Practical Nutrition: Load slow cooker with healthful ingredients

If you think you're too tired to cook dinner after a long day, then pull out your slow cooker, and you'll have hot, homemade meals waiting for you at the end of your day. Unfortunately, many older recipes often call for high-fat and high-sodium ingredients.

One recipe for slow-cooker Beef Stroganoff had 710 calories, 33 grams fat and 1,058 milligrams sodium per serving. For a healthier version, try the recipe for Beef Stroganoff over Noodles, which provides only 403 calories, 9 grams of fat and 486 milligrams sodium per serving.

You can improve your recipes by selecting lower-fat and lower-sodium ingredients. Reduce the fat by choosing lean cuts of meat. Select skinless poultry, beef sirloin and round steak, and pork products like lean ham, tenderloin, sirloin or top loin. Trim all cuts of visible fat.

Cut the fat further by using low-fat, or 98 percent fat-free canned soups, and 1 percent to 2 percent milk fat dairy products.

Canned foods increase the sodium in recipes. For canned tomato products, select low-sodium, or no-salt-added versions. For broth and bouillon, choose 1/3 to ½ reduced-sodium types. Decrease sodium in solid canned ingredients by draining, then rinsing with water.

Some low-fat cream soups may still be high sodium, so select lower-sodium, lower-fat cream soups such as Campbell's Healthy Request.

A first step for decreasing sodium may be to simply eliminate the extra salt altogether in the recipe. This change is an easy one to make without really affecting the flavor.

Load these healthier ingredients in your slow cooker and turn it on as you leave in the morning. You'll return home to a delicious aroma with dinner already prepared. If you're too rushed in the morning, load your slow cooker the night before, and place in the refrigerator.

If you don't have a slow cooker, consider purchasing one. They come in all shapes and sizes, with different heat settings, with or without programmable timers, and at prices to meet anyone's needs.

For most slow cookers, the low heat setting cooks food in 8 to 10 hours; high setting in 5 to 6 hours. Try yours out while you're home the first time it's used so you can judge if it cooks faster or slower.

Cleanup can be a snap if you have a slow cooker with a removable inside crock. Or line it with Reynolds slow-cooker liners.

Slow-cooker meals are great on a cold winter day, but don't put your slow cooker away as the weather turns warmer. They're good options then since they don't heat up the kitchen.

Beef Stroganoff over Noodles

1 10¾-ounce can Campbell's Healthy Request cream of mushroom soup
1 14½-ounce can beef broth, 1/3 less sodium
1 4-ounce can sliced mushrooms, drained
3 tablespoons cornstarch
¾ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1/3 cup Marsala wine (optional)
½ teaspoon salt (optional)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2½ pounds lean top round or sirloin steak, well-trimmed of fat, cubed
1½ cups light sour cream
1 12-ounce package egg noodles, preferably whole-wheat
1 12-ounce package frozen carrots
1 12-ounce package frozen green beans

Combine the first 8 ingredients in your slow cooker. Add onion and meat, and slightly mix to cover meat in sauce.

Turn on your slow cooker, cover and cook on LOW 9 to 10 hours, or HIGH 4½ to 5 hours.

Twenty-two minutes before serving, stir sour cream into slow-cooker mixture. Beef should easily break apart.

In a Dutch oven or large sauce pot, place water for cooking the egg noodles. Bring water to a boil, and add the noodles. Set timer for 9 minutes. When the timer goes off, add frozen carrots and green beans to the bubbling noodles. Set timer for 1 minute more, cooking the vegetables. When the timer goes off, drain noodles and vegetables. Serve beef and mushroom sauce over top.

Nutrients per serving (1 cup beef and sauce over 1 cup noodles and vegetables including optional salt and wine): 403 calories, 39 grams protein, 9 grams fat, 39 grams carbohydrate, 6 grams fiber, 486 milligrams sodium.

"Lickety-Split Meals for Health-Conscious People on the Go!" by Zonya Foco, RD. For more recipes and tips, visit www.Zonya.com.