national nutrition month 1

“Go Further with Food”

By Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Marina Bedrossian

Reduce food waste, while helping your waist!

Planing your meals and snacks helps cut food waste, and guess what? It is also the key to long-term diet success (SCORE!). This means shrinking your food bill AND your pant size in the same effort. Let’s take a look…

  • When people plan their meals, they are more likely to make healthy choices.
  • It all starts at the grocery store. Food shopping should take place once a week. If you have the food at home, you’re more likely to prepare it.
  • The biggest problem is not the lack of time, it is the lack of energy. Try preparing meals earlier in the day when you have more energy. Start preparing dinner at the same time as breakfast! If you know certain days are hectic, plan ahead. Cook extra food ahead of time to have leftovers when most needed.
  • Lack of inspiration: it can be a real downer! Try:
    • Keeping a list of recipes which have worked well in the past
    • Subscribe to a cooking magazine for new recipes each month
    • Set time aside each month to look through your cookbooks. This is a great way to involve the kids!
    • Consider a meal planning software such as LivingPlate.org/meal-plans

            
Get into FOOD MODE. 

1.  I recommend writing down meal ideas for the week, once a week. You can then use the list to guide you through food shopping. This will help you stay focused, which means you will save money. 
2. When you get home, try to find time to prepare a few items. You may wash produce to have on hand for snacks or salads. You might even roast some vegetables or a chicken. Maybe start soaking beans for a recipe tomorrow. 
3. Don’t let your hard work go in the garbage! Keep prepped meals and snacks at eye-level in the refrigerator to ensure they will be eaten before they spoil. When in doubt, freeze leftovers for another week.

Example of a food plan for the week:

Sunday: Roasted chicken with roasted root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips), mixed green salad


Monday: Salmon burgers (canned wild salmon mixed with leftover potatoes, herbs, egg) with a mixed green salad


Tuesday: Chicken tacos (from Sunday’s leftovers) with guacamole, salsa, and Mexican-spiced roasted cauliflower (cooked on Sunday)


Wednesday: Chickpea pasta and zucchini noodles with meat sauce


Thursday: Leftovers


Friday: Chili with grits


Saturday: Lemon chicken and vegetable kebabs with mint and lemon quinoa mixed with cucumbers & tomatoes
 

Marina's Easy Peasy Chicken Curry Soup

Marina's Easy Peasy Chicken Curry Soup

I’ve always made some kind of version of this soup in the past, but this one is by far the easiest. This recipe was a bit of an accident. I began to make a basic chicken soup, but I left the chicken cooking (covered) for 4 hours! At first, I was completely ashamed that I cooked a perfectly good (organic) chicken to death. To my surprise, the chicken tasted great and was fall-off-the-bone tender. So I enjoyed my chicken soup for lunch that day. The soup then went in the fridge, awaiting my return. Well, my husband was on a chicken soup strike (he cannot eat the same recipe twice in one season) so I ingenuously came up with the idea to add coconut milk and curry to suit his taste buds’ needs.


This recipe is awesome because:


A.) Coconut & curry were made for each other
B.) Beans add additional fiber, protein, and creaminess to this dish and are completely disguised
C.) Even if you stop this recipe after step 2, you’ll still have a delicious meal 

 
Serves 8

Ingredients:
•    1 whole chicken, giblets removed
•    1 medium onion, sliced in half and peeled
•    2 carrots, cut into large chunks
•    2 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
•    4 cloves garlic, smashed
•    1 can coconut milk
•    1 can pinto beans, drained & rinsed (substitute chick peas, navy beans, cannellini beans)
•    2 Tbsp curry powder
•    1/2 Tbsp salt
•    1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (optional)
•    hot pepper for serving (optional)


1.    Add the first 5 ingredients to a large pot  and add enough filtered water to cover the chicken by about 1 inch. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then simmer on low for 4 hours (as little as 1 hour will work as well). Allow the soup to cool to room temperature.
2.    Carefully remove the chicken from the liquid and place on a cutting board or other work surface. Remove the skin and bones from the meat and discard them. Strain the cooked vegetables & discard those as well. Pull apart the meat to coarsely shred it.
3.    In a blender, combine coconut milk and beans. Blend until smooth, then add to the soup along with the curry powder, salt. Stir to combine.
4.    Heat the soup, add cilantro and pepper if using, then serve.
Notes: This soup would go nicely with small pieces of cauliflower, potato, rice, or cut string beans gently cooked for added bulk. I decided to add torn pieces of corn tortilla to mine, and it was delicious!

curry soup
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