I have been exploring different types of dips and in my humble and unprofessional opinion there are three main ones:

1. The outstanding homemade hummus dip

The homemade hummus dip defines a delicious and amazing and very interesting vegan alternative. Of course, anyone can do simple hummus, because it is quite easy to be done as all you need is tahini, lemon juice, chickpeas, olive oil, and salt, but here are the tricks:

1. Peel the chickpeas. Removal of that skin would make for a fluffy delicious hummus
2. The chickpeas go it last and bit by bit.
3. If the hummus is too chunky, add just 1 or 2 tablespoons of water to it

Check this homemade hummus dip — it’s all detailed there.

2. The smoky baba ganoush

Baba ganoush is one of those Mediterranean summery dips that you will not be able to stop eating. My problem with baba ganoush is that I do not even deal with the condiments, but I just eat it with a spoon.

To make it, you will need to bake some eggplant and in a food processor, blend the insides with tahini, lemon juice, paprika, garlic, salt, and pepper. The tricks though are the ones that make a difference:

1. You do not have to use a grill or a gas stove to char the eggplant, just bake them facedown and add some smoked paprika to the blend.
2. Treat the eggplant first with a bit of salt so that the moisture and the bitterness get out.
3. One of the key issues with baba ganoush is that people usually make it too lemony. You should embrace the eggplant taste. Do not overpower it with a lot of lemon juice.

For more details, I have found this cool baba ganoush recipe.

3. The almighty guacamole

Of course, it’s on this list. There are a lot of other dips that we can add but no one will overcome the mighty guac. It’s the dip of all dips — no questions asked.

To get it done all you will need is avocado, garlic, pepper, and lemon and you will be fine. These are my tricks:

1. Garlic is your friend. You can experiment with it, but you can not leave it out. Do not do that to yourself.
2. Start small with the lemon/lime juice. Adjust the salt first and then the lemon. Salt can mess it up and the lemon masks it a lot. So if you mess up, you can adjust
3. Dont mash the avocado to a sauce. Let it be a bit chunky because alternatively, you will only taste the salty lemon.

An approach to easy dips was originally published in Food for thought on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You know the struggle of trying to be healthy out of a sudden but it is so freaking hard to actually understand and start somewhere. I know because I was there a while back (check out my first post). At that point you start researching, you get some knowledge and at the same time you need to start testing it out. One important factor about eating healthy is that everything takes time, you get demotivated and you are 30 seconds away from that cheeseburger.

Before you start any reading, beware that I am no professional and that I do not do this for a living. I am exactly like you and trying to understand because of the type of lifestyle that I follow is extremely hard to actually live a healthy life.

Some start with the question on how could our parents do it? The answer is pretty simple — different time, different working hours and a less complex life. There are two way you can tackle this:

1. Live a simpler life.

2. Try to optimize your current lifestyle to actually achieve all your goals and try not to die from a coronary by the age of 40.

I am the type of guy that would go for the second choice. If yours is the first, just ask your parents — I am pretty sure that they have more experience than me into this.

We shall start with the basics. Nutrition and what our body needs:

Nutrition simplified by a non-professional

Being able to eat properly starts from understanding what you need to eat to survive. Dieting is a word that has some of the worse PR I have seen.

Yes you should Diet — No you should not stop eating that delicious food.

Cutting your weight down can be done by controlling what you eat. Here are some of the big don’ts:

1 Avoid late night dinners. It is not good for your body because you are technically adding fuel to burn when you are actually going to sleep where your burning is minimal.

2 Simplify your food intake: Something that is processed is not as good as something that is natural.

3 Avoid fats, skins and buttery stuff. I know that a crispy chicken skin is delicious but common, get a hold of yourself.

4 Limit your alcohol intake — if you have to drink, go for straight spirits. You get to appreciate the alcohol a little more and are obliged to take your time to drink it (straight vodka with ice and lemon is a great solution — opt in for some delicious fancy vodka and you shall see the difference)

5 Limit your carb intake. I know they are delicious but let’s be realistic — a dozen doughnuts are most definitely not great for your body. Be moderate and try to consume them at breakfast.

6 Chicken and Fish are the greatest type of meats that you should eat. They are so lean and help you build muscle much better than anything else.

7 Deep Fried stuff — for the love of what’s holly, NO. They are BAD BAD BAD. Not only it takes your body so much to digest them, but they are filled with immense amounts of stuff that is so bad for you.

See that it is not that bad? Now the DO’s:

1 Veggies are awesome. Veggies are love. Veggies are life. Veggies are everything that you need in your life.

2 Water should be your go-to drink. 2 Liters per day are mandatory — not only it is good for your weight but it actually helps with your general body.

3 Do eat what you crave, but just be mindful on how much you eat. Keep your cool for crying out loud. Have a glass of water before you eat- Believe me!

The professionals at Harvard Research have developed the normal plate of food that you should have every day. Note that this is relative to everyone but it averages down exactly like this. If, in your daily routine you manage to eat the specified relative amount, you have mastered your nutrition basics.

The beauty of this is that depending on how you feel, you can make the necessary adjustments. This applies also to your lifestyle. If you are really active and go to the gym every day, you will need more food — but that is the general rule.

Working out from someone trying to lose weight

This is one extremely hot topic. Working out is a matter of understanding what your final result will be. Are you looking to become thinner or you are just looking to lose some of that belly fat. Your body works with the simplicity that characterizes a simple mathematical equation Total Calories = FOOD — Exercise. If Total Calories is negative, you will lose weight.

If it is positive, you will maintain your current weight and gain muscle. If exercise = 0 FOOD will turn into fat. See? So easy!

Here are my two ways on how you can tackle this:

1. If you are looking to get thin — RUN. Hit that treadmill, step and bicycle. This will help you burn calories, but it will also burn the muscle. So the final result will be you a lot slimmer.

2. If you are looking to lose weight but also gain muscle — make sure that you combine this running with weight lifting. Combine your program with exercises that feature a lot of repetitions with a lower weight. The term that you should google is “super sets”. Be sure to leave on day for heavy lifting — it will help you get some muscle as well. The bottom line will result in a big puddle, some high intensity training and a much healthier body. Keep in mind that this is one of those ways that take a little more to show some results.

One this is extremely important: Working out is not about looking good, but being healthy. If you are looking to have a flat belly and a big bottom, I can not help you, thanks.

Cooking Techniques from a fresh graduate

This is the fun part. Cooking for some is not simple — but it can be made simple by adding a couple of concepts to it to make your live so much easier:

1 Start with a protein (aka some meat — a great source of awesome proteins). If you are not much of a cook, chicken breasts are a great starting point. Cut them in half (google: butterflying a chicken breast), add some salt and pepper and either fry (with just a little olive oil) them or bake them. Not too much effort.

2 Add some veggies. Steamed veggies are awesome. They are so easy to make (google: boiled broccoli cooking time to figure out how much time you need) and just add a little olive oil, a little salt and if you prefer just a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar.

3 Make some sort of salad. The easiest of them all: the Greek salad: Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, feta cheese, a little olive oil and some salt award you are DONE.

A three step process of making some food packed with nutrients and most definitely great for you. Now you can experiment, with different types of meat and different types of veggies. If you master the simple frying of the chicken, you have gone half way. Give it a try.

Learning how to read recipes by a dummy

Along the lines of this post, I have made some comments based into googling stuff. Now some of those are actually proper recipes. Now recipes tend to get fancy and a little overboard with the ingredients. We are cutting our costs and we do not want that. So whenever you go ahead and google recipes, just focus on these easy steps:

1. Most of the recipes are organized into a meat and veggies standard. They will teach you how to marinade the meat and then how to cook the veggies. Focus on understanding how they actually cook the meat and how they cook the veggies and disregard the fancy ingredients. Just switch up some with some others that you have handy and you will be fine. Just make sure that the taste is almost the same (or at least in the same family. . .

2. Follow desert recipes to the letter. Deserts, unlined every other type of recipe is like a chemical experience or a potion class from Snape. If they tell you to stir counter clock wise, you do that.

3. Disregard the “hard recipes made easy” posts — hard recipes are hard because they require a lot of time and effort. You do not have that. Stick to the classics and get accustomed to them.

4. Everything tastes better with fresh ingredients. I would opt in for fresh garlic anytime — even though there are a lot of other solutions.

5. Experiment to understand the logic of cooking so you do not have to read another recipe in your life again. What I usually do is try to cook with whatever I have around in my house. I don’t need to go all fancy — I will be fine with whatever.

Creating your own diet

Eating is something, at least for me, which should be enjoyed to the maximum. One should always eat what they feel comfortable but also experiment what other say. If you are the type of person that detests Brussels sprouts, try cooking them yourself, google some recipes that include Brussels sprouts with ingredients that you love and see how much better everything is. Life is not all about French Fries and steaks — but it is also about that week in your live were you try to keep it all vegan…

I know what I wrote sounds so cheesy but you do not have to be picky about food — just be yourself and let yourself get amazed.

The only thing that you have to be picky about is the freshness of the ingredients and your average calorie intake.

Nutrition and cooking Concepts for Dummies was originally published in Food for thought on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I was raised in a family where both parents cooked. Along these lines, Sundays at home consisted on grocery shopping and cooking something special for lunch. This went on until I graduated from high school and I had to move so I could continue the university. While I was always helping out in the kitchen, never I had the chance to actually properly cook for myself other than the special type of meals. I am pretty sure that you can see where this is going, being the average Joe’s story that goes to college and eats conserved tuna with $1 noodles from the supermarket.

Well yes, that happened.

After I graduated and started working, I kept the same lifestyle. Long hours strapped in front of the computer together with the average commute, late night dinners full of carbs and the realization that I am not a student anymore made me start thinking about ways to re-engineer my eating habits.

At today’s age, we are bombarded with information, made to sell and look good — simple 15 second cooking videos that look so tremendously easy and advertising retargeting which impact the way you think of life in general [food in our specific niche]. While I was researching, my facebook, Instagram together with all the ads on the world was overwhelmed with food related issues which led me to start with some of those recipes. Some of them were actually really good and some others looked good but they were just no.

I went on with watching Gordon Ramsay and his cooking show. His tips and tricks were tremendous, outstanding and actually made me take notes.

It all started from there — I started a food blog(check the bottom for the link), which turned into a proper website with one simple concept in mind — Educating those who think that cannot cook, not with recipes and guidance, but tricks and techniques to actually live a healthier live. My take is that you do not need to be a great cook, you just need to be able to know some basic techniques and minimize take out. Additionally, once in a while, impress someone with your cooking.

My posting capabilities are hindered by working in a big4, so bear with me :)

xo.

gjermani

tl;dr; This publication is about simplifying cooking for the noobs coming from a complete noob who is learning along the way with you.

The food blog[in albanian]: delicious.al

The english version: delicious.al/en

Concept: My history with food was originally published in Food for thought on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.