Super Simple Underrated Recipes
Either during the start of a new school year, January restart or whenever. Check out these super simple awesome recipes to make for dinner tonight.
The Easiest I Can Think of
What’s the difference between Kraft Dinner and my version of KD? Metabolically it’s night and day.
You take a box of KD. Throw away about 1/3 of the pasta. Make the KD. Add a can of tuna and a diced red pepper. You wanna get fancy go ahead and sauté that pepper while the pasta is boiling.
The macros shift from something like this:
Kb KD:
Calories 730
Protein 40 g (yay!)
Carbs 75 g (Still a bit high but we are eating pasta afterall)
Fat 30 g
AND some added micronutrition (vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants) and a bit of fibre from the red pepper.
Made by the Recipe:
Calories 790
Protein 10 g (boo)
Carbs 120 g (OMG)
Fat 30 g (a bit high for some but not terrible)
With no added time, the meal is transformed from a complete trainwreck to something much better than my kids get fed at school or camp programs. Something I would eat sometimes. A goal-oriented, decently healthy choice.
By the way, the cheap tuna has very low mercury. It’s the expensive tuna and raw sushi tuna that you have to limit to a few times a month regarding mercury.
As for the processed pasta and cheese powder. Hey I’m not saying this is perfect. We are talking survival here. My KD is better than ordering a pizza, way better than McDonalds, better than a can of stew, better than lunch meat sandwich, better than cereal and milk. And it’s delicious.
The image was generated with Google Gemini but it’s a decent representation of what the real thing looks like.
From Frozen to Fancy
Here’s a shrimp stir fry where you don’t have to “cook” anything. Just warm it up in a pan.
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp coconut oil.
3 cups of frozen shrimp (pre cooked, tails removed)
2-3 cups of “Asian Style” frozen stir fry. It’s the blend of peppers, water chestnuts, mini corn, beans etc.
1/3 cup of ginger (you can buy this in a jar, pre chopped
30 mL garlic (again from the jar)
Rice to your goals. So teens get 1-2 cups cooked, sedentary folks get 1/2 cup cooked. I use a rice cooker for this but you can get all kinds of instant rice. Not much difference in nutrition.
Coconut flakes unsweetened
hot sauce optional
Instructions:
Heat a large fry pan to medium
Add a tbsp of coconut oil, garlic, and ginger
Simmer this for a few minutes stirring frequently. If the garlic is browning your pan might be too hot
Add shrimp and stir
Add the veg and keep stirring!
Remember you’re only heating this up. No need to obliterate the shrimp
When everything is almost hot, add 1/2 cup grated coconut (we add it last b/c it will burn if added too soon)
Keep stirring until everything is heated up to your liking
To prove how easy this is, here is a time I made it over a fire in 2012 with a cast iron pot.
Even Easier!
A can of Stagg Chili and a can of peas. Or use frozen peas
1 cup 2% cottage cheese or plain 2% Greek yogurt, 1 cup frozen blueberries, 1/4 cup almonds
Half a rotisserie chicken with any vegetable you want 1-2 cups. Or make this into a sandwich with veg on the side. A sandwich once in a while isn’t going to kill anyone.
Smoothies of course. 1 scoop protein powder (ideally plain whey isolate). Handful of baby spinach which you can get frozen now. 1 cup of fruit. Most like bananas or berries. 1-2 Tbsp nut butter. 1 tsp psyllium husk (important). 1 cup ice cold water.
Cliff Builder Bars. An emergency snack. Once in while. Keep in car.
Muscle milk and other liquid protein drinks. That plus a piece of fruit and some nuts. Decent nutrition.
Easy Stuff I Avoid, and Why
Lunch meat. It’s high fat and keeps coming up as a cancer risk
Nuts. Ya they are great in small doses and I have nut butter most days, but nuts are mostly fat. No satiety. They trigger over eating
Ordering in. We do it sometimes but man it stings how costly it is. Better to order in groceries if you can’t get outside
Premixed liquid egg/omelette things. Gross
Microwaving things in plastic. Probably toxic.
Vega One and other powdered meal replacements, only b/c they are gross. They are probably ok nutrition wise
Boost and Ensure. Not enough protein and the fats are usually unappetizing
Modifications:
Can be made with various ground meats
Can be made with firm Tofu instead of meat. You might want to add some smoke spice to it.
You can add peppers to it and that goes well
Put it on a hot dog if you are not worried about cancer or your nutrition. A few chili dogs in a lifetime aren’t going to kill anyone. I’m going to the $1 hot dog Blue Jays game tonight lol
Sprinkle on some cheddar cheese if you are not concerned about calories
Thanks for reading The Antidote.
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Stay strong, stay curious, and don’t buy into the toxic noise.
— Kb