Disclosure: This post is sponsored with Mom It Forward and “Cans Get You Cooking”. However all opinions are 100% my own and may differ from yours.
With all this cold weather and colds (I currently have one) all I ever want to do is have a good hearty soup. The thing is that I am busy and just don’t have the time to make a good soup. That is where canned foods come in, they allow me to create easy soups without spending the whole day in the kitchen.
One of my favorite’s is Vegetable Soup where I cook up a little meat (whatever you want), throw some carrots (sometimes I use fresh if I have them in the fridge and need to use them but canned is just as fabulous) and potatoes chucks. I let that cook in some stock for about 30 minutes then I throw in whatever vegetables I want. I use canned because they only need to heat up and then we are ready to eat. It is simple and fast.
I used Allens Vegetables and Del Monte in the recipe above but I have on occasion used Margaret Holmes and Glory Foods brands because they have seasoned veggies which add plenty of flavor to anything. Now I know what you are thinking, “Canned foods are not good for me.” Well studies have shown that many of our favorite canned fruits and veggies have the same amount of nutrients as fresh and frozen ones.
Canned foods help me get fruits and vegetables from the farm to my table without a lot of wastage. I cannot tell you how many fresh fruits or vegetables we throw away because we don’t eat them quick enough. It can be a waste of money. With canned foods my family gets the fruits and vegetables they need and I save a ton of time in the kitchen.
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I was also lead to believe that canning foods leeches the nutrients out and basically boiled. I don’t know, green beans for instance are YUMMY for green bean casserole but I just like my veggies a bit “crisper” and not so rubbery. There are some things I don’t care about , like potatoes and carrots are usually a bit more firm than other veggies, corn also pretty much retains it’s shape and firmness, and tomatoes, I dont really care because most if not all becomes tomato sauce for red sauce pasta meals (lasagna, spaghtetti, etc) I guess it might depend on the brand, but we usually buy the cheaper versions. I do not like to used canned veggies like green beans ans mostly we use frozen medley for eating with a dab of butter. But for soups i can totally see where you are going with this. How fast and easy and something you can make a lot of at once and use for leftovers or freeze. I’d be OK with that!
One of my family’s old standbys is canned vegetable beef soup with dumplings. You could add extra vegetables if you wanted, I suppose, but it’s easy and super satisfying on its own.
I know what you mean about throwing out fresh fruit. I have gotten into the habit of buy more canned fruits. At least this way I know we aren’t wasting any food and my kids will eat it when I put it on the table.
I hate it when I have fresh fruit and it goes bad, but it happens more often than I life to admit. I haven’t really purchased much canned fruit. But I need to. That soup looks mouth watering!
I love to use canned goods as well. Probably my favorite canned good is green beans. I have always loved canned green beans.
I’m all for stocking up when there’s a good sale. The dietitian I met with last month did put canned items on the “not good” list. But here’s what I find unbelievable — cleaning out the pantry, I find expired cans of food. I shudder to think how long I have left it there. I hate waste like that and have no one to blame but myself.
I use canned a lot too. I don’t have time to make my own stocks so canned or cartoned chicken and beef broths fit the bill and who has time to soak dried beens, give me a can of kidney or garbonzo beens anytime over a bag of dried.
I use can goods a lot they taste good and you can always add items to them to make it the way you want
I’ve never been a fan of canned vegetables. My mom used to serve us canned spinach and other vegetables and they always took on that metallic taste. I’ve since come to discover that the metallic taste is actually the aluminum leeching into the food and the food absorbing the leeched metals. Since then, they’ve chosen to line aluminum cans with plastic. The problem with the plastic is that the majority of canned foods are lined with plastic that contains BPA’s. BPA’s can then leech into your food. The problem with BPA’s is that they can act as an artificial hormone in your body and lead to all kinds of diseases and hormonal problems. The only canned foods I trust are from Amy’s Kitchen and Eden Foods, because they do not use BPA’s to line their cans.
I hate throwing out food especially fruit. I love using canned foods especially in the winter months.
hanks for the well thought out post on canned foods. But frozen veggies taste so much better!
Canned foods can stretch a budget . I like to have them in my stock pile. I like to use frozen vegetables when I can afford them. We have been eating lots of soups lately.
I use canned foods during the winter when I am making soups or casseroles, but I love the fresh produce in the summertime!
I love having my pantry full of canned foods. I even like canning some things myself.
I usually don’t buy canned items because I can most of my own veggies.