5 steps to simplify your kitchen

Does your current kitchen suffer from a lack of variety and creativity? Are you struggling with being tired after a long day at work and struggling to make tasty healthful meals for your family? Is dinner time a stressful nightmare? Is food waste an issue in your home?

Healthful eating can be cultivated and created sticking so some basic kitchen concepts. Here are some tips for simplifying which may help you achieve balance, and restore peace and joy to meal time in your family.

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Strategies to simplify

1. Make a weekly menu before you go to the supermarket/farmers market.  
   Make the weekly farmers market a family ritual. 

2. Get the same fresh variety of veggies every week (with seasonal variation). Be sure to shop the rainbow.  

3. Pick a theme for each night of the week so that when you go to shopping, you know what to get every week (and that is half the battle).
   
   For example:

   1. Monday: pasta

   2. Tuesday: tacos

   3. Wednesday: soup with protein (beans / tofu / meat)

   4. Thursday: grilled veggies & protein (tofu / meat)

   5. Friday: Fish, vegetable, rice

4. Store emergency foods (often times this can be frozen leftovers). 

5. Have 1-2 nights/week of “leftovers” to simplify cooking.  

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Here are some easy healthy recipes I’ve come up with to help you get started:

• Curry Lentil Stew

• Pasta Puttanesca

• Vegan (or non-vegan) Pesto