You’re a health care professional so you know how important it is to eat a nutritious diet. Unfortunately, “knowing” and “doing” are two different things. Especially when a busy job means your time is at a premium for getting healthful meals on the table.
Well we have two words for you. Okay, it’s really four words but it’s two ideas:
1) Slow cooker
2) Advance preparation
Let’s start with advance preparation.
Browse your produce department for already prepped items. Most grocery and warehouse stores carry items like onions and peppers that have already been chopped, mushrooms that have already been sliced and greens that have been stemmed and pre-washed.
These items are generally just slightly more expensive, but the small difference in price is well worth the time you will save.
Avoid, if you can, pre-prepped items with additives like oil or salt. For example, frozen diced potato hash browns make an excellent base for a potato soup, but some brands have oil and salt added in.
Prepared broths and stocks are also good to keep on hand. Look for organic and again, avoid brands with added salt, fat or MSG. For a super easy trick, freeze cubes of stock in an ice tray and keep the cubes in the freezer in a large freezer bag. Throw 2-3 cubes into homemade soups and stews.
Now, onto the slow cooker. This one kitchen device has made it easy to have a hot meal ready when you walk in the door after a hard day at work. And, as a bonus, most meats cooked on low, slowly for hours, are generally moister and more tender.
There are hundreds of good cookbooks that feature slow cooker recipes, but we recommend looking for recipes that use whole foods and avoid recipes that include soup mixes or canned creamed soup. These products generally contain more than the RDA of sodium and a host of ingredients that only a pharmacist could pronounce.
One final tip. If you’re looking to cut back on processed carbs, consider substituting quinoa for white rice or pasta. Quinoa cooks up in about 15 minutes and makes a great base on which to serve a curry or a stew.
Now to get those salivary glands engaged, here’s one of our favorite slow cooker recipes. It’s full of tasty veggies including beta-carotene and fiber-rich sweet potatoes.
2 raw sweet potatoes peeled and cubed
1 head of cauliflower separated into florets (buy pre-prepped)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 large can of diced tomatoes (do NOT drain)
1 can coconut milk
2-3 cloves diced garlic (buy pre-prepped)
1/4 cup diced onion (buy pre-prepped)
1/2 t grated fresh ginger (or use dried ginger powder)
2-3 T curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
Throw all the ingredients into your slow cooker. Set the cooker to cook on low or medium low for 4-5 hours.
Serve over quinoa along with a tossed salad.
It’s an incredibly easy and extremely healthy meal.
