Sometimes I think we over complicate food.
Many cooking shows and magazines take basic foods and add a lot of ingredients and steps. This often produces a wonderful result, but it also often makes a dish more time consuming and less healthy.
Sometimes it is easiest and healthiest to stick to the basic. A simple bowl of fruit, with nothing added, is often the perfect side dish or ending to a meal.
What do you think? Do you sometimes serve something simple like bowl of fruit?
And do you agree that food now often seems over complicated and time consuming?
I always serve simple things with meals. I like to just cut up some fruit, or even just serve tomato slices. No need to complicate something already tasty!
I love eating fruit as a side dish – it’s great and good for you. I recently read about cutting up strawberries and tossing them with balsamic and fresh mint… sounds like an easy way to dress up berries and I’m going to try it the next time I have my girlfriends over for dinner!
So true! My five year old was helping me with our weekly menu and she requested PB&J, milk, and carrot sticks for dinner. Sure, why not? Everyone likes it, basic food groups covered, no need for the oven. A perfect dinner.
I’m in a phase of my clinical trial where I just plain feel ugh most of the time. My husband will often cut up a bowl of fruit for me when I’m not feeling well enough for anything else. Sometimes he will add in some plain or vanilla yogurt for an extra pop of calcium, but I love fruit just as it is and it is a great pick-me-up.
I have the bestest husband ever. 🙂
I totally agree. I forget about the basics and sometimes I even feel guilty when “all we have” for a vegetable is cut up peppers. It’s just so easy and I know my kids will eat them.
I think summer is great time to remember all the basics…grilled food, fresh veggies and fruit. YUM!
When I have a simple mix if fruit, I like to juice some fresh lime approx 1/4 cup and 1 tablespoon sugar and toss it over the fruit to help it meld together a bit. Still very simple.
Last night’s dinner was meatloaf with apple slices and carrot sticks. I do like to serve simple raw foods.
We’re having a salad of fresh pineapple, strawberries and kiwi along with grilled turkey sausage for dinner tonight. I like to serve a fruit and a vegetable with almost every dinner that I cook. However, it is often simply steamed veggies (no sauce), sliced fruit or a fruit salad without dressing. I’ll also just throw some baby carrots on the table with some ranch (for those that dip) and call that a side. I completely agree – not only does “dressing it up” take more time and effort, but rarely does it provide additional health benefits.
The only down-side that I’ve run in to is that my kids don’t like “salads” or fancy side dishes. They aren’t fans of sauces or anything special. So, when we are at big family dinners, my kids come across as picky. I know the truth though so I don’t worry about it too much. 🙂
I agree that simple is often best. My kids love fruit, while a complicated cake they might only nibble at. Guess which one I serve more often…
Yes, yes, and YES!
I LOVE fruit salad with a meal. It’s so tasty and simple. I was disappointed one time when my MIL said she was bringing fruit salad to a picnic and it turned out to be fruit cocktail, that stuff in a can with the heavy sugar syrup. Ugh, I don’t need all that sugar with my fruit and I was expecting a nice bowl of fresh cut up fruit. Much tastier and much, much healthier!
@Kim, My kids were served fruit cocktail from a can recently and my son loved it. He said mom can you make your fruit like this sometime. 🙂 I was like what you would rather have that?! But I am guessing it was all the sugary syrup he was liking. 🙂
@Lynn, I’m sure my son would feel the same way if he tried the fruit cocktail. Although he does love regular fruit too.
I agree! I tend to overcomplicate food, that’s for sure. I have been forced to simplify meals due to children’s taste limitations… but it sure has made life easier in terms of cooking. The problem is I feel like I’m making the same things over and over and over, and I get bored with simple foods. So, really, it’s just me!
@Brianne, Oh I get bored also with the kitchen and with food. I am always trying new things, but like you my kids usually like simple things. So, balance is good. Simple and easy things some days and more complicated other days, each has a place.
Oh, most definately yes! We love simple! I serve fresh veggies or salad a lot! Like, several times a week. My family loves just plain ol’ fruits and veggies. In fact, we just had bowls of fruit last nite! For a change of pace, I mix together a container of cool whip and a box of dry pudding mix. Then stir in whatever fresh, or canned, fruit we have. My family loves it! Sometimes I think we tend to complicate life.
If the simple things are tasty like a mixed fruit bowl, I’m all for it. If it’s something I don’t eat often…super sugary or heart clogging desserts for example….I prefer to take the effort to make the best tasting recipe I can find. I figure if I’m going to clog up my heart, I want it to be worth it. I love ice-cream for example, but I don’t eat a whole lot due to my sensitivities to dairy and it’s fat content. So, I get Haagen Dazs if I run out of homemade.
OMY CUPCAKES!!!! OMC…Love simplicity. I cook comfy food, with gr8 healthy ingredients, simple, but so deliciously hits the spot. Where I live, Flagstaff, Az., we are at 7100 ft., and our growing period is at its best, 3 months, so when the summer fruits come in I go for those loving addictions I have, and the simpler the faster I get to devour them, jk, lol. But being a diabetic I do have to devour in small amounts, I ammm sooo bad. I have Diabetes 2, and do not drink, but love my fruit..yum, yum, and cherries, I am a goner. Thanks for your recipes and your stories, blessings to all, redraven
Yes, my mother in law taught me this one! We always had glorified fruit salads or else canned peaches. But she would just cut up fruit, stick it in a bowl, and call it a side. Delish! Especially if you top with a little orange juice 🙂