It’s been a very, very busy week in my household in a long string of exceedingly busy weeks, and I always try to have some healthy foods on hand so that eating well is easy even when time is scarce. This week I’ve made up a huge batch of split pea soup with spinach (recipe to follow very soon! very little chopping, and it’s so delicious!), vegan Caesar dressing (3 minutes, no joke!), homemade carrot nut burgers (aka veggie burgers) and lentil loaf, and tomorrow morning before most of you are even up for the day *lol* I’ll be putting on a pot of my grandmother’s veggie soup so that there’s plenty on hand to feed my household for the next several days. Have I mentioned that my son wakes me up long before I’d otherwise get up myself?

Taking a look at what we’ve been eating makes me think about food variety. One of my clients recently mentioned that there’s only so much soup she can eat, and I agree (and said that I too get “souped out” at times), but short of cooking every day, soups and stews are the easiest healthy meals to prepare in large batches. Hence I do it very often!

But notice too that I also have the veggie burgers and lentil loaf to break up the monotony, and in between there’s also room for plenty of delicious fruit sorbets and smoothies, as well as salads. You can also choose completely different soups that have such a different flavor and, um, vibe (for lack of a better term) that it doesn’t feel in any way like you’re having the same stuff over and over again. For example, I only very rarely make my favorite lentil soup in the same week as split pea soup because they’re both fairly mild and legume-based. Instead, I’ll do something like Mexican meals and bean burgers made from a single pot of pressure-cooked beans, plus one of these milder soups or another like it, and then maybe a Middle Eastern or Indian stew that’s very different.

Not everyone needs variety like I apparently do, though :) so you can certainly eat one pot of the same soup for a week, make another pot the following week, and keep things easy. I just don’t like to get bored with what I eat, but that’s part of what keeps me focused and happy and feeling balanced. Your own needs and wants are what should dictate your own meal patterns.

(Oh, and yes, I’ll try to add some of these recipes in the next few days. It’s been hard to find even a few spare minutes at the computer lately, but I’m happy to share whenever I can.)