Peggy's Lazy Woman's Guide to Eating
I was talking to a friend of mine who is a recent college grad. We were discussing food and food prep and how you never want to come home from a hard day at work and cook a healthy meal. I mentioned some of the things I do to make life easier and healthier and she asked me to send her some ideas. I thought this would make a good blog entry, so here is Peggy’s Lazy Woman’s Guide to Eating. I will probably make a series of blogs on this subject.
Today’s blog is about color!!! For me there isn’t enough color, bling, glitter or rhinestones to satisfy my craving for color. So I wear colorful clothing and eat colorful food!!!! Today’s food is vegetables for salad, stir fry, and even just snacking on… or anything else you can use them for.
I got tired of plain old salads real fast when I started my very restricted diet. So I went out and explored the produce section of our store. Happily, our store carries a large organic selection and some interesting non-organic vegetables. You can add radishes, kolorabi, celery, (which is shown, but i didn't actually use it this time). I am not sure how mushrooms keep and tomatoes don't work in this. Use your imagination.
It took me about an hour, maybe a little more with the cleanup, to cut up a week’s worth of salad. This is what I started out with. I then proceeded to chop, cut, dice, and julienne…. Isn’ t that special? I can julienne!!!! I also cut up a bag of lettuce for salads, but didn't take any pictures.
I cut off a piece of the purple cabbage and cut it up in thin strips… I should have gone the other direction on this one to get all the really cute curly slices instead of these kinda boring ones. Just cut it off the big part of the cabbage to get the nice curly sections. But this shows you about how much I used. A whole cabbage usually lasts a good month, maybe more.
Next, a head of broccoli
Then I used my special Pampered Chef Julienne peeler, but I am sure you can find a cheaper one somewhere. It makes these nice matchstick carrots that I love to put in soup and salad. You just gotta get your jollies somewhere!!
Next is the best part!!! Purple cauliflower!!! During the winter it was lavender, but in the last month it really got so much more wonderful!! Dark Purple!!! But if your store doesn’t carry it, regular white cauliflower will be just as good since they pretty much taste the same.
And because it’s available, I just had to have the orange cauliflower!! Our store even carries a lime green color! All are very pretty and fun!
To add some more color, I get red, yellow, orange and green peppers. They add lots of good vitamins, flavor, and color! You especially need these if you don’t have awesome colored cauliflower!!!
I forgot to take a picture of the onions. I like to cut them up in thin strips and add them to the mix. Purple ones are nice, but I already had so much purple I went with a white colored, but named "yellow", onion ... use whatever tickles your fancy.
And this is what was left over when I was done. My unmixed bowl of salad and next week’s veggies.
Here is the result of about an hour’s work. Food to last me a week.
I just pack it up in a couple of gallon Ziploc bags and store in the fridge.
Now that you have all your veggies cut up, you can do lots with it, you can go to your cut up lettuce in a bag, and make a nice salad, add tomatoes or mushrooms, cheese and croutons.... whatever you like. Or, if you were like me the other day and needed a quick pot luck offering, you can take your bag of veggies, put it in a nice bowl, add some Very Berry Vinagrette dressing, or any kind would work, and have a nice colorfull veggie salad!!! You cauld make soup, open a box of chicken broth, add veggies, some frozen cooked chicken and cook for a bit... soup! And these are about the same veggies as I use in Veggie Kablooie, so you could just throw a couple handfuls in a food processor, chop them up fine, add Kraft Peppercorn Ranch dressing and some shredded cheese and Voila`! you have the most awesome snack available!!!!
You can make a quick stir fry with a frozen chicken breast, or breakfast sausage, and some oil, herbs (I use a lot of garlic powder)
and salt and pepper. Or use soy sauce or any of your favorite stir fry sauces.
Because Don was home I used two breasts, added a handful or two of veggies, (quick took the picture) then added a few more handfuls of veggies.
Dinner is served!!!!
In the next few posts I will discuss once a month cooking, and making grab and go food, like stuffed muffins, little pizzas, wraps and packaging.
Today’s blog is about color!!! For me there isn’t enough color, bling, glitter or rhinestones to satisfy my craving for color. So I wear colorful clothing and eat colorful food!!!! Today’s food is vegetables for salad, stir fry, and even just snacking on… or anything else you can use them for.
I got tired of plain old salads real fast when I started my very restricted diet. So I went out and explored the produce section of our store. Happily, our store carries a large organic selection and some interesting non-organic vegetables. You can add radishes, kolorabi, celery, (which is shown, but i didn't actually use it this time). I am not sure how mushrooms keep and tomatoes don't work in this. Use your imagination.
It took me about an hour, maybe a little more with the cleanup, to cut up a week’s worth of salad. This is what I started out with. I then proceeded to chop, cut, dice, and julienne…. Isn’ t that special? I can julienne!!!! I also cut up a bag of lettuce for salads, but didn't take any pictures.
I cut off a piece of the purple cabbage and cut it up in thin strips… I should have gone the other direction on this one to get all the really cute curly slices instead of these kinda boring ones. Just cut it off the big part of the cabbage to get the nice curly sections. But this shows you about how much I used. A whole cabbage usually lasts a good month, maybe more.
Next, a head of broccoli
Then I used my special Pampered Chef Julienne peeler, but I am sure you can find a cheaper one somewhere. It makes these nice matchstick carrots that I love to put in soup and salad. You just gotta get your jollies somewhere!!
Next is the best part!!! Purple cauliflower!!! During the winter it was lavender, but in the last month it really got so much more wonderful!! Dark Purple!!! But if your store doesn’t carry it, regular white cauliflower will be just as good since they pretty much taste the same.
And because it’s available, I just had to have the orange cauliflower!! Our store even carries a lime green color! All are very pretty and fun!
To add some more color, I get red, yellow, orange and green peppers. They add lots of good vitamins, flavor, and color! You especially need these if you don’t have awesome colored cauliflower!!!
I forgot to take a picture of the onions. I like to cut them up in thin strips and add them to the mix. Purple ones are nice, but I already had so much purple I went with a white colored, but named "yellow", onion ... use whatever tickles your fancy.
And this is what was left over when I was done. My unmixed bowl of salad and next week’s veggies.
Here is the result of about an hour’s work. Food to last me a week.
I just pack it up in a couple of gallon Ziploc bags and store in the fridge.
Now that you have all your veggies cut up, you can do lots with it, you can go to your cut up lettuce in a bag, and make a nice salad, add tomatoes or mushrooms, cheese and croutons.... whatever you like. Or, if you were like me the other day and needed a quick pot luck offering, you can take your bag of veggies, put it in a nice bowl, add some Very Berry Vinagrette dressing, or any kind would work, and have a nice colorfull veggie salad!!! You cauld make soup, open a box of chicken broth, add veggies, some frozen cooked chicken and cook for a bit... soup! And these are about the same veggies as I use in Veggie Kablooie, so you could just throw a couple handfuls in a food processor, chop them up fine, add Kraft Peppercorn Ranch dressing and some shredded cheese and Voila`! you have the most awesome snack available!!!!
You can make a quick stir fry with a frozen chicken breast, or breakfast sausage, and some oil, herbs (I use a lot of garlic powder)
and salt and pepper. Or use soy sauce or any of your favorite stir fry sauces.
Because Don was home I used two breasts, added a handful or two of veggies, (quick took the picture) then added a few more handfuls of veggies.
Dinner is served!!!!
In the next few posts I will discuss once a month cooking, and making grab and go food, like stuffed muffins, little pizzas, wraps and packaging.