Healthy meals can be just as quick and easy as junk food! I thought I’d share two easy (read: lazy) meals I ate today that are chock-full of good stuff:

Breakfast:

Hot Cereal with Honey, Bananas and Nuts
1. Cook your choice of hot cereal. I really like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal. (I half the directed recipe which makes about a cup and a half of cereal.) 7 minutes
2. Stir in: 1 1/2 T. local raw honey, 1-2 T. of Earth Balance margarine, 1/4 c. ground nuts (I keep these on hand in the fridge.)
3. Add sliced bananas (or fruit of choice).
4. Enjoy! You’ll be full ’til lunchtime

Lunch:

Yum Hash
1. Cook any type of grain that suits your fancy: quinoa, brown rice, cous-cous… Keeping cooked grains on hand in the freezer makes this infinitely easier. (15 minutes if cooking from dry state)
2. Heat a veggie burger or two in a pan or microwave. We like Dr. Praeger’s or Sunshine brands. (couple of minutes)
3. Mash veggie burger into quinoa in a bowl.
4. Add in whatever flavors you’d like! Ideas:
-olive oil, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
-flax oil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar
-coconut oil, curry paste
-olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, nutritional yeast
-canola oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, dill, fresh tomato
-the possibilities are endless!

I had some computer malfunctions and password losses for a few weeks, but now I’m back in blog business.

As I approach the summer months, I will find myself with oodles of free time. My job allows me incredible vacation time in the summer in exchange for parenting 150 teenagers for nine months of the year. It’s a pretty good gig most of the time, but I definitely look forward to the vacation. Generally, in the summer, I do a lot of cooking. Fresh, straight-from-scratch cooking and baking. I’m talkin’ fresh breads, organic CSA veggies, and delicious wheat-meats. Mmm-hmmmm!  Anything that takes longer than thirty, forty-five minutes tops during the school year just ain’t happenin’, especially as I see the light at the end of the cement-block tunnel. Hubs and I have been taking Kashi microwaveable meals for lunches the past few weeks because we’re just so…. SPENT. As I stand in line for the microwave at lunch time, with all the other microwaveable meals, leftover pizza slices, and take-out in styrofoam boxes, I think, “My god, how will I eat well when I have kids? How will I do this for the remaining—gag—twenty-five years of my career?  ” I know I can do it, but honestly, am I up for the challenge?

You know, eating well on a small time schedule is no simple feat. And just shut your little yappy mouth before you start to form the words “Rachael Ray.”  One, ol’ Rach has a team of people to come up with ideas, and two, when in doubt, she adds cheese and butter and it’s all easy-peasy-cheesy. The quickest meal I’ve conjured is: grain (rice/quinoa/cous cous) + veggie burger (Dr. Praegers or Sunshine) + seasonings (curry paste/olive oil/tamari/mirin/whateverislayingonthecounteratthemoment) + microwave = quickest meal ever. But there’s that microwave which I don’t believe adds any value to food. It’s most likely zapping my mind so I forget the password to my blog admin.

And so, I’m nervous. Quick, easy food is never the best for the body. Did I also mention that I’ll be on the road for much of the summer in a cross-country excursion? Hubs and I KNOW how to cook easy meals for camping and such. But, in most cases, it’s still chock full of sodium. Or sugar. Or (shiver) soy protein isolate. The good stuff goes bad, and the good stuff ain’t great for road trips or crazy weeks when my students rebel against me in a fit of pirate-like mutiny because of a computer error on their progress reports or when Hubs’ students get arrested for drug traffiking (again). True story.

So, what do you do? I can’t eat pasta or veggie burgers every night for the rest of my life. And I refuse to be one of those tater-tot and “chikin” fingers moms in the future. Oy.  I need ideas.