Proverbs On Your Plate

This is officially the first guest blog for Eat, Drink, and Be Active! This post comes from Tim Brooks over at Mulligan Stew. Tim and I both grew up in Madison and he's got a long history with food. From being a chef in a restaurant to being a fishmonger in Seattle, he's had his hands (and knives) in food just about as long as I've known him. Today, he posts about getting variety on your plate, something that any dietician would approve!

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Proverbs On Your Plate

When sitting down to plan out what's going on your plate for dinner,
there's a lot to consider: Nutrition, flavor, how things look on your
plate. We've been inundated with information about the four food
groups, the food pyramid, and every fad diet craze out there, but the
greatest thing that works for me in selecting a healthy, interesting
dinner, comes from friends in Japan. Just as we're told to get five
servings of fruit and vegetables per day, Japanese mothers tell their
children that if they eat 21 different foods in one day, they will be
healthy and wise.

Examining that for a moment, it sounds like a good idea. Look at your
diet for a day. Discard things such as coffee, and the lettuce on your
burger, and you begin to realize just how monotonous our daily routine
of eating can be. Breakfast, for me, usually consists of a coffee and
a scone or pastry at work. What's that for lunch? A sandwich and a
soda? I have a long way to go before I make it to 21.

My cousin Peter has passed along a quote that says, "Eat breakfast
like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." I tried
it, and it doesn't necessarily work for me. I'm not a morning person.
When I get home from work, I need to play catch-up with my nutrition
in order to make this work. Fortunately, I have more time to relax in
the kitchen, and working at a grocery store affords me the opportunity
to come home with a cornucopia of fresh produce.

The produce is the key. In general, I try to have something green on
my plate. A well balanced meal, from what I've been taught in the
restaurant industry, has a Protein, a Starch, and a Green. Meat and
potatoes just doesn't cut it for health. This doesn't mean that you
have to cut it out of your diet altogether. It just means that we need
a little bit of sunshine on the plate.

In my pantry, I try to have the staples of onion, garlic, and
tomatoes, as well as enough fruit and vegetables to make a quick
salad. Everything branches out from there. If I'm only making a dinner
for two, I bring home a green leafy or green flowery vegetable. Along
with a good protein, and with a little planning, here's meal can be
made in one pan.

Step 1: Assemble the vegetables. In this case, I have pea pods,
broccoli, bok choy, carrots, onions, mushrooms, pepper,  garlic, and
ginger.  Mince the garlic and ginger, finely chop the harder
vegetables, and slice the softer ones.

Step 2: Assemble the protein. In this picture, I'm using shrimp. It
doesn't have to be jumbo, and it doesn't have to have the shell, but
for best results, get the raw stuff. Most places have peeled and
deveined shrimp, but for flavor, it's better to shell them yourself.
Don't worry. This'll give you a better appreciation of your food. Peel
it, and slice it down the back. Pull out the vein if it has one. Rinse
if you must.

Step 3: Everything in the pan. Start with your aromatics. Little bit
of oil in the pan, some garlic and ginger over medium heat, and let it
sweat until your kitchen starts to smell good, about five minutes.
Next, add the other vegetables in order of hardest to softest at
intervals of two minutes. Carrots and Broccoli take longer to cook
than the others, so put them in first. Onions and peppers come next,
followed by mushrooms, pea pods and bok choy. Add the shrimp last, and
let it cook for about three to four more minutes. When it's ready, the
shrimp should curl into a J-Shape. Curled into a C-shape, they're
still going to be tender, but turn off the heat before they curl into
an armadillo ball. They'll get really tough on you.

Season it up with a little pepper or red chile flakes, and add a
couple splashes of soy sauce or low sodium tamari. If you have a rice
cooker or even a spare pot, make a big batch of brown rice and keep a
couple meals' worth in the fridge for quick access to hearty
nutrition. Spoon it over rice, and you have a colorful, nutritious
meal with at least eight different foods to get you closer to your
goal of a complete, healthy day.

As in the game of blackjack, 21 is a winner. Make it there with your
food every day, and your body will thank you.

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For more exciting recipes and humorous anecdotes, swing by my blog at:
http://mulligansoup.wordpress.com. Just like this post, it's got a
little bit of this, and a little bit of that.