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What’s Cooking in Illinois: We’ve all slipped into some patterns and habits over the past couple of years. Here’s how to make them a little healthier with baby steps, and a great recipe.

Charlyn Fargo Ware

January 6, 2022

5 Min Read
stir fry
PREPARE FOR HEALTHY: It’s much easier to put together a stir-fry if the veggies are already cut up. Charlyn Fargo Ware

We can blame the pandemic, but with more time spent at home in 2020 and 2021, there’s been a rise in baking, cooking and eating. Now that we’ve crossed into 2022, it’s time to start thinking about ways we can make eating healthier easier. Is there a recipe, appliance or habit you can adopt that can help on this journey?

We’ve got a lot of excuses, and I’ve got some ideas:

I don’t have time. Would an Instant Pot or air fryer help? Would a vegetable chopper help to prep onions or peppers to use in recipes later?

I’m too tired. When we’re tired, we think the best thing to do is lie down, but in reality, it’s to take a walk or exercise to boost our energy.

Eating healthy costs too much. So does being in the hospital from a disease. Shop the sales and plan your menu with what’s on sale. Buy fruits and vegetables in season or buy frozen.

I like all the unhealthy food. Try substitutions in your favorite recipes. Use plain Greek yogurt for sour cream, switch to a vinaigrette, have a salad with your pizza to eat less pizza, add vegetables to your favorite foods. Put spinach on pizza or in an omelet, try fruit for dessert to satisfy a sweet tooth, or add black beans to your salsa or chili.

My kids won’t eat healthy food. Our job as parents is to present healthy food (without alternatives) over and over again. Over time, when your children see you eating healthy, they will, too.

I’ve also discovered five ways to make healthier eating easier:

1. Plan ahead. Take a day or evening and meal prep, or use a calendar to know what you’re having the next couple of days. Where we go wrong is trying to figure out dinner at 5 p.m. That’s when we grab fast food or have a pizza delivered or go out to eat. When we eat out, we give up control over how much sodium or butter is in the food, and we typically don’t get any fruits or vegetables (and no, french fries don’t count as a vegetable).

2. Do food prep. You can set yourself up for healthy eating success by preparing ingredients for the week’s meals in advance. On the weekend, spend a few hours cooking your meats and prepping your vegetables and other ingredients for the week ahead. Cook a chicken in the slow cooker, pull the meat off the bone and you can plan chicken noodle soup, chicken quesadillas, white chicken chili or even chicken to use in a salad. Make a meatloaf ahead, and when it’s time for dinner, pull it out of the freezer or refrigerator and add a couple of vegetables and dinner is ready.

3. Slow cook in bulk. When I use my slow cooker, I try to think of several meals that can be made from a single effort. Buy a chuck roast and you can use half for Italian beef in the slow cooker. Save the other half for vegetable soup. Make chili in the morning. Repurpose the leftovers in chili mac over whole-wheat elbow noodles. Spaghetti sauce and meatballs can cook all day in the slow cooker and be served over spaghetti or zucchini noodles; then make a meatball sandwich the next day. If it’s too much in a week, freeze the extra and warm it up on a really busy night. The best way to save money is to eat what you’ve already purchased or have in your freezer.

4. Chop easier. The vegetable chopper is a quick way to dice onions, peppers and other vegetables into perfect-size dice. My daughter sent me one from Amazon, and I use it all the time. It makes dicing veggies easy.

5. Make healthy accessible. For snacks, make fruits and veggies the most accessible. If they’re handy, we will eat them. Wash apples, grapes and pears and set them out in a bowl on the kitchen counter. Slice celery, carrots and peppers and store in a see-through container in the fridge, and you’ll be more likely to reach for a healthy snack. And it’s easier to put together a salad for lunch when all the vegetables are washed and cut, ready to use. The same goes for ready-washed and cut strawberries and blueberries.

Here’s a recipe for my go-to stir-fry, ready in minutes. You can cut up veggies on the weekend, or even easier, use frozen stir-fry veggies.

Chicken Stir-Fry

2 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless, sliced thin
3 cups vegetables: asparagus, green and red peppers, green onions, zucchini or frozen stir-fry blend
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced ginger
2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
2 cups cooked brown rice (Minute brown rice works)
3 tablespoons purchased Stir-Fry sauce

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wok or skillet until very hot. Add minced garlic and minced ginger. Cook for one minute. Add chicken, and stir-fry until it changes color. Remove from wok and set aside. Add 1 tablespoon more oil to wok. Add vegetables, and stir-fry two minutes. Add chicken back to wok with vegetables. Add the Stir-Fry sauce and cook, stirring constantly to mix into chicken and vegetables. Serve over brown rice. Serves 4.

Note: If you prefer to make a homemade stir-fry sauce, mix 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar or sherry, and 1 teaspoon cornstarch. Mix well.

Fargo Ware is a registered dietitian with Southern Illinois University Medical School in Springfield. Send recipe ideas to her at [email protected]. The opinions of this writer are not necessarily those of Farm Progress/Informa.

About the Author(s)

Charlyn Fargo Ware

Charlyn Fargo Ware is a registered dietitian with Southern Illinois University Medical School in Springfield, Ill. Email recipe ideas to her at [email protected].

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