Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Resolution Series Day 3: Lose a Box!

12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.
Day 3: Lose a Box!

When my wife and I first met, her freezer was full of boxes. There were chicken fingers, burritos, pierogies, and fish sticks.

Now I can't brag too much. While I wasn't a box sort of bachelor, my staples were home made burgers, steaks, pizzas and chicken wings.

Over time our dietary worlds have changed - in part because of the career path I found myself upon, in part because of simply getting older/wiser, and in part because we had children.

Nowadays there are no boxes in our freezer.  In fact it's an extremely rare meal that's not home made, from scratch.

Of course we didn't get to where we are now overnight. Instead we slowly lost boxes.

I think the pierogies might have been the first to go, followed by the fish sticks. A few years later the chicken fingers were gone and finally the burritos.

You don't need to get where you're going overnight. In fact that's a great way to not get there.  Flying leaps land you on your face.

Instead start with a small and very doable step.  Why not take a boxed food inventory of your freezer and resolve to permanently lose the most nutritionally offensive box?

In it's place?

Learn a new home made, from scratch, produce rich meal.

Once one box is successfully done and gone, consider when you might want to tackle the next.

In terms of what's replaced our boxes, here's one we love. It's stupidly healthy, ridiculously inexpensive, strangely coloured, but wonderfully delicious and extremely hearty:
Lose a Box, Stupid Easy, Beet Curry (Serves 4)

1 large beet
1 can coconut milk
1 can chickpeas (rinsed)
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1/4 to 1/2 vegetable bouillon cube (depending how salt sensitive you are)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons curry powder
3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 cup Brown rice or quinoa

1. Cook chickpeas until tender
2. Cook brown rice or quinoa on side to serve over
3. Peel and dice beet root and cook in simmering water until tender
4. Chop up beet leaves
5. Saute garlic and onion with some sesame oil for extra flavour
6. Add coconut milk, diced beet root, chickpeas, tomato paste, tiny bit of stock cube and curry powder and bring to boil and when boiling add in chopped beet leaves (or cooking greens). Boil for 5 more minutes
7. Sprinkle with fresh coriander and serve over brown rice or quinoa

Per serving 410 calories, 12g protein, 9g fibre, 427mg sodium