Santa Rosa personal chef offers tips for eating healthy and on a budget at Trader Joe’s

As our grocery bills keep rising, it looks like sticker shock will continue in 2022 for everything from soup to nuts.

What does that mean for our new year’s resolutions to eat healthier made even more urgent with the quick spread of a new COVID-19 variant?

To help answer that question, personal chef Linda Ford Goolsby shared the tips she’s developed for planning, shopping for and cooking a week’s worth of dinners that are not only enjoyable but affordable and healthy, too.

And she walks us through her two favorite grocery stores for food bargains — Trader Joe’s and Grocery Outlet.

“People are really busy these days, and a lot of mothers are working,” said the certified nutritional consultant who splits her time between Huntsville, Alabama, and Santa Rosa, where her daughter and grandchildren live. “People don’t want to cook as much either. … I think people need to get back to the basics of cooking at their own home.”

Through her business, Fresh Start Nutritional Coaching and Culinary Services, Goolsby teaches clients meal planning, smart shopping and label reading, cooking and kitchen management.

It goes without saying that cooking for yourself, rather than buying restaurant food, fast food or prepared food, will save you cash and give you a healthier diet with less salt and fat. And if you shop wisely, it won’t break the bank.

“We want it to be nutritious, because that’s what we’re going for,” she said. “It’s not really true that it’s too expensive.”

Grocery shopping, planning

Goolsby encourages her clients to save money by drawing up meal plans and making weekly shopping lists while thinking ahead about how to spin off leftovers into new-to-me meals.

“One of the secrets to affordable nutrition is planning,” she said. “When I was younger, my dad taught me … to make a menu for the week and to put the ingredients in sections on the shopping list. I was on a tight budget, so I just bought the things that were on my list.”

Goolsby suggests organizing your shopping list to correspond with the different sections of the store: produce, grains, dairy, meat and staples such as canned goods, nuts and spices.

One secret to saving money, she said, is to stay on the outside edges of the store to avoid getting distracted by snacks, desserts and other processed foods.

“The outside of the store is where the dairy and produce are,” she said. “Don’t go into the middle.”

She also suggests exercising discipline and buying only what you have on your list.

“If you go once a week and get most of your staples and what you’re going to need for the week, you don’t have to buy extra stuff,” she said. “So many people get in the habit of buying prepared foods from the hot bar or the deli. You don’t think it’s that much, but it really adds up.”

Tips for affordable, healthy eating

Here are some of Goolsby’s tips on efficient meal planning and shopping, which she shared during a swing through two of her favorite bargain stores: Grocery Outlet on Fourth Street in Santa Rosa and Trader Joe’s on Cleveland Avenue in Santa Rosa:

1. Make a meal plan for three dinners and then try to extend them for another dinner or two during the week. For the winter, she chose dishes with warming spices that can boost your immune system.

For the first dinner, Goolsby suggested a trio of healthy courses: Beet Balls made with lentils and walnuts, a Sweet Potato Soup made with coconut cream and an Arugula Salad studded with goat cheese, avocado and red bell pepper. Recipes for all three are below.

“The Beet Balls are crunchy from the nuts on the outside,” she said. “It’s like a falafel, only made with beets and carrots instead of bulgur.”

As a shortcut for making the Beet Balls, she suggested using organic canned lentils or vacuum-packed, precooked lentils, to cut down on cooking time. If you want a simple sauce, simply blend some goat yogurt with goat cheese and fresh dill.

The Sweet Potato Soup has a healthy dose of fresh ginger and turmeric, plus warming winter spices like cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cardamom. Serve it alongside the arugula salad.

“The arugula is bitter and good for your digestion,” Goolsby said. “This is eating for the rainbow, with all the colors of the vegetables and herbs.”

For the second dinner, she suggested a hearty lentil soup with carrots and cumin and a roasted beet salad with feta, along with some homemade cornbread or a gluten-free bread from the store. If you can find beets with the greens on, add the greens to the lentil soup for even more nutrition.

For the third dinner, she suggested a family favorite: roasted chicken with roasted root vegetables or Brussels sprouts and a quinoa salad with red bell pepper, raisins and nuts.

Then, with the leftover chicken, you can make a Caesar Salad with romaine lettuce topped with leftover chicken or a chicken soup, bolstered by a homemade broth made from the chicken bones.

2. Only buy produce in large quantities when you know you’ll use it all. Or you can share it with family or neighbors. The organic broccoli at Costco might be cheaper than at other stores, but if some of it goes to waste, it’s not saving you money.

3. When you get your produce home from the store, start doing meal prep for the week, preferably on a Sunday afternoon. It will say you time later. You can wash your salad greens, carrots and peppers, then store them in special produce bags that help keep them fresh longer. (The Debbie Meyer Green Bags she uses are available at Bed Bath & Beyond.)

4. If you’re doing advance prep and you need chopped onions for more than one dish, cut them all up at the same time.

Also, if you have leftover bits of veggies, collect them in a zip-close bag, put them in the freezer and take them out the next time you want to make stock.

5. For busy parents who want to avoid resorting to fast food for their families, she suggests working ahead by cooking batches of grains and proteins and freezing them. In a pinch, you can defrost them and combine them with vegetables you’ve already cut up and some pre-cooked chicken for a quick dinner.

6. If you’re short on time, take some shortcuts. There’s nothing wrong with buying a roasted chicken from the store and a rice pilaf mix.

“I will buy the box of grains in a pinch, when I’m tired, and I’ll put that with some onions and garlic and add a protein to it and a salad,” Goolsby said. “It will be cheaper in the long run to buy that box than to eat out, and it’s healthier.”

7. Buy fruits and vegetables in season from Sonoma County or California rather than Mexico or Chile. They will be cheaper, and you can even afford to buy the organic ones at local farmers markets.

“Winter is a better time for root vegetables, and they’re warming (foods),” she said. “Because it’s cold this time of year, we need more warming foods.”

8. If you want to try shopping at Grocery Outlet, stop by the organic produce section in the back of the store. On a recent Friday, the organic section was stocked with celery, carrots, spinach, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, berries, fresh turmeric, fresh ginger and more. Goolsby was especially excited to see the ginger and turmeric.

“You peel the ginger and turmeric with the back of a spoon and then use a microplane,” she said. “They’re good in dressings.”

9. Also at the back of Grocery Outlet, Goolsby pointed out the new cheese kiosk selling cheeses at a discount and the section devoted to healthy foods such as quinoa, a wild rice blend, almond flour, shiitake mushroom powder, turmeric matcha, sprouted organic pumpkin seeds and mixed organic seeds.

A 4-pound bag of Canadian Quinoa was only $5.99, almost a third of what it would cost elsewhere, according to the store’s reckoning. If you can’t use it all, you could split it with friends.

There were also high-quality brands of baking ingredients, such as Bob’s Red Mill Extra Thick Rolled Oats and Bob’s Red Mill Buckwheat Pancake and Waffle Mix, made with organic and whole-grain flour, and a 1-pound a bag of King Arthur Gluten-Free Flour.

10. For her menu of affordable, nutritious dinners, Goolsby found several products at Trader Joe’s she could use, such as the Steamed Lentils (fully cooked and sealed in a pouch) as a shortcut for the Beet Balls, plus walnuts, rolled oats, fresh cilantro and thyme, coconut aminos, nutritional yeast and flax seeds. For the salad there was arugula, fresh dill, avocado, goat cheese and pomegranates. And for the Sweet Potato Soup, she might pick up some coconut oil, coconut cream, organic vegetable broth, organic cinnamon and cumin.

For the roasted chicken dinner, Goolsby suggested either the Fresh Organic Whole Chicken or All Natural Heirloom Whole Chicken at Trader Joe’s; for the quinoa salad, a 1-pound box of Tricolor Quinoa, some red bell pepper, raisins and nuts; and Brussels sprouts (bagged or on the stem) as a seasonal side.

For the lentil soup dinner, she would buy some organic free-range chicken stock or vegetable broth for the soup, along with cumin, carrots and onions; goat cheese for the roasted beet salad; plus a loaf of gluten-free or other healthy bread, such as the Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Bread or the organic herb focaccia.

Other healthy pantry staples from Trader Joe’s include the Toasted Sesame Oil for stir-fries and salad dressings; the Coconut Aminos, which can substitute for salt-heavy soy sauce; and the Furikake, a seaweed seasoning that’s good for your thyroid.

“Serve as an appetizer or nestled into a big bowl of your favorite roasted veggies.” Goolsby said.

Beet Balls

Makes 40 balls

½ cup red onion

5 tablespoons coconut oil

1 cup chopped walnuts

½ cup raw sunflower seeds, chopped

1 cup gluten-free, old-fashioned rolled oats

2 15-ounce cans of lentils (or an equivalent amount of cooked lentils), drained and rinsed

4 ½ medium red beets, peeled and chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

⅓ cup fresh, chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Salt, to taste

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon coconut aminos or liquid aminos

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1½ tablespoons lime juice

3 tablespoons flax seeds

For sauce:

Goat yogurt

Goat cheese

Fresh dill

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper.

Dice the red onion. Saute with 2 tablespoons of coconut oil until translucent. Set aside.

Steam beets and carrots until tender. Drain, toss with 3 tablespoons coconut oil and cinnamon and sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

Add chopped walnuts, sunflower seeds, flax seeds and rolled oats to a food processor and pulse into a coarse meal. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Add the drained and rinsed lentils, beets, carrots, cilantro, paprika, thyme, garlic powder, liquid aminos, nutritional yeast, lime juice and sauteed red onion to food processor. Pulse until the mixture is minced and well combined. It should look like a thick red paste without any large visible lumps. Transfer to the mixing bowl with the oat and walnut crumble and stir to combine.

Form the mixture into balls, about 2 tablespoons for each ball, and place on the lined sheetpan. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Check them at around 35 minutes, as oven temperatures can vary. Bake until golden brown and firm to the touch.

To serve: Make a sauce from goat yogurt, goat cheese crumbles and chopped fresh dill.

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If you don’t have all the ingredients for this salad, improvise with the produce and dairy you have on hand. Feta or other sheep’s milk cheese is a good substitute for goat cheese.

Arugula Salad

Makes 1 serving

1 handful arugula

2 tablespoons goat cheese, crumbled

½ red bell pepper, sliced thin

½ avocado, sliced

1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped

1 tablespoon dressing of choice (such as olive oil and lemon)

1 teaspoon pomegranate arils, for optional garnish

1 teaspoon sesame seeds, for optional garnish

Place the arugula in a salad bowl and add goat cheese, red pepper, avocado and dill. Dress lightly with salad dressing of your choice, toss gently and garnish with pomegranate arils and sesame seeds.

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You can garnish this soup with diced red peppers, fresh chopped cilantro and a spoonful of goat yogurt.

Sweet Potato Soup

Makes 8 servings

3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

3 tablespoons unrefined virgin coconut oil, plus 1 teaspoon

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 thumb-size piece of fresh ginger, grated with a microplane

1 thumb-size piece fresh turmeric, grated with a microplane

½ - 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ medium red onion, diced

6 cups vegetable broth

2 cans coconut cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Toss the cubed sweet potatoes with the coconut oil until they are evenly coated. In a small bowl, combine salt, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, cumin, ginger and turmeric. Stir until combined well. Sprinkle the spice mixture over the sweet potatoes and toss again until well-coated.

Saute the red onion in a large pan with 1 teaspoon coconut oil until translucent. Add the vegetable broth and coconut cream.

Place sweet potatoes in a single layer on baking pan. Roast 40 minutes or until tender. Let cool.

Pour one-third of the broth mixture into a blender, add one-third of the roasted sweet potatoes and blend until smooth, adding more liquid as needed. Transfer the mixture to a soup pot and repeat the process, blending roasted sweet potatoes and broth and pouring into the soup pot until you get the right consistency.

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56