Smart snacking, more mezza salads & a pasta made for a Pope!
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[Music] I’m going to just speak a little bit about smart snacking. So, snacking can be very difficult. First of all, we all really do need snacks during the day. Everybody’s meals look very differently. So, sometimes people like to have what they call six small meals, which are essentially six larger snacks, all being very cognizant of the foods that they’re choosing for these snack or for these small meals. Or do three meals and then two snacks, sometimes three snacks. really easy to go into a store and grab some chips or grab something that’s highly processed and just not that good for us. But putting that time investment ahead, putting things in the refrigerator that are already cut, cutting them up earlier in the week, just having it available so that it’s easier for you to prepare and have for a snack is super helpful. It’s going to be very important in helping us make better choices. I have this little glass container and on Mondays we cut up peppers, we cut up cucumbers, we cut up carrots, and they go in there. But doing this with vegetables, just making sure we always have this, whether it’s for my kids dinner, just having some cut up vegetables or for their snacks or for myself for snacks, having a good dip in there that’s healthy. I love pairing a fruit or a vegetable with protein or a healthy fat. So, I love doing with hummus, with Greek yogurt. You can make your own homemade dressings as a dip. These are all really good snacks to have, making sure we have them available. It’s super easy to go grab a bag of chips, a chocolate bar, but in the end, that’s not going to be the smart choice. and making sure that we have these things available in the refrigerator. That is going to be the smart choice. I’m telling you, you will feel so much better and it will also just help your metabolism, help your eating for meals and we’ll just feel so much better about ourselves. I am making a Moroccan carrot salad. I love having what they call mezza salad. So, meza is small plates and it’s a very like Mediterranean thing. If you’ll go to a Mediterranean restaurant, you’ll sometimes see it. They’ll give you like little bowls of these small salads. So, I love to have those in my fridge, and I learned this from my in-laws, they always have a tomato salad, a kabi salad, a cucumber salad, a carrot salad in their fridge, and it’s something they always know they’ll have for any meal that they need. So, what you want to do with your carrots, you can either shred your carrots. I don’t like to buy the pre-shredded carrots. I find they get really mushy. The dressing of this definitely like moistens it up a bit. But, you want to cut your carrots really thin. You can shred them as well, but it’s obviously a little bit more timeconuming, but I just decided to cut them very thin with a knife. The reason you want them thin is because you do want them to get a little bit softer from this dressing, which I’ll show you at the end. So, I cut my carrots very thin. You’re going to take about four carrots to either shred them or cut them very thin. So, I have my carrots in here. The next thing we’re going to do is you want to take a good high quality olive oil just because you are not cooking this and you’re going to have the flavor. So, I love the Graza olive oil, but you can use any. And you’re going to do about a tablespoon or so of olive oil. And afterwards, you’re going to want to mix this with your hands or preferably with a glove. There’s a lot of carotene in carrots, which why they have the orange color, and they can really stain your hands for a bit. Also, people who eat a lot of carrots can end up finding that their like fingertips will get orange because of that as well. It’s not bad for you, but it’s usually an unpleasant thing. So, you should just try to cut back on carrots, sweet potatoes, things like that. Eat some green vegetables and orange ones. I have olive oil, my carrots. Then you’re going to take the juice of a lemon. I squeezed out a lemon. I always like to use fresh lemon juice, but if you want to use the container one, you can. This is going to also just help give a really nice flavor and also nicely soften up the carrots. We don’t want them to be cooked, but we want them to kind of soften up a bit. So, we put juice of one lemon. I’m going to do my salt and pepper last. Then, we’re going to use some cumin. Not everybody loves it. I happen to love it. I don’t love it in everything. I happen to love it on vegetables and I love it in the salads. very big spice used in Morocco, so you’re going to find it in a lot of Moroccan dishes. If you don’t love it, you really can leave it out, but I think it’s such a delicious spice that there’s a lot of antioxidants and it’s really delicious. Calls for a teaspoon, but you can use as little or as much as you want. So, we’ve had that in. Now, we’re going to add some paprika. And this is just going to darken up the carrots a bit. So, again, another like a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a half of paprika. And again, I’m going to put all this together at the end. Now I’m going to use my salt and pepper. So there’s some salt and some pepper. And then I’m going to take my glove and you’re going to give this a good mix. And preferably, you don’t want to eat this right away. You want to let this chill in the refrigerator. Carrots, there’s a lot of fiber in them. And so you want to let them kind of soak in some of like that sauce, some of the flavor. You can add some more spices if you want. You’ll see like this all these spices are on my hand. Yeah, it’s time to chill it. And before you serve it, you’re going to add some parsley, which I’m not going to do right now, but you’ll see. So, I like to put my little salads in these little bowls. And I like to put them on my table when I have guests. Put them in these little bowls. So, I do like some of these more messa these small plates, these small types of salads. And they’re really just super easy. They’re delicious. They’re healthy and very good for this spring summer weather that we’re having. Really good way to eat the rainbow, too. If you have multiple salads, you can mix and match and eat what you’re into that day. [Music] This recipe was named after a pope. So, I’m doing this recipe, but instead of putting ham and things like that the traditional way, I’m doing more of a veggie. So, I’m going to start off with some shellots. So, I have started to brown right now. I put this with a little bit of olive oil, a tiny bit of butter. I have two types of mushroom. Also, I have some asparagus here that I’m going to add to the pot. I just want to show you exactly how to cut the asparagus. And we’re going to hand our asparagus. And we’re just going to snap it. And where it snaps, we’re going to put that in our bowl. And then we’re just going to cut them in like diagonal pieces. So, we’re just going to do that again. Done. Put in the compost heat. And then we can add the asparagus to this. Also does pull the hand. So, I’m actually making it a lot different than what the original recipe is, but we’re making it a healthier version. We’re going to put some peas. You can use fresh peas. I’m actually going to be using frozen right now because it cooks quicker. Now, at this point, we’re going to add some fresh garlic. Now, let that sauté for a few minutes. After this is done, we’re actually boiling water for our pasta right now. Salt and pepper. I’m boiling some vegetable stock in mine. A little bit of veggie stock. So, you can add and also you have to save some pasta water. I save some pasta water cuz this will water it down. Originally, I use cream. I decided the second one I’m not going to use cream. I’m just going to leave it the right way into the pasta water because actually I thought it was just delicious. The pasta water is so interesting because it like it has starch in it. So, it like it makes it like saucy in a different kind of way. Makes it like a little thicker, you know, and you put like a little bit of palm cheese in there. I’m going to let that cook for 10 minutes. And while I’m doing that, I’m doing the salad dressing of the week. I’m going to make a red wine basil vineette. So, I have my ingredients here. I’m actually going to double I’ll be guesstimating. So, I’m going to put the olive oil in. I’ve got a nice olive oil. We’re going to use a shellot. Let me just cut up the like cut the shellot in half so it doesn’t give me a hard time. And then you can just throw the halves in there. Talking about fresh ingredients. There’s so much sugar in some of these salad dressings that we’re buying in shop that we really have to keep that in mind. And this is also very good for a marinade. Definitely a good one to have. We’re going to put a fresh basil. If you smell this fresh basil, it is Oh my god, so good. That’s such a good smell. Yep. And then I’m going to use two tablespoons of red wine vinegar. If you don’t want to use the red wine vinegar, you can use apple cider vinegar. I’m just going to guess one, two. Oh, I actually doubled my recipes. It’s good to have a good salad dressing in the fridge makes. And it does last for two or three days. And a spoonful of honey. I’m going to put it in a bowl so everyone can see. Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s so springy. So green. I know, right? Spring is coming. Want to be springy. I’m going back and forth, but I want it just to cook off a little bit. You see all these nicely browning beautiful. Oh, that’s gorgeous. I’m just going to add a little pasta water now. And you just eyeball that. I’ve done it earlier so I roughly know like what it is. But it depends how much pasta you have. Honestly, if you’re using a half a packet, just a touch because you want it to stretch over the pasta. At this point, I can absolutely put it in the fridge. But this has so much flavor because I use stock to do the pasta in. So it really gives it a nice flavor. There’s salt, pepper, you have shellots in there, you have fresh garlic. So there’s more than enough. So if you wanted to add it a fetuccini, it’s like a fetuccini pasta. This you can add cream. We’re only using a very little bit of cream. However, I’m going to leave it like this. I don’t need the cream in it. I’m just going to leave it as it is and put it over the pasta. And then at the end of it, I’m going to show you my after. This is my after pasta with the asparagus, the peas, grated Parmesan cheese with fresh basil. So pretty. And also we’re going to put a little bit of palm cheese on it. I wanted to do this so it didn’t melt at the time. And then also a little bit of lemon zest. So just a little zest. No lemon juice, just the zest. And then to top it off, I made a rainbow salad. It’s a mandarin and spinach. And the water of the week is fresh basil, lemon, and cucumber. You know, I’m a big fan of cucumber.