The Healthy Food Writer

Posted by Stephanie Gallagher Mar 13, 2007

"How can you stay so slim and write about food all day?"

My first reaction is usually, "Gee, I'm not really so slim. I still have to lose 10 pounds of baby weight from my last pregnancy -- and that was five years ago."

The answer I really want to give is, "Well, I only eat fresh foods prepared with the finest seasonal ingredients, and they're naturally healthy." Then I'd toss my hair back in a slightly superior way as if to say, "I was shopping at Whole Foods long before whole foods were cool."

But that wouldn't exactly be the truth.

The truth is I do enjoy fresh meals prepared with the finest seasonal ingredients. And they are naturally healthy. (And, by the way, I adore oogling the produce at Whole Foods as much as the next foodie.) The problem is I'm the cook in the family, and I don't always have time to make fresh meals with the finest seasonal ingredients.

So I use shortcuts. I use my Crock Pot for everything from oatmeal to beef stew and jambalaya. (My Crock Pot Jambalaya is truly excellent, too.)

And I do a lot of make-ahead cooking, especially things like vegetarian chili and split pea soup with barley.

And I'm especially fond of one-dish meals, like corned beef and cabbage and rotisserie chicken stew. The way I look at it, if you're going to put a bit of effort into cooking, you might as well get the most mileage out of your time.

Sure, I agree that all recipes taste better when they're made with the freshest ingredients you can buy. But I also believe in the Law of Least Cooking Resistance, which says that just about any kind of home-cooked meal is going to be healthier than a fast food one, so if you're going to cook, you might as well make it as easy on yourself as possible.