I have been on Chef AJ's email list for awhile. I got an email about a free Webinar tthat would be about what she eats everyday as I am sure lots of people wanted to know. It was today at 5pm CT. I made a point to watch it.
For those interested, here is what she normally eats (i.e. she is 5" 6" and weighs between 114 - 118 she said)
1. Breakast - VFB (Veggies for Breakfast). Her personal favorite is Zucchini. She puts 2 lbs of sliced zucchini in a steamer basket with 3 cups of water, and steams them for 8 min. from cold. She understeams them by 2 minutes so if she needs to reheat them in a microwave they won't be overcooked. Or, if she puts them steaming hot in tupperware they stay warm, and I think being compressed, may cooked a little more, and if she walked her dog, she can come back and eat it and it won't be mush. She stated she uses so much water to drink, what she calls the "pot licquor" later. She doesn't drink alcohol.
2. Lunch - her biggest meal, is always potatoes and broccoli. She eats 2 lbs of potatoes (rotates between a Japanese sweet potato that she gets from Whole Foods or Trader Joes/ Hana? Yams/ Golden Potatoes. She roasts them in the oven at 400 to 425 for 90 mins to 2 hrs. She will roast several at one time to eat through out the week. Then she steam cooks a 3lb bag of broccoli and undercooks them by 2min for the pot licquor. She will eat 1lb of broccoli with her 2 lbs of potatoes.
3. Snack - AJ said she rarely snacks. If she has to snack it means she hasn't eaten enough. If she does it's non-starchy veggies. She stated she eats 4 lbs of non-starchy veggies a day. She doesn't eat a lot of fruit and said starch is what cuts off your hunger. My experience is that a potato will keep me quite full.
4. Dinner - Chopped Salad. Her 8 S's for Superior Salad Satisfaction
1st S = Salad. This is the base of your salad. She took a huge Tupperwear bowl and added her favorites (Romaine, shredded red cabbage, shredded carrots). Also shredded beets, but keep them separate. I don't know how much of these ingredients went into the bowl, but the salad base supposedly lasts in the frdige for up to a week. She took a separate bowl and grabbed 4 hands of her base to start the salad for her meal.
2nd S = Sweet. This seems to be the only way she eats fruit since sweet = fruit. Can add an apple, berries, whatever fruit you like. For an apple, it was the whole apple.
3rd S = Salty. Mostly she uses smoked dulse but said celery or chard also can be your salty. Dulse is where she gets her iodine from she said. If you eat nuts or seeds, I think that can be a substitute here.
4th S = Sour. 2T lime juice. You could probably use lemon also.
5th S = Savory. Meaning herbs. Her personal favorite is mint. She added lots to her salad. And sometimes uses parsley. So whatever herbs you like. At this point she also likes to add something for crunch. She usually adds the small persian cucumbers (about 3). Jicama also works. And she also said, "I forgot about red onions. Loves them in every salad". Could probably add the onions as part of the salad base.
6th S = Starch. Her starch of choice, other than potatoes, is wild rice. She takes a 1lb bag of rice, puts it in the Instapot and presses the multigrain button. She uses 1-2 cups for her salad. Apparently she doesn't eat beans as they don't agree with her but you could have beans, peas, or lentils here instead of rice.
7th S = Specialty. By this AJ means an expensive or time consuming item. Her examples were pomegranate seeds, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm.
8th S = Sauce. Meaning dressing. Since she is SOS (Salt-Oil-Sugar) free, she likes to use Balsamic Vinegars. Her favorites are from a company called Berna and Pas. They have their own website. Use 2T.
According to AJ the key to a great salad is to chop it. At this point she showed us the salad ingredients in the bowl and used, what I found out later, was a metal mezzanine knife by Ulu of Alaska that I'm told you can order from Amazon, and she chopped that salad to death for 5 minutes into teeny tiny pieces. She said the volume of salad goes down to about 1/3 of original size.
The webinar was just over 1 hr and what was nice was that someone named Gustavo was hosting it and as we posted questions in the chat window Gustavo would relay them to AJ and she answered them. I found it very enlightening. Especially loved the 8 S's salad. Will definitely be trying that.
FYI - AJ said she is allergic to black pepper which causes challenges. She uses a table seasoning called Benson Table Tasty as it contains no black pepper or garlic. While I love garlic, it doesn't agree with me so I am going to check this out.
I'm not sure if you can watch a rebroadcast of the webinar. Maybe if you visit her site they might repost it as some time.
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