Nutritious choices made simple®
We’ve talked about squash and roots this month. Both categories offer a wide variety of naturally orange foods and the nutritional benefits that come with them. The food with shares its very name with the color is less associated with fall, but oranges begin their season in fall. Orange juice is the most ubiquitous use of the fruit, and it does have merits as a natural sugar. The fruit can also star, however, in a wide variety of dishes from sweet to savory.
Orange root vegetables aren’t quite as emblematic of fall as are the various squashes we discussed last week, but they’re an important part of the team. If you want orange in your diet, sweet potatoes and carrots in particular are popular for good reason. They’re delicious. They’re also remarkably flexible in the kitchen.
Pumpkin pie is one way to eat pumpkin. I guess. Between you, me, and the internet, however, I don’t get it. If I’m going to indulge in a sweet treat, pumpkin pie is pretty low on my list of choices. And frankly, there are SO MANY DELICIOUS THINGS you can do with pumpkin or squash puree. Let’s play.
October is all about the color orange. It’s everywhere: including food. Guiding Stars debits foods that use artificial colors, but that doesn’t mean orange food is out. Looking at fruits and vegetables alone, there’s a panoply of orange to be munched. During the month of October, Kitchen Smarts will be exploring in-depth a few categories of delicious and nutritious orange foods.
We’ve talked in some depth this month about nextovers. We’ve covered focus ingredients and supporting players. Ingredients alone, however, do not a cooking approach make. If you want your nextover expeditions to succeed, you need a reliable procedural code for bringing disparate elements together. Into a federation, if you will.
Last week, we talked about focus foods for nextovers. No matter how good the captain of your culinary starship is, it needs a good team. I took the approach of thinking about your vegetables as your mains, so we’re going to talk about proteins, grains, and seasonings today.
To my mind, the prime directive of nextover cooking is this: save yourself time and hassle in the kitchen. To accomplish this, you’re probably going to need to cook something in enough bulk to last you family for three meals. The second directive is: don’t be bored at dinnertime. To meet that goal, you need to choose an ingredient that plays well with others, or better yet, can be a master of disguise.
We love meal prepping in my house. By “we,” I mean “I,” and by “love,” I mean “appreciate the time savings.” The problem with meal prepping is the leftovers. Big batch meals are easy to make, but with just two adults and a toddler in the house? Even the best lentil soup in the world gets a bit tired after three nights straight. The happy medium, I find, is nextovers.