Growing up with a health nut of a mom, and a recently turned vegetarian, nutrition has always fascinated me. I find myself often in the kitchen, mixing spices with a little love to create the perfect recipe. When I discovered my love for cooking at a young age, I found myself quickly hunting down the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipes and creating masterpieces of dishes for family dinners. My most recent endeavor is my banana bread feat walnuts and flax seeds.
Like I mentioned earlier, I recently became a vegetarian. (I still eat fish on occasion, which I guess makes me a pescatarian but do labels really matter?) My first seven and something months were tough. I was living on campus which meant a lot of baked potatoes, pizza, salads and the occasional vegetarian meal the school cafeteria could come up with. Breakfast was my favorite because it usually featured staples such as oatmeal or waffles with lots of toppings including yogurt, peanut butter, fruit, chia seeds, etc. I survived the dorms and the school food and I’ve managed to eat healthy (with the exception of a late night pizza). Here’s a few tips on eating healthy with a budget.
- Don’t buy more than you need too. (Usually $6-8 of vegetables will last me two weeks). This varies from cabbage, Brussel sprouts, kale, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, etc. Depending on the season, and what sounds good I buy different things. My fridge contains cabbage and kale right now.
- Always buy in bulk, if possible. You may think you want that two pound bag of carrots now but if you are like me, who constantly changes her mind on what sounds good, a few carrots will go a long ways.
- Sales, sales, sales. We are trained to find clothes on budget, so why not do the same with food? Buying ingredients from scratch is an easy way to stay on a budget because it’s usually cheaper and ingredients will keep longer to allow you to experiment with different recipes.
You don’t have to love kale to be healthy. Finding snacks you love, (like banana bread with flax seed) can be healthy, and easy to create on a budget.
Healthy Banana Bread
preheat oven to 350 fahrenheit. use large mixing bowl and wooden spoon.
1 cup of unbleached white flour
1 cup of wheat flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
pinch of sea salt
mix flour, baking soda and salt together. create center with wooden spoon.
½ cup butter, room temperature
¾ brown sugar
beat butter and sugar together in center of flour mixture
2 eggs
2 overripe bananas
½ cup of milled flax seed
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup of coconut oil, melted
beat in eggs and bananas. stir in flax seed, walnuts and coconut oil. line pan with coconut oil and bake for 1 hour.
Wild Works 