Cooking strategies to help you eat well, even in the middle of your busy week.
Story by Anneka Miller
Multimedia by Albert Jung

It’s Wednesday night. You’re sick of frozen dinners and canned soup. There’s a bunch of food in the fridge, but you have a paper due in the morning and no energy to start cooking.
We’ve all been there. It’s tempting to grab something at the grocery store or meet a friend at a restaurant, but that can get expensive on a student budget.
One of the best strategies for combating the mid-week food wasteland is making a big batch of chili or soup over the weekend to heat up later. Check out the video below for step-by-step instructions for three bean minestrone soup!
Here are some other strategies for good, healthy eating during the week:

• Make a batch of rice and keep canned beans in the cabinet for easy beans and rice bowls or burritos.
• Make a batch of whole grain muffins for quick breakfasts on the go.
• Combine ½ cup raw almonds, ½ cup salted peanuts, ½ cup dried cranberries or raisins, and ¼ cup plain M&M’s. Add a ¼ cup mix to ½ cup dry whole grain cereal like Cheerios for trail mix snacks!
• Wash and chop up carrots and celery sticks for a healthy salad or snack.

With a little planning you can make good eating happen all week, and save some cash at the same time.

See more easy, fun recipes.

Three Bean Minestrone Soup

Makes eight servings
Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 ½ cup chopped onion
• ¾ cup chopped celery
• ¾ cup chopped fresh carrot
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 teaspoons dried rosemary
• ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 14 oz. can green beans
• 1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 3 14 oz. cans of beans OR 1 ¼ cup dried beans cooked and drained
• 1 2×3 inch piece of parmesan rind
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 10 cups of water
• Fresh ground black pepper to taste
• 1 ½ cups of cooked rotini pasta

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add and cook onion, celery, carrot, garlic and herbs, stirring until the onions become translucent. About five to ten minutes.
2. Cover and cook until vegetables are tender. About ten minutes.
3. Raise heat to medium high and add canned tomatoes and green beans. Cook, stirring, for three to five minutes.
4. Stir in beans, 10 cups of water, salt, and add parmesan rind.
5. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer partly covered for thirty minutes.
6. For each serving, stir in about ¼ cup cooked rotini pasta and season to taste with salt and pepper. (Serving = 1 ½ cups soup)

Tip: Keep the pasta in a separate container in the fridge instead of adding it to the soup pot so it stays fresh and doesn’t get mushy.
Originally published on March 11, 2011.