Shake up your Shelf Life Options

“Hi, my name is Meg….and I have an addiction…”

I’m straight up addicted to grocery shopping. It’s a problem. Especially when you’re buying for one and you’re an unemployed one. Not so much an addiction-more like unemployment boredom. But I do like a healthy stocked fridge, if possible. 

The other problem? Well fresh foods tend to spoil if you have a grocery shopping problem, prefer healthy foods, and are buying for uno.

Solution? Cooking strategies. Or I suppose freezing strategies.

Baby spinach doesn’t have the longest shelf life. Especially on my shelf where it competes with a hearty, heart of Romaine lettuce. As much as I like stocked fridges I also like to eat everything I buy before it spoils. It's like a game. Maybe only a dietitian finds this one fun. 

Options:

1. Sauté spinach in a sauce pan with olive oil and minced garlic then add/stuff it to chicken dishes or whatnot. 

2. Layer it into Lasagna. 

3. For a quick and healthy pizza, grab a whole wheat pita, throw it in the oven for like 3 minutes, take it out and top it with spinach leaves, canned diced tomatoes, artichoke hearts, cottage cheese and throw it back in the oven for another 5 or so minutes. You can shake powdered parmesan and drizzle balsamic vinaigrette on top to dress!

4. Process a new type of Pesto. Place spinach into a food processor and add pine nuts and olive oil to make the alternate version! Tastes great as a whole wheat noodle sauce or as spreads on sandwiches. (Use walnuts instead of pine nuts to save money and benefit from omega-3 heart healthy fats!)

5. Scramble up your typical thawed spinach omelet. Cook a Greek omelet with one large egg plus one or two egg whites then throw in spinach and feta.

6. Shake up your morning breakfast! Today I threw the following ingredients into my food processor (because, sadly, I’m without a blender) and made a great breakfast or post work out shake. Sounds weird to add spinach but it balances out the banana and berries, adds color, texture, and little flavor. 

• Half a banana,
• ½-2/3 cup frozen blue berries 
• ½ cup of low fat, plain yogurt,
• ½ cup unsweetened, vanilla almond milk,
• ¼ cup dried, whole oats,
• 1 tablespoon coarsely ground flax seed,
• And a handful of spinach

…Well and of course garnish with fresh blueberries for visual appeal!

The whole thing is jam packed with calcium, vitamin D, monounsaturated fat, omega-3 fat, soluble and insoluble fiber, antioxidants, potassium and goodness. It’s about 315 kcals of love. And should keep you going until lunch!

Yum, Yum, Yum!

For additional protein you can blend in a ½ cup of low fat cottage cheese or sprinkle in some nonfat dry milk powder! Even bulking it up with peanut butter would taste fantastic. 
Can’t finish the whole thing? Use it to flavor cream cheese…blend plain cream cheese into the mix and spread on a whole wheat bagel or include it into pancake and muffin batters!

The possibilities of shake types and uses are endless. So don’t be afraid to shake things up! You really can't go wrong when all you do is throw stuff into a blender and let it rip! And, in my opinion, it’s okay to be addicted. When it's to goodness.