I’m from italian descent. In my family food played a mayor role and it was the center piece for everything. Complete meals for every serving, breakfast,lunch and dinner. I realize the importance of family dinners, but to keep everybody happy, and especially the children that needs to be pleased. So i cook food that tasts really good for everyone, but the family is getting fatter. The food that i prepare everyday isn’t fried or made excessively fattening. But i admit it’s not the healthiest food around. I always have to use tricks to get the kids to eat the vegetables.
So here’s my question how do i start cooking lite and healthy, but in the same time let it taste good as well. I can’t dig through piles of recipe book, and i’m definately not going to cook separate dishes for everyone.
Extra tags:
- how to cook burglur,how to begin cooking healthy,how to start cooking healthy,lite dinners for children
redhands - said
August 18 2009 @ 11:40
With difficulty unfortunately from whichever angle you look at it.
I’m have Celiac disease with food sensitivities and that complicates things. No wheat, corn, maize, rice, peas, carrots – the list is endless and that doesn’t even cover ketchup/mayo/mustard/pepper which are all forbidden. And for the same reason that we can’t cook five separate meals it’s a mix and match affair.
Keep your repertoire simple! Cull the recipes you’ve got and break down into easiest & quickest, most loved by all, most complex, holiday etc.
I don’t think your treatment of the broccoli is that bad but don’t know how it’s combined with the rest of the meal. So I’d include it but serve with a protein and salad but skip bread as a serving at that meal.
I do a fair bit of fake wok cooking. Everything lands up in the "wok" mix up a simple "sauce" – 3/4 cup white wine, bit of salt, a little oil, some honey or sugar no more than 1 TBSP. We’ve a meal on the table in 15 minutes after a rough day at work.
Or I’ll slap slow cooking stuff either in the old crock pot or the oven. Same idea: meats and veg served with a salad.
I’ve found that roasting the veggies in the oven under the broiler helps add "taste". Cubed cooks faster – light dusting of salt and a pinch of sugar, light drizzle of olive oil and thump in for 30 – 45 minutes. (Keep an eye on them).
There’s always steaming but I never got into this one. (I have to drown it in melted butter!)
Our meat choices tend to fluctuate with income and where we are in the pay check cycle. But my staples are: 1. Lean bacon for flavoring – grilled and crumbled after mopping all the excess oil off with paper. 2. Beef. 3. Turkey – usually the dark meats which are cheaper in the store and cook nicely in the wok. 4. Salmon. 5. Venison. 6. Eggs – so versatile and I’m a whiz at souffle’s never had a failure in 33 years. (Eggs absorb the flavor of truffles easily so a nice little truffle does double duty with 1/2 doz eggs in a sealed container in the fridge and adds a sense of luxury when the eggs are scrambled or omelette).
I cut down on the amount of sugar and salt in the recipes and bump up the herbs. Select Parmesan rather than cheddar and cut down that way on some of the calories. Cut down on the bread stuff and servings – it’s important and a fabulous carb but you don’t need more than one serving per day.
Um … I do have some rules, shuffle feet … I don’t allow more than one cola beverage a week, there are home made juice options and syrups I boil up to be mixed with water. Pure water is always on hand, tea, coffee and herb tisanes. I don’t allow ice creams or serve it more than once a month.
We seldom have commercial gooey stuff and because of my condition, cakes and biscuits don’t feature much – hell you ever tried to bake a cake with buckwheat? Man! You could knock the burglar out with it! I’ll buy or make coconut macaroons or meringues – a couple of small servings goes far.
Candies are a treat and thankfully the kids opt for fruit or yogurts. We didn’t allow them these goodies when they were real tiny which helped.
It’s not a fancy diet, good bit of work making bread substitutes all the time, relies on some prep time starting from scratch and fresh herbs for flavor.
We live in Britain now and the amount of sweeteners & sugars in things is scary. But I’ve lost 3 stone in weight over 18 months this way, about 45lbs mostly as a reaction to eliminating wheat from my diet. But the family maintained theirs pretty much.