Don't Be Afraid to Experiment!
In the last few articles, we’ve been looking at ways you can put together a quick and healthy dinner for those days where time is short. Of course, if you like to experiment in the kitchen, you might be open to some more involved recipes that take a bit more time.
For those intrepid souls that don’t mind dedicating a bit more time preparing a meal, today’s recipes are tailor made for you! If the thought of spending more time in the kitchen gives you nightmares, I’d still encourage you to give one of these recipes a try.
Here’s why: until I was 35, I thought I hated cooking with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Then, during a four week sabbatical at work, I started to experiment with cooking different meals. What I discovered was I actually really enjoyed the creative process. The thing that I didn’t like was the thought I might spend a bunch of time preparing a meal that tasted horrible.
Truth be told, I’ve had to toss a few meals and order take out. Failure is part of learning and practice makes perfect. It will really help your success with 40FRESH if you learn to enjoy the process of cooking. For me, I’ve now had seven years of practice and I rarely need to refer to a recipe to pull off a meal. Even when I do, I’ll often improvise on the process or ingredients.
The meals below do require a bit more time and that is a precious resource for all of us. However, I’d encourage you to give them a try at some point. You will definitely feel a sense of accomplishment!
Today’s Checklist
If you’re following along with the 40FRESH Challenge, here’s your homework for today:
Read this post
Finish your weekend dinner menu
Finalize your dinner shopping list
Chicken Mole
Estimated Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Prior to taking my four week sabbatical from work, I would eat out almost every single meal. Making meals at home felt like an unbearable chore. Meal planning. Grocery shopping. Cooking. Dishes. Putting away the dishes. Ugh. To make matters worse, I had very little experience in the kitchen outside a few basic dishes.
With the long break from work, I wanted to learn a few new things and I added cooking to the list. It didn’t hurt that I had recently started dating a woman that I was eager to impress (we’re now happily married!). The meal that I chose to impress her with? Yup, chicken in mole sauce.
Preparing a mole sauce is quite a bit of effort and will likely require you to find a specialty store that sells Mexican goods. Even in Mexico, many places will use a premixed mole! My wife and I discovered this when we went to a cooking class recently in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. The food we made was amazing. Surprisingly, however (at least to us), the mole was shipped in from Oaxaca.
Should you be scared? Absolutely not! It is so much fun to make and once you have the ingredients, not at all difficult. To get started, check out this recipe from Food & Wine. You might be wondering how a recipe that involves chocolate can be 40FRESH friendly. After all, isn’t chocolate a Nope? Well, yes, mostly… You’ll want to find the Dandelion brand recommended in the recipe. The only ingredients: cocoa beans and organic sugar.
With this recipe, I’ll typically add a bit of chopped up Roma tomato and yellow onion as a garnish on top for an extra bit of fresh flavor. If you want some tortillas to go with this, try out the homemade tortilla recipe we talked about in day 27.
Beef Stew
Estimated Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Beef Stew Recipe
When it comes to beef stew, my whole family loves this recipe from Spend With Pennies. It’s one of the ultimate comfort foods and every bit of this recipe feels like a warm hug. The beef broth is the only ingredient that can land you into Nope foods territory. Most store bought brands have added preservatives and coloring.
If you don’t want to take the time to make your own broth from scratch, you can find brands like Thrive that make a Limited compatible broth. On the other hand, if you want to try making your own, give this recipe from The Forked Spoon a whirl. It takes quite a while to prepare, but the flavors of homemade broth are unparalleled.
Chicken Tikka Masala with Homemade Naan
Estimated Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
I love Indian food! Now you could argue that chicken tikka masala is actually a British invention, but I hope we can all agree that naan bread is firmly in the Indian food camp. This is another dish that I experimented with a lot during my sabbatical. It was surprisingly hard to find a decent recipe that could match the quality of the local Indian restaurants.
One of the secrets I’ve discovered is the type of garam masala really matters. It’s a spice blend that seems to vary widely in quality. For best results, try to procure the bulk of your spices from an Indian specialty store. With those in hand, we like this recipe from Cafe Delites. Not a lot to worry about in this recipe as it’s mostly fresh ingredients. For the tomato puree, I’d recommend a brand like Cento that doesn’t contain preservatives.
The chicken tikka masala itself can actually be prepared rather quickly (especially if you use chicken thighs instead of breasts), but no Indian dish is complete without a side of naan! Again, Cafe Delites shines with this incredible garlic naan recipe. For both the tikka masala and the naan, I use Nancy’s plain whole milk yogurt.
Time to Shop
At this point, we hope you have accumulated a decent set of dinner recipes to get you through the week. Crack open your food journal and finalize the rest of your dinner meal plans for the week, along with any ingredients you need. It’s time to go to the store and grab everything you need because tomorrow you start your dinner habit!
Up Next...
If you’ve been sticking with your habits, give yourself another X to your accountability calendar. Can you believe it’s already been 4 weeks? That’s the whole month of February in a non-leap year. Keep that chain going!
Tomorrow, we’re going to layer on your 40FRESH dinner habit alongside your breakfast, snacking, and drinking habits. There’s only one meal left before you’ve fully transitioned the 40FRESH lifestyle. Let us know in the comments how you’re doing and what recipes you’ll be trying next week.