meat & 3 veg

Confused about what's healthy to eat? Wondering whether you're meant to eat like a Cretan peasant or a Paleolithic hunter gatherer? Walkley award winning health writer Paula Goodyer dishes up her ideas on eating smarter.
Chew on This, Sydney Morning Herald
I have been critical of Chew on This over at Fairfax. In concept I like it, but too frequently the scope becomes murky and the blog becomes a place for radical vegans and animal activists to air their (not entirely informed) opinions.

For the second week in a row Paula Goodyer has kept on track with "The (healthy) fast food kitchen - saving time with the right tools." It seems a study in USA found 70% of participants' meals were cooked at home, but in doing so a large amount of "convenience" items were used - sauces, vegetable mixes, etc., although these convenience items made no significant difference on the time it took to prepare a meal than to prepare from scratch.

Instead of recommending the americans put their can opener in an easy to remember place, Goodyer advises that he secret to getting meals together quickly is by having the right (low tech) tools such as knives, grater, zester, stove-top steamer.

Gleaning the reader comments it appears that the most used tools are plastic containers and the freezer. Most of the comments were about getting organised, doing a big cook up, and freezing batches, which is in itself, better than passing the buck.

The thing that surprised me however, was that in this bbq touting society we live in, not one person mentioned grilled meat with salad / vegetables. Surely this would have to be one of the most straightforward, easy to prepare, easy to clean up, quick to cook, no fuss and still delicious dinners? I don't mean slowly stewed leather boots and 3 veg boiled for 1 hour while nana watches the news. Simple cuts of meat char grilled and served with or on vegetables or a salad.

Think, chicken scallopine dressed with lemon juice and served with butter tossed green beans, pork fillet marinated with soy, honey & ginger, char grilled and served on steamed baby bok choy (i even do this by wrapping the veg in foil and sending out to the bbq). Or what about a piece of wagyu sirloin (David Blackmore's, no less) char grilled without adornment, atop mashed potato with a mesclun mix tossed with marinated olives. Healthy? Quick? Easy? Delicious. Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick!

4 comments:

grocer said...

NB: for some reason, blogspot has decided to make all of my photos of this meal look distinctively grey. I can assure you, that hubby had cooked this to perfection and the photos in i photo look substantially different.

purple goddess said...

Here! Here!!

I am in complete agreement.

NOTHING beats a good home cooked meal of two or three ingredients.

Steak.

Salad.

Taties.

Ya cannae beat it.

Anonymous said...

Yes Grocer it always leaves me scratching my head when this most basic & fundamental of cooking processes is overlooked.
Salad & steak.
God, it ticks all the modern food pyramide boxes for crissakes, it should be numero uno?

Natalie said...

Why do they do this? The sheer number of people who blather on about how they cook up things in batches.

Why does nobody realise that a piece of meat and some vegies or salad is so damned quick and easy?