Man's Take Magazine

Manly Meals – Simple, Healthy Cooking for Men

Whether you’re goal is to gain muscle weight, lose fat, or maintain your current weight you need to watch your diet. It’s all too easy to fall into a pattern of eating premade meals loaded with fat, sugar, and salt.

That includes restaurant meals, but also frozen stuff you find in grocery stores. I know that a lot of men don’t have any interest in cooking, but if you have an interest in food, then you should have an interest in cooking it the way you want it.

I may not be a world-class executive chef, but I know exactly what I like, and I cook my food to that taste. I’m going to share three simple meals that I particularly enjoy. They are all low in saturated fat and sugar, but high in protein. Exactly what a growing boy needs.

So the message I’m trying to get through your thick skulls is that cooking is not that hard. It will save you a ton of cash, and it might just help you live longer. Processed foods are loaded with salt which leads to water retention and eventually high blood pressure. Excessive sugar is the leading cause of obesity, followed by excessive fat intake.

It’s time to give cooking a shot. Just try not to hurt yourself.

I also want to point out that any guy worthy of the oxygen he’s consuming can fire up the grill and burn some meat. Yes, this is surely manly. And if you use good lean meats (instead of processed stuff like hot dogs) you may even have the makings of a relatively healthy meal.

I’m assuming you don’t need me to tell you how to throw some animal carcass on the grill. Despite it’s manliness, you really can’t char every meal on the grill.

Breakfast:

A good breakfast is vital toward maintaining a high energy level throughout the day. But let’s face it, most of it don’t have much spare time in the morning to scramble up breakfast.

You’ve heard it before, and I’ll say it again. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You are burned calories all day and if you don’t get a good morning meal, you will be hungry throughout the day and constantly struggling to maintain your energy stores. Even if you are trying to lose weight, you should still have breakfast.

High-Protein Oatmeal

            Prep time: 3 minutes

 1 Banana – Sliced (Substitute Blueberries, Strawberries, or any fruit you like)

 3/4 cup Old Fashioned Oatmeal (Don’t get instant or 5-minute)

1.5 cups skim milk

½ scoop Optimum Natural Whey Protein Powder

Preparation:

Mix the oatmeal and milk in a bowl, and then toss it in the microwave for 90-120 seconds of your life. Slice the banana… I often just use the spoon I’m about to eat with to slice the banana. No sharp objects required. If you don’t have a banana, use whatever fresh fruit you have. If you can’t find the produce aisle at your local grocery store, you can also get frozen blueberries or even dried fruit. If you use frozen or dried fruit, I suggest you microwave those along with the oatmeal and milk.

Take the bowl out of the microwave without burning your stupid self. Give it a quick mix and then pour in the protein powder. Don’t spill it, because the stuff isn’t free, you know. If you’re a muscle-head, go on and pour in a whole scoop. The rest of us mere mortals only need half to three quarters of a scoop to maintain our powerful physique.

Mix in the whey powder and add more milk if you need it. If it’s still not tasty enough for you, add in a little bit of brown sugar. This makes one manly serving.

Lunch

This is a little recipe I created through a lot of trial and error. It’s one of my favorite sandwiches. You should be warned though, this is a bit spicy. So if your pansy ass can’t handle some heat, then you might want to tone down the chili sauce.

            Spicy Tuna Sandwich

            2 Slices Whole Grain Bread, or 1 Whole Grain Roll

            1 5oz Can Albacore White Tuna in Water

            1 Stalk Celery – Chopped

            1 Tablespoon Pickle Relish

            1 Tablespoon Smart Balance Mayonnaise

            1 Teaspoon Sriracha Chili Sauce 

Dash Salt/Pepper or Old Bay Seasoning 

 I prefer Starkist tuna, but you may be a Chicken of the Sea kind of guy; I don’t know. I don’t recommend the packets unless you’re incapable of operating a can opener. They cost 50% more and give you 20% more tuna. That’s not a good deal by my math.

All you have to do to prepare this one is open the tuna can, scrape it into a bowl, chop up some celery and squish everything together. If you don’t have the Sriracha Chili sauce, you’ll need to get it. There’s not really much of a substitute. I’ve heard some people call it “Chicken Sauce” because it has a picture of a chicken on the bottle. Beware: this stuff is relatively hot, so don’t go hog wild without trying it first.

Scoop this marvelous and just slightly pink concoction onto your bread and voila! You can also put it over rice and pretend you’re eating sushi. You might need to hone your “pretending” skills for that to really work.

This recipe makes enough tuna for one ridiculously over-sized sandwich, about 1.5 more reasonable sandwiches, or 2 depression-era sandwiches. I suggest you save 1/3 of the tuna and have half a sandwich as a snack later.

Dinner

If you’re a frequent patron of area restaurants, you could save a fortune just by eating at home. You could probably make a week’s worth of dinners with enough leftovers for a week’s worth of lunches for less than you’d spend on one dinner at a nice restaurant.

The particular recipe is another of my favorites. It’s a little more complicated than the previous two, because it does actually involve heat and raw meat… Do you think you can handle that?

            Turkey Lettuce-Wrapped Tacos

 Prep Time – 15 Minutes

Fresh Romaine Lettuce

1-2lbs Ground Turkey (7% fat)

Taco Seasoning

½ Cup Water

Mexican Cheese Blend (Made from 2% Milk)

Salsa

Optional Extras: Banana Peppers, Jalapeño Peppers, Chopped Tomatoes, Fat Free Sour Cream, Guacamole

Impress your wife or girlfriend with this very simple, healthy Mexican dinner recipe. Yes, even you can do this, though it will require a trip to the grocery store to pick up some things.

Start with the ground turkey. Make sure you take it completely out of the package, bonehead.

Put it in a large frying pan (perhaps you should turn on the heat first) bottom-side up. Why bottom-side up? Because you probably left the piece of paper or plastic on the bottom of the meat, and this way you’ll see it before it cooks into your dinner. Brown the meat… that means cook it until it’s gray throughout and no longer pink. Eating pink poultry is a bad idea.

If you bought ground turkey breast instead of ground turkey, you’ll note that it costs about twice as much and has 1% fat instead of around 7%. I personally think the recipe works much better with the normal ground turkey (which is why that’s what it calls for… men really can’t follow directions worth a damn).

If you got ground turkey breast, I suggest you cook it with some olive oil, or it’s all going to stick to the bottom of the pan.

After the meat is cooked, drain off any excess grease. I actually go so far as to dry it on paper towels, but you don’t necessarily need to be as obsessive-compulsive as I am. Add some water… one third to half a cup will do. Then dump in the taco seasoning. You can buy the seasoning in single use packets so you can’t screw it up too badly. I personally buy large containers of it and just dump in as much as seems appropriate.

Mix the spice into the meat and cook it until all the water goes bye-bye. If you put a lot of water in, you could be there a while. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.

Once the meat is cooked, you’re ready to rock and roll. Just get out all the accoutrements – your favorite salsa, Mexican cheese, and any extras you have such as sour cream, peppers, and so forth. If you are serving dinner to guests, you might want to put all that stuff in separate bowls and line them up so people can serve themselves.

If you want to go one step further with this, you can go from tacos to full-fledged burritos by cooking some rice and black or refried beans. If you don’t know how to cook those things, I suggest you buy either a packet of Mexican/taco rice and follow the directions (go figure), or just get some boil-in-bag rice because it’s much easier and I don’t want to explain how to cook rice to an imbecile.

That was harsh… I’m sorry. But the truth is most any packaged food actually has directions on how to prepare it. I know… you’re a guy and you don’t follow instructions. That’s why you have to eat out.

If you get beans, you can just empty the can into a microwave-safe container and cook them on high. You might also want to put a little bit of that taco seasoning in them if they aren’t seasoned already. If you go with refried beans, check the label and get one that is “fat free.” Some canned refried beans are made with lard… Lard is bad because then you can never deny being a true lard-ass.

Wash the lettuce and carefully tear off whole leaves. Pat it dry with a paper towel so it’s not soggy. Use a clean paper towel you slob. You’re going to use the leaves like tortilla shells. If you don’t like lettuce, you can just get normal soft taco tortilla shells. The whole grain kind are better for you than plain white flour tortillas. By the way, no wussy whining that eating lettuce wraps is not manly. Just get over it, or use the damn tortillas if it bothers you.

By the way, after you’ve proven you can make this meal without injuring yourself or burning down your house, you might want to up the quantity. This makes for really great leftovers. Just reheat the meat and cheese in the microwave and build yourself a taco.

Related posts:

1. Eating a Healthy Breakfast
2. Truly Manly Drink – Black Russian
3. The Irish Car Bomb: One Very Manly Drink Concoction
4. Long Island Iced Tea – Monthly Manly Drink
5. All You Care to Eat – Caveman Buffet