In the summer, I like to challenge myself to eat simpler food, and to cook less.
Why?
For one thing, even though it’s only April in Atlanta, turning on the oven now means the house is steaming hot for hours. I’m simply not willing to pay $400 a month to cool down my home during the hot summer. That means I keep the oven and other hot appliances off as much as possible.
Simple Summer Eating
Another thing is, I’m trying to save $50 a week on groceries for the next 3 months. Eating simply helps with that endeavor.
It’s a lovely thing that my husband loves to grill. Saturdays are Grill Night around here.
And since he’s cooking the meat, I’m surely going to take advantage of the free time this offers.
I don’t prepare complicated side dishes.
<———- Here’s what we ate last Saturday.
I used to feel a little guilty when I prepared simple meals.
Like I wasn’t doing my job or something.
But I quickly got over it. 🙂
Simple Summer Eating
There are some advantages to eating simply. Among them:
- You’ll eat less. Studies have shown that the fewer flavors on your tongue, the less you eat. This is why food manufacturers add multiple complex, fake flavors and additives to packaged food – you’ll eat more, and they’ll sell more product.
- You’ll save time. The meal above was prepared in literally minutes. The chicken had a simple lime juice, olive oil and garlic marinade. The salad was an uncut hunk of Romaine lettuce with feta cheese and a few grape tomatoes thrown on top. The corn (organic of course) was heated on the stove with butter.
- You’ll save money. Self explanatory.
I thought my thrown together meal pictured above was so pretty, I snapped a pic. It looked like it came straight out of the pages of Real Simple magazine. It was so tasty too!
In the heat of summer I like to have things like: smoothies for breakfast, fruit/cheese/nuts/whole grain crackers for lunch or dinner, and lots of raw fresh fruits and veggies.
How do you change your diet in the summer time? Are you eating more simply to save time and money?
I love to eat simply, in fact I do it all the time for both reasons, but mainly because I still have three kids under 5. And they are all picky eaters. i noticed that my family is not big on creamy meals and alot of things mixed together. So I have learned to keep things separate as much as possible.
However, the guilt thing I used to get that feeling and still get it sometimes because my husband is very, very picky eater. Meat kind of guy:)
And having things simple I rotate, on the weekends I make bigger meals for him. during the week simple meals and on the ministry night or days I know i don’t have much time we do crockpot meals.
But I am for sure a fan of simple Meals!