Lettuce Aforethought

In the past four years I've lost and regained 40 pounds, twice over, and I'm pretty certain that it's because I'm eating the wrong things once I reach my ideal weight. But the wrong things are easy and I am lazy. And so it's time for me to focus on eating right, instead of on losing weight.

So in December I sat down and thought: what do I need to lose weight and keep it off? How do I eat right  all the time and never be hungry? How do I deal with the fact that I'm not usually a big fan of vegetables? And what about how lazy I am? I certainly don't want to spend a lot of time preparing food when I get home from work, so how can I eat well and still do nothing but stare off into space when I get home?

Personally I decided to eat 1000 calories a day of "whatever" and an unlimited quantity of whole fruits, vegetables and beans which I can prepare in any way. So all foods are in, but meats, cheeses, nuts, processed foods, breads, cheesecakes, cookies, etc have to be counted against my calorie total. Apples, asparagus, black beans, etc. are free for consumption.

This leads me back to the basic problem that, after work, I don't want to be peeling vegetables, chopping and preparing foods. Any time over about 20 minutes is too much. Even 20 minutes is too much. And finally my fascination with cooking shows lead to a sage realization: if I prepped my food ahead of time, my only job each weekday would be to cook everything and toss it together.

This has worked for me for a month and I'm still excited with the quality of the meals that I've been cooking every day. The posts from here forward will detail the recipe modifications I've made to make this type of cooking work for me and the notes that I have made about how I'd like to modify the recipe in the future.

While I've scrounged and modified recipes from all over, many of the recipes you'll find are modifications of recipes from The America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook. I've really enjoyed the book and the section on stir-frys alone has given me weeks worth of meals (as you will see in the coming weeks.)

So, without further ado: here are the recipes I've followed, the mistakes I've made and the tips I've learned cooking in advance. Lettuce aforethought.