The New Year has a us thinking about a renewed focus on health.  Not only is our family finding more ways to work in daily exercise (thanks to tips from Dufloth’s Outdoor Family Fitness), we are also having fun refreshing our commitments around food.   On Sundays we crowd together on the couch to pour over simple recipe ideas from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, while we fill in our weekly menu and shopping list.  Although we’ll take inspiration from a recipe like “Sizzling Beef with Scallions“, we allow our weekly box of fresh vegetables from Singing Frogs Farms to dictate which vegetables fill out the dish.  We also find that having a good pantry stocked with versatile ingredients – rice, quinoa, oats, coconut oil and walnuts to name a few – makes it easy to create flavorful and nutritious dishes.

Ready to get inspired to load your pantry with nutrituos staples?  You’ll find it is wonderful to have healthful ingredients at the ready come meal time.  Whole Foods Market and Sono-Ma also hope to tempt you into action by offering you a chance to win a pantry-stocking gift card.  Read on for ideas, tips and contest details!

Easy, Healthy Ingredients on Hand for Quick Meals

When my boy, Bryles, wakes up at 5:00 a.m. declaring his hunger, quick and easy oatmeal is my savior.  Nourishing Traditions inspired our family to always have a bowl of oats soaking in whey and water on our counter.  These pre-soaked oats cook up in minutes.  I pull out our raw milk, butter, and syrup and give him the privilege of topping his own grains.  (Yes, I watch him carefully with the syrup.   But you should see how excited he gets to pour and chop on his own!)  I grab my own bowl and layer on the walnuts, brewer’s yeast and dried fruit.

Bryles will later eat soaked rice or quinoa for lunch at school.   He’ll be served grains, pumpkin seeds, and brewer’s yeast for toppings.  He enjoys it so much, I try to have it on hand for our lunch-time meals at home.  I opt to serve him quinoa as it is loaded with the protein my growing boy needs.   I also toss in our fresh CSA vegetables – like this season’s tasty broccoli – to round out the meal.  Bryles will eat the broccoli, too, although much more willingly if I top it with some of our homemade mayo (made with extra virgin cold pressed olive oil) inspired again by a Nourishing Traditions recipe.

Come the afternoon, we are sourcing our pantry for healthy snacks again.  We might choose to make stove-top popped corn (drizzled in butter and sprinkled with sea salt) and smoothies.  Our smoothie will feature raw milk and frozen or fresh fruit….and it gets fortified with some pantry items, too!  We add in local coconut oil, organic walnuts, and other nutritive fats or super foods.  Another good option is a carob energy cube – this is considered as good as a chocolate bar at 3:00 pm at our house.

Then, at dinner, we are ready for soaked beans and more grains as well as our meats and fresh veggies.   Again, pantry items like nuts, seeds, and oils are handy for boosting flavor, omega’s, fats and proteins in our dishes.

Pantry Shopping List

We keep our pantry stocked by shopping at Whole Foods.  I appreciate their clear labeling, which helps me purchase Local and Gluten-free items.  I also love the fact that I am welcomed to bring my own mason jars to stock up on bulk items.   The mason jars cut down on the waste our family produces, and shopping in the bulk department saves a considerable amount of money.  (To use your own packaging, simply stop by the “Guest Services” counter and ask for tare weights to be written on your jars or bags.)

Here is our family’s list of suggestions for creating your own pantry-stocking shopping list.

• * Celctic Sea Salt (or other mineral salt)
• * 1 lb black beans
• * 1 lb lentils
• * 1 lb quinoa
• * 2 lbs brown rice
• * 1 lb rolled oats
• * Organic Maple Syrup
• * Brewer’s Yeast
• * Organic Walnuts
• * Organic Pumpkin Seeds
• * 1 lb cannellini beans
• * 1 lb quionoa pasta
• * 1 package no-oil sun-dried tomatoes
• * Organic Coconut Milk
• * Energy cubes
• * Organic Popcorn
• * Extra Virgin, Cold Pressed, Organic Olive Oil (Local options at Whole Foods Coddingtown)
• * Organic Coconut Oil, Cold Pressed (Local options at Whole Foods Coddingtown)

Whole Foods gifted our family $50 to take the pantry challenge, and I was truly surprised at what we were able to bring home.  With prices such as $1.64 cents for a jar filled with black beans, we filled our shelves in no time.

Contests, Contests and More Contests!

Ready to tackle your pantry?  Sono-Ma and Whole Foods has a $50 gift card to help you with your task.  Simply leave a comment below before midnight on January 29th to enter to win.  Tell your friends about the contest by linking to this article and pick up an extra raffle entry (mention your Social Networking in your comment.)

Whole Foods also plans dishing fun rewards via two other on-line contests:

 Customers can win pantry staples for a year by entering online at the Whole Foods Market, Whole Story Blog. The deadline is January 31 – so hurry to enter now.

In addition folks can win a $50 “Pantry Re-fresh” by signing up for Whole Foods Market Coddingtown’s e-mail newsletter in-store or from WFM Coddingtown’s Facebook page.   One local winner is selected every week.

Remember – everyone wins who stocks a healthy pantry!