Eleanor Hoh

Happy New Year! Every year, we start with a clean slate to stay slim and trim.  These 5 Tips to Jumpstart Your New Year Resolutions will help you whether you want a healthy approach to dieting or just easy ways to cook up fast tasty weeknight dinners!

Here’s how to do it…
Shake up your routine so you never know what to expect and you won’t get bored!  Above all, treat your dinner as if it’s the last meal you’ll ever have on a desert island! What would you want them to be? A few ingredients and you can’t go wrong.

Chuck out using recipes this year and try a new way to tackle weeknight dinners that will make you a Star or a “Wok Star” if you have my Kit! Even if you don’t have a wok, try frying in a skillet or pot as long as it’s not non-stick!

1. Buy just 2-3 different fresh & seasonal veggies and 2 kinds of protein on a Sunday. Buying a week’s worth is overwhelming plus makes your trip longer & stressful. I can be in and out of store in 15 minutes or less.
2. Make ingredients work in a variety of ways: stir fry one dinner, soup for another, stew for yet another, par boil & have with salad dressing, steam.
3. Save time by cooking up a week’s worth of quinoa instead of starchy rice/pasta and notice your energy soar. To prevent spoilage, store quinoa in containers and freeze, take out night before.
4. Stock 5 basic seasonings that instantly make your cooking taste GOOD!  Wok Stars use these same seasonings in Hispanic, Italian, Korean, Spanish. I call it TSPC: tamari (Japanese soy sauce, get San-J Intl. without MSG and gluten free), sherry (get medium drinking not cooking sherry), pepper (white pepper to change it up), cornstarch (for marinading your protein and thicken sauces)and of course, chili sauce (Huy Fong garlic chili sauce or sambal olek.) I used these seasonings in salad dressing as well.
5. Stock these fresh ingredients: scallions, cilantro, fresh limes, garlic, ginger. Other goodies to have on hand: Miso paste, dried shitake or oyster mushrooms.

I’m working on more Tips and Techniques, so subscribe to my free newsletter in right side bar to get the latest updates!

I’ll leave you with a useful post, “How do I come up with a dish?”  I think once you get this, you’ll be on your way to cooking without recipes, yay!