Maybe some of you could enlighten me on what you use as your food staples. I am not the greatest cook and many times don't have the energy to try to cook a meal from scratch. Some of the things I pack for lunch and use quite regularly are as follows: Sandwiches: PBJ, Tuna Sald, Egg Salad, Hambergers, Steakums TV Dinners: Amy's low sodium, Michael Angelo's chicken parmesian These are just the easy things I make from time to time but if anyone has anything else to add my palet would appreciate it. Kathy
We like to buy and cook in bulk and freeze stuff in individual portions, so that whenever one of us inevitably asks "What do you want for dinner?" there's always a variety. (And it's just me and DH ) We eat lots of chicken and salads around here. You can cook chicken a gazillion different ways, and do something entirely different with the leftovers the next day. I always have instant mashed potatoes (no artificial ingredients) in the pantry, along with canned sockeye salmon, brown rice, white rice, Jello for yummy salads, and...of course....peanut butter. There's also a variety of sauces and condiments, jars of organic spaghetti sauce (which is easy to jazz up for a more homemade taste) and different kinds of pasta. There's canned fruit for Jello salads, but no canned veggies for me. I keep cartons of low-sodium chicken broth for when I'm in the mood for vegetable soup, made from all the leftover veggies in the fridge (or frozen ones). I always have onions and potatoes. A baked potato makes a good meal! In the fridge, I keep eggs, buttermilk, lunch meat without preservatives, string cheese, and cheese sticks (pepper jack and colby), salsa, grated cheese, and tortillas. You can put ANYTHING in a tortilla and call it a meal. I have light sour cream, yogurt, fresh fruit, cottage cheese, different salad dressings. I try to keep fresh veggies that are easy to cook, like zucchini and yellow squash. In the freezer I have lots of frozen veggies, individual portions of marinated salmon (from Costco :), frozen fruit for smoothies and dessert topping, and my beloved Weight Watcher ice cream bars!
My husband and I like to bbq a lot. When we do burgers we cook double the quantity. We use the pit to cook the meat and veggies at the same time. No dishes to wash. I can take the left over to work for lunch. It makes coworkers drool. Or we also have the meal a second time around. Like Deercharmer, we tend to buy in bulk from Costco. We will portion things out, freeze them, and use as needed. Seasonal nuts and fruits are always used. My husband has been picking blackberries and freezing most of them. We keep the berries in the fridge and munch on them for snacks. Same thing for whatever is in season. Yogurt is also constantly kept in the fridge. I am Hispanic and always keep tortillas on hand. I could make them but somedays I am just not up to it. Like Deercharmer said, you can put just about anything in a tortillas. My husband's face lights up when I am up to cooking. Groundbeef is also kept in the freezer. Sometimes it goes on sale at the local Albertson's. The meat department people know my husband and ask how many individually wrapped 1lb packages he wants. I imagine our stock items are very similiar it is a matter of what we do with them. I like fresh veggies but there are times when they have gone bad. I just do not have the energy to cook. When I am in the pits physically, our stock foods are mostly prepared. Trader Joes has some pretty good prepared food. Yoli
Oh, I'll bet it does....we all got to experience Yoli's cooking at the Oregon Gathering....it was WONDERFUL!!!!!
I keep Tastefully Simple products on the shelf - no msg - some are low in sodium. Other staples include low sodium tomato sauce and tomato paste to make chili or spaghetti sauce. Chicken, beef and ground sirloin as well as frozen vegetables are always in the freezer. I also try to eat seasonal fresh produce.
Check out this thread, which is excellent, for types of foods and brand names used by some here. http://www.menieres.org/forum/index.php/topic,6515.0.html That's just for starters. Scan the listings here in the kitchen because there are many other topics on this, usually under more specific food titles.
I learned this trick in Brazil: cook some lovely rice, enough for three days. Add to it some beans (I use canned chick peas, yum) and cooked veggies, a little balsamic vinegar, olive oil, some chopped fresh veggies (zuccini, whatever you like) and nuke and eat it for lunch.
