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Monday, September 5, 2011
How to Cook Inexpensively and Nutritionally?
Someone asked this week: How to cook cheap and nutritionally?
This is my response. Many people think it's more expensive to eat healthy and on the surface that may seem true after a grocery store trip, but when you calculate extra trips to the doctor because you are not nourishing your body in the end eating healthy becomes more reasonable.
This is my response. Many people think it's more expensive to eat healthy and on the surface that may seem true after a grocery store trip, but when you calculate extra trips to the doctor because you are not nourishing your body in the end eating healthy becomes more reasonable.
For starters I understand that different people may have a different opinion on what constitutes a nutritional grocery list. My definition would be a list that contains:
- Organic as much as possible, meats, fruits and vegetables.
- A very small amount of processed food to none.
- Whole grains
- Canned food with no additives, like food coloring, corn syrup etc
- Fast snacks made without hydrogenated oils whenever possible
- Dried fruits
- Supplements
Now that I defined my nutritional grocery list let me tell you some ways to save at the register.
- · We belong to a food co-op called Azure Standard. Many areas have a co-op all you have to do is call them and find out where your local drop is. We order once a month and a group of us meets to pick up our groceries.
- · If you buy a lot of organic beef like we do, find someone who raises beef and buy it local and watch your savings grow. Organic Beef normally starts at about $6 pound for cuts and about $4-5 for ground beef at Costco. Our local Beef goes for about $3.50 a pound all cuts!
- · Find your local Food Outlet. Ours has a small section of organic boxed and canned foods. I stock up there.
- · Scout out local mom and pop farm stores for pesticide-free fruits and vegetables. We can get 20lb watermelons for only $3.50 and they are the sweetest around.
- · Check out your local food program. We volunteer at our local mission and they get in boxes of fruits and vegetables all the time. Being that I was a Director there for 2.5 years I know that most people who come in for the food boxes are not interested in the green leafy vegetables and the cooks don’t always use them because they don’t know how to cook them. I was there this past week and they had huge crate of Swiss Chard and it broke my heart to see them starting to wilt because everyone was passing them by. I told the cook how to use them in recipes and told the guys ways they could save them. I have been using that same batch of Swiss Chard for a couple of days now. Of course the best way to save on your grocery bill is to plant a garden.
· Lastly, and most importantly PRAY PRAY. I have prayed for an abundance of fruits and vegetables and then I watched the Lord answer as my kid’s art teacher sent home extra veggies and whole-grain sandwiches with my kids every week after art class was over so they wouldn’t go to waste! Isn’t God good
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Drink your Vegetables!
After watching this video I decided to try my first blended Green Smoothie. I have juiced greens before, but never blended them in a smoothie.
Ingredients straight from the garden or organic
- 1 Leaf Swiss Chard
- 1/3 leaf of Curly leaf Mustard (Added a slight spicyness)
- 1 leaf Lettuce
- 1 long leaf Kale
- 1 Peach
- 1 Plum
- 1 Orange
- 1 Banana
- water
- ice
- a bit of Agave Nectar
(Photo: below serving the smoothies to the kids! They loved it, daddy thought they were ok. I told him to learn to LOVE them...ha.ha..)
Creamy Dreamy Summer Sqaush Soup
My squash has arrived! So now the creativity begins....
Creamy Dreamy Squash Soup
Ingredients are approximate as I did not measure when making it.
2 Huge Summer Squash- Yellow & Green Sliced (I used my mandolin)
1/2 Box Imagine Sweet Potato Soup (Or homemade or use another Imagine creamy soup)
Small handful of Basil (Less if you a new to using it basil, it has a pretty strong flavor.
Salt/Pepper
1 Tsp Honey
2 Tb Braggs Amino Acid (Great Soy Sauce replacement)
1 Tb Non-Dairy Margarine
1 Tb oil
Cook squash in oil until wilted. Add salt/pepper + Box soup. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Next blend the soup in a blender until super smooth. Return to pot add honey, margarine and amino acids. Remove a cup of soup to blender, add basil and blend until smooth. Return mixture to the pot. Simmer until ready to eat. I let mine cook for about 20 minutes more without lid.
I also added diced zucchini for texture the last 20 minutes.
We ate the soup as is, while we waited for our super moist meatloaf to finish cooking. I served the loaf into our second serving of soup and we just broke it up with our forks. The kids really loved it that way. My loaf contained:
2.5 Ground turkey
a lot of fresh dill
1/2 cup Imagine potato soup (helped with the moistness)
Ground flax seed
Zucchini diced
Salt/Pepper
pinch of basil fresh from garden
Baked in a loaf pan for 1 hour 20 minutes.
Creamy Dreamy Squash Soup
Ingredients are approximate as I did not measure when making it.
2 Huge Summer Squash- Yellow & Green Sliced (I used my mandolin)
1/2 Box Imagine Sweet Potato Soup (Or homemade or use another Imagine creamy soup)
Small handful of Basil (Less if you a new to using it basil, it has a pretty strong flavor.
Salt/Pepper
1 Tsp Honey
2 Tb Braggs Amino Acid (Great Soy Sauce replacement)
1 Tb Non-Dairy Margarine
1 Tb oil
Cook squash in oil until wilted. Add salt/pepper + Box soup. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Next blend the soup in a blender until super smooth. Return to pot add honey, margarine and amino acids. Remove a cup of soup to blender, add basil and blend until smooth. Return mixture to the pot. Simmer until ready to eat. I let mine cook for about 20 minutes more without lid.
I also added diced zucchini for texture the last 20 minutes.
We ate the soup as is, while we waited for our super moist meatloaf to finish cooking. I served the loaf into our second serving of soup and we just broke it up with our forks. The kids really loved it that way. My loaf contained:
2.5 Ground turkey
a lot of fresh dill
1/2 cup Imagine potato soup (helped with the moistness)
Ground flax seed
Zucchini diced
Salt/Pepper
pinch of basil fresh from garden
Baked in a loaf pan for 1 hour 20 minutes.
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