Lifestyle

A couple of weeks ago during my cooking class, I talked briefly about using the convection setting on my oven. I had forgotten to pre-heat my oven for the class and I was able to pre-heat and then roast my vegetables in no time.

Someone in the class had mentioned that my oven must be fast and hot as she was still roasting.

Do you have convection? Do you use it? Do you avoid it because you don’t know what the heck to do with it?

That was me too. 

I had absolutely no clue about how to use this setting on my oven. The only time I thought about it was when I was about to cook something but had no time to figure it out.

Then one day I was watching one of my favourite cooks on Instagram, Pamela Salzman. She mentioned that if you’re going to use it, make sure to decrease the temperature of your oven by 25 degrees. 

This piqued my interest and I looked into it. I cooked a few things and after having tried it out several times, I’m now a convert!

First of All, What’s Convection?

The convection setting is found on an oven (it should be found on most newer models — I had one on my old Kitchen Aid).

The oven pulls in outside air, heats it, and then and circulates it around the food. The regular oven setting simply heats the oven without air circulation.

Both gas and electric ovens have this setting.

Convection ovens can have two or three heating elements. If you want the best ‘coverage’ for heat, look for one with three heating elements found at the top, bottom, and back of the oven.

You might notice you have two convection settings: one for baking and one for roasting. The baking setting lowers the fan speed, while the roasting setting has a higher fan speed to brown and crisp food like red meat and poultry.

What are the Benefits?

• Pre-heat and cook much faster than a regular oven setting.
• Improve browning and crisping of certain foods.
• Cook greater volumes of food than regular oven settings as a result of the oven air movement.
• Help to eliminate any ‘hot spots’ that might occur with regular heat producing a more even cooking heat.

Cooking Tips

You might still be wondering how to use this setting in real life! Here are some tips I’ve found helpful:

• Convection can be used in two ways: if a recipe says to pre-heat your oven to a certain temperature, pre-heat it to 25 degrees less than what a recipe indicates.
  
  OR you can cook it for about 5-10 minutes less than the recommended time. Make sure your oven doesn’t change it automatically for you when you press the convection setting.
  
  For example: If a recipe says to roast vegetables at 400°F, set your oven to 375°F. Alternatively, you can keep it at 400°F, but make sure to start checking the vegetables at least 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time.
  
  Convection cooks much faster, especially if you have a smaller oven, so be sure to keep an eye out! I typically cook at a lower temperature and check the food with 5 minutes until the end of the cooking time.
  
• Use a pan with low sides so the air can circulate over your food. Light-coloured aluminum pans work best to help prevent over-browning and burnt vegetables (make sure to use parchment paper, however, as you don’t want to cook directly on aluminum).
  
• Don’t cover your food when using the convection setting. The purpose is to have the air hit the food to cook it faster. The oven can’t do its job if the air isn’t reaching the food.

When to Use it

• The baking setting works best for pizza crusts, scones, and biscuits–foods that need quick heat. I also learned that if you make pies, use this setting when baking two pie crusts to help with more even baking.
  
• Convection is really good for cookies, rolls, and croissants because it helps to give the food a crispy outer layer while keeping the inside fluffy.
  
• Add water to a pan at the bottom of the oven if you’re making bread baked at high heat. The steam from the water helps to make a nice bread crust.
  
• Use it when toasting or dehydrating.
  
• Great for meats that don’t have to be cooked all the way through like beef. Convection helps to brown the meat on the outside for example, but maintain the meat’s moisture on the inside.
  
• I love using it for roasting root vegetables and one pan meals. It browns the food nicely!
  
• Tip! If you’re in the market for an air fryer, try the convection setting first as it uses the same technology!

When Not to Use it

• Try not to use convection for baking quick bread, wet muffins, cakes, and sweet yeast baking however if you bake with heartier grains like I do you might be ok.
  
  The air from this setting can dry out the tops of cakes or create a ripple effect on them from the blowing air.

I hope this gives you the confidence to cook with convection! Try it out the next time you roast potatoes or sweet potatoes. Here’s a quick recipe for you:

Recipe: Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Preheat the oven to 400°F using the convection setting (I typically roast at 425°F on a regular oven setting so 400°F is 25°F less than what I usually set the oven to).

• Chop 2-3 potatoes/sweet potatoes into 1-1.5 inch pieces (wedges are nice too).
• Cover with salt, oregano, pepper, and 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil. Mix well.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes (check them at 20 minutes).
• Top with another tablespoon of olive oil and a bit more salt when they’re done.

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If you’re like me, you’re avoiding the big grocery stores and relying on grocery delivery services or smaller stores that shop for you and offer swift pick up.

Sometimes that means you’re not getting everything you want which means being a bit more creative when it comes to putting a meal together.

For the past couple of weeks, I haven’t been meal planning; I’ve been ‘shopping’ my cupboards to make simple meals.

Personally, I love making meals this way. I love the idea of looking into the cupboard and creating something from what seems like nothing.

Not everyone gets excited about this however so I wanted to offer a couple of tips on how to shop your cupboards so you’re not stressing about what to eat every day.

Option one: Shop the Fridge.

Always check to see what’s in the fridge first.

The food in the fridge is perishable so you want to make sure you use it before you use the food in the cupboards. Don’t be afraid to use those little bits of veggies that are leftover.

Here’s an example of what I did the other night.

I assessed the fridge and found the following:

• Three small rainbow chard leaves
• Celery 
• A bunch of green onions

What I could have done with this:

• Fry up to eat with scrambled eggs.
• Sauté to eat with a can of lentils.
• Add leftover rice and an egg to make fried rice.
• Sauté, add ground beef, black beans, and brown rice (this is what I ended up making for dinner!)

I call the last one a skillet dinner. Anything can go into a skillet dinner really and you can change up the spices to make it taste different every time it’s made.

Skillet dinners are a great way to use up bits and bites of veggies in the fridge.

Another way to do this is in a salad.

For lunch yesterday I had a box of greens that desperately needed to be eaten. I used that as my base, added a few chopped green onions, chopped radishes, dill, some cheese cubes and half a can of wild salmon. 

I had broccoli pesto leftover from my pizza night so I thinned it out by adding more olive oil, apple cider vinegar and a bit of salt and voila I had a tasty salad dressing!

Option two: Shop your cupboards.

• Do you have a can of lentils?
• Do you have rice?

Make lentils and rice! Then you can go backward and use up some bits of food from the fridge to add to the dish. Again, it’s important to use up what you have.

If you have spinach or other hearty greens in the fridge or freezer add it to the lentils near the end of the cooking time.

This is also a great time to use up any canned or jarred items you’ve been storing in the back of the cupboard. I have some jarred smoked artichokes that I could also add to the lentils for an extra smoky flavour.

One more idea is to make beans on toast.

Sauté white beans with garlic, olive oil, and salt and then smash them onto a crusty piece of toast.

If you have salad greens eat this with a salad or you can eat it with whatever soup you have on hand. You could also fry up and egg and throw it on top.

I hope this gives you a few ideas on how to shop your cupboards.

Keep your meals simple to start and then once you get the hang of eating this way, you can start to experiment with different flavours.

P.S.: Follow me on Instagram to get weekly tips and tricks!

P.P.S.: Get other cooking tips here!

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Do you ever wonder what you could do to make meals a bit easier to handle during your busy weeks?

I’m here to tell you there is! You can meal prep a few foods on the weekend to ease up your time.

Recently I made red lentil dahl and with it, I made a batch of quinoa. One cup of dry quinoa results in about three cups of cooked quinoa.

We didn’t eat all of it, in fact, there was quite a bit leftover so I packed it in a container and stored it in the fridge.

The next morning I wanted to eggs for breakfast so I heated up the quinoa and threw a couple of fried eggs on top.

For lunch a couple of days later, I had the leftover red lentil dahl with more quinoa.

What’s my point? If you cook something like quinoa once, you can get a lot of mileage out of it during the week and you have to think less about what you want to eat.

This is great if you don’t really like to meal plan.

Just cook a bunch of food and eat it together in different forms during the week.

Here are five foods to meal prep on Sunday in larger batches to eat all week.

1. Oats and other grains

My daughter likes oatmeal so I’ll either make her a bigger batch of plain oatmeal (I try to hide cinnamon and chia in it!) or baked oatmeal that she can eat all week. 

Oatmeal will keep for longer than you think so make a big batch and if you don’t think you’ll eat it, freeze it.

Eat it with: 

• berries
• nuts
• seeds like hemp, sunflower, and pumpkin
• real maple syrup

In terms of other grains, it’s super easy to make a big batch and store it all week. Do this with quinoa as I mentioned, rice, buckwheat, and millet. 

Once it’s done, you just have to heat and serve.

2. Greens

When you get home from the grocery store, wash your greens and store them in a container with a paper towel or tea towel. Store herbs like cilantro and parsley in the fridge in mason jars filled with water and covered with plastic bags.

When greens are washed you’re more likely to eat them before they get brown and slimy and the paper towel helps them stay fresh for longer.

It’s easy to take handfuls of greens at a time to use as you need them.

Eat them with:

• smoothies
• salads
• on top of grains
• as a side dish to your meals
• eggs
• soups

3. Roasted veggies

Roast a bunch of veggies like sweet potatoes, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and butternut squash and eat them in different ways all week. Once they’re cooked, they’ll last for at least 4 days in the fridge and they’re easy to heat up.

Eat them with:

• eggs
• salads
• tacos
• fish
• chicken

4. Granola

Making your own granola isn’t as hard as you might think! The benefit is that it’s cheaper and you can control the ingredients and the sugar content. Make a big batch on the weekend to enjoy all week!

Eat it with:

• yogurt
• milk 
• fruit
• as a snack on the go

5. Cut veggies and prepped fruit

Prepping produce all at once is the best use of your time. Cut carrots and celery and store them in water. 

You don’t have to make pretty and even sticks! I just make sure they are washed, trim the ends and store them in water. Easy peasy.

Change out the water once a week and they’ll last a couple of weeks in the fridge!

In terms of fruit, wash strawberries and blueberries and store them in a lined container. I’ve been storing strawberries uncovered in the fridge and they last perfectly fine for the week.

Blueberries last the week if not longer when they’re washed and covered with a lid.

This has been a game-changer for me. We eat them more often and they never go bad anymore.

Eat them with:

• smoothies
• cereal/granola
• yogurt
• milk and nuts
• on their own
• with hummus and guac (the veggies!)
• stirfrys
• salads 
• stews

Meal prep these five things on the weekend it’ll make your life easier during the week I promise you! Try it and let me know how it works for you.

P.S.: Follow me on Instagram to get weekly tips and tricks!

P.P.S.: Get other kitchen tips here!

My kids used to take swimming lessons at a pool that was attached to a library. We made a point every week of checking out the library (mostly because I love going to the library… but you know it’s important for the kids too).

The cool thing about the library is that there are books of all kinds there. Yes I know it’s a library but many people don’t realize you can find books that aren’t novels. 

Like cookbooks!

One particularly rainy day, we decided to linger a bit longer in the library. The kids were off looking for their books and I found the cookbook section like I do every time I go to the library, and thought:

“Wouldn’t it be cool if I could meal plan right here?”

Many people I speak to on a regular basis find it difficult to find time to meal plan, but there are various ways to do it and it doesn’t always have to be at home it turns out.

One way to meal plan is by using one cookbook.

It can be done with a book you find at the library or one you have in that stack on your kitchen counter you never open or on your shelf collecting dust. 

Cookbooks are more than just pretty pictures!

Every once in a while, I like to plan my meals for the week using only one cookbook.

Here’s how to do it:

Choose a cookbook that has simple recipes. 

If you’re a busy family that needs to get a quick and nourishing meal on the table, don’t choose Mastering the Art of French Cooking, By Julia Child.

A book like this is not going to help you save time. Pick a book that looks simple with simple ingredients. 

I found one that day at the library called Dinner Tonight: Done!, by Real Simple Magazine. I also like Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express cookbook or my 20-Minute Meals Recipe Book.

Flip through the book to find recipes that you find interesting or that look delicious.

If you’re in the library with your kids (and they’re a bit older like mine… this might be tough if you still have young kids), it’s likely that you have a bit of time to really look at each recipe (wait doesn’t everyone like reading recipes like I do??).

If you’re at home, grab your coffee on Saturday morning, sit down (yes you’re allowed to sit down!) and pick some recipes while listing to some fun music.

I promise this helps the process.

Pick five or six recipes you would consider making. 

Take photos of the recipes you like so that you remember them (unless of course, you have a packet of post-its deep down in your purse, in which case you can tag each recipe page).

Then, whether it’s on a calendar, in the notes section of your phone, or on a sheet of paper, write down the days of the week and assign each recipe to a day of the week.

Be sure to add the page number so you can easily find the recipes when it’s time to cook.

Monday 
Minestrone soup, p.145

Tuesday
Fish tacos, p. 95

Wednesday
Chili, p.25

Thursday
Salmon, Brussels sprouts and salad, p. 34

Friday
Pesto pizza with salad, p. 56

The hard part is done! You now have recipes for dinner for next week! And you did this from a chair in the library! 

Nice.

Now onto the next part:

If you found your book from the library, don’t forget to bring it home!

You’re going to need those recipes unless, of course, you took photos of them but a book is nice to keep handy in the kitchen.

When you get home, go through each recipe one by one and then scour your fridge and cupboards for any ingredients you have on hand.

I cannot stress enough that It’s so important to use up what you have! 

Why?

It saves money and food waste!

Also, don’t be afraid to make substitutions if you don’t have a particular ingredient. The other night I made minestrone soup which called for kale, but I had swiss chard so I used that instead.

If you’re not sure what to use as a substitution, Google is your friend. Search for “what to use instead of kale” or “kale substitutions in cooking”. This works for spices as well.

Next, make a list of the items you need that you didn’t find at home. Put them on a list according to how the grocery store works to make it easier on yourself when you’re shopping. I have a post about that here.

Go shopping! 

Get what you need and nothing more!

Ok, sometimes I realize I need a few extra things I forgot to put on the list, but be mindful of just aimlessly walking through the store.

This is a really good way to spend extra money.

Bring your food home and prep as much as you can.

• Chop the ends off celery, cut them in half and store in a container covered with water
• Put carrots in water (even those baby carrots!)
• Wash greens like kale and spinach, roll them in a tea towel and either store them in a container or in a plastic bag.
• Freeze bread so it doesn’t go moldy (slice it first!).
• Rinse berries and keep them in a container lined with a paper towel or a napkin

If you have any extra energy you can start to make a few parts of a meal.

For example,

• Make the soup on Sunday so it’s ready to eat on Monday.
• Make the pesto for the pizza and throw it in the freezer for Friday.
• Chop the Brussels sprouts so they’re ready to roast with the salmon.

The more you do on the weekend, the less you have to do when you get home from work. 

Make time for this and you’ll feel better about it!

That’s it! 

The same process works for using multiple cookbooks, but I like the simplicity of using one cookbook.

Try it next week to see how you like it!

P.S.: Follow me on Instagram to get weekly tips and tricks!

P.P.S.: Get other cooking tips here!