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Fast food, healthy, sustainable, cheap and tasty

posted Jul 10, 2017, 6:31 AM by Web Admin   [ updated Jul 10, 2017, 7:59 AM ]
When my friends talk about real food, they often mention the excessive  time needed to whip up a great meal for themselves and their loved ones .
Here is what I do: For breakfast there is oatmeal without sugar, which I usually prep 4 pounds of which lasts me for a week. For the actual breakfast I add cranberries, raisins, nuts and/or a sugar-cinnamon mix to keep things interesting.
I also cook a bunch of wild rice ( 16 minutes light simmer, with a few bay leaves ), then add firm cooking Puy lentils or Beluga lentils together with brown Quinoa, simmer for another 16 minutes, allow to soak up additional liquid with the stove turned off ( 10 minutes). This is also in the 4 pound region and keeps in the fridge for seven days.
You could just the same soak any dried bean, chick pea or lentil overnight, discard the water and boil for 60 minutes. 
For simple carbs I boil some pasta, polenta, Grits or a pound of rice, stored in covered containers.

The second building block are sauces. I usually have some Mojo Rojo or Mojo Verde (recipes coming with the next blog) from the Canary Islands, some Asian dressing plus something involving a vinaigrette or a mix of little mayo, yogurt, sour cream plus chopped herbs, pickles or anything else floating around.
 I am a great fan of playing with food and trying out new things.

Depending on my mood I stir fry some vegetables with or without chopped up chicken. My rule on food is the 
ethnic approximation principle. It really only means that you try to stay within the cultural realm of the food you cook, so no ginger or coconut in Italian cooking.

With this setup of dressings and carbs all there is to do is chop up vegetables, then stir fry or microwave.
 I often also nuke my carbs and just add them to the stir fry and top with sauces plus whatever garnish like more herbs, edible flowers, berries, sprouts, capers, fried onions, parmesan, anything goes. The chopping and cooking takes me 10 minutes at best since I put in 30 minutes of work in the beginning of the week.

The result is almost always better tasting than any restaurant, it is not as loud in my house, it is healthier, cheaper and the music is better as well. Finally let's not forget the 20 advantages of eating together with the ones you love. More on that later.
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