For those of us who live off campus, cooking for ourselves can be quite the challenge. After all, cooking requires attention and care and many of us are new to the task. If we stick it through, however, the result is a delicious handcrafted meal that also goes along with maintaining a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle. There are thousands of recipes out there to us, but often they require hours of preparation and countless ingredients – and that’s all before you actually start putting the dish together. Who has the time for that?
Today, however, we can thank the beautiful website we call YouTube for coming to our rescue. There are hundreds of cooking channels now available on YouTube that make cooking easier than ever. After all, you won’t have to bother purchasing bulky recipe books and you’ll always have the recipes on hand as long as you have your laptop or phone.
Recommended channels
Two cooking channels that I have recently subscribed to are LEAF and Food Wishes. Both channels have amazing recipes, but more importantly, their recipes are simple and require only a few ingredients.
LEAF: LEAF is the brainchild of two individuals, Geri Hirsch and Erin Falconer, who wanted to create a channel for a “fresh, easy to consume, how-to concept covering all things…living, eating and fashion.” Most of LEAF’s videos are 1-2 minutes long.
Food Wishe: Food Wishes is actually a production by Allrecipes, so the channel hosts recipes from allrecipes.com as well as its own website. The videos are a bit longer than LEAF’s, running around 3-7 minutes, but they’re worth the time, especially if you are looking to recreate some classics.
The following are two recipes that are simple, fun, and flavourful:
Roasted Butternut Squash Salad
A recipe from LEAF:
To prepare the butternut squash – Microwave squash for 3 minutes, and then chop the top and tail. Peel squash, cut in half, scrape out the seeds and chop into cubes. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, and stir. Arrange on a baking sheet and bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.
For the salad – In a bowl, add 3 handfuls of mixed greens. Add ½ a Fuji apple cored and sliced. Add 2 ounces of goat cheese crumbed, a handful of chopped roasted walnuts, 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds and 1 cup roasted squash. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Toss and serve.
Lemon Chicken
Also from LEAF:
Warm ¼ cup olive oil in a pot over medium-low heat. Mince 9 cloves of garlic and add. Cook the two together for 1 minute. Turn off heat, add 1/3 cup dry white whine, 1 tablespoon lemon zest, juice of ½ lemon, 1 ½ teaspoons of dried oregano, 1 teaspoon kosher salt and 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (minced). Stir well and pour into baking dish.
Place chicken breasts in baking dish skin-side up and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Add 1 lemon, cut into wedges into the baking pan. Bake the chicken for 30-40 minutes at 400F or until skin is lightly browned. Cover with foil and let sit for 10 minutes. Enjoy!
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Photos captured from:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=anf-PR1_sSg
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo4qNLEEVH8
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