special occasions.

WEDNESDAY > I worked in the kitchen at Robin Des Bois, and we had Pasta with spinach and parmesan cheese as our staff meal.

THURSDAY > Lentil Potage, this is recipe 1.7 from The Veggie Club, and it makes great leftovers.

FRIDAY > Trial #4 of Veggie burgers made with lentils and whole wheat bread crumbs. This time they turned out much better than previous versions. I think I’ve finally found a recipe that I can adapt and make better… I stuck a few in the freezer to see how they will reheat.

SATURDAY > Baked pork tenderloin with mustard, served with side of Roast vegetable pasta (with beets and carrots).

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As you can see, we’re eating well this week. And things are busy in the test kitchen night and day! One morning this week I got up early, made myself some PB+banana toast, did the dishes, and then popped a beet into the oven to roast for a future salad. I’ll let you know about that salad when I make it — cold roasted beet with oranges and goat cheese.

Thanks and happy veggies
All best, Shelley (Head Tomato)

PS/ The Veggie Club’s spring fever sale has been extended, and joining the membership site is amazingly inexpensive right now. Yes, for less than the cost of a magazine or a Big Mac meal, you can get access to all of the illustrated recipes and the 30-page ebook “Veggies Made Simple.” Earlier today I posted a slide show on how to make tinfoil carrots. And I know you don’t want to miss that!
http://www.OneRoastVegetable.com

Shelley’s menu plan for this week (March 24)

In my ongoing attempts to keep you entertained, excited, and inspired (OK, maybe it’s not that exciting to read what I’m eating this week, but you never know)… anyway, I have my meal plan ready. (See revolting picture that accompanies Tuesday night’s dinner.) If you see anything in my meal plan that you’d like developed as a recipe for the site, just let me know

MONDAY

Homemade white meat chicken fingers, coleslaw made with celeriac, steamed green beans. The celeriac slaw I’d made before, this was just a fine-tuning. The recipe will be ready for the site, soon.

TUESDAY

50/50 burgers (half ground beef, half beans) on whole wheat buns, served with revolting turnip gratin. The burgers were trial #3 in my attempts to come up with a homemade veggie burger that isn’t pasty. These burgers were quite OK, but not special. The revolting part was the turnip gratin. I found this recipe online (let that be a lesson to me that I can’t rely on other people’s blogs as reliable sources for recipes… some people just can’t cook!). There was much too much liquid and the lovely bitter taste of the turnips became overwhelming retched in this soup. That said, I ate my serving, André had two servings, then we threw out the rest. Grim. I’ll make one more attempt at turnip gratin using a more sophisticated recipe, and then I think I’ll just have to pass…

WEDNESDAY

A quick and easy freezer meal (this week it was spaghetti sauce).

THURSDAY

Baked fish with rice, and Roast Fennel on the side (this is Recipe 1.8 from the Private Members’ site).

FRIDAY

Broiled pork tenderloin with red pepper and snow peas in a soy/honey sauce (this will be trial #1 of this recipe).

If you have any recipes you’d like me to work on, or if you’d like to tell us what you’re eating this week, just post a comment below.

All best and happy veggies,

Shelley (Head Tomato)
www.OneRoastVegetable
“Eat more vegetables”

PS/ Only a few days until you can sign up for the private membership site “The Veggie Club.” Doors open on Tuesday April 1st (no fooling) and will remain open for 3 days only. More info to come this weekend, including a tour of the site, and a case study on recipe development.

Shelley’s menu plan for the week…

One of the topics in the recent teleclass on meal planning was lack of imagination. [If you missed the call, the recording is posted on the blog > http://theveggieclub.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/meal-planning-motivation-audio/] So to help you with imagination, and to inspire your own ideas, I thought I’d share my meal plan with you for this week. It might give you some inspiration, or you might say “oh, gross, she’s eating that?”

MONDAY: Homemade veggie burgers and oven roasted sweet potato fries. This was trial #2 on homemade veggie burgers, with lentils and mushrooms. They were edible but given a thumbs-down by André. I thought they were OK, not great. The oven fries were too soft so I’ll make the slices thinner next time.

TUESDAY: Thai curried chicken with carrots, potatoes, mushrooms. This is one of my favourite one-bowl dinners, and I try not to make it more than once every two weeks but sometimes I can’t resist.

WEDNESDAY: Baked trout with roasted vegetables (beet, celeriac, red onion, carrots). This will be trial #1 of this particular vegetable mix. I’ve roasted carrots in tinfoil successfully, and now I’m going to mix it up a bit. Hopefully the beet juice won’t colour everything purple…

THURSDAY: André is at art class, so we have leftovers, or sometimes I have popcorn for dinner… . Don’t tell anyone.

FRIDAY: Pasta with two kinds of mushrooms, onions, sundried tomatoes. This will be trial #1 where the goal is a great pasta dish that is low in fat, high in veggies, and isn’t tomato-sauce-based.

SATURDAY: Leftovers, sandwiches, or something from the cupboard (tuna-lemon penne, perhaps).

SUNDAY: Homemade vegetable soup with homemade cheese crackers. This soup recipe is the private members’ club, “The Veggie Club” (it’s recipe 1.6) and it’s one of my favourite quick dinners that is fabulous and wowie it’s even healthy, too.

If you’d like to see any of these recipe developed for “The Veggie Club”, just post your comments below. Or any other ideas you might have. Or you can share with us what you’re making this week.

All best, Shelley (Head Tomato)

Membership site now closed to new members …

Over the past nine weeks 1,660 people just like you have contacted me looking for information on how to get more vegetables into their diets.

It’s amazing that 64 people signed up for this mailing list yesterday. At that rate, there will be 23,360 additional people in our veggie community in a year. There’s no place like this on the internet … a club just for people like us.

If you’ve been on my list for a while, you know that I’ve been selling an ebook called “Veggies Made Simple” and that we have a private membership site (PMS?) club where there are illustrated recipes and other goodies.

Well, about two weeks ago…

I closed the door to the membership site…

and I took down the sales page for the ebook.

You see, I’ve been listening to my subscribers. You’re saying “we wanna be part of this eating more healthy thing, but it has to be easy. Please make the recipes step-by-step and foolproof. Please make the articles and info and teleclasses useful so that we can easily integrate new ideas into our already busy lives.”

And a whole bunch of you said: “Shelley, please make it affordable.”

So I closed the door to new members.

And I’m changing a few things. First, the private membership site (PMS) is getting a new name … now it’ll be called “The Veggie Club.” Check out the new logo:

The new site will be launched April 1st (no fooling), and in the meantime I’m keeping you entertained…

1. Have you checked out the audio of our recent teleclass on Meal Planning and Motivation? It’s posted on the blog.

2. Coming up, I’m working on a video tour of the One Roast Vegetable test kitchen. You’ll get to meet me (well, nearly) and see where your recipe suggestions get turned into meals, where recipes get made and photographed, and if you’re lucky you’ll meet André (or at least hear him speaking French in the background).

3. I’m writing a lengthy case study on recipe development — I’ll be taking a recipe from start to finish so you can follow along and see the process that every recipe goes through before it’s shared with the membership site. I’m going to show you the original recipe that I found in a magazine, and then I will go through the steps to the final product (and all the adventures along the way).

4. I get lots of questions about what actually happens inside the membership site, The Veggie Club. So I’m going to produce an animated tour of The Veggie Club website for you, where you can look over my shoulder while I navigate around and show you the highlights, the hidden corners, and my favourite bits.

Anything else you’d like to see? Just post your comments below. I’d love to hear your ideas.

All best, Shelley (Head Tomato)
OneRoastVegetable.com
“Eat more vegetables”

Meal Planning & Motivation Audio

Earlier this week, I held a free teleclass all about Meal Planning and Motivation. Getting dinner on the table every night can be challenging. Maybe you’re cooking for one and you don’t want tons of leftovers. Or you live in a remote area where fresh produce is hard to find. Or you’re trying to eat better, and all the meal plans you see involve ground beef three times a week. I’m so passionate about this subject, I just love giving calls like this one. We talked about the main reasons why we don’t cook (or plan) meals often enough… and I talked about the eight easy steps to plan your week so you can eat at home, save money, be healthy, and impress yourself!

Usually our audio calls are not shared with everyone, and I only make the recording available to people who registered for the class… but this subject is so important that I want to make sure that you can benefit from this info, and I want to invite you to “listen in” on our conversation … it’ll be just like you were there! So, if you missed this call, you can LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE. It’s an MP3 file, 60 minutes long give or take, and the HANDOUTS FOR THE CALL ARE HERE.

Be sure to post a comment afterwards and let us know what you think

All best, Shelley (Head Tomato)
One Roast Vegetable
“Eat more vegetables”