Cooking Healthy

Cooking with organic and other fresh, healthy foods can be difficult and different from what you are used to. But with a few tricks you can make your fresh foods work as well as pre-packaged and frozen foods.

When you're cooking with fresh, organic and other healthy foods you probably notice that things don't quite turn out the way you planned every time. The soup is watery, the veggies are soggy or they're too crisp and you just can't get your meats to cook all the way through. Here are some tips for cooking with healthy foods that will get you on your way to healthy meals that look and taste the way they really should.

If you're cooking a healthy or organic soup that has low sodium and low sugar, you're going to want to skip the full cup on water. Granted, there will be less soup, but you'll actually have a soup with content instead of just water. Or, you can always substitute milk for the water to make a creamier, thicker soup. But if you're using organic milk or soy milk, you'll need to make sure that you're watching the amount you put it, since it will likely have a thinner content. Always remember that the thinner the composition of your foods, the less liquid you should add to cook.

The problem with cooking healthy foods is that we're trained to cook in the quickest manner possible. Putting your most healthy foods in the microwave is the equivalent of trying to use a soaking wet towel to dry yourself off after a shower. When you're using foods that need time to absorb liquids-healthy foods all need this time-you'll want to change your method of cooking to a slow, more thorough manner.

One of the best ways to accommodate this slow cooking process is to use a crock pot. Using a crock pot to cook your fresher, healthier foods can help them cook more thoroughly-so you don't have meats that are still bleeding in the center-and make sure they absorb all the liquids so you don't have dry meats, watery soups or limp vegetables. Crock pots can also be left alone for many hours at a time so you won't have to spend hours over the stove trying to master your fresh foods and make them plate-worthy.

When you walk into the grocery store, you're met with pre-packaged frozen foods, like vegetables that come in combinations of cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. When you cook from scratch you most likely go with what you know. The problem with this method is that each of the vegetables in your frozen mix were pre-cooked separately at their proper cooking temperatures and then mixed together, bagged and frozen. That's why all of your frozen vegetables have the same tenderness when you cook them. When you make a fresh meal, you should select foods with similar cooking temperatures and times.

Remember, cooking with healthy, organic foods does require you to learn a little something new about food and cooking.