Keep your pantry ready for the new season

On a cold and stormy winter’s night, who wants to make a trip to the store for dinner supplies? It would be so much easier to whip up something out of things in your pantry. Let’s see what you might have to work with...hmm...a bag of fully sprouted potatoes, an ancient box of Ritz crackers, Aunt Hazel’s runny jam, and some petrified marshmallows. Not too inspiring and really not healthy at all.

Your favorite fruits are out of season, and the last really good tomatoes are a fading memory—but that doesn't mean you can’t have tasty, healthy meals. By restocking your kitchen with fresh winter produce and canned, dried, and frozen foods, you can eat well when most people have resigned themselves to take-out pizza and peaches in syrup.

Even in the bleakest winter, you can find frozen and dried fruits—the best of them more nutrient-dense than hothouse fresh. And don't forget canned tomatoes. They pack three times the lycopene (key to eye and prostate health) found in fresh tomatoes. Winter is also an ideal time to enjoy warming, fiber and nutrient-rich bean dishes and cooked cereals.

So put down that take-out menu. Here's how to fill your fridge, freezer, and pantry shelves with the pick of the wintertime crop.

Dried Fruit
Dried cranberries are among the best sources of proanthocyanidins, powerful antioxidants that also help prevent urinary tract infections.

Choice Frozen Fruits
Like veggies, fruits are flash frozen at their ripest. Your best-tasting and most nutritious bets: berries (loaded with antioxidants) and mangoes (with beta-carotene).

Whole Grain Cereals
Look for whole grain oats, wheat, amaranth, quinoa, or brown rice. The nutritional payoff: fiber, minerals, and beneficial plant compounds called phytochemicals.

Soups
They’re not raw ingredients, but they’re so versatile; you can use them as if they were. Try the creamy—but not fatty—vegetable-based butternut squash, portobello mushroom, broccoli, and tomato soups.

With these simple items, you’ll be able to maintain a healthy diet even during the worse winter storms.

AlejandroQ