Chapter 6: Tips for Food Preparation and Cooking 111
Relying on Convenience Foods
We’re all looking for timesavers. You get home at dinnertime and the last
thing you want to do is spend an hour standing in the kitchen and fixing
dinner. Using convenience foods can really save you time and money.
Money? Yup, your time is worth money, and convenience foods can result in
less food waste.
Note that we’re talking convenience foods here, not highly processed food. If
you have a recipe that calls for shredded carrots and you buy preshredded
carrots from the produce department, that’s a convenience food, not a highly
processed food. We mean convenience foods that are pretty much in their
natural state, no additives, no long list of ingredients, just the food itself put
into a different form to save you time.
The produce department is a great place to save time. You can buy all kinds
of vegetables already cleaned, cut, and ready to go. Some of these come in
plastic steamer bags. No more excuses that you don’t know how or don’t
have the time to prepare fresh veggies. You can buy fresh fruit already
cleaned and cut. Probably the biggest sellers are the prepackaged lettuce
varieties and salads. If you buy a packaged salad mix with all the toppings,
pick one that that has a light dressing.
Frozen vegetables are also a quick-dinner solution, but watch out for pack-
ages that come with unhealthy sauce included. Try cooking plain frozen veg-
etables and then adding a little spray butter and a sprinkle of your favorite
herbs.
If a recipe calls for cooked chicken, a rotisserie chicken from the deli is a
great timesaver. You could also use a rotisserie turkey breast and then you
have only white meat. It’s cooked and ready to go; you just need to take the
skin off the meat and the meat off the bones.
