Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Confession time

I never thought I'd say this, but I've started using frozen vegetables. I know--I'm kind of ashamed. But hear me out.

Cooking for one is a balancing act. I love to have fresh veggies around for stir-fries, especially a few different kinds. But more often than not I can't eat them all before they spoil, and I hate letting food go to waste. Plus, after a day at work and an evening workout I just don't want to deal with all the chopping.

From a nutritional standpoint, It turns out that frozen veggies have pretty much all of their vitamin and mineral goodness. In fact, they can actually retain more of that goodness than their fresh counterparts, depending on how long it took the fresh veggies to go from plant to table. And these days there are not only conventionally grown veggies, there are organic ones.

Enter Cascadian Farms' bags of pre-cut frozen vegetables--specifically their Thai and Chinese stir-fry mixes. Awesome! There's no washing, and no cutting, everything's ready to go straight from the freezer. It's a great way to get a colorful mix of veggies in my diet. They don't always turn out as crisp as the fresh ones do in stir-fries, but they do pretty darn well.

And did I mention they're easy?

4 comments:

Brave Sir Robin said...

I've never seen that brand, where do you purchase them?

My local store has just started carrying some higher-end frozen vege-s under their own label, and they are pretty darn good.

The farmer's markets will be full of goodies around here any day now.

Anne said...

I get mine at Central Market, which is where I do nearly all of my grocery shopping when I'm in Houston. I don't know if you have a Whole Foods in your neck of the Texan woods, but that would be the most likely place to find them. I don't know if places like Randalls, Kroger, etc. carry them. Here's their website.

I should go check out the local farmer's markets here for leeks and asparagus and such, since it's about that time of year. Back in the SF bay area there are some year-round farmer's markets, and I always enjoy watching the wares change with the seasons.

Supersaps said...

For shame! Next you're going to be telling us that your serve frozen orange juice for breakfast!

Actually, I find having frozen veggies around handy, like frozen peas and spinach (which don't seem to get a weird texture when they're frozen) --then I can easily toss them into something that I may make spur of the moment.

Anne said...

Never! I never use frozen orange juice. :) I do, however, freeze extra lime juice so that I can cook with it when I don't have limes on hand. And I hear that fresh herbs like parsley freeze fairly well.

And yes, I like having frozen peas on hand as well. I only put them in things I'm going to cook anyway, though, like a soup or pasta dish. By themselves they seem mushy and slimy when they've been frozen.