In The Kitchen With Dan

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to in the kitchen with Dan. I'm glad you are. You are all here checking this out, because we've got some exciting stuff to go over today. We are going to be talking about health in the kitchen. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Dan, and I am a coach here in Cadre. I specialize in organization, in everything food related, and I'm a certified life coach. So I blend all of those three things together to live my passion. And when I do that, I get to share that with you, and I love to do that here on Cadre.

Hi, katie. Hi, Brian. Junk food junkie. We got a bunch in here today. Hello. I am excited about today, and that reason is because we're going to start focusing on healthy food, and we're going to make dressings, salad dressings today. And I'm going to teach you the mother of all dressings, the vinaigrette and the base of the vinaigrette. Once you have the base, you can add just about anything to this vinaigrette to make it garlic, lemonade, raspberry, or what have yous. So, you guys ready? Katie's belly needs healthy.

All right, so we are talking salads, and we are talking vinaigrette, right? So I'm gonna point it down to the board. So one of the things I highly recommend that you get, if you don't have one, is an immersion. Immersion blender. These are fantastic. They're not very expensive. You can find these on marketplace, Facebook marketplace. I don't know why that seems so fun, like a wand. So you can find them on Facebook Marketplace. You know, look around. But these are fantastic. And one reason they are is that you can mix your dressings or whatever you have, right?

I mean, right in. In the container. And these are great for soups and stews and, you know, things that need to be mixed while they're hot. I guess you're not really blending stews, but, you know, puree anything hot, you can stick it right in. So I'm going to be using this today. But you can use a whisk. Absolutely. And if you don't have a whisk, you can use a fork. We're emulsifying oil and vinegar together, and that's vinaigrette. So the base vinaigrette is one quarter cup of oil. We're using olive oil today.

There are many. Right. And to that, we're gonna add four teaspoons of vinegar, and I'm gonna use red wine vinegar. Today, right. So we're gonna do a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil. And I've got this cool little oil dispenser. Check this out. You just squeeze it and it gives you, that is one tablespoon. I don't need a ton of oil, so I'm going to use this container. But it just no drip. It's really cool. We'll fill it up again. All right, one more pump and it'll give us our quarter. Almost there.

There you go. Quarter cup of olive oil and two tablespoons. Two table, four tablespoons of, we're gonna use organic red wine vinegar. Okay, 41234. Now, if you're using a whisk or a fork, you want to put the vinegar in first and then slowly add the olive oil as you're mixing to get it all emulsified. You don't need to do that with this blender. We just mix them all together like this. Now, check that out already. I mean, it's just oil and red winged. It smells. Oh, that smells so good. It smells so good just the way it is.

All right, I'm gonna add a little salt. I'm gonna add a little pepper and walk away again. I'm getting my steps in today, you guys. Oh, here's my salt. A little salt, a little pepper, and then I'm gonna do lemon today. Right. And you just want to, now here's a, here's a trick. There's a couple ways. You can squeeze the lemon like this. So the seeds stay in your hand and the juice comes out. Out. Right. That's the way we're going to do it now. Or you can do it like this. The seeds drop into the palm of your hand.

You've got clean hands. Right? So lemon juice, man. Okay. It's as easy as that. Perfect vinaigrette. Yum. So in some different variations, we'll talk about them right now. Add herbs to this. You can add tarragon or fresh parsley. You can put mustard, Dijon mustard. In this you have a lemon mustard vinaigrette. You can put garlic and ginger. This is a mix that I love. You can get this at some of the specialty indian markets if you have any of those in your area. Or you can just add garlic and ginger.

But this is a shortcut paste. Also in the stores, they sell the tube of garlic and ginger. So try some different flavors. You know, experiment, add the things that you like. Another trick that I love is when you're dining out, take note of things on the menu that sound good. You may not order it, but you know, just remember or take a picture of the menu and go home and try to replicate those dressings. It's a really fun thing to do. Alright, so we're gonna make a quick salad. Let's do it. And this is one that you'll see on a lot of restaurant menus right now.

It's very, very simple. You can purchase this. I'm sure you guys know that this stuff is already washed, ready to go. It's been picked through and it's a great shortcut. I think the hardest part is just getting the package open. Once you get the package open. All right, now these salads, think about it in a restaurant, right? We're gonna make this right here. But they'll charge you like $4, $5 for a little side salad for some lettuce. So we can do this at home. And it is so easy and it's so good.

Right? Now get some parm. Or I have asiago, you can get pecorino, you want some hard cheese. Parm is what I normally use, but thought I'd mix it up. Now this is a great tip, too. I'm going to do this with the cheese. But think about if you do this with a bar of chocolate and you, you put this on your desserts. But what we're doing is just making shivers and slivers. Shivers and slivers, right? Okay, so now you've got your little cheese curlies, right? Now here's a trick, too. Salads taste really good in restaurants because they add a little pinch of salt.

Most of the dishes that come out of the really fine culinary restaurants get a little dash of something. And so I just sprinkled a tiny little bit of salt. You can add a little bit of lemon, extra lemon if you want. Here we go with the dressing, right? One of the most simple salads. Now you can put walnuts on this. Almonds, dried cranberry. Cranberry and almond are two of the two of my favorite combinations when it comes to salad. But I mean, there you go. This is, it's very healthy, it's light.

You've made it yourself. It's cost effective. But with this vinaigrette recipe, it really opens up the door as far as salads go in your own kitchen. So, you know, one thing I was thinking about when I was doing this was when it comes to salads and salads that people have had, they'll say like, oh my God, this salad, you never hear them say like the carrot in that salad. Was so good. Or, oh, my God, that red onion in the salad, it was just perfect. Nobody really talks about the actual things in the salad.

They talk about the dressing, right? Oh, that dressing is so good. How do you guys make that dressing? So just remember that fresh dressing, vinaigrettes. There's so many different variations, and we'll be making them more and more as we continue on in the kitchen with Dan. So keep. Keep your eyes peeled, and there's tons of lives that are scheduled. Just hit the little calendar on your app there, and it'll give you the lineup of all the lives that are coming up, and they are so good. We've got Chris talking about recovery and Katie talking about relationships with family members that are dealing with addiction and just the struggles of that life.

You've got Nick, who is a creativity coach, Nick the poet. And, I mean, I could go on and on. There's so many great creators on Cadre, and they're all bringing their health and wellness tips and education and know how and expertise to you right here on Cadre. So keep tuned in for all of that, and keep looking for me right here in the kitchen with Dan. See you all later. Have a good weekend.