This Girl Cooks

Sometimes, there just isn’t time to make a healthy supper from scratch. So, I need to raid the pantry or freezer. There are plenty of canned soups and prepackaged, frozen meals that are healthy. But, they always seem to be missing something. To me, they’re bland. They lack that personalized touch that makes home cooking so great.

My way of getting past that is to put the food on a pretty dish or bowl and garnish it or add extra ingredients to give it a homemade feel. Here’s a few examples of what I mean:

• Canned Soups. To spice up canned soups, I heat the soups up in a saucepan. While it’s warming, I take some time to chop up some fresh herbs. My favorites are chives and parsley (but I never use both). I also like to use scallions. Pour the soup in a bowl when it’s down and garnish with the fresh herbs.
• Frozen Meals. Warm up the meal according to the package directions. Remove food from the tray and place in a plate or bowl. Garnish with chopped, fresh herbs.
• Mac and Cheese. I once helped my sister make her packaged mac and cheese seem homemade. So, we cut up some scallions and mixed it in after the it was all prepared.

You can make anything seem homemade by garnishing with fresh herbs. You can also add extra ingredients. For example, you can add cooked chicken to a canned vegetable soup or extra cheddar cheese to a packaged mac and cheese.

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