I love one put cooking. This is for many reasons, the main two being less washing up and it’s a way to keep all the nutrients in the food.
When you cook food the nutrients is altered and can become damaged so the nutritional value is significantly reduced. This is why gently steaming food is better than boiling especially if you then pour the water away you have cooked the food in. When you cook food and pour away the water you can pour away most of the nutrients. One pot cooking can stop this happening because even if the food is boiled, you keep the water and end up eating it which means that you are getting the most nutrients possible.
Something I do a lot is put a load of vegetables in a saucepan with water and a stock cube and then something like pearl barley or a pulse etc. If I end up cooking the kidney beans or mung beans, for example, separately I will normally use the water to cook the vegetables in and add them back together. If that makes sense.
One pot cooking also means everything is shoved in together and you don’t have to worry about timings!
The alternative to a stew whether it’s made with all vegetables/pulses or vegetables and meat, is soup. I am a massive fan of soup as it’s a great way to use up random bits of vegetables into something that actually tastes ok! You may be surprised to learn that lettuce in soup is actually pretty fab. Soup and stews are also important in winter as they are nice and warming. It’s also easy to use seasonal vegetables in them as well.
Katie X
The Yellow Dress Project 