Cooking for Life

An odd title I know.  But to lose weight and stay on a healthy path I need to stop eating processed foods and eat food that is in its natural form, or in a form I cooked it into. 

Which means I need to start cooking again.  Which means I better start learning how to cook. 

I can bake, don't get me wrong, I'm a baker.  A damn good baker if I say so myself.  But being a baker and a cook are two different things.  I make the best darn brownies (yes from scratch) and cookies around, but if you ask me to cook something like a cheese souffle or spaghetti I run for the hills!

I'm getting better.  There are some cooking dishes I'm getting good at, like my Chicken Parmesan, or my Baked chicken with carrots and potatoes (thanks mom for teaching this one!) and I'm trying to make gumbo from scratch, but I suck at that one.  I must learn this Cajun cuisine or I fail as a Cajun! 

Side dishes are easy for me...Rice and a veggie...there done.  We like to use brown rice or basmati rice.  Both are good for you, and carbs are good, just in moderation.  Veggies are a carb too, so go easy on the side dishes.  Sure I guess you could cut out carbs if you want, but have fun dragging butt everywhere, because carbs give you energy, real energy.  Cutting carbs is not for me.

I am cooking pretty much everything I used to cook and baking even.  "OMG!  Not baking!  You will gain weight with sweets!"  Sure, I might, if I eat sweets the way I used to.  I could down a gallon of ice cream in two sittings.  I could eat an entire package of cookies or scarf an entire 13x9 pan of brownies.  But I don't eat like that anymore.  Moderation is key peeps, don't forget your favorite foods and give them up!  I eat one brownie now, maybe two.  But I have gained the most important thing of all, Self Control! 

Thus, I continue to cook and bake but now I just change the ingredients for now. 

Instead of regular sugar, I use organic sugar mixed with Stevia, a sweet substitute with 0 calories.  I don't use equal or splenda or anything like that.  I have a bad sensitivity to aspartame and artificial sweetners.  "Isn't Stevia an artificial sweetner?"  No it's not.  It's an herb that is very sweet.  You mix it half and half with your sugar and it cuts those calories right in half. 

Instead of Vegetable oil for cooking and baking, I use EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) or canola oil.  Now evoo is pretty expensive, but the other day we found a whole bottle for 1.99 on sale at Sunflower.  Craziness, so we jumped on that.  Canola oil is basically the cheapest healthy alternative you can use.

And then just simple things, we use healthier butters, brown sugars, I like organic foods so everything we bake/cook with is organic and free trade.

I'd like to setup an area for recipes I love, but I haven't figured it out yet, as it's very user unfriendly when I try to setup a place for my photos or recipes.

Take care until next time!