By Alliance President Terry Gips
Is it possible to celebrate the Earth and ourselves by enjoying great meals from around the world? Yes! And you’re hungry after a long day at work and/or have to get kids off to evening activities. Sounds like me! And you? Here are five great fast choices.
We don’t normally feature many recipes, but when a friend asked for a delicious but simple, healthy earth and people recipe, I shared one of my go-tos. It struck me that this might be a perfect way to honor Earth Day.
My go-to delicious, healthy, relatively inexpensive, easy (one-stop, just go to Whole Foods) and fast comfort food is Organic, Vegan, Gluten-free Thai Coconut Green Curry.
And, the basics can be easily modified to make Indian Curry, Vietnamese Pho, Japanese Ramen and Thai Coconut Soup. Each just takes about 10 minutes and they also are great leftovers, packable lunches and potluck dishes.
Such a Delicious Deal: An Easy, Quick, Affordable, Nutritious and Earth-Friendly Meal Solution
This recipe is for feeding a family and having leftovers for a second meal (my way of cooking) but you can cut the proportions in half if just for one or two people at the same level of cost.
Depending on a number of variables, it costs roughly $4 a serving for essentially a full meal.
Such a deal: a fabulous, colorful, nutritious, one shop (Whole Foods), one pot organic meal for $4 a serving that every family member will love! That’s less than a Latte at Starbucks!
And better yet, if you like diversity, you can separate the vegetable base in half and make two different dishes from the choices below.
While you can use organic fresh vegetables, there’s a lot of chopping and when time is of the essence, frozen is ultra fast and usually more nutritious unless homegrown or from a farmers market.
The Basic Base: Fast, Healthy and Ready-to-Use Organic Vegetables and Tofu
The base for each of the four meals is one bag (usually 1 pound) each of Whole Foods frozen Organic Broccoli Florets, Green Beans, Whole Leaf Spinach, Stir Fry vegetables (not essential but the peppers add color), Mushrooms, and Peas (or shelled edamame), plus a 1-pound block of Organic Tofu cut up in cubes (you can sub organic soy or rice Tempeh) or Mock duck (but it’s not gluten-free).
Put them in a big pot (harder things like green beans on the bottom – you could also add fresh organic cauliflower florets) with enough water and a lid to steam them a few minutes on medium till they’re adequately cooked.
Yummy Organic Thai Coconut Green Curry
For the Thai Coconut Green Curry, I then add two cans of Whole Foods Organic Unsweetened Coconut Milk, 2 or more teaspoonfuls of organic Thai Green Curry paste (depending how spicy you want it), Whole Foods Organic Sweet Chili Sauce to taste, Braggs Liquid Aminos or Tamari to taste, optional fresh organic Thai basil or paste, and possibly some organic garlic granules, onion granules and umami.
Move to India for Some Indian Curry
For Indian curry, you can replace the green curry with curry powder and replace the Thai Chili Sauce with a can of cooked tomatoes. In my ideal, I’d chop one or two onions that I’d sauté and add in curry powder.
Travel on to Vietnam for Pho, Japan for Ramen and Back to Thailand for Coconut Curry
With a blink of an eye you can travel to enjoy the tastes of two other Asian countries. Thanks to Ocean’s Halo fabulous boxes of organic Pho Broth, Ramen Broth and Thai Coconut Broth, you can easily add any one of them to the basic vegetables to make organic pho and ramen.
Preferably, you can add some chopped organic fresh baby or regular bok choy (my kids also like dried mushrooms, which can be thrown in on the bottom when steaming vegetables but make sure there’s enough water for them to absorb) and replace the coconut milk with two boxes of either Halo’s Organic Pho Broth, Ramen Broth or Thai Coconut Broth.
You can then add in Ocean’s Halo Organic Rice Noodles or Ramen Noodles. The noodles just need 3 minutes to cook (till they can be separated) and are ready. Lotus Foods also makes a great line of organic Udon Rice Noodles, Pho Rice Noodles and Soba Rice Noodles.
You can even get Halo’s Organic Spring Roll Rice Wraps to use with your flavored vegetable base as a filling.
Bon Appetite
Let me know how it goes and please share any of your favorites: info@afors.org