BARBECUE SEASON: Salads

Spring is here!  And with Spring, comes nice weather.  With nice weather, comes spending more time outside.  And with spending more time outside, comes that unmistakable scent in the air that you can smell coming from backyards and balconies of apartment buildings.  The scent of barbecue season!

Ingredients for Chef Nairby's Cheesy Vegetable Medley

That smell, of course, comes from the meats being fired on the grill.  Hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, steaks, chicken, pork, ribs and so on.  But one mainstay of the typical barbecue that is often overlooked when we think of that time of the year are the salads.

When I was growing up, every barbecue had three 'default' salads: coleslaw, macaroni salad and potato salad.  Almost always bought from a grocery store.  But sometimes you would have someone who would also make a great big batch of something homemade.  Usually a tuna and macaroni salad.

Cheese Sauce!

While I liked and grabbed a portion of the grocery store default salads, I would always favor the homemade batch.  Homemade salads for the barbecue have always had their own unique flavor to them, and because there was always a lot more available compared to the store-bought salads, I would always eat more of the homemade stuff.  But as good as the homemade salad tasted, it never seemed to measure up in flavor when compared to the salads from the grocery store.  And the reason is simple.

For lack of a better term, people half-assed their homemade salad.  In the case of the barbecues I always went to, the homemade salad was always tuna macaroni.  And it was always the same.  A bunch of eggshell macaroni mixed with tuna, mayonnaise and onions.

Love the colors!

I can't help but think that the reason people did the minimum with their homemade salads was because they figured that they were more of a garnish for the protein than anything else.  Like the parsley on a plate that is only added to give a dish some color.

Cheese sauce added.  One more step to go before oven-ing!

Top with more cheese!  Who doesn't love cheese!

Out of the oven!!!

I say screw that!  If you are going to make a homemade salad to bring to a barbecue, why not give the protein some competition?  When you think about it, the flavor of the protein at a barbecue depends on what it is marinated with, and because of that, a lot of the proteins taste the same every time and every year.  If you really want to make a memory, try having everybody at the barbecue wondering who made the salad, wanting the recipe and excited for the next Spring and Summer get together because maybe your memorable homemade salad will be there!  And making a great and memorable salad for a barbecue is not hard to do.  You just need to think outside the eggshell macaroni, tuna, onions and mayonnaise box.

Chef Nairby's Cheesy Vegetable Medley!

CHEF NAIRBY’S CHEESY VEGETABLE MEDLEY

This vegetable medley is packed with flavor, creamy cheese and awesomeness!

INGREDIENTS

-4 Avocados, separated (3 for the cheese sauce, 1 chopped for the medley.  (Soft, but not too soft.  We’re going to mash the ones for the cheese sauce up nicely!)

-1 TBSP butter

-300g Goat cheese, separated (3/4 for cheese sauce, the rest for topping and baking)

-1 cup milk

-2 TBSP plain yogurt

-4 Zucchini, chopped into bite sized pieces

-2 cups sliced mushrooms

-1 pint (about 2 cups) grape/cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

-450g grated cheddar, separated (half for the cheese sauce, half for topping and baking)

-1 19oz (540ml) can of dark red kidney beans, drained

-1-2 TBSP fresh chopped dill

-Salt and ground black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Using an electric hand mixer or food processor, mash up the avocado until fluffy like mashed potatoes.

3. On low to medium heat, melt butter in a medium-to-large sized pot or sauce pan.  Add milk when melted.  Stir until combined.

4. Raise heat to medium.  Add ¾ of the goat cheese.  Stir gently until combined and creamy.

5. Add half of the grated cheddar cheese.  Continue stirring until combined.

6. Add the mashed avocado, yogurt and chopped dill.  Continue stirring until combined.

7. In a large bowl, toss zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, chopped avocado, kidney beans, salt and pepper until nicely mixed.  Add the cheese sauce and stir gently until all nicely combined.  Empty into a deep baking pan that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

8. Top with other half of grated cheddar and remaining ¼ of goat cheese, broken up into chunks and scattered.

9. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes.  Remove from oven, empty into a large pot or bowl, mix and serve.  Can be served warm or cold!

Chef Nairby

GREATNESS BY ACCIDENT

Sometimes cooking something new doesn't go as planned.  Especially when you use your experiences from previous recipes and try coming up with your own creation.

A recipe that you followed and turned out excellent will inspire you to use similar methods to try making something different.  If it worked then, if should work now, right?  Not always.  And sometimes when things don't go as we thought it would, our natural reaction a lot of the time is to throw in the towel.

But just because your original idea didn't work, it doesn't mean that you were not on to something.

Sure, there are times when you substituted an ingredient for something similar and it turned out to be a disaster.  In the early stages of when I started taking my cooking a lot more seriously, I had made a homemade pasta sauce from a recipe I found and it turned out great.  It turned out so great that the following week I decided to make it again.  Unfortunately, none of the supermarkets near me had fresh basil, which the recipe called for.  So I turned to dried basil that you get in your typical spice aisle.  BIG mistake!  The sauce was ruined.

But there are also times when a dish is still salvageable.  You just need to change the game plan.

Previously made Pesto Pasta.  Perfection.

Last year, I had an idea to make a pesto dish using broccoli and cauliflower instead of pasta.  A pesto pasta recipe I made a few months prior turned out great and I figured replacing the pasta with broccoli and cauliflower would be simple enough.

I went back to the pasta recipe to remind myself of the ingredients I needed to make the pesto sauce and the basic instructions to make it.  The sauce called for cashews soaked for a few hours, some basil, garlic, lemon juice, grated Parmesan and extra virgin olive oil.

I bought the ingredients and started with soaking the cashews first.  I used more cashews than the pasta recipe called for, thinking I was going to make a large batch of pesto broccoli and cauliflower and therefore needed lots of sauce.

Once the cashews had soaked for a few hours to soften them up, It was time to put them in my food processor and periodically add everything else.  Unfortunately, the mixture was not creating any kind of smooth consistency.  It was becoming more like a ball of dough than anything else.  Adding a little extra olive oil wasn't helping.  I had made the mistake of using too many cashews, and if I wanted to get the mixture smooth, it would have meant adding a lot more olive oil which I didn't want to do.

When my attempt at a Pesto sauce for a Broccoli & Cauliflower dish didn't work, I came up
with Plan B: Operation Salvage.

I stopped the food processor and looked for a minute at what I had.  It looked more like a stuffing you would have with turkey than any kind of sauce.  I decided to give it a taste and it tasted excellent!

I decided that I needed to change my game plan as I had stumbled on to something.  I still had the broccoli and cauliflower, but I also had some grape tomatoes, half a brick of mozzarella and an extra red pepper leftover from the previous days' creation.

I roasted the red pepper, cut the grape tomatoes in half and grated the mozzarella.  I kept some grated mozzarella to the side and put everything else into a large bowl with the cauliflower, broccoli and cashew mixture.  Mixed it all up, put it in a baking tray, topped with the remaining mozzarella and some pepper.  Baked at about 400 degrees for 15 minutes and out came my Cheesy Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli with Pesto Stuffing!

Greatness by accident!

CHEESY BAKED CAULIFLOWER & BROCCOLI with PESTO STUFFING

INGREDIENTS

4 cups of raw natural cashews.

1/4 cup fresh chopped basil.

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped.

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice.

2 Tbsp grated parmesan.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil.

4 cups broccoli florets.

4 cups cauliflower florets.

1 pint grape/cherry tomatoes (about 20 of them), sliced in half.

1 red bell pepper, roasted and chopped.

4 cups grated mozzarella.  Put aside 1 cup for topping.

1 tsp ground black pepper.

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Soak cashews in water for about 3 hours.

2.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees after the cashews are done soaking.

3.  Mix cashews, basil, chopped garlic, lemon juice and parmesan in a food proccessor while slowly adding the olive oil during the mixing process.  Continue mixing until it has a stuffing texture throughout.  Process will take close to 10 minutes depending on how powerful your proccessor is.

4.  Put stuffing mixture in a large mixing bowl and add the broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, roasted red pepper, only THREE cups of the mozzarella and the ground pepper.  Mix and combine in the bowl.

5.  Put the entire mixture into a baking pan line with non-stick cooking spray.  Top with the remaining mozzarella.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Serve.

Chef Nairby

REBUILDING: LIFE OF LONELINESS

This blog post will not apply to most people, but if you are like me, I can identify.

For the most part, I have not been the most social person on Earth for most of my adult life.  I have always been very careful about who I let into my world of awesomeness due to trust issues, and because of that, I never learned the social skills that most people learn as they grow up.

"BeastWalk" on day 81.  The early stages can be the toughest.

As mentioned in a previous rebuilding post, my world was rocked in a negative way in December 2013 as one of the few people I allowed into my world and trusted for many years turned out to be not-so-cool.  As a result of what I called, "The Tuesday Incident", I went from only trusting this person to trusting no one at all.  The "Tuesday Incident" is also what ultimately planted the seeds for my rebuilding process.

Everything that I would do in the early stages, I did on my own.  Working out in my living room, going for "Beastwalks", I did it all alone.  Just me and whatever songs I felt like listening to on my iPod at the time.

As I started to see and feel results, my confidence grew.  I would no longer look down when walking passed a stranger on the street.  And as my confidence grew, so did my desire to form some kind of social circle.  The social circle building deal can be told in an entirely different set of posts but they would have nothing to do with cooking or rebuilding.  To make a long story short, after two years, I have no social circle.

Day 91.  I had the day off and my head had been in a bad place for a few days, so I got up and went on a
3+ hour BeastWalk to clear it.

After about a year-and-a-half of trying and being unsuccessful, I stopped trying to form a social circle.  There are a few reasons, but I will just stick with one.  While my lifestyle was changing and becoming more active, the people I was trying to build this social circle with were still the same.  I will be the first to admit that it is hard to get started and very easy to become discouraged.  So while I was trying to maintain an active lifestyle and include "friends", their lifestyle was, and still is more along the lines of, "I don't feel like doing anything."

I know that feeling all too well.  Unfortunately since I've become more active, I find it extremely hard to not do anything.  My days of sitting at home on days off, playing video games and watching moves for hours are long gone.  And due to my lack of social skills, it is not so easy for me to go out and meet new people, although I tried and the way I went about it was a HUGE mistake (AVOID DATING WEBSITES, GENTLEMEN!  THEY ARE A WASTE OF TIME AND LIFE!).  I joined online meet up sites like MeetUp.com.  Unfortunately, a lot of the "socializing" in those groups require paying money.  That, too, is another story.  Let me just say that I will no longer pay money to hangout with people.

Day 99.  The Ultimate Warrior had just passed away and I went down
to the site of Wrestlemania 6 which I attended in 1990 to do a tribute.

In the end, I had to come to terms with the fact that the rebuilding process can be a lonely journey.  You can find out who your true friends are and who they aren't.  It takes its toll on your head and can make you feel very depressed at times.  I have found that the best action to get rid of those feelings of depression are to use them as fuel to up the intensity of my workouts.  It works, but the feelings still come back.  Not as often as they did in the beginning, but they come back.  Rebuilding can not only be challenging on your body, but on your mind, too.

It is an emotional roller coaster.  In the beginning, there can be a lot of anger as you try to find people to join you and they either don't due to them not being up to it, or they will agree and then cancel on you at the last minute with excuse after excuse.  As a result, you get angry and eventually depressed, then angry again.  These are the times when you want to bust out the weights or put your shoes on and go for a walk.

Day 418.  Head doing a lot better.  Still get a bit down every now and
then, but Sally is more than enough for Chef Nairby!

My rebuilding came down to this:  In the beginning, the reason for getting in shape was to get the approval and admiration of others.  But as time went on, it became about being happy with myself and not caring so much about the opinions of others.  Once I got to that stage, life did not feel so lonely anymore, although I will still go through periods of depression and loneliness.  But it is nowhere near as bad as it was in the beginning.

You just need to remember that rebuilding and sticking to it puts you at a higher level than most people.  It is not that there is something wrong with YOU, it is that you are asking too much of THEM.  The things that you used to do are too boring to keep doing, but your friends are still stuck in that bubble.  Rebuilding is about fixing YOURSELF.  Fixing yourself means spending a lot of time alone.  It's just the way it is.

Chef Nairby

REBUILDING: BECOME ARROGANT

As I discussed in my last 'Rebuilding' post, most people get very easily discouraged when starting a new healthy lifestyle journey.  They go into that first workout with guns blazing, believing in their heads that they are physically stronger than they really are.  They spend only a fraction of the time working out on day one that they had intended to because their body was not prepared, they start feeling that burn right away and wake up the next morning feeling in more pain than they were in when they went to bed the previous night.  And that is just half of the lifestyle.  There is also the part about eating healthier.  And with being in that much pain, the last thing we want to do is scarf down a bowl of salad and some fruit.  Junk food, afterall, is called 'comfort food' for a reason.  because it knocks you out.

Physical pain after a workout can have the same effects as emotional pain.  A lot of us will just want to eat it away with junk.  We do that and then for most of us, there is no day two of working out.  No day three, four and so on.

It was taking shape rather nicely!

So how do we stay motivated to continue?

I was in crazy pain when I woke up on day two.  The ten minutes of extremely basic yoga the day before took its toll.  I didn't feel like doing it again, but I did.  This time, I lasted a little less than ten minutes, but I told myself that less than ten minutes is better than no minutes at all.  Within a week of doing ten minutes of yoga a day, I was quickly feeling less and less pain as my body was waking up.  The first stage of rebuilding is basically a lengthy warm up.  Much like we do before a workout, if your body had been inactive for so many years, as mine was, I needed to spend a few weeks warming up and getting my body prepared for what was to come down the line.

The early stages are when the weight comes off at a quick pace, I found.  I had a lot of fat to lose and it was coming off rapidly.  My clothes were getting looser to the point where I had to manually put new holes in my belt.  The new holes were a confidence booster as they were proof that what I was doing was working.  And it was just over one month into my rebuilding process when I started doing the inevitable.  I started taking selfies and posting them online.

Day 100 of rebuilding.  They poked fun at my selfie lifestyle but now I have archival content.  Bwahahah!

Shedding pounds meant buying new clothes.  New clothes meant more selfies.  I posted a new selfie three or four times a week to not only show people my progress, but to get that positive feedback that would encourage me to keep going, and honestly, to boost my ego!

The more selfies I posted, the more positive feedback I got, the harder I worked and the more inflated my ego became.  When I would go on "Beastwalks" to my local mall and wander around for an hour or so like retired people do, I kept my head up and didn't quickly look away when my eyes caught somebody else’s.  I started a new little game against people on the street where the first one to break eye contact loses, and I won every time.  I was the MAN!

Day 188

After 100 days of sticking to the new lifestyle, I started taking post-workout selfies and posting them online.  Wearing a sweaty t-shirt, looking in my bathroom mirror, and posted them online with whatever day it was of my rebuilding phase and an inspirational or motivational quote I found or came up with.  And I did this pretty much every day!

It didn't matter to me that there really was no noticeable difference in the pictures from one day to the next, I just did it anyway.  I felt that I had every right to.  There is nothing wrong with showing off your accomplishments, especially when it comes to getting in shape.  You not only prove your doubters wrong, but you show others that it is possible and in my case, simple.

You can’t be worried about what strangers might think if you check yourself out in every reflection you come across.  Who cares if it comes off as arrogant and egotistical?  It is also motivation and a reminder of how far you have come and how much further you can go.  So don’t be afraid to not only check yourself out as often as you can or want, but throw yourself a little wink and maybe even a thumbs up!

When I do my UFC cardio, I do five minute rounds with a one minute rest period in between each round.  During the rest periods, I take a drink of water, walk over to my full length mirror and admire the awesomeness!  Flex a little.  Sometimes give myself a thumbs up and a, “yeah, baby!”  I’ve earned it.  I have not only proven doubters wrong but myself as well.

When I do my weights workouts, I take a one minutes rest in between sets, walk over to that full length mirror and pose a little.  Maybe a bicep flex and some pectoral flexes, too!  I have every right to.  There is nothing wrong with it.  You hear people say all the time, “you should be proud!”  I am.  Don’t tell me that I should be proud of myself and then cop an attitude when I get a little full of myself.  I have every right to be and so do you.

January 18, 2016.  Day 747!

Don’t tell ME that YOU can’t do it!

Chef Nairby

THE MIGHTY TOMATO

Based on my own experiences, most people seem to dislike tomatoes.  They are fine with ketchup.  They have no problem with basic pasta sauce.  But for a lot of people, and I used to be the same way for many years, they will completely stay clear from tomatoes in general or only eat them if they're buried in a burger of submarine sandwich with sauces, lettuce, meats and bread.

"What About Bob?"-Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures

I was one of those people who would only eat tomatoes when they were buried with other ingredients in a burger or sub.  I would remove them from my salads.  I would not even touch tomato soup or tomato juice.  I had some smart-alick tomato fan every now and then ask me why I liked ketchup but not tomatoes.  Ketchup is just tomatoes, after all, right?  I would reply they the next time they want ketchup they should just toss a tomato in a blender.  That pretty much shut them up.

I was very anti-tomato.  They had this flat taste that just didn't seem right.  I even remember a time when I was a kid and I was given a grape tomato which I believed was a gumball.  I put it in my mouth, but down, it exploded with juices in my mouth and I immediately spit it all out.  I only knew of your basic tennis ball sized tomatoes back then, so little baby grape tomatoes were foreign to me.

You can't beat locally grown produce!  The colors and flavors!  Mwah!!

That was my opinion on tomatoes until the beginning of 2014.

On January 2nd, 2014, after a crazy incident happened in my life that sunk my world the prior December, I started on a journey to get in shape.  This obviously meant eating healthier.  Everything I needed for a better diet was at the supermarket across the street from me.  Eating better, of course, meant more veggies.  Salads.  And that meant sucking it up and giving the mighty tomato a fair shot.

I started by putting sliced grape tomatoes in my daily salads but making sure I covered them in dressing.  In no time at all, I became accustomed to the grape tomato with it tangy flavor.  So I bought more and more for my salads, and it didn't hurt that the market was selling pints of locally grown grape tomatoes for very cheap.

Perfect looking Cherry Tomatoes I found, Imported from Italy.
Sometimes it's worth buying imported!  Superb!

As I kept to my workout and diet routine, I quickly eliminated breads and other no-so-good food from my options.  I started getting more serious about improving my culinary skills and would eventually look up recipe ideas using healthy ingredients like the tomato, cauliflower, broccoli and more.

I started making my own pasta sauce using lots of tomatoes for the base, and I can honestly say that what you buy in a jar or can cannot compare to making a fresh homemade tomato sauce.  And contrary to popular opinion, the pre-made stuff is NOT cheaper than going fresh and making it yourself.  I got into that more, or WILL get into that more in my Blog about making your own pasta sauce (as of this word right *HERE*, that Blog and several more are already written and ready to go, it's just a matter of deciding when to post them and how frequently).

Tomato halves, topped with grated Mozzarella, Cheddar, Mushrooms and more, ready for the oven!
Better, cheaper and healthier than any pizza!

I will never speak badly of the glorious tomato again!  And I encourage any Tomater-haters to give them a shot.  They are worth it.  Heck, I even eat tomato soup and drink tomato juice now!

Give them a chance and stay tuned for more Tomato Tuesday's posted bi-weekly.  Buy local if you can.  The redder, the better.  They are inexpensive in the long run and can yield a large amount of MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

Baked Tomatoes with Cheese ready to eat.  The choice
of toppings is only limited to your imagination!

CHEESY BAKED TOMATOES

INGREDIENTS

4 tomatoes, sliced in half.

4 Tsp Extra virgin olive oil.

2 cups grated cheddar.

2 cups grated mozzarella.

½ cup chopped oregano.

½ cup chopped green onion.

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 Tbsp garlic powder.

Ground black pepper to taste.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.

2. Place tomatoes cut-side up on baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

3. Top each tomato with mozzarella, cheddar, onion and mushrooms.  Sprinkle with black pepper and garlic powder.  Drizzle with olive oil.

4. Bake until tomatoes are tender, about 10 minutes.  Serve.

Goat Cheese, chopped Dill and pepper!

Experiment with toppings.  Use goat cheese, fresh chopped dill, basil, green pepper…whatever you can think of!  Cheesy baked tomatoes are a tasty and healthy alternative to pizza!

Chef Nairby