food ideas
Cook Once, Eat All Week: Soups, Chilies and Stews
By Leslie Fink, MS, RD | 9/8/2003
Fall is in the air, and for many of us that means even less free time
than usual. After you help the kids with their homework and shuttle
them back and forth from soccer practice, it might be 6:00 or 7:00 before
you have a chance to even think about dinner. What's the number for
that new pizza place?
Change your dinnertime fate. This Sunday, take the time to prepare several
weeks' worth of soul-warming soups, chilies and stews. By stocking your
freezer in advance, you can have delicious, nutritious meals on the table
in minutes.
Why soup, chilies and stews?
- They're easy to cook in large quantities – recipes tend to double
or triple well.
- They keep well for several months in the freezer in portion-controlled,
microwavable containers.
- Many are complete meals in themselves. Others pair up nicely with
a side salad or simple starches like low-fat corn bread, brown rice,
homemade
fries or even baked chips.
- Equipment needs are minimal. All you need are basic measuring and
chopping tools, a long-handled ladle and a big stock pot.
- Varying textures is a cinch: A vegetable-based soup can be made chunky
or it can be pureed for a creamy taste without all the fat. Hand-held
immersion blenders that you submerge in a pot of soup make pureeing
especially easy. If you're pureeing soup in a blender, however,
cool it slightly and puree it in small batches to prevent scalding liquid
from splattering.
- They're easy to modify. White beans can be swapped for black beans
in chili, and a stew that calls for butternut squash should work well
with
acorn squash, too.
- Getting in lots of vegetables doesn't get any simpler.
- Soup liquids tend to absorb the flavors of herbs, spices and seasoning
packets so obtaining great flavor takes minimal cooking effort and
requires little to no fatty ingredients.
- Clean-up is breeze: Most chilies and stews are one-pot meals. Some
even work well in a slow cooker so you don't have to sweat it out over
the
stove.
Some suggestions:
Ginger-scented Apple Squash Soup
Love the idea of cooking ahead to make weekday evenings more leisurely?
Try out some of the recipes in the Weight Watchers Cook
Once, Eat All Week Series.
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