By PCG

Five Alive – A food philosophy.

My Aunt Jo is 77 years old and still goes for a jog every morning.  She’s pretty amazing.  A few years ago she told me about the “Five Alive” challenge.  The challenge being to eat five servings of fruit or vegetables every day.  I decided that was a realistic goal and have been aiming for “Five Alive” ever since.  For me, it’s a much more fun and healthy relationship with food when I think about what I can eat rather than what I can’t eat.

Aunt Jo & Uncle Earl. 

You’ll find that most of my (stolen) recipes are heavy on the veggies.  Because if I don’t add veggies to every meal I make, it’s highly unlikely that I can achieve my “Five Alive” for the day.  It’s easy to doctor up any recipe with a few more veggies and add color and flavor in the process.  Plus, I like a challenge!

Here’s one of my new go-to crock pot meals (Thanks, KT!).  I love it because it’s a one dish meal – all you have to do is some chopping and put it all in the crock pot!

Here’s the recipe: Thai Chicken Soup

Five Alive: I added a sliced zucchini, a bundle of chopped asparagus, a can of bamboo shoots, and two cans of polar straw mushrooms, because I love mushrooms (sorry DP).

Tricks:

• Do all your chopping the night before and store it in one bowl in the fridge – makes assembly in the morning a breeze (keep the asparagus separate)
• Add the asparagus at the very end so that it maintains its vibrant green color (they only need 15 minutes to cook)
• I even pre-chopped the chicken and let it marinate over night in sesame oil, soy sauce, and some left over ginger
• I used a bit more curry paste, fish sauce, and peanut butter than the recipe called for – if you like heat, you could add some Sriracha or chili flakes
• Since I have to leave the crockpot when I go to work, I set it on low for 8 hours instead of 4 hours on high as the recipe suggests
• I used black rice but you can always use quinoa instead of rice if you’re aiming for fewer carbs.

Load it up and walk away.

 The final bit of flavor. The garnish is key. 

Crock pot goodness.