Transcript > Reading labels

My last update was a short audio update called “Reading labels > Instant beef soup.”
[The audio is available here: http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/Wd6KRWHQ]

In case you have any problems listening to the update (it might be a bit slow if you’re on a dial-up internet connection), I had the update transcribed, and I wanted to include a copy of it here, so that you don’t miss out.

All best wishes,
Shelley

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Reading labels > Instant beef soup
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Today’s update is about reading labels. In an effort to keep costs down, when we were packing lunches, we had started adding an instant cup-a-soup to André’s lunch, to keep him from buying a bowl of soup from the daily canteen. (He likes to have soup for his coffee break, I guess it’s like his breakfast.)

So we were trying to keep costs down, so we picked up some instant soups in a cup, the kind where you just add boiling water, and they were really cheap, less than about 60¢ each sometimes.

He ate them very happily for several months. I would put one cup in each lunch every day, no work, very cheap, life is good.

Until I read the nutritional label on the side.

I’ll admit that I don’t read nutrition labels very religiously. Sometimes, if I’m standing in the grocery store and I can’t decide etween two boxes of crackers, I might check the fat or the sugar content.

Buy this instant cup-a-soup has 11 g of fat.

For comparison, that’s the same as a medium-sized donut, or two pork sausages. But if a regular can of Healthy Choice chicken noodle soup has 2 g of fat, how are they getting 11 grams into instant soup?

So we open up the top, look at the ingredients, what do you see? Noodles, it’s kind of salty, a few bits of dehydrated vegetables. That’s it. I pulled out some raw ingredients, similar ones, and I check the labels. Chicken broth? No fat. Beef broth? No fat. Instant Chinese noodles? Again, no fat.

It turns out they fry the noodles first before dehydrating them. I can’t tell you why. Unless it makes them taste better. It certainly doesn’t make them any more healthy.

I thought I would try to figure out how to make this beef noodle soup from scratch. It took me one or two trials to get the mix of ingredients just right. It’s hard to replace the very salty-MSG flavour, but the new version is super healthy and has 1 g of fat.

Now, on Mondays and Wednesdays after supper, I make up a batch of this soup, because each batch makes enough for two days. I don’t want to make too much in advance as I think the noodles would get soggy and weird, but maybe I’m just being careful. After it’s cooked, I divide the soup into two small containers, leave it on the counter to cool until bedtime, then I put them in the fridge.

Slightly more work, but cheap ingredients, and much more healthy.

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Homemade instant beef soup
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2 cups beef broth made with concentrate or powder (I use Bovril)

1 cup chicken broth (I use homemade from Extended Recipe 1.1, which has a tiny bit more fat than commercially prepared, but tastes better and has more body)

2 squares instant Chinese noodles

handful frozen peas

handful frozen corn

Put all ingredients into a medium-sized pot. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let sit approximately 15 minutes, or until the noodles are soft and fully rehydrated. Divide into two plastic containers, let cool to room temperature, and then refrigerate.

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Because I don’t know about you, but when I want grams of fat I’d really rather have a donut than an instant soup.

This is Shelley for One Roast Chicken, and I’ll talk to you again soon

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu
http://www.OneRoastChicken.com

Reading labels > Instant beef soup

This week I have an audio update for you. I’ve prepared a 3 minute audio message just for One Roast Chicken subscribers.

Do you know what instant beef noodle soup and TWO pork sausages have in common? The answer may surprise you.

 

>> Follow this link to listen to this week’s audio update…

[http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/Wd6KRWHQ ]

As always, I’d love to hear your feedback.

You can always reach me at shelley@oneroastchicken.com.

 

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu, Owner & Head Chef
www.oneroastchicken.com

Dead bananas

I am unusually picky about bananas. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only a 2-day window in which bananas are OK to eat: when they’re perfectly yellow. Not green. Definitely not brown. Even yellow with speckly brown bits isn’t good. I can’t do it.

Yes, I know the banana is a perfect snack. Good cut up with yogurt, great with peanut butter and whole wheat toast. But brown bananas are double ick, too sweet, really I can’t even pretend to eat them. There are some things you can eat to be polite … this isn’t one of them.

OK, so what to do with the leftover bits of banana. When cutting up for toast, using only a half, what to do? Or when you buy 4, because they’re on sale, then only eat one, the others slipping away into the brown wilderness, inedible. Can’t throw them out.

I freeze them.

Whole, in their skins, just toss them in (they go completely black when frozen). Let them thaw at room temperature later, on a dinner plate, drain off the liquid, then they’re good to go for banana bread (I have a great recipe with pecans and chocolate chips on top), ban-muffins (with or without chocolate chips), and low fat ban-cranberry oatmeal cookies.

And on days when I’m feeling like I need a particularly healthy snack, or when I’m starving and it’s not really suppertime yet, I make a smoothie with the chunks of dead frozen banana.

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Ban-smoothie

You need a blender for this. Toss into your blender the following:

• ½ cup plain yogurt, fat free is healthier (other flavours work, too)
• ½ of a frozen dead banana (best if cut up into chunks and frozen in a little bag, otherwise the blender has a hard time with a giant frozen banana piece)
• ½ cup orange juice (or orange mango, grapefruit is too sour, punch drinks have too much added sugar)
• ½ cup skim milk to thin the mixture enough so that it will blend properly
• ½ cup of any other miscellaneous fruit

Put the top on the blender, and mix until it’s ready to drink.

I add in whatever else is in my freezer, other dead fruit bits, things rescued and cut up just before they go bad, like a few strawberries, or the end of a fresh pineapple. They just wait in the freezer until needed. Of course, you can also buy frozen fruit mixes in bags from the grocery store and keep for just such emergencies.

If you don’t have frozen banana bits, you can use other frozen bits and some fresh dead banana. Just make sure that some part of this concoction is frozen, otherwise it won’t really get that milkshake consistency when blended.

You may have to add a little bit more milk if it’s too thick and the blender starts to protest. Or if it turns out to be too thick to pour. I like strawberry-ban smoothies, and blueberry-ban. If you don’t have yogurt, you can use ice cream, which in fact tastes better, but isn’t really diet food, whereas the rest of this smoothie is pretty darn healthy.

Somehow this magically erases all of the bad tastes of dead banana. When drinking a smoothie, I feel quite self-righteous, healthy, super healthy, in fact. It’s an amazing thing. Where I wouldn’t touch a dead banana with a ten foot pole, here, with this drink, I actually feel super human. Anyone watching their caloric intake will be happy to have only natural sugars. Small kids think they’re getting a milkshake and don’t know that you’re sneaking in extra daily fruit servings.

Imagine what you could do with a bit of planning… every time you buy blueberries and there’s a few soft ones in the bottom, toss them in a bag in the freezer. The last squishy strawberries. The mango that went soft before you could finish it. And of course, the dead bananas. Blech.

You can always reach me at shelley@oneroastchicken.com.

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu, Owner & Head Chef

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