New Tradition: Healthy Meals with Friends

I've implemented a new tradition with my friends. Once a month, we’re going to gather at someone’s place and cook a healthy dinner. Each person brings the ingredients for one dish which gets shared with the rest of the group. Leftovers can get taken home by all and serve as at least one lunch for everyone that week. For this first one, my roommate and I got all of the leftovers because we went to see a movie after dinner and we didn't want to let the food sit unrefrigerated in the car. Of course then my roommate went out of town for work, so really I kept all of the leftovers… works for me. I got at least four meals out of the leftovers, and still had another three meals portioned out that I didn't eat - I need SOME variety in my life.

I have the most dietary restrictions of the group, so everyone caters to me… just kidding, but not really. We've also got one girl who doesn't eat any meat except for chicken and another who doesn't have gluten or added sugars (she’s practically paleo), so our meal plan is roughly:

• 1 chicken-based entree (i.e., stir-fry, chicken tikka masala, etc.)
• 2 vegetable-based dishes (i.e., ratatouille, roasted asparagus, sweet potato, tomato basil soup, etc.)
• side salad
• fruit for dessert

February 15th was the first night we did this and we had three people attend. I’d say 3-4 is a good number if all of the chefs need to prep and cook their dishes. More people probably would have led to some collisions

My roommate made a Spicy Sweet Potato Soup, with roughly the following ingredients. She tweaked this recipe to suit my needs and her dislike of chicken broth/stock.

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 tablespoon ghee

1 onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, sliced

4 cups water or chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root, or 2 tsp ginger powder

1/4 cup smooth almond butter

2 tsp lime juice

1 tsp salt

If you divide this soup into 8 servings, each serving is 106 kcal, 14 g carbs, 5 g fat, 3 g protein, 5 g sugar, 3 g fiber, 168 mg sodium, 260 mg potassium, 165% vitamin A, 18% vitamin C, 5% calcium, 5% iron.

My other friend made a spicy veggie stir-fry, and I whipped up NomNomPaleo’s Braised Chicken with Artichokes and Pearl Onions.

We scarfed down our dinner before I thought to take a photo of the nicely plated meals, so here’s a shot of one of the portioned meals I had throughout the week.