One of the biggest challenges when starting a healthy eating plan is spending hours in the kitchen. I shared my experience and methods in a previous HTHayat article. Spending two hours once a week preparing meals saves me the whole week. I wanted to share those preparations here as well.
Waking up at 7 am, getting dressed and ready before you’ve even fully opened your eyes, getting the kids ready, catching the bus, getting stuck in traffic, working for 10 hours under stress, returning home and starting the rush again, setting the table, washing the dishes, doing activities with the kids, spending the remaining short time with your spouse, and finally finding some time for yourself… I know it’s all very difficult. It’s a pace that can’t fit into 24 hours. And on top of all that rushing, having to think about separate meals for work, home, breakfast, and dinner is something that gets pushed to the very end. In this rush, eating becomes a chore. Just get it over with, whatever it is. We already have the problem of thinking about and keeping up with thousands of things throughout the day. And now we’re supposed to make an effort to eat healthily? Are you one of those who say, “I don’t have the energy for that, I’ll pass”? Then let me take you here… I have some suggestions.
As someone who has consistently brought her meals to work for 12 years, organizing her breakfast, snacks, and dinner every evening, I want to give you some “healthy eating tips for working women” amidst this hectic pace. Maybe it can be a guide for you too. You can dedicate the time you would spend in the kitchen to yourself, and you’ll experience the joy of healthy eating. Believe me, no medicine, no nutritional supplement gives you as much energy and peace of mind as healthy eating.
When I first started, I spent hours in the kitchen, but over time I established a routine, and that routine saved my life. I found this approach especially after getting married because life was easier when I was single. I didn’t have to worry about dinner. Even a simple cottage cheese salad would satisfy me, but things aren’t so easy when men are involved.
Tips for Healthy Eating in a Busy Life
I do my shopping weekly. Instead of going to the supermarket every day, I buy my weekly vegetables, salad ingredients, meat, and legumes all at once. This reduces the time spent at the supermarket, and that also saves money. I know I’ve spent 100 TL just to buy celery. I’m sure this has happened to you many times.
On Sundays, I dedicate 2-3 hours to preparing for the week ahead. Everyone around me knows this. We usually don’t make many plans for Sunday evenings because it’s Sema’s kitchen time.
I turn this time from an obligation into a hobby I enjoy. I turn on my music, put on comfortable clothes, and grab my Dino. I treat this time spent in the kitchen as special time I’ve set aside for myself, and I enjoy it.
I usually cook three different vegetables every Sunday. I wash, cut, and prepare the vegetables for cooking. While they drain, I prepare the pots.
Our Turkish stews are generally cooked using the same method. I place three pots on the stove. The effort and time spent on one pot of stew is exactly the same as on three. I take the oil bottle and pour it into all three pots. I chop not one, but three onions at once in the food processor and divide them equally among the pots. For those I want to make with meat, I add the meat and start sautéing. I take the tomato paste jar and pour it into all the pots at once, and the stews are ready. I divide the vegetables I’ve prepared aside among the pots, sauté them briefly, add water, and close the lids. From now on, the stove will do the rest. Although it varies depending on the type of vegetables, they cook in a maximum of 20-25 minutes. In about 30-35 minutes, three different vegetable stews are ready.
While my vegetables are cooking, I wash all the salad ingredients I bought. I dry them in the dryer and put them in a large container with a lid, lined with a kitchen towel. I transfer the washed and dried salad ingredients to this container, then cover it with another cloth and put it in the refrigerator. This way, making salads throughout the week takes less than 5 minutes. The greens stay fresh for about a week. I often share the salad storage container I use on my Instagram account. You can check it out there. I use a Tupperware container called Sera. I bought the 4-liter size, and it easily holds a week’s worth of greens.
On Saturday night, I soak two types of legumes. I boil them in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes each, totaling 20 minutes of cooking time (beans, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, etc.). I rinse them with cold water, put them in freezer bags, and freeze them. Because they’re pre-boiled, they turn into a stew in less than 10 minutes. At lunchtime, I add them to my salad for a filling meal. You wouldn’t believe how many meals can be saved by having pre-cooked legumes in the freezer. This process also takes 20 minutes.
While the legumes are boiling in the pressure cooker, I sauté 500g of ground meat with onions. Once browned, I turn off the heat and let it cool. Once cooled, I divide it into five freezer bags and freeze it. Having pre-cooked ground meat in the freezer is also a lifesaver when I run out of meals during the week. I save dinner by making a mock ravioli out of grilled vegetables, topped with garlic yogurt and a sauce made from ground meat that I thawed in a pan in 2 minutes.
Another quick meal option is this: I take the pre-sautéed ground meat out of the freezer the day before and put it in the refrigerator. When I get home in the evening, it’s thawed or opened. I loosen it by stirring it in a pan with a little oil. On the other hand, I put a bag of dried legumes that I took out of the freezer into boiling water and they thaw immediately. I add tomato paste to the ground meat. I add the thawed legumes. I add very little water. Since both are already cooked, I just cook them for another 5 minutes to get a little more consistency and flavor, and the meal is ready.
Buying fish on your way home from work on two evenings a day will be both very practical and very healthy for you. Since your salad ingredients are already washed, you can prepare your salad while the fish is cooking, and again, meals for both evenings will be ready in about 30 minutes.
All these preparations take about an hour and a half, but meals are ready for both work and dinner throughout the week. All you have to do in the morning is put the food you want to eat that day in a container, buy a small yogurt from the market, grab a slice of bread (if you eat it), and for snacks, two fruits and some nuts, and head to work. If your workplace doesn’t offer healthy meals and you constantly have to order kebabs, pita bread, lahmacun, pizza, or hamburgers from outside using meal vouchers, I recommend trying this method at least three days a week.
Vegetable dishes, especially those without meat, can easily stay in the refrigerator until Wednesday or Thursday. Please only heat as much as you will eat each time. Do not reheat the food repeatedly. This way, they will retain their freshness.
Actually, I also prepare breakfast and snacks at the same time, but I’ve run out of space for this week, so I’ll continue with that next week. I hope these suggestions are helpful. If you implement these suggestions or have similar methods of your own, I would be very happy if you wrote to me.
Wishing everyone healthy, happy, and sugar-free days.
Sema Özpekmezci
#quickcooking
