Likely everyone at one time has arrived home hungry and tired and thought, “Yikes, what am I gonna make for dinner?” With kids back to school and the harvest season upon us, this can be a particularly challenging time to get a healthy meal on the table.
I asked Elmira, Ontario, Holistic Nutritionist, Amy Sonnenberg, for some sanity savers that can keep us from reaching for unhealthy processed foods when we’re busy. Sonnenberg has made it her mission to share with others how to use food to our advantage, choosing the right ingredients to support our health. She says investing a few minutes in menu planning is your most important tool for healthy eating and avoiding mealtime overwhelm. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Menu planning will not only reduce stress and help you eat better, she says, but also save you time and money.
Sonnenberg likes to plan a week of dinners at a time leaving a night or two for spontaneity. This also allows for a “leftovers night” which reduces food waste, she says. And while weekly planning is the timing that works best for her, Sonnenberg says it’s important for everyone to find a system that works for their particular situation.
Sitting down with her calendar, Sonnenberg assesses her time commitments and plans dinners accordingly. If there is a night when she knows she will be rushed to get dinner on the table, she’ll use her slow cooker. She likes to have at least five recipes for family favourites “in her back pocket.” These are meals she can make quickly and easily. A night when you are rushed is not a night to try a new recipe, she says.
To cut down on trips to the grocery store, Sonnenberg keeps a shopping list template on her computer with the foods she buys regularly already listed. She prints it out and puts it on the fridge door, adding the items she needs to buy to make the next week of dinners. There are also smartphone apps like ListingIt on Android and Wunderlist on Apple that do this if you prefer to go the digital route, she says.
Keeping the pantry/freezer stocked with some basic items also makes it easier to throw a meal together. Sonnenberg keeps canned beans, canned tomatoes, and pasta on-hand. Using these items, along with frozen vegetables or whatever vegetables she has in the fridge, makes it easy to make minestrone soup when she needs a quick meal.
Other tips from Sonnenberg include:
• Frying up extra ground beef and freezing it in right-sized portions to add to pasta sauce.
• Doubling recipes for soup, lasagna and chili and freezing the leftovers in individual-sized servings for lunches.
• Cooking extra and swapping with a neighbour.
• Preparing brown rice and a salad to serve with a grocery store rotisserie chicken. Leftover chicken can be used to make chicken salad for sandwiches or wraps and the chicken carcass can be used to make stock and chicken soup.
• Cutting up veggies for snacks or a stir fry ahead of time.
• Cooking quinoa to go with a meal, then using the leftovers to make this Greek Quinoa Salad for the next day’s lunch.
Greek Quinoa Salad
Recipe courtesy of Amy Sonnenberg, Holistic Nutritionist at Designed for You Nutrition (https://designedforyounutrition.com/)
Quinoa is considered a ‘super food’ on many accounts. It is a complete protein, a great source of iron, B vitamins, magnesium, phosphorous, calcium, potassium and fibre. Quinoa cooks similarly to rice which makes it an easy dish to prepare on a busy night.
Servings: 6-8
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
2 cups quinoa, cooked*
1 cup cucumber, diced
½ cup celery, diced
1 orange pepper, diced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
¼ cup olives, sliced
1 small lemon, freshly squeezed
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp oregano, dried
1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
Instructions
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and allow flavours to blend for at least 30 minutes. The salad will keep in the fridge for about three days.
*When cooking quinoa, it’s important to soak it for about 10 minutes before cooking. I simply put the quinoa in a fine strainer in a pot of water to soak. After about ten minutes, I rinse it well and add new water to the pot. Quinoa can taste a little bitter if you fail to do this step.
— Helen Lammers-Helps