It’s Sunday night, I just finished grocery shopping and have a ton of items from the produce aisles. Sometimes after buying a lot of fresh food, they’ll be pushed to the back of the fridge and expire before we can make use of them. As a student, I hate wasting and don’t have much time to make three nice meals from scratch every single day. It is so much better to have a strategy that not only makes a huge, nutritious dinner, but also provides pre-cooked leftovers AND veggies that are cleaned, cut up and ready to go for following meals. Meal planning became so much more easier when I came up with this big stir-fry strategy.
On Sunday nights, when I get home from the store, I start prepping. I soak all the veggies that I didn’t get the chance to buy organic in cold water with some vinegar. This time, I’m soaking bok choy, asparagus and broccoli for at least 20 minutes. This is a great way to clean the food and remove pesticides that were used.
I start peeling and chopping up all of the clean veggies that I bought that day. While I’m chopping (this is a long process since the amount of veggies I buy can almost last a week), I boil buckwheat soba noodles for the stir-fry base. I love buckwheat because it’s filling but not bloating. Buckwheat contains no gluten and is high in protein, iron, magnesium, and zinc. I like this brand that I find in the Asian Cuisine section at Loblaws.
Between chopping vegetables, I’ll slice a few chicken breasts into cubes. My favourite, accessible organic chicken is by Blue Goose (a company that promises cruelty-free production). It’s worth the extra few dollars to buy meats with these standards (you are what you eat- don’t eat tortured, depressed, antibiotic-filled animals). This chicken gets marinated in olive oil and garlic then gets cooked stove-top on a skillet.
After all the chopping is done and the cooked chicken and noodles are put to the side, I get a big wok filled with 1/4 cup of water and a dash of olive oil. The carrots, broccoli and asparagus go in first because they take the longest to cook. Once they are slightly soft, I add in the other veggies one-by-one with the spinach and bean sprouts to go in last.
I cook the stir-fry with Bragg’s All Purpose Liquid Soy Seasoning. I like it better than soy sauce because it is filled with various amino acid proteins, Non-GMO, no preservatives, less sodium and doesn’t make me feel swollen and puffy afterwards.
When the stir-fry is ready to go, I’ll add some cooked chicken and serve over soba noodles. Voila! An amazing dinner is ready! Better yet, the fact that there will be leftover stir-fry for tomorrow’s lunch at school. Additionally, I now have cooked chicken and a whole bunch of raw veggies in the fridge to use in salads and snacks.
This trick saves me so much time and makes me feel organized. No excuses to spend money on lunch or eat something unhealthy for the next few days!
TIP: Don’t throw away the peels, stems and leftovers from your veggies. You can save them for composting.
