Armendariz Matt - The dude diet dinnertime: 125 clean (ish) recipes for weeknight winners and fancypants dinners

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THE DUDE DIET: Clean(ish) Food for People Who Like to Eat Dirty

THE DUDE DIET DINNERTIME . Copyright 2019 by Domesticate Me LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Cover design by Milan Bozic

Cover photograph Matt Armendariz

Photographs copyright by Matt Armendariz

Digital Edition OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-285473-5

Version 09242019

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285470-4

FOR LOGAN, the dinner date of my dreams. Especially on Sundays.

Contents

If I ever die eating, at least I died doing something happy.

LOGAN SMITH UNLAND (after almost choking to death on a sandwich)

E ight years ago, I fell madly in love with a wonderful and hilarious food-loving dude named Logan. I recently married him, mostly for his hot body, but well come back to that.

Before we go any further, I need you to understand a few things about Logan Smith Unland and his unparalleled obsession with dank eats. This is the type of man who discusses a favorite sandwich or pizza in the same giddy, adoring way that most adults gush about their child or pet, right down to showing unsolicited photos on his phone. When attending a party, he immediately zeroes in on servers, becomes their best friend, and then enlists their help in procuring the freshest finger food throughout the night. (Hugs and high fives are not unusual upon leaving.) He comes close to hyperventilating in the vicinity of melted cheese, hasnt missed our local barbecue festival in over a decade, and braves ailments ranging from cayenne-induced rashes to somewhat alarming meat sweats in his relentless pursuit of deliciousness. Id go on, but you catch my drift.

When we first met, I was a culinary student at Le Cordon Bleu Paris, and Logans die-hard passion for food was one of the many things that piqued my interest in him. And since the first few months of our courtship were long-distance between Paris and New York City, I chalked up his decadent meal choices on dates to special-occasion eating. He definitely ate some nutritious stuff on his own time, right?

WRONG. Upon cohabitating, I quickly realized that Logans day-to-day diet was, in a word, terrifying. Scarier still was the fact that he thought he ate pretty healthy. Given that Logans primary food groups were meat, cheese, white bread, and Coors Light (all of which were consumed with flagrant disregard for normal human portion sizes), this belief only served to highlight his nutritional confusion. The more we talked about nutrition, the more I began to worry about Logans long-term health. If the iceberg lettuce and carrot shavings beneath his daily serving of chicken tendersaka Buffalo chicken saladremained his primary source of vegetables, he certainly wasnt going to win any longevity contests. I was actually rather surprised hed made it to the ripe old age of twenty-eight without falling victim to anything more serious than a raging Zantac habit.

Desperate to help my new roommate avoid an early, and likely deep-fried, grave, Id occasionally suggest that Logan consider cleaning up his diet, only to be met with anti-kale rants and refusals to eat weird vegan things like me. (I found the latter a particularly interesting rebuff, as I am not vegan, nor do I enjoy eating weird things.) He blanketly condemned all health food as boring and gross, repeatedly scoffing at my claims that nutritionally sound meals could taste just as awesome as his beloved Chinese takeout or football-size burritos...

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Motivated by love (and my competitive nature), I committed myself to overhauling Logans perspective on eating well. Fully aware that he would never restrict himself to a life of steamed chicken breasts and broccoli, and not wanting him to, I decided to re-create his favorite comfort foodsIm talking everything from lasagna and cheesesteaks to cocktails and cupcakesusing nutrient-dense whole foods. My mission wasnt to create recipes that were good for being healthy, but rather ones that were straight-up delicious and elicited the same excitement freak-outs associated with more fattening fare. It wouldnt be easy, but I knew that if I could pull it off, Logan might just come to see the healthy eating light.

And he did! The Dude inhaled my cleaner creations without question, happily eating more lean meats, whole grains, vegetables, and, eventually, his words. Slowly but surely, he dropped his post-college fun pounds, felt more energized, and began making smarter food choices and exercising respectable portion control on his own, which was downright inspiring to witness. If I could get Logan psyched about nutritious food, I knew I had a shot at converting other skeptics. And thus, The Dude Diet was born.

The early Dude Diet gospel was spread via my blog (domesticate-me.com), where I posted a regular column featuring slimmed-down comfort food recipes along with nuggets of nutritional wisdom and realistic healthy eating tips that didnt involve counting calories, cutting out entire food groups, or purchasing obscure ingredients from eighteen different specialty stores. The series struck a chord with so many more people than I ever could have anticipated and set a pretty amazing chain of events in motionstarting with the emergence of a fledgling Dude Diet community, then landing me a job as the private chef for a couple of players on the New York Giants, and ultimately spawning my first book.