Many of my coworkers tease me about being a "health food nut," because I cook and bake from scratch. I wouldn't go that far, but I do like to keep our meals as natural and healthful as possible.People who know this about me often ask how I manage to do this, while also working full time. In truth, it isn't always easy, but the peace of mind I get from knowing that we aren't ingesting chemicals, and the money we save, are worth the effort.
Here are some of Donnie's and my strategies for cooking healthfully, on a budget, with limited time. What are yours?
We keep it simple. Most of our favorite meals require a limited number of ingredients, and only a few preparation steps. Plus, we eat many Mexican, Italian, and Asian-inspired dinners, all of which allow room for ingredient substitutions and other modifications. This greatly reduces the amount of time we spend preparing dinner in the evenings.
We cook on the weekends. We prepare many of our more labor-intensive dishes on Saturday, then freeze for later use. We also bake bread, assemble casseroles, prep fresh vegetables, and perform other time-consuming kitchen tasks on the weekends. This allows us to spend less time making dinner during the work week.
We use the crock-pot. There's nothing better than coming home from work and smelling fresh chili, stew, or Italian sausage simmering away in the crock-pot. Plus, it's much easier to avoid the temptation of take-out when you know dinner is already done!
We plan ahead. Shopping with a grocery list, stocking the pantry with staples, and menu-planning on a weekly basis means we never have to ask, "What's for dinner?" This helps us avoid last-minute ingredient purchases, fast food stops, and other money wasters.
We keep the kitchen clean. If I know I'm going home to a messy kitchen, it's very easy for me to say, "Let's just get take-out. The kitchen's not clean enough to cook." On the other hand, if the kitchen is neat and organized, it's much easier for me to enjoy making dinner. Thankfully, Donnie usually cleans up after me as I cook, so that when dinner's over, we don't have much more to do than load the evening's dishes in the dishwasher, and wipe down the dining room table.
We cheat. Sometimes I get great deals on baking mixes or packaged foods......so we just eat them and enjoy. :)
How do you balance healthy eating, frugality, and the other demands on your time?
3 comments:
We us Zonya Foco's "Lickety-Split Meals: for health conscious people on the go" Has tons of fast, easy, and healthy recipes.
I'm in total agreement with you about shopping with a list and using the crockpot - it is invaluable especially to working people. I like to open my cupboards and pull out 4 or 5 things and make up something to go in mine - it's such good fun as well as time and money saving. Great blog, thanks
We are healthy and frugal, too. I agree that planning a menu is key to achieving both goals. I buy from the bulk bins at Whole Foods a lot, which is great for having baking staples on hand, also beans, lentils, rice and quinoa. It's so much cheaper in bulk.
I think the crock pot is truly the best appliance ever (besides my Kitchen Aid mixer!)
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