Simplify! Less really is more!

I cannot stand picking up a magazine that advertises on the front "Easy Healthy Dinners in 20 minutes" and you go to the recipes and all of the meals are extremely weird and have about 20 ingredients in them. Stuff I would NEVER make and don't even know where to buy most of the ingredients! That isn't "EASY" to me. I want easy, simple, few ingredients meals that are quick to make. It really is simple if you just go back to the basics.

Meals should be simple and easy to make, especially for those of us with families and busy schedules. I like to start with my protein, whether that is chicken, fish, pork or beef and just add a few things to it. Here is my favorite Chicken recipe... Put chicken breasts in a pan (no oil needed) on medium heat and let them cook about 8 minutes, covered. They will release from the pan when they are cooked on that side. Turn them over and cook another 5-8 minutes depending on how thick they are. Add 1 T. Butter, 1 T Olive Oil, 2 T. Honey, 1/4 cup Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice, 2 T capers. That's it! You have a tangy wonderful healthy chicken picatta! I usually serve this with brown rice or quinoa and green beans. It is a family favorite around here.

Did you notice the ingredients? Simple and not a lot of stuff. It seems to me that the less ingredients that are in something, the better it tastes. REAL food tastes better than packaged and preservative loaded foods. You can make so many easy dinners with just a few things, even just adding seasoning to your fish is a great healthy meal. So back up, stop trying to make things complicated and do more with LESS!!

The same is true for foods you buy. In an ideal world we wouldn't eat any packaged food, but that isn't realistic for most families. So start to look at the packaged foods you buy and look at the ingredients. You will notice that foods that have less ingredients are not only better for you, but they really do taste better. Cereal is a big one. I buy all of our cereal in the organic/natural foods section. Look at the ingredients some time! It will shock you that most cereals you probably buy your kids you can't even understand 75% of what is in there. Why are you feeding them that junk? There are so many brands of great cereals that have wonderful ingredients. This is true for almost all packaged foods. So if you are going to each something packaged, look at what is in it and make a better choice. Look at the ingredients and if you can't understand or don't know what something is on the list then you shouldn't eat it.

Simplify. Eat basic and healthy foods from the outside of the grocery store. Don't make meals or dinner  complicated: steam some veggies, season some fish or meat and make a salad. Less ingredients, easier to make, and better tasting too. Start to really look at what you eat, look at the ingredients and remember that LESS INGREDIENTS IS BETTER!