Posted by Janet Harriett on Sep.12, 2010

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Earlier, I discussed the benefits of and misconceptions behind whole foods. The basic idea of eating whole foods is to minimize the amount of processing, which ultimately translates into more cooking from scratch. “Scratch” doesn’t need to be time-consuming or complicated, though. Dessert of yogurt topped with berries? That’s cooking from scratch. Basic pancakes and waffles are almost as easy to make from flour and leavening as from a mix. Cooking from scratch isn’t as intimidating as it sounds if you take baby steps out of the world of convenience foods and takeout.

Theme and Variations

I cook dinner at home pretty much every night, but I really only cook about four dishes. Except for special occasions, my kitchen produces tossed salad, legume soup, vegetable soup or sauteed veggies with protein. They turn out differently with variation on the seasoning or types of vegetables and protein, but the preparation and basic set of ingredients is the same. For example, sauteed veggies with protein can end up being stir fry, with soy sauce, ginger and tofu and served over brown rice; or it might be fajitas with some hot pepper flakes, cumin, salsa and tortillas. I add any legume - lentils, black beans, split peas or mixed beans - to the same base of broth, shredded carrot, celery, onion, garlic and summer squash for a slow-cooker soup, and just mix up the spices to suit the particular legume and my mood. The vegetable soup is almost the same thing, only with larger chunks of vegetables and no beans.

Keep it Simple

Along with learning a few recipes that can be tweaked into more dishes, don’t bite off too much right off. Dinner doesn’t need to be beef wellington for the carnivore or spanikopita for vegetarians. When I was growing up, dinner was a basic template of broiled meat, a starch and a vegetable. The starch might have been rice, noodles or instant mashed potatoes (which aren’t exactly cooking from scratch, but life gets in the way sometimes). The meat might have been fish filet, pork chops, steak or chicken breast, and the vegetables were whatever was at a good price. While that template obviously won’t work for a vegetarian family, having a basic pattern for dinner helps facilitate teaching kids to plan menus and cook, and makes cooking from scratch less intimidating.

Gadgets are Your Friend

There’s no shame in making homemade bread in a bread machine. Almost anything that comes out of a bread machine is still healthier than what’s at the supermarket. I have kneaded my own bagels by hand before, but for a daily loaf, I go for the automated baking in the bread machine. If I have time, I might use the dough setting and shape a baguette. Rice on the stovetop isn’t all that hard, but a rice cooker automates the process and one with a timer that you can set before you go to work can let you have steamed whole grains on the table that much more conveniently.

A crock pot is an absolute necessity for healthy cooking from scratch.  To see just how versatile a slow cooker is, spend some time over at A Year of Slow Cooking. Even if the crock pot only sees soup and stew, or the occasional pot roast if you’re a meat eater, it still makes home cooking so much easier and more convenient, especially if you work.

Start Slowly

Cooking from scratch isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Some who follow a whole foods pattern of eating might mill their own grains, but if you never get any farther than steaming your vegetables fresh, that’s still healthier than even the sodium-laden canned foods. I know people who make their own spaghetti sauce, but I have too many things I would rather spend my time on than reducing tomato puree when I can get perfectly adequate jarred pasta sauce.

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Posted under Cooking Healthy, Food, Nutrition & Recipes.