Renaissance Pan

‘Tis the season of Resolutions, so here’s one (not-weird) trick that’ll upgrade your health from day one.

Common among New Year’s promises are that we’ll eat better, lose weight, get fit, and maybe cook more. This habit will help you handle all four. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and it’s fun, quick, easy and inexpensive.

Friends and family, neighbors near and far, I present to you the vegetable stir-fry.

Wait! Don’t leave! You’re going to love this, I promise.

Invest in a large sauté pan, one made of stainless steel with a glass lid. Mine’s a 2.8-liter Cuisinart, which can cook for about three hungry people. Get a larger size if you’re frying for more family and friends.

Here’s a simple starter recipe. Chop carrots, broccoli, green beans and brussels sprouts, and add ‘em to the pan. I like to quarter those sprouts, as it makes for a tastier finished product. Set heat at low-medium, ask Siri to set a 20-minute timer, and go live your life.

When the timer expires, refresh it for another 20. Add a few dollops of olive oil here, whatever seasonings you like, and give your fry a thorough stir. For an extra hit of protein, I add a fresh egg or two here and a half cup of cooked chick peas also before I stir.

At the end of your second 20 minutes, test for tenderness with a fork and sauté a little further if desired.

Cooking time is about 40 minutes, but prep, maintenance and cleanup is minimal. Ten minutes, tops. When that final timer goes off and my stir fry is served, I like to wash that sauté pan immediately. Cookware is easier to clean when hot, it lets those veggies cool a bit, and that’s one fewer task to tend to after I’ve eaten.

This is my go-to dinner, a delicious and nutritious recipe I never grow bored of. You can chop all your ingredients earlier in the day (or the day before!) and stow the whole enchilada in the fridge for later. When you’re home after a busy day of work, just set the full pan on your stove, turn on the heat and timer, and you’re off.

I don’t know about you, but so many recipes I see posted give me the sweats. There’s a lot of measuring to do, many ingredients to cook separately, several stages to the cooking process. Oh, and don’t forget the cleanup. Many of these dishes are listed under the “quick and easy” category of cooking.

Chef, know thyself.

If you’ve tried some of these recipes and been turned off to the whole cooking at home thing, I can understand why. Start simple and savory instead with this straightforward stir-fry. Once you have the process handled, you can gradually scale up the variety of your vegetation. ?

There’s an opportunity to make a real connection with our food here, as all these ingredients have been exposed to minimal processing or none at all. It’s all raw stuff, as is the experience of preparing each item.

You’re cooking, in the authentic sense of that word. Gotta touch it, wash it, chop it. A few moments of mindfulness are on the menu here as well.

There’s also tons of room for creativity and color. You’ll have your own favorite vegetables to add to the mix, to make this recipe and ritual your own. I’m a vegetarian, so this dish is just my style. But that said, this is a great way for omnivores to get those vegetables you know (and have been told) you should be eating.

“For anyone to be consistent with that,” said Jane Polley, “would be a gold medal in the nutritional Olympics.”

That consistency, she added, is key to keeping the shine on that achievement. Polley has been a Registered Dietician for over three decades with the Longfellow Health Club in Massachusetts, counseling countless people on how to eat and live healthier.

As stated, this dish is my dinner about six nights a week. I attribute that consistency to the simplicity of the process, and scrumptiousness of the finished product. To make the habit even stickier, Polley suggested cooking several servings in a single stir-fry, and storing the surplus in the fridge for later snacking and meals. ?

This recipe seems ripped right out of the “Mediterranean diet” menu, considered one of the healthiest on offer. Vegetables play a starring role. Minimal, if any, processing. A little olive oil. A few legumes.

“It’s going to net you more nutrition,” said Polley. It’s also very filling, in the best sense of that word.

Our veggie stir-fry falls into the category of volumetric eating, which prioritizes a favorable calorie-to-nutrient ratio. Picture a plate of sauteed potatoes on the one hand, and a dish containing an equal portion of sauteed broccoli florets on the other. Both have been seasoned and cooked the same.

Those potatoes may have a lot going for them nutritionally, vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber among the list. But they don’t belong in the volumetric eating club. That’s because the high carb count in taters makes this plate a real calorie bomb.

Our florets on the other hand are quite low in calories, yet high in micronutrients. You could cook a cup each of carrots, green beans and broccoli this way, and still be about equal in calories to a single cup of potatoes. And because those green and orange veggies contain so much fiber, the net carb count of this dish is even lower than advertised.

Lots of volume. Very satisfying. Tons of micronutrients. Very easy on the calories. Easier on the planet.

Speaking with her about this stir-fry veggie lifestyle, Polley took issue with my use of the phrase calorie bomb. She suggested viewing calories in terms of an investment instead.

Point well taken. In one-on-one meetings with clients, our relationship to eating can be a source of self-consciousness and vulnerability. Best in such settings not to talk about our food as a potential explosion in blood sugar levels after a meal.

Although if we do view calories as an investment we make in ourselves, the question then becomes which foods will give us the best return? ?No need to speculate on that front. Nutritional science has the broad strokes fairly figured out. ?????

You’ll likely have heard of certain foods described as “empty calories.” Such fare contains dense, high-octane energy, but is otherwise devoid of beneficial nutrients. An unwise investment. Lots of sugary food falls into this category, stuff like candy and soda.

Think of volumetric eating as the flip side of that dynamic. It’s low in calories but high in nutrition. This kind of cooking and consuming, by necessity, will tilt heavily toward vegetables.

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” is Michael Pollan’s famous advice. The author thinks and writes about the places where culture, nature, cuisine and humanity intersect.

You’ll find that with the food in this plant-powered dish, one has to work really hard to eat too much—in terms of calories.

Use grains sparingly in your stir-fry, if at all. This dish is designed as a savoring and celebration of low-calorie, colorful, flavorful vegetables, high in fiber and micronutrients. Save the spuds and grains for other meals. ?????????

This recipe is a personal Renaissance in a pan. Cooking this way cooks the planet far less than dishes that center meat, as fewer greenhouse gases are produced. It will set you on the path to shedding those stubborn few pounds, get you more than your recommended daily serving of veggies. It will connect you to your food, disconnect you from the inhumane treatment of factory-farmed animals. It’s simply healthier, in the truly holistic sense of that word.

And you thought it was just a stir-fry