Vanetta Fenton, a certified personal trainer living with MG, walks through a one-pot salmon dinner and how she approaches cooking with limited energy.
Transcript
As we all know, cooking with Myasthenia Gravis can be challenging. One of the things I want to show you today is how to prepare a quick and easy meal not only takes a small amount of effort in a small amount of time, but it also supports your body in a nutritious way. So today we’re going to walk through making a one pot salmon bowl with a side of rice and a nice little garden salad.
One of the things that I’ve learned to do while I’m cooking is to find every way possible to preserve my energy. And so anytime I’m about to prepare a meal for myself or for my family, I try to set out all of my ingredients in one spot so that I’m not walking back and forth, grabbing for ingredients during the process. And so I’ve laid out all the ingredients that I’m going to be using today for my recipe. And then another thing that I always make sure to have is a chair, because I never know when I’m going to get tired. I’m in a kitchen with heat. Sometimes the heat comes at me without me even realizing it. So I just keep a chair nearby just so I can take a rest. If I know it’s something that I have to watch, I’ll have my chair nearby so I can sit there and watch it.
Another tip is preparing meals that does not have to be cooked on the stove. Standing over a stove can be quite taxing on your body if you have myasthenia gravis. And so I love dishes like these because it’s something that you can kind of assemble either seated or standing. And then you can pop it into the oven and leave it there until you’re ready. And so let’s get right into it.
So the very first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to prep our salmon. I have just a small salmon fillet. So before you pop that salmon into your pot or your pan, you want to make sure that the salmon is dry. So I’m going to go ahead and just grab a paper towel. And I’m going to just pat it dry on both sides. And then I’ll go ahead and flip it over and pat it dry on the other side. We want to make sure it’s as dry as possible before getting into the pot.
So for me, I like to use a ceramic dish just because I can put everything right inside the dish. It’s easy enough that you can use a glass dish, whatever you feel comfortable with. But the first thing I’m going to do is take olive oil and go ahead and just drizzle my pot with a little olive oil. I’m going to go ahead and take my salmon. I’m going to sit my salmon skin side down directly into the pot. Great thing about this one pot. Easy clean up. I always keep, like a little dungeon nearby. That way I’m not walking back and forth to the garbage can. I can go ahead and just plop on my trash and all my discards right here in a bowl next to me.
So after I get the salmon into the dish, into my ceramic pan, I’m going to go ahead and prep my asparagus. All I do is just take my asparagus. I’ve already washed them and clean them and pat it them dry. And I’ll just go ahead and cut off bulky ends. Take these and these are going to get discarded. And then I’m going to go ahead and just dice these up. I just cut them in a few pieces. It’s up to you how you would like to cut them. I just cut them in threes and then go ahead and I take the tips, some of the middle part and then the fatter ends. I discard these because it’s not my favorite part.
Okay, so now I have my salmon and my asparagus inside the bowl. The next thing I’m going to do is drizzle some olive oil on top of everything so that it gets coated on the top. Now, at this point, you can season any way you feel. I personally like to use simple ingredients. I like to use garlic powder, salt, pepper and paprika.
And the great thing about salmon and asparagus is that salmon has good healthy fats in it. And that’s really important to support your immune system and your muscles. And with every meal, you should always make sure that you have some type of green leafy vegetable with it. And so that’s where the asparagus comes in, it’s a nice vegetable that pairs really well with salmon.
So I like to season from the heart. If you want to use measurements, that is up to you, but I just coat it enough so that I know that I’m not a huge fan of garlic, so, you know, I’m kind of stingy with the garlic, but my Caribbean background loves some pepper, so I am generous with the pepper. Add in a little pink salt and then some paprika. All right.
And after that I’m just going to add in a splash of lemon juice. Again time saver. Sometimes you don’t have the energy to cut up a bunch of lemons. So lemon juice is absolutely fine. Just make sure that whatever lemon juice that you’re getting is just pure 100% lemon juice with no additives. Again, I’ll just drizzle a little bit over top to give it a little flavor. And that’s it.
My salmon is prepped and ready to go inside of the oven. I preheated my oven to 400 degrees. and once it hits 400 degrees, I’m going to sit it all together, uncovered in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. Sit in on a top rack.
So now that we have our salmon cooking we’re going to go ahead and work on our salad. The one thing that I love is my vegetable chopper. Because again, we don’t have energy to trap all of these vegetables. So I do have a vegetable chopper to help me out with that. Another thing that I use, instead of trying to peel my cucumber by hand, I do have a vegetable peeler for that too.
So we’re going to go ahead and start by getting our ingredients in again. I try to use as little energy as possible. I don’t like to chop a whole bunch, so I’m just going to go ahead and just break apart my lettuce, and then from here, I’m going to go ahead and use my dungeon here and shred my cucumber. Now I’m going to get ready to prepare my onion. So I’m just cutting the ends off of my onion, and I’m going to let my chopper do the hard part. Since it’s only me having the salad, I’m only going to use half an onion and then I’ll cut the ends off of my cucumbers.
So I have my chopper here. I already have, I have like a wider grade on mine. Just because that’s how I like my veggies chopped. But you can put whatever great you want. Just make sure that you can actually fit it inside your chopper. So you may have to just do, like, one little slice. Get it in there. Use some muscle. so much easier than having to dice these cucumbers by hand.
So again, every time I have a meal I try to make sure that it has some type of proteins, some type of carb, fat, veggie. For my salad, I’m going to use olives. Olives are very healthy source of fat. So I love to put olives in my salad as much as possible. And just place a few olives with the juice inside of my salad… inside of my salad. I already have the olive juice, which I’m perfectly fine eating this way.
Or if you want to add a little balsamic, I’m very generous. I try my best not to use creamy dressings just because, again, with the chewing and swallowing with Myasthenia Gravis, sometimes it can be kind of tough getting all this stuff down. Also with the salad, some of these ingredients are harder to chew so I highly encourage you if cucumbers are something that you struggle with X it out. Your meals are what you like. It’s about what feels good to you and what you’re able to ingest and digest and just truly enjoy. So, you know, follow your own script.
So now that we have our salad prepped and ready we have our salmon and the oven next is our rice. And making rice for me sometimes can take a lot of energy and a lot of effort. So I love these microwaveable rice bags. All you do is open them up, you pop them in the microwave for 90s, and you’re ready to go. So one of the rices that I enjoy cooking is this microwavable rice. It is quick and easy, doesn’t take a lot of effort. The first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to break apart the rice in the bag. So it just try to break it apart as much as you can. Now once the rice is fairly broken apart, you’re going to go ahead and open about a half an inch to an inch on each side. And now we’re going to pop it in a microwave for 90s. okay.
Now that everything is done, we’re going to go ahead and plate it up and get ready to eat. Smells so good. Okay, we have our salmon, our asparagus which has absorbed all of the flavors from the salmon. And then, now let’s get our rice, which came out nice and fluffy. And then we have our beautiful side salad.
And there you have it, guys. Easy. Literally 30 minutes for me to cook from start to finish. Very well balanced. You have your carbs, you have your healthy fats, you have your veggies, you have your starch, you have your protein. And it took little to no effort.
Again, fitness and nutrition is not only about feeding your muscles, but you also have to feed your body in general. And so small little daily habits, such as taking a walk or just getting five minutes of movement in, cooking a healthy meal once or twice a week, those small little habits will build up and make a greater impact on your fitness journey and your nutrition journey, and your overall journey with myasthenia gravis. I hope this helps.