Basic Rules That Define Our Meals

So a little background into our cooking style, preferences and standard practices before we delve into our first dinner post. For starters, I am a vegetarian. That tends to pose some problems for your less adventurous or creative cooks as many have no idea what to cook for a vegetarian. For years it felt like my only meal options at restaurants were sides. As fun as it is to have a meal composed entirely of sides, unless it is a tapas restaurant the food tends to be pretty basic and unexciting. On the other side of things, my cooking sidekick and chef extraordinaire (not professionally) boyfriend eats fish and poultry, but no red meat. Self-imposed dietary restrictions aside, we also like to infuse flavor through flavorful and fresh ingredients instead of fat, which few if any restaurants (and likely people) do. 

Here are a few of our tricks we use on a nightly basis to creating healthy but amazingly flavorful and tasty meals:

1. Anytime a recipe calls for cream or sour cream, we substitute in plain strained fat-free Greek yogurt. It is an amazing ingredient that seems to make its way into almost all of our meals by adding creaminess and thickness without adding lots of fat. Our go to: Fage 0% Greek Yogurt

2. Anytime a recipe calls for butter, we substitute extra virgin olive oil. It's full of healthy fats that are far and away better for you than any amount of butter. 

3. If a recipe calls for salt, we substitute Herbamare. It is a sea salt based spice that also contains herbs and is way less salty than salt, but adds a great flavor when a bit of saltiness is necessary. 

4. The base to a great many of our dishes consists of onions, garlic and ginger root. It's hard to go wrong with that kind of base and the flavors work with just about ever flavor profile we're going for. 

5. Always go with the freshest option available. When we get cheese, we always buy it from the deli. Fresh mozzarella is so much better than pre-shredded packaged mozzarella. Takes a bit longer to prepare, but believe me it is worth it. The same goes with herbs. We buy fresh cilantro, basil and chives every few days. 

6. As a general rule of thumb, we love to use herbs and spices in every dish. Always going for a super flavorful meal is standard for us. If you don't believe me, check out the "spice rack." Two full cupboards filled to the brim with spices. We've also got a small drawer or extra spices that wouldn't fit.