Fusilli N’ Cheeze

March 20, 2015March 20, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Part of my palate is still a small child and one of my favorite comfort foods is mac and cheese. I used to love eating that wonderful blue box delicacy, just like most kids in America. I can’t remember the last time that I had “regular” mac and cheese and given the recent recall on top of the fact that there isn’t any real cheese in there, I don’t think I will be indulging any time soon.

There are plenty of dairy free versions of mac and cheese out there, I actually have two of my own versions on the blog. I like those versions, but I was missing the smooth and creamy texture of the boxed variety. Many versions use cashews in the sauce and because I don’t have a fancy schmancy high powered blender, I usually end up with a slightly grainy texture. It tastes like mac and cheese but it doesn’t feel like mac and cheese. So I set out to make a “cheese” sauce that didn’t use cashews for those of us who have to suffer without a Vitamix or Blendtec.

While this does have a cheesy taste to me, don’t expect it to be an exact replica of Kraft or any other regular boxed version. It will have that nice and creamy texture though and that is enough for me!

Fusilli N’ Cheeze

1 package of brown rice fusilli (I get mine from Trader Joes. It’s awesome!)
1 cup non-dairy milk (I have used coconut and almond milk with great results)
1 1/4 cup water
3/4 cup nutritional yeast (this is your cheese flavor so if you want a cheesier taste, use up to 1 cup)
3 tbsp tapioca starch (you can also use corn starch)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp tahini (you can also use sunflower seed butter)
1 tsp miso (I used red but you can use white or whatever you have on hand. if you don’t have miso, use extra salt)
1 tsp brown mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp turmeric

1. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. While that is cooking, prepare the sauce.

2. Ready for this? Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until everything is combined. It will seem really watery but don’t worry, it’s going to thicken.

3. Put the pasta back into the pot you used to cook it in and pour the sauce over the noodles. Stir everything to coat the pasta and turn the heat on to medium high heat. Keep stirring and as the sauce heats up it will begin to thicken. Cook for about 5 to 10 minutes.

The other awesome thing about this? It takes less than 30 minutes to make. So when you have the urge for some good old comfort food you can whip it up just as fast as the box kind. This version though won’t have fake chemicals or pieces of metal in it.

Happy first day of Spring (even if it doesn’t feel like it) and have a great Friday!

Keep It Simple Series: Kitchen Tools

March 18, 2015March 18, 2015 / ktbuchs87

If you have never really cooked before it can feel overwhelming when you’re deciding what tools, utensils, and appliances to buy. There are so many things out there and they all seem necessary, especially to a new cook. In today’s video I highlight 3 of my most used kitchen tools that I think are essential when you’re starting out. Of course you will need more than three things in your kitchen, but these are a great place to start!

Remember, start slow when building up your kitchen and try to stay away from the dreaded unitasker. They will just take up space and usually are a waste of money.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

My Favorite Hummus

March 13, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Hummus has almost a cult like following. People can’t get enough of the stuff and will put it on any and everything. I am one of those people. I love the creamy texture and garlicky, smokey taste. I like dipping things into it, spreading it on anything, and adding it to any meal that I can. It’s pretty much amazing.

But there is one problem. I have had a really hard time recreating the texture at home. Store bought hummus is so smooth and creamy and that’s what makes it so addicting. I really like making my own though because it’s cheaper and I control the ingredients. It seemed every time that I made my own the taste would be just fine but I would end up with a dense and thick paste instead of smooth and creamy. Not so good.

After a lot of testing out a ton of recipes and techniques I think I finally found the best method to make the perfect hummus. It’s actually a combination of a few techniques out there to help make that perfect texture. This is a little labor intensive, but I promise it’s worth it. You can make a really big batch so it will last longer and you will always have hummus on hand. Now onto the hummus!

Perfectly Creamy Hummus

You will need at least 24 hours to soak the chickpeas. Don’t skip this step!!

1 cup dried chickpeas
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 whole cloves garlic
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 tsp cumin (freshly ground if possible)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water, reserved from cooking the chickpeas

1. 24 hours before you want hummus, place chickpeas into a large bowl and cover with water. Stir in the 1/2 tsp of baking soda. Cover and place the bowl into fridge.

2. After 24 hours, drain and rinse chickpeas and place into a large pot. Cover with at least 5 to 6 cups of water. Add in the 4 whole garlic cloves and bring the water to a boil. With a slotted spoon, skim off any foam/skins that floats to the top. Lower to a simmer, cover, and cook for 3 hours. The chickpeas should be super soft at this point.

3. Drain the chickpeas and garlic, reserving at least 1/2 cup of the water. Now at this point you can remove some of the skins off the chickpeas if you want. I have tried it both ways and haven’t noticed a huge difference. Place chickpeas and garlic into a food processor or blender. Add in the rest of the ingredients except the water. Pulse a few times to start to combine everything.

4. Turn the processor on and slowly add in water. This will turn the hummus into that wonderfully creamy texture. You might need less water, but I have found the full 1/2 cup makes the creamiest version.

Yes, it seems like a lot to make hummus when you can just go to the store and buy some and be on your merry way. But it is really hard to find hummus that doesn’t have weird ingredients or preservatives, and it can get expensive to support a serious hummus addiction with store bought. Take the time to make this and you will be rewarded with a delicious hummus that is half the cost and ready to be used in any way you want!

Have a great Friday and wonderful weekend!

How To Start Cooking

September 17, 2014 / ktbuchs87

I am a big supporter of making your own meals. There is no better way to know exactly what you put into your body than to make a meal yourself. The home cook is starting to make a slow comeback. Things like food network and celebrity chefs, have helped make it “cool” to get back in the kitchen. I’m all for this, no matter what your reasoning to cook might be. Some of you though still avoid the kitchen like the plague because you just can’t cook. No matter how many times you try, you just can’t get a meal together. You never learned how to cook or you just never had any interest. But I am here to tell you, if you have decided to eat healthier, you’re going to have to learn how to cook. The good news is that it really isn’t that difficult. I’m going to give you a few tips on how to feel confident in the kitchen and put together some simple, tasty, and healthy meals all on your own.

Start Simple

You don’t have to be able to make elaborate dishes. You don’t have to spend hours performing complicated cooking techniques to put a meal on the table. Start with very basic meals. Things like dried pasta, grains, salads, and baked chicken are all very easy to make and very healthy. Try spaghetti and tomato sauce. All you have to do is boil some water and cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. For the sauce, all you need is a can of tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, and some simple seasonings like oregano, basil, garlic, and salt and pepper. Heat that in a small saucepan until it bubbles and voila, you have a super easy meal that even a beginner cook can handle. The slow cooker is also the new cook’s best friend. It is easy to add the right ingredients and then let your slow cooker do the rest. It’s hard to mess up and you usually end up with a delicious meal. By choosing meals like this, you can start to build your recipe repertoire and start to feel more at ease in the kitchen. Once you get a handle on these simple meals you can start to expand to more complicated ones or start to play with different flavors and ingredients.

Watch Food Network

Watch any cooking show really. Many of the things I have learned how to cook, I have watched on cooking shows. One of my favorite shows is Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Each episode focuses on one ingredient or technique and then goes into simple ways on how to prepare that food. Alton really does a great job teaching the average Joe how to master some really simple dishes. If you don’t have cable, you can find a lot of cooking shows on YouTube or Netflix or Hulu. Find a show that you can watch and take some notes from the pros on how to cook some really delicious food.

Talk To Other Cooks

You don’t have to start going around to restaurants and bugging the chefs for their secret recipes, but start talking to other people who cook a lot. Start with people in your family who tend to be the ones preparing the meals, whether it’s your mom, grandma, uncle, or cousin. Ask them what they like to cook and how they do it. Watch them prepare a meal and ask to give them a hand. Not only will they most likely appreciate the help, you can learn a TON from watching others cook this way. Almost all of the basic cooking skills I have are from watching my mom make dinner for our family. She wasn’t a 5-star restaurant chef, just a mom who wanted to feed her family well. She stuck with simple ingredients and meals that she knew we would like and to this day her food gives me comfort. Being around other people who cook can help you with your own kitchen adventures, so start talking!

Don’t Be Afraid To Mess Up

If you have never really cooked before, chances are you’re going to have a few mishaps in the kitchen. That is totally fine and most home cooks will tell you they have had their fair share of whoops moments. But it’s good to have those mistakes because then you know next time what not to do. Sometimes, you’re just going to make a meal that is totally inedible. That’s ok! Don’t give up after one bad meal. Keep trying and soon you will be able to avoid most of those missteps. Although, every once and awhile you will do something silly like try to steam vegetables without any water and wonder why your pot of broccoli is smoking. I swear I have never done THAT before….

Read Recipes

I know that I am probably a little bit of a weirdo, but I read cookbooks like they are novels. Sometimes there are tips and tricks written in the description of the dish that most of us skim over. By reading the whole thing, you might learn how to better prepare the meal. Take the time to read everything that goes along with the recipe and get everything you can out of it.

Don’t be intimidated by the kitchen, no one is expecting you to be the next Iron Chef. Getting some basic techniques down like cooking grains & meat, or roasting vegetables can be enough to get you started cooking your own healthy meals. Many of the recipes that I post here on the blog are simple enough for a beginner to handle and offer a lot of wiggle room for learning. Give any one of them a try and start getting more confident with your cooking!

The Kitchen: Not so Scary

July 29, 2013 / ktbuchs87

I have talked a few times about cooking. Clearly, I love all aspects of food. I love the buying, prepping, cooking, eating, and nutrition that food gives me. I probably wouldn’t write this blog if I wasn’t passionate about food and all that it entails. I want to talk about the kitchen yet again and make a simple, yet important plea: Get back in your kitchens people!

This past week, I read about how Dr. Mark Hyman worked with a family that had major health issues due to obesity. In short, this family relied on packaged, processed meals or fast food for the majority of their diet. They admitted that they really didn’t know what to do in the kitchen and it was so much easier to just open a package than to cook their own food. I have heard a lot of excuses about why people do not cook their meals: too busy, don’t like to cook, too long, they’re bad at cooking, etc. I have even heard that people really don’t know what to do in the kitchen, so this article didn’t totally shock me. Then I really started thinking about it. As we rely more and more on packaged food or restaurants, there is an entire generation that is missing out on learning how to cook. Children know how to work the microwave like a pro, but can’t boil water and make pasta.

I don’t want to sit here and play the blame game on this issue. In all honesty, blame can probably be evenly distributed to all concerned parties. The parents, food companies and industry, eating establishments, pretty much all the usual suspects. I’m not going to waste my time here demonizing anyone, as plenty of other people have done that for me. What I really want to get across is the importance of bringing the slowly disappearing tradition of cooking back. As Dr. Hyman stated in his article, it could be one of the keys to getting healthier.

When you eat a meal out or pop a store-bought dinner in the microwave, you really don’t know all the ingredients that go into that food. That can be a very dangerous game to play. McDonald’s recently released an ingredient list for their french fries and it wasn’t pretty. It had 17 ingredients, with one of them being an anti-foaming agent. Last time I checked, french fries only need about three ingredients (potatoes, oil, and salt) and none of them were an anti-foaming agent. Yes, McDonald’s fries are like crack and taste good. They are also really easy to obtain, but they do absolutely NOTHING good for your health. It is really simple to make your own french fries right at home and they will be a whole heck of a lot better for you. Plus, you will get the satisfaction of creating something with your own hands that does not contain 17 hard to pronounce, dangerous ingredients. This can be applied to so many other meals as well. Some of the food that you are paying other people to make for you, can easily be made at home for less money, have better health benefits, and be much tastier dishes. Below is the ingredient list and nutrition facts for a Lean Cuisine BBQ Chicken Enchilada. Another simple dish that shouldn’t have more than 5 or six ingredients, has a huge ingredient list. Do you really want to be ingesting some of those ingredients or would you rather know exactly what is going into your food and you by making it yourself?

Ingredient list for Lean Cuisine BBQ Chicken Enchilada

More than just eating better and healthier food, cooking at home can be valuable time spent with your family. Kids get to spend quality time with their parents, learn new things, and create something the whole family can enjoy. Even if you don’t have kids, cooking with your spouse can be a great time to catch up on your day while preparing a delicious meal to be shared and cooking with friends is a fun way to share stories as well as recipes. Your kitchen can give you so much more than just good health, it can give you good memories and lift your spirits. It is fairly simple to learn how to make quick meals and there are so many benefits that can be gained. I’ve said it before, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel in the kitchen. You don’t have to be creating new and fancy meals every single night or slave over a hot stove preparing dishes with exotic ingredients. Find a few recipes (maybe one of mine, I post a new recipe each Wednesday!) that you can handle and really learn how to make those well. Once you have those few dishes down, you can branch out to others, or tweak the recipe with new flavors or ingredients. By just having 3 or 4 core recipes under your belt, you can improve your eating habits and your health.

The kitchen isn’t scary, it might seem intimidating, but it is just begging for you to come in and learn how to prepare delicious, healthy food. Don’t let an entire generation grow up without learning how to make at least one meal without the help of boxed food. Cooking is an important aspect of a healthy and happy life, and I hope that my blog helps that just a little. Most of my recipes take less than 20 minutes to make and are made of simple ingredients that are easy to find and use. I don’t want to intimidate you with my meals, I want to invite you to join me in the kitchen and cook up a healthier life!