You can make delicious soup with a prepared base plus your own fresh vegetables and spices

Cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients is the gold standard for healthy plant-based eating. Tips to make cooking more enjoyable simplify this process. But some nights even the most undemanding recipes are out-of-reach. You are running late at work and get home tired and distracted. Traffic was a hassle. Maybe you have less than an hour to make dinner, eat, clean up, and run out for another commitment. Even on weekends, you can be squeezed for time as you bounce from one commitment to the next.

Don’t despair. Even in these stressful situations, you can have healthy, satisfying food. You do not need to settle for a fast food chain, take-out with uncertain ingredients, or running on empty.

The secret is to jazz up grocery store convenience items with your own fresh add-ins. You don’t need a recipe. Once you get the knack of doing this, you’ll never lack for ideas.

The trick is to select the healthiest convenience items when you shop and always keep a few in your house. Here are some ideas.

• Soup in a box. Many brands offer soup bases you can pour from a box, using just the quantities you want.
• Canned soup and chili
• Jarred or canned tomato-based pasta sauce
• Frozen ravioli, gnocchi, or entrees
• Veggie burgers and dogs
• Cold or hot cereal

Okay, you are probably wondering, how can this possibly be healthy? Everyone knows prepared foods are almost always too salty,

Always keep some fresh vegetables on hand to add to pasta sauce, soups, or wraps

may contain added oils, and possibly other preservatives as well. Keep two things in mind. One is that some prepared foods are healthier than other choices. Second, you are going to dilute the undesirable ingredients with your own tasty additions.

Here are five tips to figure out the best choices for the prepared foods for your pantry.

1. Read the ingredient list carefully. Don’t look at claims on the packaging – only at the ingredients. If the item has any animal ingredients (milk, cheese, whey, cream, butter, fish, chicken, beef, egg or egg whites, and so on) then don’t buy it. Similarly, make sure that there are no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in the product and it is not deep fried.
2. Favor foods made with tofu over foods made with isolated soy protein.
3. Once you eliminate items that have unacceptable ingredients, compare the remaining choices to see which are lowest in fat and salt per serving.
4. The next step is to see which have the most desirable ingredients, such as whole grains (will say “whole” in the ingredient list), vegetables, fruits, beans, and potatoes.
5. Combine steps 3 and 4 to decide the products to buy.

You don’t need to do this every time you shop. Once you have your list of the best prepared foods, you can usually just buy the

Your cart is a blank canvas. You can add the best available choices...or not.

same brands over and over (reread the ingredient list every once in a while to make sure it has not changed).

The most important step is to add your own healthy ingredients to the prepared base until the healthy ingredients are a significant part of the total. Here are ideas for additions, but in the end you are limited only by your own imagination.

• Add lots of fresh or dried herbs and spices and fresh or frozen vegetables to boxed or canned soup or chili. You can add leftovers that are already cooked, or just let the veggies heat in the broth on the stovetop. Most vegetables in soup do not have to be cooked a long time. It’s ok just to heat them through and you are good to go.
• Follow the same procedure above with jarred pasta sauce. Use the sauce on whole grain pasta or another whole grain, such as brown rice.
• Eat a veggie burger or dog on a whole grain tortilla or whole grain bread. Really pile on greens, veggies, and herbs until they are a thicker layer than the veggie burger or dog base.
• In a real rush, top whole grain cold cereal with lots of fruit, cinnamon, and dairy-free milk.
• Cover your healthy leftovers, such as baked potatoes, lentils, or beans, with a bit of boxed soup as a sauce and lots of veggies, herbs, and spices.
• Cook extra amounts of fresh foods from scratch on days you have time, so there are always leftovers to combine with a purchased base.

This “cooking lite” strategy is not the optimum way to eat, but very often is preferable to just about all the choices that would otherwise be realistic. It’s a great alternative to fast food fries, a bag of chips, or canned soup with no fresh ingredients added.

If you ignore your hunger and don’t eat at all, you are way more likely to overeat later and gorge on totally unhealthy foods. If you are just running out the door, grab a couple pieces of fruit or some whole grain crackers as a not-meal, but don’t leave your body totally unfueled.

So let’s be realistic with our rushed modern culture. We need to live within our time resources as well as our financial resources, making the most of both. Cooking lite will help you to do that.

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Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.

Red potatoes, purple, or Yukon Gold are all excellent for steaming. Cut into bite size pieces first.

Potatoes are one of nature’s most satiating foods. This means they get you full and keep you feeling full and satisfied longer than most other things you could eat. These nutritious spuds have gotten a bad name because they are usually made into chips or fried (read unhealthy and weight-promoting oil) or baked and smothered with a dairy topping. So it’s no wonder that potatoes have gotten a bad – but undeserved – reputation.

Baking and roasting are my favorite ways to make potatoes. In the heat of San Diego summer, though, the oven is best turned off. So I experimented with steaming potatoes and am cheering at the results.

First, I scrubbed and cut up about 10 medium sized Yukon Gold potatoes into bite size chunks (red potatoes or purple would also be good choices). Then I steamed them about 22 minutes until they were just fork tender. You might have to steam a longer or shorter time, based on the size of the potato pieces and kind of spud.

There, I had the basis all the satisfying not-meals I could want for the next day. I ate some of the steamers mixed with salad. I ate some on their own, sprinkled with pepper and paprika or dipped in barbecue sauce.

If you want a bit more elaborate meal, just sauté the steamed potatoes in a bit of vegetable broth (just enough to cover the bottom of

Saute a chopped onion with the steamed potatoes in a bit of vegetable broth

the pan) with chopped onions, mushrooms, spinach, kale, or whatever other veggies you want. Cook until the veggies are barely tender and still flavorful. Sprinkle on your favorite spices or add fresh herbs. Summer offers basil, dill, parsley, cilantro, and many other choices. A large bowl of this creation is a meal, not requiring anything to supplement it.

Add mushromms or whatever veggies you want to the saute. Be sure to include spices or fresh herbs for more flavor and nutrition.

Give steamed potatoes the thumbs up over junk food choices. Even on a plant-based diet, it’s so easy to just go for a chip, cookie, faux meat or cheese, “ice cream,” cupcake, food bars, candy, or whatever the latest vegan manufactured food choice is lining food store shelves. The resulting health effects, over the long-run, will not make you into a model of health that everyone else wants to emulate. The steamed potatoes and veggies alternative is every bit as filling, delicious, enjoyable, and even really convenient. Why not give it a try?

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Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, a nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.

Whole foods are so tasty that, if you are not into cooking, you can still have excellent not-meals with little kitchen time. For example, after work, one of my favorite quick dinners is green lentils with vegetables on a whole grain tortilla.

The lentils cook from their dry form in about 40 minutes. I mix them with freshly steamed or leftover brown rice or some frozen organic corn. Then spoon onto the whole grain tortilla with some chopped leafy greens, salsa, and/or spices. Steamed fresh vegetables round out a super simple but yummy and filling start to an energetic evening.

Sometimes, though, I want a more elaborate taste experience. Just as important, I find chopping and mixing colorful whole foods to

Working with beautiful whole foods is fun and relaxing

be relaxing and fun. If you never liked cooking before, you may change your mind when you go the whole foods route.

Want cooking ideas? An unbeatable site for thousands of whole foods recipes is fatfreevegan.com. This super blog is friendly, fun, and overflowing with enough recipes to keep you happily hanging around your kitchen for years.

This site features food photos that will make you hungry if you aren’t already. The advanced search function helps you find a recipe to use up ingredients that are filling your garden or refrigerator. The home page has an extensive, convenient list of five star recipes.

Cooking ideas are conveniently grouped into categories either by ingredients (such as beans or vegetables) or kind of meal (holiday dishes, kid friendly), not to mention by cooking method (such as pressure cooker or quick and easy).

You’ll also find an overview of why it’s healthy to eat a whole foods diet, without added oils (which are, after all, a manufactured food). There is general information on whole foods cooking that will help you put together your own recipes, or quick, informal not-meals (such as my lentils and greens on a tortilla).

Once you check out this site, you will never again think cooking without animal ingredients or oils is a challenge or deprivation. Instead, whole foods will blossom into the pleasure they really are. Eating any other way becomes the undesirable state.

Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!

Blog by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, a nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.

The Southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is now widespread. Prosperity and luck throughout the year are the promised benefits. The peas (actually a kind of bean) symbolize coins, while the greens stand for dollars.

Eating this combo at New Year’s started about the time the Civil War was ending. Union soldiers spared the humble black-eyed peas as they confiscated or destroyed other crops in the South.

Black-eyed peas are the stars on New Year's

Had the troops understood the outstanding health benefits of black-eyed peas they might have targeted this food as well. This legume shares the same health benefits as other beans, filling you up and satisfying your appetite. The beans are a nutritional powerhouse, rich in minerals, complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, protein, and phytochemicals.

Just as important, black-eyed peas and greens are easy to cook and there are so many fun variations on the basic dish. Here is the recipe I made for 2010.

Any Day of the Year Black-Eyes Peas and Greens

The ingredients are:

Three cups of cooked black-eyed peas (or two cans if you don’t cook them yourself)

1/3 cup of liquid – water, vegetable broth, or wine

One large onion

1 teaspoon chopped jalapeno pepper (more or less to taste)

2 cups assorted chopped veggies (such as mushrooms, celery, bell peppers, carrot, tomatoes, or whatever else you like)

6 cups chopped greens (such as kale, chard, spinach, collards, or bok choy)

3 cloves garlic minced or pressed

Other spices of your choice

You can put this together fast:

Heat the liquid in a large pan with high sides or a wok. Add the onions and jalapeno pepper and sauté for 5 minutes on medium heat, stirring frequently. Add more liquid as needed ,about ¼ cup at a time, to keep the onion from sticking.

Add the 2 cups of assorted vegetables and keep cooking, stirring every minute or two. Add more liquid as needed. Cook until the vegetables are done to your taste. I like barely cooked, crisp veggies, so I sauté mine only about another 5 minutes.

Add the greens and garlic and cook about another 5 minutes. The green should be wilted but not overcooked. Finally, stir in the cooked or canned black-eyed peas and stir until just heated through.

Add any other spices you like and stir the mixture well. I added about half a teaspoon of curry powder, chopped fresh parsley, and some Tabasco this year.

This is excellent over any kind of cooked whole grain, such as brown rice, bulgur wheat, quinoa, whole wheat pasta, or barley.

This recipe is easy and tasty enough to eat any day. It’s too good to save for once a year. So get off to a fresh start and enjoy whenever you want it.

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Blog by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, a nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.

Home Made Cranberry Sauce that Will Wow Your Guests

If you grew up eating canned, jellied cranberry sauce, as I did, you have hopefully already discovered how amazing the home made version of this perpetual favorite can be. No holiday gathering would be complete without the deep red and tart richness of this treat.

This cranberry sauce was so good that my friends started eating it before I could get my camera out

Luckily, fresh cranberries are in season. Leave the cans in the store and bring home the ingredients for your own taste treat. While you can discover hundreds of recipes on the Internet, I have put together the following simple recipe that cooks in ten minutes. Even people who usually don’t like cranberry sauce will eat a plate of this.

Recipe for not-too-sweet cranberry sauce:

Ingredients

4 cups of cranberries (this is the amount in a 12 ounce package)

¾ cup water

½ cup sugar (see below)

½ cup agave nectar (this is the secret ingredient which keeps it yummy but not too sweet)

1 orange – sliver the peel into orange zest and juice the orange

½ cup dried fruit – raisins or apricots are perfect

½ teaspoon grated ginger

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Fun with Cooking

Boil the water with ¼ cup of the fresh squeezed orange juice (1 cup of liquid total). As soon as it boils, add the cranberries and stir. If the cranberries are very fresh, you will hear them pop. Otherwise they will just get soft and start to lose their shape. Immediately add the sugar and agave nectar and stir to dissolve. Simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally. If the cranberries still have their original round form, squish them against the sides of the pot with the back of a large spoon. This will get the texture right.

Add the dried fruit, orange zest, and spices and stir. Simmer five more minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.

You can eat this warm, or refrigerate to eat it cold. Either way, it won’t last long after you put it out for your guests. In fact, you may find you need to double the recipe to have enough.

Note on the sweeteners: You can use ordinary sugar, but the cranberry sauce will be healthier and taste better if you use organic, unbleached sugar. This may include Succanat or Rapidura sugar or turbinado sugar or other organic varieties. Note that commercial brown sugar is simply bleached white sugar with some additives. Not to be used in this recipe.

You can find agave nectar in just about any natural food store. It has a mild sweetness that is not as overpowering as sugar. The agave nectar cuts through the tartness of the cranberries without making the sauce too sweet. Also, agave contains minerals that makes your sauce more nutritious.

Enjoy! This is perfect with any plant-based holiday (or any day) dinner.

If you enjoyed this post, you may like the tips in Twelve Ways to Make Cooking Fun and Easy.

Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!

Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet: How to Lose Weight and Get Healthy Now With Six Kinds of Whole Foods, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.