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Food for Thought Friday: 10X more delicious in 10 minutes per week
 


“What should I make to eat tonight that is healthy and fast and delicious?!”

It’s a relentless question that nags at us - night after night, week after week.

I really believe it’s the “mental energy suck” of continually answering this question that makes cooking feel like a chore.

BUT - it doesn’t have to be so hard. (In fact, it can even be easy and fun!) I prefer to answer this dilemma as simply as possible. And my simple answer breaks this question into two steps:
  1. What should I buy?
  2. How should I cook it?

Question #1: “What food should I buy?”
Answer: buy what’s in season (and what looks freshest).

This is really easy if you shop at the farmers market, because they will only be selling what’s in season, which is always the freshest. Less choices = simpler life. If you don’t have a farmers’ market near you, though, you can still shop with the seasons at the grocery store. If you don’t know which foods are in season when, check out this handy website I found. Also, check out this nationwide farmers market directory!

Another simple thing you can do is start noticing where the produce at the grocery store is coming from. Ideally, you want to find produce coming from as near to you as possible, or at least coming from within your country as often as possible.

Why should you buy what’s in season?! 1) It tastes better, because it’s fresher. 2) It’s often more nutritious - it has more vitamins and minerals because it didn’t travel as far. 3) Shopping and eating this way will lead to effortless variety in your diet.

Question #2: How should I cook it?
My simplest answer to this: Cook it simply (roast, steam, saute), and ADD A SAUCE!

This email is actually an ode to sauces. If “sauce” makes you think of marinara in a jar, I am here today to expand that viewpoint, and to convince you that sauces are one of the easiest, simplest ways to 10X the tastiness of your food in a VERY small amount of time.

Sauces are one of the 5 key “formats” or food categories that I teach in my cooking course, Intuitive Cooking 101 because they are one of the KEY ways that I cook 80% of my meals in 20 mins or less.

During weeks when I have NO time to cook, sauces are my saving grace. I basically always have 1-2 homemade sauces in my fridge because they make me so much more excited to eat. Here are some examples:

  • Raw veggie ➡️ 10x better dipped in a sauce
  • Cooked plain veggie ➡️ 10x better with a sauce on top
  • protein + leftover grains + raw and/or roasted veggies ➡️ 10x better and feels like a cheffed-up meal when you put a sauce on it

A good sauce is always only 5-10 minutes away. And you can eat from many different cuisines in a week with just a few sauces in the fridge!

Why would you go to the trouble of making your own sauces?! Because they are SO MUCH BETTER than any you could buy. Many pre-made sauces have lots of preservatives that are unnecessary. They also often contain extra sugar. Making your own sauces is SO EASY and you get to control exactly how it tastes. Plus, many of them last 1-2 weeks in the fridge, so it's a really time efficient way to build lots of flavor and variety into your cooking.

Sauces are a huge category, so let’s break it down. And to illustrate this, I made you a fun little graphic! I'm really only addressing "sauces served COLD (or at room temp)" here - I'll have to address heated sauces on another day...


Now that you have the overview, here are some of my favorite sauces that I’ve written about in other FFTF emails, categorized per the above!

Note: a * indicates a cooked/heated ingredient, so slightly more complex recipe

cold stirred/shaken sauces

cold blended sauces

So - try it out! Make 2 sauces in a week, at 5 mins each, that’s 10 minutes to making your food 10x better. Trust me it’s worth it :).

Happy saucing!

Love,
Jess

PS. Like FREE STUFF?! Download my Craveable Salad Guide to print out and hang on your fridge for inspiration!

If you like this email, I would LOVE IT if you forward along to your favorite food-loving friends, or better yet, forward and then cook something together! Wannabe subscribers can sign up here. Thanks for reading!
In case you missed out, here are a few past issues to check out:

    Hi, I'm Jess! I help health-conscious, busy people transform their cooking from "chore" to "whippin it up!" through intuitive cooking, which I teach through online classes, free content, coaching and more. This is my newsletter, Food for Thought Fridays, where I share highly actionable tips and inspiration to help you cook more intuitively (which makes cooking feel easier and SO much more fun!). Once a month, I share a recipe that's really worth making, and I only share those with my email subscribers.

      I currently work + live on land that is the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone. And I can't wait to eat at Cafe Ohlone when they reopen someday! Check out this article about them.


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