HealthiFood: HealthiFood Canned Soup Saver

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

HealthiFood Canned Soup Saver

Fact: I have bags of vegetable puree in my freezer. This is convenient in many ways, but especially when we're going to eat canned soup.

Ever since I learned how to make my own creamy, delicious soups from scratch, I don't really like canned soup. But when I'm too sick to cook, it's a better choice than fast food, so sometimes we do it.

Adding vegetable purees makes canned soups a lot more healthy and delicious. I usually select something that will hide well or I know my family won't mind. For example, in a beef broth soup that's already brown, they probably won't notice some spinach puree that just makes the brown slightly darker and greener. They probably won't notice carrot puree added to a chicken broth or cauliflower puree added to a creamed soup.

The more vegetable puree you can add and the more variety, the better. This will bulk your canned soup with added vitamins and fiber and reduce the sodium content per serving. Grinding in a little black pepper is usually my final finishing touch, and then we've got a super quick meal that tastes just a little more homemade.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The HealthiFood Program: One to Four

1. Lower Fat
Most recipes can be adapted to cut the fat in half through substitution (of things like ground flax seed meal, applesauce, etc.) or elimination. Another easy way to lower fat is to cook with lower fat options, like low or nonfat milk products. Usually you can't tell the difference when it's cooked in, and you can save A LOT of calories and fat grams.

2. Better Fat Choices
We all know that nonfat isn't usually that good. Instead of eliminating all the fat and richness from recipes, the HealthiFood Program aims to replaces bad fats with better fats. HealthiFood uses olive oil, canola oil, ground flax seed meal, and naturally-occurring fats as much as possible to reduce hydrogenated and saturated fat content as much as possible.

3. High Fiber and Protein
Fiber is essential to good health, especially in the long run. The HealthiFood Program increases whole grains and fiber content by using whole wheat flour, oat flour, yellow corn meal, and ground flax seed meal. These substitutions also add protein.

4. More Vegetables
Using vegetable puree addition techniques of the Sneaky Chef and Jessica Seinfeld, the HealthiFood Program enriches recipes with vitamins and more fiber while lowering the calorie content per serving.

No Gimmicks

Sometimes the Nutrition Facts I provide may surprise you. This is because I usually post how much of a dish I actually eat. If you wanted tone-downed, unrealistic serving sizes to make all recipes look diet, this isn't the place. However, usually the serving size given will be for your whole meal, such as 1/9th of a 9x9 lasagna or 1/4th of a round of Rosemary bread. If you aren't in a habit of understanding serving sizes, start here and now, and definitely apply it to the packaged foods you eat.