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Old 09-15-2017, 08:13 AM
 
Location: Nantahala National Forest, NC
27,074 posts, read 11,692,069 times
Reputation: 30347

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It would be nice to have all home-cooked, healthy meals daily but not always possible in this era of crazy-busy schedules and fast foods or if you live alone.

To supplement your planned meal, do you buy store-baked chicken in placed of fried? Take home a large chef's salad?? Choose healthy selections from the hot bar at groceries ie green beans, or broccoli salad??

One I do frequently:visit the olive bar, getting selections of olives, marinated cherry tomatoes, mozz cheese, sundried tomatoes, marinated veggies; then at home, fix whole wheat pasta and mix & chill. The marinade from olives makes the dressing.

Good and quick pasta salad that keeps for days.

Your favorite healthy and quick meal extenders...???
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Old 09-15-2017, 09:04 AM
 
13,395 posts, read 13,400,889 times
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Everything you said in your first paragraph is incorrect. With proper planning, homemade food made with quality ingredients can be prepared and frozen. All in a few hours.


I'm single and I have a full time job. Meal planning isn't difficult.
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Old 09-15-2017, 10:24 AM
 
3,493 posts, read 7,886,167 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by charlygal View Post
Everything you said in your first paragraph is incorrect. With proper planning, homemade food made with quality ingredients can be prepared and frozen. All in a few hours.


I'm single and I have a full time job. Meal planning isn't difficult.

If I was single and only cooking for me and my tastes, meal planning wouldn't be difficult either.
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Old 09-15-2017, 10:31 AM
 
Location: Nantahala National Forest, NC
27,074 posts, read 11,692,069 times
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Thanks, pinetreelover...what you said is correct!!!


QUOTE=pinetreelover;49526290]If I was single and only cooking for me and my tastes, meal planning wouldn't be difficult either.[/quote]
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Old 09-15-2017, 10:33 AM
 
13,262 posts, read 7,930,328 times
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Rather recently, I've discovered the frozen vegetables that have quinoa in them. I had accidentally bought 2 or 3 bags, and discovered my husband doesn't like frozen vegetables with quinoa added, so a couple of the bags sat in the refrigerator for awhile.


The other day, I had a late appointment, so it was "every man for himself dinner". I get home, and everyone else has eaten, and I'm like "what's fast and easy because I'm hungry". I found one of those bags of vegetables, heated them up, added a little shredded cheese, and some fresh herbs, and it was pretty yummy.


I'm thinking of buying some more of those, and they can be my lunch at work sometimes.
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Old 09-15-2017, 10:38 AM
 
Location: Texas
44,257 posts, read 64,051,768 times
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We keep a ton of fresh fruits and veggies and just chop them up and consume them raw.
In fact, I think that is most meals and snacks. Our produce budget is big.
Steaming the veggies occasionally (like broc or cauliflower).

Also, we do go and get those frozen (already cooked) organic chicken breasts.

Kids' breakfast is always the same - whole grain waffle, chicken sausage (Applegate), and fresh fruit.

Family of 4 (5yo, 3yo kids). Everyone pretty much eats the same stuff. And we do a lot of that making a HUGE amount of food (the protein especially - bucatini and meat sauce, casseroles, pulled pork, etc) and then eating it for several days in a row. No one minds.

We don't do special order and we don't do 'kid food' (which is a total nonsense idea in the first place).
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Old 09-15-2017, 10:47 AM
 
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
17,330 posts, read 32,856,515 times
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I love your pasta salad shortcut! Fabulous!

I buy a rotisserie chicken when I don't want to bother making it myself. I'll have some that night and the rest I'll use to make chicken salad. YUM to the chicken salad especially!!

For salads, I'll put one together from the cold bar at my grocery store. Always good. Otherwise, to have salad stuff in my fridge, ready to make a salad, I'm a minimalist: fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes, some sharp cheddar (that I crumble up into the salad) or bleu cheese, maybe cucumber, maybe some chickpeas, bottled dressing. Done.

Two of my local grocery stores have ready-made meals (like chicken parm) in the refrigerated section. Some of those meals are healthier than others, but I love the chicken parm in particular. One of the stores marks them down 50% when it's the day before the "best by" date. I buy them then and throw them in my freezer.

I'll often buy already-cut pineapple or melon because those packages don't have a WHOLE pineapple or a WHOLE melon, neither of which I can or will eat before it spoils.

Sometimes I have a "normal" work week (60 hours is pretty normal for me) but I'm self-employed, so sometimes "normal" is 80 or 90 hours. Especially during those 80-90-hour weeks, I love the shortcuts that don't involve ordering something that I know it horribly unhealthy for me just for the sake of convenience. Or, um, scarfing down a whole bag (family size, yo!) of potato chips for dinner. And on top of work, I have other things to do, with cooking not being my topmost priority.
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Old 09-15-2017, 11:01 AM
 
Location: Southwest Washington State
30,585 posts, read 24,917,855 times
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I occasionally buy a whole baked chicken and we have 2-3 meals from it.

We both seem to prefer raw veggies now, and we consume lots of them. It is easy to prepare them for eating plain, for lunch. This is easy.

Since I make many salads every week, I have found a few staples to jazz them up. I use fresh ingredients, including fruit, but vary by what I have on hand. But I always have on hand for salads: real bacon bits, shredded cheese or cheese for shredding, and sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Adding these things to a simple salad, make it better. I never use bottled dressings. I almost always use a quick vinegar and olive oil drizzle, or a simple vinaigrette.

I keep a bottle of white and a bottle of red wine for adding flavor as I cook.

I use low sodium chicken broth for cooking liquid, which I buy at Whole Foods.

I use non GMO cold pressed canola oil for cooking.

I keep cans of reduced sodium beans in my pantry. But I also pressure cook dried beans from time to time. Beans are healthy, and can be added to many cooked dishes. I also keep cans of organic tomatoes on hand, but I use canned tomatoes with a light hand.
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Old 09-15-2017, 12:09 PM
 
Location: equator
10,999 posts, read 6,525,543 times
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Good ideas, everyone.


I used to love the olive bar in the States. Miss that.


So here I make up a healthy taco meat recipe that lasts a week and we slap it on a tortilla with cheese and raw onion.


I make my own mayo and a batch of egg-salad for a few quick meals.


Also found I can pre-cook a batch of potatoes, then shred/slice them, but in individual ziplocks in the freezer for quick hash-browns or mashed.


Guy up the street makes pizza dough, so I make a big one and there's a couple more meals....loaded with fresh veggies. We're all about left-overs so don't "cook" more than once or twice a week.
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Old 09-15-2017, 12:15 PM
 
35,095 posts, read 50,957,501 times
Reputation: 62660
Quote:
Originally Posted by greatblueheron View Post
It would be nice to have all home-cooked, healthy meals daily but not always possible in this era of crazy-busy schedules and fast foods or if you live alone.

To supplement your planned meal, do you buy store-baked chicken in placed of fried? Take home a large chef's salad?? Choose healthy selections from the hot bar at groceries ie green beans, or broccoli salad??

One I do frequently:visit the olive bar, getting selections of olives, marinated cherry tomatoes, mozz cheese, sundried tomatoes, marinated veggies; then at home, fix whole wheat pasta and mix & chill. The marinade from olives makes the dressing.

Good and quick pasta salad that keeps for days.

Your favorite healthy and quick meal extenders...???
Unfortunately we do not have the ability to do the things you listed.
I have to have ingredient lists and nutrition labels on everything.
Mr. CSD is diaabetic and I have an auto immune liver disease and I had a stroke 2 years ago on August 18.
With the daily medications and dietary needs we do eat at home most of the time.
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