Live Cook Along With Cheryl McColgan, Founder of HealNourishGrow

Oh, oh. Hey everyone, I'm just, uh, getting set up here and That copied. Hey, Betty. So I'm just trying to get this note, um, on here so you know what we're talking about. We're doing a live cook-along tonight. It is a Monday, and just trying to make sure here that I've got the right settings this time for the broadcast. I actually have— let's see. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully this is working. Um, if you are on YouTube or Facebook or anything, if you could let me— basically anything besides Instagram. I know Instagram works because Instagram is separate on my phone, but but whenever I livestream to, um, Facebook and YouTube and some of these other things at the same time, I never know if it's working properly. So I just like to kind of check in and make sure you can actually hear me. Uh, last week's video, I had this microphone, it wasn't working quite right. And so what I had to do was take the Instagram video and dub the sound over the YouTube video, which was a little annoying because it should all work properly, but that's technology for you. So anyway, tonight we're doing the live cook-along. Um, God bless you too. Um, and so please feel free to drop any of your keto or health and wellness or yoga-related questions in the comments, and I will answer them as we cook along together. Um, if you are not signed up for the ingredients list yet, you go to livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com, and that way you get all of the ingredients ahead of time. And yeah, I just noticed actually that the, the YouTube and the Facebook site should be working now on YouTube and Facebook. If you're just joining live cook along, we haven't quite started yet because I've been chatting to the people on Instagram. But now hopefully, uh, YouTube and everything else is working properly, so hopefully we can just get started. Um, if you have any questions, comments, anything keto-related, health and wellness-related, yoga-related, please pop them in the comments and I will answer them as we go along. Um, but for now, we'll get started. So tonight We are making creamy— I have this one weird piece of hair over here, Jenna. I have this like creamy garlic Parmesan shrimp that's going to be over zoodles. So the first thing you need, if you got the ingredient list ahead of time, you know we're using already cooked frozen peeled deveined shrimp. So all I've got is a bowl of cold water here and I'm putting the frozen shrimp in it. This is to help get them defrosted a little bit before we actually start cooking. Of course, when you put them in the pan, um, they will defrost. But, um, and then I say cooked, I didn't mean cooked. These are raw, but they are frozen and peeled and deveined. So you need to defrost them a little bit before getting started. So now I've just got them here in a bowl of cold water, and I'll put that off to the side. I'm also testing this new little thing for my cell phone. It's this teeny little, um, robot thing and it follows you. And it was like $30 on Amazon. I just find it like unbelievably crazy that we have these little robot things that can do that now. So, um, anyway, so I've got the shrimp in the bowl defrosting. So now I'm going to show you one of my favorite kitchen tools. This is a great thing for low carb. And so If you're on, uh, some of the other channels besides Instagram, I'm now going to switch over to the cutting board cam. I don't know why I think this is like so— it's so silly to me now that like, um, that, you know, technology can do all of this crazy stuff, and I'm just here in the kitchen by myself, and I can switch over to this cutting board cam. So if you are with me on, um, Facebook or YouTube or anything, magically now I'm going to be on my cutting board, which just is so exciting. So, um, and on— if you're on Instagram, I'm just going to turn this so hopefully that you can see this a little bit. But there is the cutting board. Be sure to ask all your questions while you're around. But so I've got 2 medium zucchini, and I'm just going to cut the ends off. So if you don't have a spiralizer, do not worry. You can just cut slices of zucchini, and this will taste exactly the same. But this just makes it look a little fancier. So when you have the spiralizer, you just put it, um, I'm going to show you a little closer here. So, okay, there's the little, um, plate that's on it, and the little round part is where you put the zucchini. And I'm going to just go ahead and put that on there. And then the end part has these spikes that go into the end, and then you just turn it. And so as you go, you'll start to see the zucchini noodles coming out. And I like to do about 1 medium zucchini per person just for the bulk of it. And because you're not using real pasta noodles, obviously they're not as nearly as filling, so you want to have a good amount. I typically will go ahead and serve the zucchini raw. I try to let it warm up to room temperature ahead of time, and then, you know, you end up with this little zucchini middle. I just break it up and stick it on there because I feel like, just why, why waste it? Just go ahead and use it all. So that is one zucchini plate. Done. You can see I've got the zoodles here. Um, like I said, I go ahead and leave them raw, but if you like, you can put them in the pan for a minute or two with some butter or something, just take the chill off of them if they're cold. Like I said, I like to try to get them to room temperature first. Um, and then some people like them cooked, but I find when I cook the zucchini noodles, it makes them a little too mushy and too much water. Comes out of them. So I really like just keeping them raw. But if that isn't to your taste or just doesn't suit you for some reason, then please feel free to put them in the pan. And you could put them in the pan at the very end with the sauce and everything that we're making and the, um, shrimp, and then you can cook them a little bit that way. And for this dish, since it's creamy dish with a fair amount of sauce, like, it probably wouldn't be that big a deal this time to cook them a little bit, but I just find, like I said, they get a little too watery and mushy and cook down a lot. I just really prefer them raw, but you can do whatever you like. So if you're just joining, it's Live Cook Along Monday. You can go to livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com to sign up to get the ingredients ahead of time. And then while we're cooking together, you can just ask me any keto-related, health and wellness-related, yoga-related questions. That's kind of all my expertise and what I do, what I'm all about. So like I said, I just take the little center of zucchini and break that up. And so now I've got my 2 plates of zucchini ready to go for the shrimp and sauce. Back again. Um, and let me see here. I gotta get used to kind of going back to, uh, in between the cameras. But anyway, I don't know, I just think that's sort of fun. So anyway, um, this again is the spiralizer. If you don't have one of these, it's not totally necessary. Like I said, you can cut it into slices and it'll still taste the same. It just gives a better presentation with the zucchini zoodles, zoodles noodles. Um, and it's not super expensive. This, you can get them for under $20 now. The one that I like is linked on my, um, Amazon shopping page, which is amazon.com/shop/healnourishgrow. That's where you'll find all of my favorite cooking tools, my knives, my awesome 24-inch cutting board that you just saw while I was doing the zucchini noodles. I've had that thing for I don't know, over 25 years at this point. But I love it because it's so big that I can chop multiple things at a time and just kind of have them still sitting on the cutting board as I go. So I'll go ahead and get kind of the rest of the things prepped, because once we get the shrimp in the pan, things go really quickly. So the other thing that I need to just do is, you know, we have our shrimp. In the bowl defrosting, but they start to get even icier initially. So I just need to rinse them again really quick and add some more water to that. Again, you're putting them— obviously you're cooking them on the stove. So if they're a little frozen when you put them in the, um, in the skillet, it's not a big deal. But I do like having them mostly defrosted just so that, you know, you're not having to overcook them. Because if you start to overcook shrimp, they really get a little rubbery, and it's just not nearly as good of a texture to work with— or not to work with, but just not as good of a texture taste-wise, really. So these are getting a little more stuck together and frozen as they're thawing. So I'm just going to wait a second here. Our kitchen, uh, faucet takes a long time for the water to get pretty hot because we have an instant, uh, what do you call that, instant water heater or instant heat-up thing. So because the kitchen is kind of on the other side of the house from that, it takes quite a while for that to heat up. So now that they've been rinsed initially in the cooler water, I'm just going to put some warm water in there so that they defrost a little bit more. Um, so yeah, it's still cold. That's how long it takes. And I apologize because as good as the little setup I have is for the YouTube and the Facebook thing with the cameras, with the cutting board and the stove, it doesn't follow me when I move around like this one is for Instagram, which is actually kind of funny. I wasn't sure if it was going to work, this little robot thing that I got from Amazon. But anyway, so it's following me now over here to the sink, which I just think is really crazy. There, got me. Okay, so now that this water is a little bit warmer, I'm gonna dump all this old really cold water off because everything is basically like putting ice in water, how frozen they are. So now I'm just gonna put this warmer water here in with the shrimp. And let them defrost some more. Okay, so that is all good. So if you're just joining, don't forget to answer— or answer— you can answer all your own questions, but you could ask me questions about keto or cooking or yoga or health and wellness, all the stuff that I do on the daily. Um, if you're just joining, I have the plates of zoodles all ready to go. And now I'm going to pop over to the cooktop. So let me put that on the screen. If you're on Facebook or, uh, YouTube, you'll see that. And so basically I'm just putting some butter in my skillet now. I'm going to put that on a medium heat and then I'll show you I need a few. I love garlic, so I almost couldn't do too much garlic if this was just for me. Um, but I think in the recipe I call for 2 pieces of garlic. If you don't like garlic as much, then obviously, excuse me, obviously do less. Um, but now let me go back actually here to the cutting board because I just want to show you my favorite method for dealing with garlic. So here you see I have the cloves on the cutting board, and let me move this here so you can see if you are with me on Instagram. So over— my little robot's getting confused. So over here I've got these ready to go. So you're going to take the flat side of your knife and a garlic clove, and you're just going to smack it just like that. And you can see now, if I just pick up the edge here, that whole um, piece of shell comes off. And so now I just have just the garlic left. Um, I'll do that again so you can see. You like use the flat side of your knife, give it a smack, and that just peels off really easy. You can see the whole peel just came right off of there. So that's 2 cloves. That's what it calls for in the recipe. I'm gonna do a couple more because we really like garlic. So that doesn't bother me. And you can see with the smacking, it just, it just, there's a super simple way to peel garlic. I mean, it's just ridiculously easy. So now we're going to do a quick mince. So if you are just learning knife skills, you have your chef's knife, you're going to keep the thin tip of the knife on the cutting board right here, and then you're going to work this knife back and forth over your garlic, and that just minces it up. So you can also see, like, this is why I have this— why I love this cutting board so much. It's big enough that I can cut multiple things on it at the same time and not have to clear the board, and it just gives you plenty of room to work with. So I really like that about this cutting board. Again, that's linked on my Amazon site if you happen to be interested in it. It's a Boos Block, which is a very well-known cutting name. Super thick, super long-lasting. As I mentioned, I've had it for like 25 years. Years. So it's really a good investment, and you will not be disappointed. So now that I've got the garlic minced, I'm just gonna pop this back up here. And, uh, let's see here. Where am I? So I've got the garlic all minced, and the way that I like to do that is just take, take your knife And then just scrape it across the board and you scoop it right up on top. And then you're gonna put that into your pan and pop over to the cooktop here. I don't know why I just think this is so entertaining with the whole little camera thing. And it's like, it's technology that is, it's literally just my laptop hooked up to some really inexpensive, like $20 webcams. And then this piece of open source software called OBS, and you can like literally create these scenes and pop between the, um, cooktop and whatnot. So anyway, that's— you just scoop it on there and then put it into your pan. So now I've got the garlic and the butter in there together. You always want to keep your garlic and butter on a relatively low heat, um, because you can easily burn garlic and it makes it more bitter when you burn garlic. So you want to keep it on a lower heat to make sure that you don't get that bitter taste. So that's in the pan. Now I've got some cherry tomatoes. I don't know where this— this robot must see a ghost or something because it keeps trying to go away. But now I've got some cherry tomatoes, and so I'm just going to cut these in half. And honestly, for anything, these are more for color, like, yeah, a little bit for taste. But if you're trying to keep your carbs super low, tomatoes do have some natural sugars in them, so you could decide to leave these out if you wanted to. Um, it's not going to substantially change the taste of the dish, so totally fine to leave them out if you'd prefer. It does reduce the carb count a bit. So just cutting these in halves like you can see there, and I've got the garlic and butter going behind me on a lower heat. So that's good to go. Um, while I'm still at the cutting board, I'm going to go ahead and cut some fresh parsley. So the recipe called for about 2 tablespoons. The way that I like to deal with parsley is that I just grab it off of the thing, and then sometimes I'll go through and pull the leaves off. So if you want to keep the stems out of there, you go in the opposite direction. So you see that this is growing this way, right? So if you go in the opposite direction, You can just pull the leaves off the bottom, and then that allows you to keep the stem out of it. It just— the stem's a little tougher. I mean, when it gets cooked in the dish, it's not a big deal. But if you're just doing a couple of— hey, Natalie, I just saw you. I'm just over here cooking dinner. So, um, if you can get the stem out of there, I just think it makes for a better texture in the dish. If you have it in there, it is not a big deal. It's going to cook down and get very soft, so it's not going to bother you that much. But I don't know, like whenever I'm sitting here waiting for the garlic and butter to cook together anyway, I just pick the leaves off. It makes me happy. It's what I do. You don't have to do it. It's not going to substantially affect the flavor of the dish. So, and again, if I wasn't, you know, doing recipe development and making everything super precise on a daily basis when I'm in the kitchen, I pretty much just always wing it. And so you'll notice that I'm not really measuring anything right now. There are measurements in the recipe if you're a measurement person. Uh, but if you're like me and you just kind of don't mind winging things, then you really just get the idea of these are ingredients that are gonna go well together. They're gonna taste good together. And so you don't have to worry too much. If you love parsley, put a little more parsley. If you love garlic, put more garlic. That's how I like to roll with that stuff. So anyway, the garlic is starting to get like just a little brown on it. I'm going to turn this and it's getting a nice smell. Um, so I'm going to turn this around. Why does that little robot keep doing goofy things? But I'm going to turn it around so that, um, you can see this again. So I think we're just about good here. The other thing that I could do because again, once the shrimp gets in there, it cooks so, so quickly, um, is shred my Parmesan cheese. So again, I've got my nice giant cutting board over here that I have plenty of room, so I can just shred the cheese. And let me just pop over here too. So again, if you're on YouTube, you're gonna see the cutting board now, but if you're on Instagram, you just get this and you get my crazy little robot chasing me around. But anyway, so I'm just shredding some cheese. I believe that the recipe called for, about a quarter cup, or maybe, I don't know. Like I said, feel free to do— see, why is— why does he keep going that way? Nobody's over there. I think I have a ghost in my house because why does this thing keep moving around? Maybe this is— maybe I have to return this one before I decide because, um, I just got it from Amazon. This is the first time I'm testing it out and it is making a lot of random, um, movements. So I'm not really sure that this will be good for the long term. Anyway, so I'm shredding the Parmesan right now, and let me just adjust this camera a little bit so that you can see the cutting board, except for he keeps trying to move towards me. Whatever is happening here, I'm sure you're finding this to be scintillating TV. Okay, I'm gonna skip the cutting board because apparently it just wants to track. Um, so I'd say I have about a quarter cup there, and I think that's going to be pretty good. And the Besides that, I can keep a little extra so that I can put it on the top one to finish the dish. So if I need extra, I can just shred more then. So now I think we've got everything ready to go. Um, I am just going to, uh, take— let's see, I'm just going to take the shrimp, rinse them one more time, and then I'm going to put them into the pan. So got the shrimp over here, and as I mentioned before, I did go ahead— these were frozen shrimp that were peeled and deveined, but they are raw. And so I was just defrosting them a bit before we started cooking, because while you could put frozen shrimp in the pan, that's going to make them— you're going to have to cook them longer to defrost them, and then they get kind of tough, and nobody likes tough shrimp. So just pre-defrost them. So now you see I've got them here that are ready to go. And so let me pop over to the cooktop here. And if you're here, I'm gonna— maybe I can bring this a little closer so you can see. So there's the cooktop. I'm just putting the shrimp in. So again, that was the garlic and butter, and now I've got the shrimp in here. I'm gonna go ahead and put in the tomatoes because they actually take— actually, the shrimp tends to cook so quickly that I can probably just put all this in at the same time. So I've got the parsley, the tomatoes, and the shrimp all in one place, and that's just gonna take a minute there to cook. Um, usually— well, I say a minute— shrimp will typically take anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes depending on how big they are. And just gonna give my hands a rinse since I've got the raw shrimp on there. Okay, so that's looking good. Accidentally got a fair amount of water in there when I poured it in. That's not a problem because that's all going to cook off. So in the meantime— oh, hi from Switzerland! Hey, so I was supposed to go to Switzerland this month, and of course damn COVID prevented that. I was going to be snowboarding over there, but I'm already looking forward to the day about, I don't know, 10 days from now when I can rebook my frequent flyer trip for 330 days in advance. And go to Switzerland in 2022. Um, the Alps, if you, if you're a skier or snowboarder and you've never been there, it's absolutely amazing. You have to go. Um, I don't know if Flo Lotus 71 can comment on how wonderful Switzerland is since he or she lives there, but, um, the Alps are just something else. So it's an amazing place. Anyway, again, livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com every Monday, 6 PM Eastern. If you, um, are just joining, we're making creamy garlic shrimp over zoodles tonight and, um, playing with, experimenting with some camera angles while I'm cooking along here. And this is going to go pretty quick. So how you can tell shrimp are done— they're pretty translucent when you put them in raw. Once they start to be opaque and pink, then you know your shrimp are done. And you don't want to go much past that because they overcook really quickly. So you just want to wait till they get just pink and opaque. Hi, Biagio! I always crack myself up trying to pronounce these names that are like— there's some kind of real name obviously, right? But they're not like somebody's name, and so sometimes usernames are hard to decipher. But the shrimp are already starting to turn pink and not be translucent, so you can see how quick that was and why this shrimp are such a great thing for a weeknight meal is because they cook so, so quickly that you can easily have a shrimp dish done in under half an hour, no problem. So I'm gonna just show you this a little closer here. So I don't know if you can tell, but they're getting very pink already, and there's a couple of them that are still a little translucent. So maybe about 1 more minute to go. But again, I don't like to cook them too long because they get tough and rubbery really quickly. So you just want to keep a good eye on them. So one thing that I did not put in the recipe, but I almost always do because this is a butter, uh, creamy butter thing, is I'll usually put a squeeze of lemon and also a splash of white wine. Oh, from Italy, nice! Oh my God, skiing in Italy is amazing too. I'm so bummed that we can't go over there this year. We Love Europe, love France, love the Alps, love Italy. Snowboarded in all those places and it's just fantastic. So thanks for joining. Uh, speaking of Italy, man, I mean, they have like the most wonderful food there for sure. Um, but you can easily eat low carb in Italy, no problem. I've been there since I've been keto and low carb and was no problem. You have the Florentine steaks, you have all the fresh seafood, you have all the wonderful things. That's not to say that I did not eat some pizza while I was in Italy, because if you ever go to Italy, particularly Naples, Italy, you must have at least a piece of pizza. I mean, unless you're diabetic or something, then please don't do that. But if you're not, you have— I mean, it's literally the best pizza in the entire, entire world. It's so good. So, okay, this— okay, so the shrimp are basically done. So now what we do is we put in our cheese and our heavy cream. Sorry about my crazy camera. So again, I'm not measuring. I believe the recipe called for a quarter cup of each of the cream and the cheese. And basically, since the shrimp is already cooked You're just— since the shrimp's already cooked, you're just waiting until the cheese melts, and then this is done. And now we've got our parsley in there with the green, the tomatoes in there with the red, so it makes a very pretty presentation. And here we go, you can see It's kind of all done there now, and I've got the zoodles, so I'm just going to go ahead and put this right on top of the zoodles, and then I'll show it to you again. This is a relatively light meal, um, calorie-wise and taste-wise, just because it is seafood and it's most, you know, it's vegetables for the um, for the noodles. But here you can see the final dish. And so that's really it. That was so quick. And, um, the recipe will be up on the site in the next couple days. If you're just joining, we cook together every Monday at 6 PM Eastern, or almost every Monday. Next Monday I'm going to be snowboarding, but not in Italy, unfortunately. Um, I'm from Italy, Naples. What do you— so what I cooked tonight was the garlic creamy shrimp Parmesan over zoodles, which is on the plate. Um, some night I will make my bread sauce. It's not as good probably as the Italian grandmothers in Italy because the tomatoes there are so amazing. Uh, they're, you know, grown in volcanic soil, San Marzano. They're quite famous. I try to always use those when I make my red sauce, but maybe on a future cook-along night I'll do that. The only problem is It's not really a quick and easy weeknight meal because you typically leave the sauce on the stove for hours. Um, and obviously when we cook together, we don't have hours together, unfortunately. But anyway, that is all for now. So this is finished. We are gonna go eat. If you want the recipe, it will be on the site in the next few days. And be sure, sure to join me 2 Mondays from now when we'll be cooking together again. Uh, I don't normally tell you what I'm making. I just send you the ingredients. So that's why you have to sign up for the list ahead of time so you know what to get.. And then when we cook together, it's kind of a surprise. But I think you can tell when you get the ingredient list, obviously, like, are you gonna like it or not? So anyway, hope you have a great night. Thanks for joining, and I will see you again soon. Oh, we're, we're not in Canada, unfortunately. But, um, I do cook a lot, so that's probably why you wanna live here. But anyway, I will see you guys again next time. Join the list so you can cook with me next time.