Last night’s Relish Cooking Show was a great event and well attended! There were many great vendors and the chef presented his cooking demonstration in a way that was applicable to every day life in the fast lane. For those who didn’t attend, I believe you will be able to watch the show online at www.relish.com. Cooking can sometimes be very overwhelming as it takes planning and time, but once you get the hang of things, it will not only save you money from going out to eat, but it can also be healthier for you! Now the recipes he made last night were not all the healthiest, but he did show us that you can make meals in a timely fashion by reusing ingredients and parts of the meals for other courses at another time. Since the first of the year, I have tried making an effort to plan our meals better. It wasn’t really a resolution, just mainly a wellness goal of mine. It’s easy to get into the habit of not planning and then grabbing something quick or making boxed meals. Now, it’s fine to do that every once in awhile, but the processing isn’t good for us and can make us feel sluggish as we aren’t fueling our bodies with healthy foods.
Everyone’s busy and frankly the busy-ness isn’t ever going to change as that’s the way our society is, so we need to adapt and do better with what we have control of. Here are some tips that have helped me be more organized and enjoy healthy meals during the busy work week. I hope they help you too!
- On a day that you have a little more (example- Sunday) make a plan for your week’s meals. Plan out at least 3-5 days. Ask your family for input on what they would like to help reduce the stress of you having to plan everything out yourself. Since I don’t have any kids to help me with this, I love looking through my cookbooks and finding new recipes and/or meals we haven’t had in awhile to keep variety in our intake.
- Think about how you can re-use items for several meals. An example of this is what we call batch cooking and what Chef Christopher showed last night. Brown up some extra hamburger or slow cook several chicken breasts in a crockpot or oven and pre-portion into a few small containers to use in various meals. Last week I used hamburger in 3 meals: hamburger pizza, spaghetti, and tacos, but I only browned the hamburger once, thus saving me a lot of time.
- Check your cupboards, fridge, and freezer to make sure you have adequate groceries for these meals. If you don’t, you may need to make a trip to the grocery store.
- Ask your family for help! If you have kids old enough to help in the kitchen assign each of them a night to help out.
- Think about MyPlate and make sure you have adequate produce to make a healthy plate with the food groups. Remember half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables, a quarter lean meat, and a quarter whole grains. If you’re always short on veggies (which most of us are), I highly recommend the frozen steamer bags as they are super easy and convenient.
Cooking at home doesn’t have to be stressful…with a little planning and pre-preparation, you’ll find that eating at home is truly enjoyable and much healthier than that greasy burger and fries from the drive thru.
The picture I have included is of our very own STRIVE 2 Survive contributor, Dr. Jon McAreavey showing off his knife and cooking skills at the Relish show last night.
-Kelsey
