With the drop in temperatures, when you get to the table what you most want are spoon dishes that are comforting, healthy but also economical.
With sky-high prices on the shopping list, now more than ever we choose carefully what to fill our fridge with. We look for food with which prepare healthy and not excessively complicated recipes, since we don’t always have a lot of time.
At Vivienda Saludable we bet on recipes in which legumes, vegetables and vegetables are protagonists. These are ingredients that we can easily find on the market at a reasonable price and that provide us with the necessary nutrients. Of course, we must not forget to consume cereals, meat and fish either. These are our four dishes for which to set up a simple and healthy menu.
- Tomato soup
Ingredients: half a kilo of tomatoes, two carrots, 1 onion, 400 ml of vegetable broth, 1 garlic clove, 1 bay leaf, olive oil and a tablespoon of wheat flour.
The first thing is to poach all the vegetables over low heat with a little oil, except the tomatoes that we will blanch in a saucepan with water. Then we submerge them for 30 seconds and transfer them to a bowl with very cold water. Next, we peel and chop them to add them to the rest of the vegetables. To thicken the soup we can add a tablespoon of wheat flour. Stir well and add the vegetable broth and the bay leaf.
Once it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to a minimum and let it cook for at least 45 minutes. To finish, and in the same saucepan, we crush with the help of the blender.
- curried lentils
Ingredients: 1 garlic clove, 100 grams of onion, 100 grams of potato, 120 carrots, 10 grams of curry, olive oil, 350 grams of brown lentils and 400 ml. vegetable broth
Sauté the onion, garlic and carrot -previously finely chopped- in the oil for 10 minutes. Add the peeled and cascaded potatoes (cut into irregular pieces). Then add the curry and let it cook for a couple of minutes. It is time to add the lentils (previously hydrated for at least two hours in soak) and stir so that they are impregnated with the rest of the ingredients. After add the bay leaf and the broth, cook over medium heat for 30 or 35 minutes or until the broth is thick to taste.
- White bean stew with mussels
Ingredients: 250 grams of white beans, 750 grams of mussels, a tomato, a pepper, a head of garlic, an onion, a zucchini, a carrot, olive oil, salt, bay leaf and paprika.
In a pot, introduce the onion, the pepper, the tomato, the garlic and the bay leaf. Cover with water, season and cook, covered and over low heat for 40 minutes. Crush the vegetables (except the garlic) with a teaspoon of paprika and add the beans (soak for at least 8 hours). Clean the mussels, wash them and steam them for 5 minutes, until they open. Discard the shells and save the cooking liquid.no. Wash and chop the zucchini and carrot, sauté them in oil and add them to the beans along with the mussel meat and the reserved liquid. Cook and mix all the ingredients well, for at least a couple of minutes.
- Chicken stew with vegetables
Ingredients: a chopped chicken, a potato, a carrot, three sweet potatoes, 1 onion, 1 turnip, 1 leek, 1 broccoli tree, half a zucchini, chicken broth and olive oil.
Fry the chicken pieces -previously seasoned- in olive oil until golden brown and reserve them. In that same oil we make a fry of onion and leek. After poaching them for ten minutes, we added the rest of the vegetables except the broccoli and zucchini. After poach it for another ten minutes, add the reserved chicken, broth, zucchini and broccoli and cook over low heat with the saucepan covered for approximately 30 minutes.
In addition to eating a healthy diet, it is important that we do not stop doing physical activity in winter, even if the weather is not good. The benefits, on a physical and mental level, are more than proven.