So one of the things that I like to try to do is to eat as many whole foods as possible. I make my own baby food, so that I know that the girls aren't being exposed to a lot of chemicals (although they're now starting to eat off of our plates, so they are getting more processed foods these days), and I try to use whole food grown or raised in as organic a way as possible.
It's not easy on a budget. When I was 16 I took a trip to Great Britain and Paris, France, with my aunt. While at a garden cafe behind the Louvre I realized that a carafe of wine was around two dollars (probably more now - this was over 10 years ago), while a bottle of Coke about 2/3 of the size was being sold for around four dollars. Highly processed, unhealthy, sugary or generally bad-for-you foods are often taxed heavily in other countries. Here, you can buy a bag of processed frozen chicken breast often for less than the cost of a whole, unprocessed chicken.
There are ways to get around this, of course. I like to substitute beans and legumes for as many meats as I can, meaning that we may have bean burritos instead of beef burritos. But, every now and then, I'll pick up a pack of meat and use it. We tend to eat mostly chicken in our house, both because of the good-for-you factor and because my husband likes chicken. A lot. And he could take or leave pretty much any other meat. Except bacon. But that's another story.
So, beans or other proteins in place of meat can cut down on costs, especially when buying them in bulk and soaking them overnight as opposed to buying canned. For fruits and vegetables I often buy frozen simply because I can get more for the money, and there again is an example of paying less for a processed food than one would for a whole food from the produce section. Most of the time you can find frozen fruits and veggies, though, with little to no preservatives or added ingredients - and I am FOREVER checking the ingredients list.
This isn't to say that we never eat hamburger, boxed macaroni and cheese, canned soup, or other processed foods. The fact is that they are quick, easy, and easy to keep on hand. I'm a realist when it comes to my "whole foods" lifestyle. When I can make it work I would prefer to. But I'm not going to drive myself crazy over having to eat some ramen one or two nights a month. As I try to do with everything, I try to keep my cooking as simple as possible. That being said, I have two infants. Getting to the store can be a huge chore when we're only going for one or two things. There are many nights our dinners are less whole than I'd like. But it's not a perfect world, and it actually doesn't bother me all that much.
On nights that I'm making a full on processed meal with little to no whole foods, I call it "slumming it." I don't mean anything offensive by it. We live behind a bar near an oil refinery. I often joke with my husband and the girls that we're going "back to the slums" when we come home from one of our wonderful grandma's houses, two of the three being out in the country (where my heart belongs and where I hope to return one day). So I thought, to start off my regular posts, why not do a weekly recipe that can be made quickly, cheaply, and, with some improvisation (which I highly encourage in the kitchen), possibly with things you've already got on hand?
Last night, I improvised some Hamburg Gravy with Whole Wheat Rotini and Cheddar Biscuits (made from pancake mix). You can find the post here.
What's your favorite quick-to-whip up weeknight meal? Leave a comment letting me know!
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