Page 30 - Cook with Ease: Tips and Recipes for Small Families - Serving 1-2

Step 4: Set up a Healthy Food Storage at Home

You may not want to do grocery shopping daily whether you are a busy
worker or a relaxed retiree. Actually, you may consider setting up a healthy food
storage at home, keeping some dried and frozen food. In this way, you can
have healthy ingredients on hand regardless of weather, time or other factors.

Dried Food

Quite many dried food items are high in fibre (e.g. black fungi, shitake

mushrooms, white fungi, wood ears). They are good alternatives to vegetables
to help you get enough fibre if you have no time to shop or when the price of
vegetables goes up due to typhoon or rainy weather.

Dried beans (e.g. soybeans, black-eyed peas, rice beans) are rich in
soluble fibre. They help lower blood cholesterol level and increase satiety as well
as food combinations.

Cooking Tips for Dried Beans:
• Dried beans are rather hard. Soaking overnight makes it easier to cook them
soft. The proportion of dried beans to water is 1:3.
• If you are short on time, boil them for at least 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, keep

the lid covered and soak for 1 hour. Drain and set aside.
• Dried beans will get 1 to 1.5 folds bigger after cooking. Therefore, don’t add
too much to avoid wastage.

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