A Few of My Food Friends

As I begin to look ahead to meal planning for the Best Me, I automatically start to consider my go-to recipes: my food friends.  Food friends are foods, meals and snacks that are tried and true easy and nutritious.  I want to encourage y'all to share your food friends, as well.  Without further ado...

1.  What do I always have on hand?

Produce:  bananas, apples, carrots, Brussels Sprouts, potatoes, garlic, beets, pears, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, celery, and spinach/greens.  These are almost always the cheapest produce, and everyone in my house will eat about 95% of them.  In the summer we have tons of produce and it's cheap!!  In the winter we live on carrots and apples.

Frozen produce: edamame, broccoli (Sam's Club has the best quality frozen broccoli, honest), mango (Trader Joe's), mixed fruit, corn, berries.  We eat a lot of smoothies, so I always have lots of frozen fruit.

Meat: whole chicken (Sam's Club has a two-pack of free range chickens for under $12), grass fed ground beef, ground Smart Chicken, ground pork.  I always have these things.  Always.  Any other meat I have is purchased when it is close-dated or on an amazing sale.

Grains/Nuts: quinoa, whole wheat pasta (Trader Joe's), steel cut oats, whole oats, Jasmine rice and sushi rice, wild rice, all-purpose and whole wheat flour.  Whole Foods and Trader Joe's both make a healthier, whole food macaroni and cheese that the kids love.  I always have a variety of nuts and seeds and dried fruit for snacks.  Nuts are expensive, but Trader Joe's has really good prices.  When I have extra money in the budget I buy coconut and almond flours.

Condiments/Canned:  Tomato paste in a tube, toasted sesame oil, tahini, garbanzos, pinto beans, black beans, olives, pickles, sea weed, pretty much every nut or seed butter, three different kinds of jelly.  Here's one of those times where I choose my battles...I buy canned tomatoes and tomato sauce.  Cans are, apparently, laced with chemicals, but I cannot afford a $3+ box of tomatoes.  I use too many.  I always have tons of homemade chicken stock in the freezer.

Dairy: whole milk, unsweetened coconut milk or hemp milk, cheese sticks, shredded cheese, lactose free half and half, tofuti sour cream.

Snacks: animal crackers, plain potato chips, toasted sea weed, rice crackers, ak-mak crackers, fruit strips, applesauce, dairy-free chocolate chips (Trader Joe's)

2.  What if I'm hungry??  Me, I'm always hungry.

Green tea is an amazing food friend!  You can get a big box of plain green tea at Trader Joe's, and it is very inexpensive.  I love my little plug-in tea pot, too.  Drink it iced in the summer.  Green tea has tons of health benefits.  If weight loss is part of your Best Me journey (like me!), then you should become friends with green tea.

3.  What's for supper tonight?

Whole chickens are my go-to supper food.  I cook two at a time, one in each slow cooker, like this:

Slice some onions, and put them in the bottom of the pot.  This keeps the chicken from soaking in its own juices all day and becoming soggy.  I only had one onion left, so I had to stretch it out.  Usually I slice two onions in half under each chicken.  

My favorite chicken...a two-pack for less than $12.  

Season the chicken.  If you are brave you can rub seasonings under the skin as well as on top.  Some folks don't like touching raw meat, and I totally understand.  Also, you can toss a frozen chicken in the slow cooker this way, and let it cook all day.  It's okay to forget to thaw!!  Yay!

Chicken #2 in slow cooker #2

I always hope to have one chicken for supper and one chicken for the next night.  If the kids are super hungry, sometimes the leftovers are scant.  In that case I usually make a chicken casserole of some kind.  Save the carcasses for broth!!

I promise to introduce you to more food friends throughout the next few months.  I hope that my food friends will help you plan healthy meals with very little extra effort so you can stop eating from a box or can or drive thru.