Ginger Without Borders

It’s easier than you would think to cook something healthy.

I know – this sounds like a shameless plug for someone who has just lost a lot of weight. And you are right, it kind of is. But one of the most common things I hear from people about my weight loss is ‘how did you do it?’ and while, yes, I did (and do) run disturbing amounts, the most important part of my weight loss was definitely my eating habits.

As I said in my last blog post, I did not change my eating habits for the purposes of a ‘diet’. I was studying for a very difficult test, and decided to eat the healthiest foods I could imagine in order to boost my brain activity.

Here is the thing; I am one of the laziest cooks you have probably ever met. If a recipe is going to take me more than 30 minutes, it is highly likely that I will just make something else. I also have absolutely no idea how to cook chicken – no matter what I do, it always comes out tasting like jerky. I did, however, learn how to make a mean steak.

The key: use an iron pan (not non-stick, you want the steak to stick a bit for the next part), put some olive oil in it, turn the stove on to medium heat, throw in your steak and cover the pan with either a splash guard (because the olive oil will sputter and splash and burn the shit out of your hands/arms) or a lid. Leave it in the pan for 4 minutes, flip the steak, and wait another 4 minutes. Now, I’m weird and love a more well-done steak, so I’ll leave it in for a bit longer, so its about 8minutes on each side in total. But more sane people will probably prefer a more rare version of this meal. If you want it to cook faster, cut the

Also – if it is a good enough steak, you wont need seasoning because it should taste good all on its own. But if you really want to, mix in some ‘Greek Seasoning’ while you put the steak into the pan.

After you’ve taken the steak out, throw a box of spinach into the pan (normally about 1lb) with the leftover stuck-on steak. Mix in some salt and pepper (throw in some garlic too if you are feeling feisty, maybe even a sliced up shallot), and a bit more olive oil to keep the bottom of the pan wet, then cover and heat on medium for 30seconds. Stir, and leave on for 30 more seconds.

And you are done. A meal in under 30 minutes, with no sweat (though maybe a burn or two if the olive oil got you like it always gets me).

Here is one caveat – like I said, I am lazy. I will not eat the entire steak in one night, because then I will have to cook again tomorrow. Instead, I’ll cut the steak into multiple meals (normally 3 or 4, depending on the size), and in less than 30 minutes I have done meal prep for every dinner that week!

Easy right?

Here is another trick I’ve learned, though this is mainly from laziness rather than my attempt to eat health. Do you have a giant pot? Do you have some teriyaki sauce, steak sauce, or even general salad dressing? Do you have 1lb of stew beef? Maybe a few veggies (maybe some potatoes, I really like carrots and broccoli)? If yes – pour out the sauce into the pan, put the beef in next, throw in the veggies cut into boil-able pieces (about 1/2inch slices for the potatoes and carrots), keep the broccoli on top (it’ll be steamed this way), cover the pot and leave it on medium for 15minutes, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Once you can pierce the carrots and broccoli with a fork, its done. And again – a weeks’ worth of meal prep in hardly any time.

If you want, you can cook some rice too as a base for under the stew. I find Jasmine Rice tastes the best. But I’ve honestly still not mastered the art of cooking rice so I always skip this step…

Laziness pays off sometimes.