For those who "don't cook"

[Anonymous]

This is an issue. We tend to order a lot of takeout or eat sandwiches or kind of scrabble up meals. As for me, I only eat fish and chicken so I tend to order what I think is healthier stuff. My husband however eats a lot of bad stuff and I worry about his diet.

For our daughter we prepare pasta and simple foods, veggies, fruits. She gets a balanced diet.

[Anonymous]

some suggestions:
- Marinade chicken breasts overnight and either grill or bake them the next day.
- Parboil, peel, de-seed, and saute' some plum tomatoes with garlic, olive oil, S&P, and basil. Toss over angel hair.
- Prepare a ton of mac and cheese, cut it into servings and freeze.
- Drizzle olive oil over fresh veggies (broc., carrots, asparagus, etc.), season and bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.
- Make a big salad with healthy fixings (dried cranberries, nuts, goat cheese - or whatever).
- Make egg white omelets if you're into low cholesterol foods. Add sauteed veggies to the mix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this and what I mean is that I rarely cook from scratch. We eat pasta, or soup and grilled cheese, or frozen entrees, or sandwiches, etc. We actually don't eat much takeout or eat out much.

How do your kids get fresh fruits & vegetables then?

Not PP being quoted, but it's not that hard to get fruits and veggies sides -- we get broccoli or green beans in a bag (3 mins in a microwave, maybe some lemon juice), carrots sticks, apples cut up, sometimes frozen or canned fruit for dessert (without added sugar).

[Anonymous]

Trader Joes has some awesome marinated meats. They also have brown rice in a minute and fresh veggies.

At least twice a week, I pull out he Forman grill, throw the marinated chicken on it, boil water and drop a bag of rice in it and steam some veggies. Yumm, healthy, easy, cheap and almost NO clean up.

Hope that helps.
Ahhh the joys of being a working mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this and what I mean is that I rarely cook from scratch. We eat pasta, or soup and grilled cheese, or frozen entrees, or sandwiches, etc. We actually don't eat much takeout or eat out much.

How do your kids get fresh fruits & vegetables then?

Not PP being quoted, but it's not that hard to get fruits and veggies sides -- we get broccoli or green beans in a bag (3 mins in a microwave, maybe some lemon juice), carrots sticks, apples cut up, sometimes frozen or canned fruit for dessert (without added sugar).

I was going to post the same thing. Green beans, broccoli, maybe quickly steamed asparagus, carrot sticks, slices of red peppers with a little ranch dressing, or frozen peas (my kids like to eat them friozen). THat's about all the vegetables my kids eat, and I feel pretty good that they eat that much to be honest. For fruit -- cut up apples, bananas or pears. Grapes and raisins of course. All this in addition to whatever the main course is, which may well just be something from the freezer, or a pot of soup, such as minestrone. None of this is "cooking".

[Anonymous]

I was going to post the same thing. Green beans, broccoli, maybe quickly steamed asparagus, carrot sticks, slices of red peppers with a little ranch dressing, or frozen peas (my kids like to eat them friozen). THat's about all the vegetables my kids eat, and I feel pretty good that they eat that much to be honest. For fruit -- cut up apples, bananas or pears. Grapes and raisins of course. All this in addition to whatever the main course is, which may well just be something from the freezer, or a pot of soup, such as minestrone. None of this is "cooking".

We do the same thing. Steamed veggies, fresh fruit -- those are easy to come by and certainly aren't cooking.

[Anonymous]

I disagree, in a sense, with the "just because it's from scratch doesn't mean it's healthy." True, from scratch can be full of fat, etc. but I think the root of a lot of our health problems is that we eat too much processed foods. A lean cuisine may help you lose weight but it's food from a box and not healthy to do every night, yet much of America doesn't know that or doesn't care. My mom used to cook more beef and potatoes but at least it was REAL food and not the stuff McDonald's tries to serve.

I'm not huge into cooking, but fortunately a ton of healthy stuff doesn't need to be cooked! We always have a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables in the house plus plenty of frozen vegetables and I love frozen berries in the winter. Yogurt and cheese are healthy snacks and so are raw nuts, seeds, etc.

For dinners, pretty much every night we have a vegetable - either salad, steamed veggie, or raw vegetables with hummus. We try to cook one or two big meals during the weekend and that can equal four dinners. There are plenty of other quick but healthy things you can throw together after work to go with a salad or vegetable - we do turkey tacos (basically brown the turkey with some seasoning, cut up some avocado and tomato, and it's done), veggie omelettes, grilled cheese with no butter, quick stir fries, and we bake chicken or fish in the oven a lot.

In the nicer weather DH likes to grill vegetables and chicken outside.

One of my goals as a mom is to make more baked goods from scratch when my kids get older - we bought some oreos several weeks ago and had them in a cookie jar. I pulled them out last night because I wanted something sweet, and thought, these must be stale. Nope, perfectly fine. I was delighted and grossed out!

I think dessert is fine in moderation but I would rather my kids have fresh baked stuff and not all that processed crap.

[Anonymous]

I disagree, in a sense, with the "just because it's from scratch doesn't mean it's healthy." True, from scratch can be full of fat, etc. but I think the root of a lot of our health problems is that we eat too much processed foods. A lean cuisine may help you lose weight but it's food from a box and not healthy to do every night, yet much of America doesn't know that or doesn't care. My mom used to cook more beef and potatoes but at least it was REAL food and not the stuff McDonald's tries to serve.

I'm not huge into cooking, but fortunately a ton of healthy stuff doesn't need to be cooked! We always have a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables in the house plus plenty of frozen vegetables and I love frozen berries in the winter. Yogurt and cheese are healthy snacks and so are raw nuts, seeds, etc.

For dinners, pretty much every night we have a vegetable - either salad, steamed veggie, or raw vegetables with hummus. We try to cook one or two big meals during the weekend and that can equal four dinners. There are plenty of other quick but healthy things you can throw together after work to go with a salad or vegetable - we do turkey tacos (basically brown the turkey with some seasoning, cut up some avocado and tomato, and it's done), veggie omelettes, grilled cheese with no butter, quick stir fries, and we bake chicken or fish in the oven a lot.

In the nicer weather DH likes to grill vegetables and chicken outside.

One of my goals as a mom is to make more baked goods from scratch when my kids get older - we bought some oreos several weeks ago and had them in a cookie jar. I pulled them out last night because I wanted something sweet, and thought, these must be stale. Nope, perfectly fine. I was delighted and grossed out!

I think dessert is fine in moderation but I would rather my kids have fresh baked stuff and not all that processed crap.

I agree with most of this.

Yes, scratch cooking can be high in fat, but it doesn't have to be, and at least you know what's in your food. And lower fat store-bought alternatives are often worse for you. They have to replace the fat with something, you know. E.g., I keep a bottle of homemade oil & vinegar dressing in my fridge at all times - takes me no time to make and it lasts for a long time. When I look at the "light" bottled dressings in the store, I can't believe the ingredient list and I wonder who buys that when all you need to do is mix a few things together at home in a shaker bottle for a much healthier dressing. Dressing isn't supposed to be fat-free. Olive oil contains healthy fats and eating those fats along with the salad vegetables helps you absorb more nutrients from the vegetables than you otherwise would. (That's one reason why you should toss a few pieces of avocado in your salad.) Fat-free dressing is made of water, high fructose corn syrup, vinegar, too much salt, maybe some soybean oil (nowhere near as healthy as olive or canola oil) and then some tiny bits of dehydrated vegetable, and artificial color.

That's just one example but there are many others. And it's fun to cook with fresh, whole foods as your ingredients.

I do like to bake, but I don't want to get into baking lots of desserts on a regular basis. We don't have dessert with most meals and I don't want to start that habit. We usually have a piece of fruit after dinner instead.

[Anonymous]

People don't seem to realize that for THOSE WHO DON'T COOK -- you instructions that we "marinade this," "parboil that," "whip up a healthy omelette" are UTTERLY MEANINGLESS -- we have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. If you don't cook, you have absolutely no way of doing this. I don't even know what this means and don't have the slightest clue how.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to realize that for THOSE WHO DON'T COOK -- you instructions that we "marinade this," "parboil that," "whip up a healthy omelette" are UTTERLY MEANINGLESS -- we have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. If you don't cook, you have absolutely no way of doing this. I don't even know what this means and don't have the slightest clue how.

if it's this bad, you need to make an effort to learn, instead of being proud of your ignorance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to realize that for THOSE WHO DON'T COOK -- you instructions that we "marinade this," "parboil that," "whip up a healthy omelette" are UTTERLY MEANINGLESS -- we have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. If you don't cook, you have absolutely no way of doing this. I don't even know what this means and don't have the slightest clue how.

LOL. As a mom just learning to truly "cook," I find it funny when people give me advice I don't understand. One that serves my memory was for mac and cheese - just make a roux (probably mispelling). Luckily the poster was kind enough to explain. And - if anyone out there is trying to learn to cook - I did find the Scramble service to be helpful in that she often explains what she means if she uses any "big" cooking term.

Now, I must go google "parbroil."

[Anonymous]

I posted that cooking from scratch doesn't mean healthy. I didn't mean it couldn't be healthy. I just meant it doesn't neccessarily mean it is healthier. You can cook with very very healthy ingredients. Or you could be like my chef BIL who can't cook a meal without using a pound of butter. His stuff is delicious, but I feel sick for days after eating it.

I think you can eat healthy with and without full-blown cooking. But I do agree, that "prepared meals" and take-out is often deceptive in that things that appear healthy often aren't.

I personally choose to try to learn to cook so my son would be exposed to a bigger variety of foods, and by me cooking the, I can control the ingredients. Now, whether or not they taste good when I cook them - that is another story

[Anonymous]

People don't seem to realize that for THOSE WHO DON'T COOK -- you instructions that we "marinade this," "parboil that," "whip up a healthy omelette" are UTTERLY MEANINGLESS -- we have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. If you don't cook, you have absolutely no way of doing this. I don't even know what this means and don't have the slightest clue how.

I think you are intimidated by not understanding some of the lingo, but cooking is not hard and you can certainly learn to make basic dishes if you want to - anyone can do it.

Here you go: "Marinate" - just put the meat in a glass dish with sides or even a plastic ziploc bag, and pour the marinade over it and let it sit in the fridge for a while. Then you take it out, discard the leftover marinade, and cook the chicken. A very easy starter recipe is to take some boneless chicken breasts, put them in gallon ziploc bag, pour bottled italian dressing in, close the bag, work the dressing around so they're all coated, let them sit a while in the fridge, and then put them on the grill. Very easy and the chicken comes out very moist.

"Parboil" - think partially boil. Kind of pre-cooking something so it cooks faster later on in the recipe. So for potatoes, you'd boil them, but not until they're fully cooked, then you'd dump the hot water and run them under cold water to stop the cooking process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to realize that for THOSE WHO DON'T COOK -- you instructions that we "marinade this," "parboil that," "whip up a healthy omelette" are UTTERLY MEANINGLESS -- we have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. If you don't cook, you have absolutely no way of doing this. I don't even know what this means and don't have the slightest clue how.

How did you get through life?

Can you even read directions?

all of that fried fast food destroying a few brain cells?

[Anonymous]

I jsut picked up my family dinner from Dean&Deluca today---about same price as delivery/take out (bit less).....for those of us that are extremely busy Grocery stores offering healthy prepared choices are a Godsend. The national grocery store chains could take off the waistline of Americans if they offered pre-cooked meals like this. Ppl without $ favor the 'happy meal' as their go to convenient food...we need to do something to change this as a nation...as I realize Dean&Deluca and WholeFoods are not viable options for the majority of the us population.