Planning Ahead

 equals

Trying to eat the nutritarian way  can be a challenge when you have to cook separate meals for yourself!   The farmer is still very resistant to this way of eating and the firstborn and Twin 2 is right there with their Dad.  Twin 1 is being a little more open although if she asks what’s for dinner and says she doesn’t feel like it,  I offer her whatever I’m cooking.  She usually replies with “lentil soup!?” and rolls her eyes!   

So I try to make my meals easy and fast to make.  Items like bean burgers I tend to make during the school day when no one else is around and keep them in the fridge till I’ve eaten them all and embark on another cooking spree.  

As vegetables are such a big part of eating this way, I look to cook them fresh, however beans and rice are time consuming and take a long time to cook from scratch, yet are a welcome addition to a stir fry or salad.  To get around this problem I cook up a whole bag and freeze in daily portions.   This allows for a quick defrost in the microwave and away you go!

I cooked a 1kg bag of brown rice yesterday.   I soaked it overnight in water, rinsed it and then cooked it with fresh water.  Soaking it overnight reduces the cooking time dramatically and as a bonus releases the protein in the rice so that it can be absorbed by the body.    I use the absorption method and this 1kg of rice took about ¾ of an hour to cook.   The end result was 19 cups (!) of fluffy, light and tasty cooked rice (below)  – shown above all put into 1 cup portions ready to go into my freezer.  

I don’t necessarily eat rice each day, so this will keep me going for 3-4 weeks.  In this case, organisation is a small price to pay for tasty, healthy food!

PS. The date/pecan slice from last week made into 'truffles' for Melbourne Cup went down a treat... and they never even knew how good they were for them!