As a 45-year-old who has been menu planning for 25 years and was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, I have some advice. Choose 5 recipes per week, shop for those recipes only, and make those recipes when it’s convenient. Choose some recipes that take longer to make, some that are easier. Then you’ll decide day to day which recipe will work for that day. You’ll save money, have a varied menu (more complicated or easy), and have everything on hand you need to cook. Good luck!
Yeah, that's roughly my method. We sit down and make a decision on what we'd like in the week before shipping, get 5 or so roughly in my head - then I cook what I fancy from that selection each day depending on how I feel and how much time I have. Gives you the variety, keeps some flexibility, but also gives you a limited choice you have to pick from (too much choice I found was making things difficult). Works great - but I find it's much easier if one person's manages the food purchasing and cooking pretty much solo.
1. Craig learns knife skillz. 2. Craig learns to bake bread. 3. Craig tries ten new foods. 4. Craig takes a nutrition class. 5. Craig bakes a pie. I'd watch any of those.
My husband took a cooking class (which improved his knife skills) and it was a life-changing experience for both of us (in that after it he cooked more and FASTER). Maybe Craig could reach out to a knife company to sponsor it! Craig tries a specific cookbook or online cooking system would also be neat. (And sponsorable, depending on the cookbook or cooking system...)
Reason 5: It's good for your kid to start learning. Both technique and habits. It takes even longer to make dinner when you've got a young kid "helping" you, but the time together teaching them something important is incredibly valuable in a bunch of ways.
My one piece of advice is to include your daughter in your meal prep, cooking, and cleanup. Ever since I could reach the countertop (and my parents bought me a stool to get me there sooner), my mom made me responsible for my own school lunches. Very quickly, I learned to enjoy cooking. My brother and I were even cooks during high school and university. Now I'm a pretty damn good cook, without any need for a recipe in many cases (unless I've never made it before, then I check a few to see common ingredients and their rough proportions).
100% agree with this. I cooked with both of my kids and they are both competent in the kitchen today. Honestly, my older daughter is almost better than I am at this point. I can remember one of her first grade friends coming over and they decided that they wanted to make a pie. My daughter had done this several times but her friend, in spite of her parents owning a restaurant, had never held a knife before and had no idea what she was doing. We had a lesson in how to use a knife to cut apples into chunks safely and she had a blast. Felt like a good dad when my 1st grader was coaching her friend in holding a knife safely. Also, not a real surprise in retrospect, and I am entirely sure that it's a normal recipe for someone, but apple blueberry pie slaps (1st grader's idea). (I knew her family and was sure that they'd be OK with it and I told her mother what we had been up to when she went home.)
My sister and I very quickly learned how to prepare our own sandwiches. I'm not sure what age we were, but the fact that I don't recall a time when my parents prepared it for us, could be some indication. I think it was since age 7 where we learned how to do the dishes. Sharp knives and such they did for us, but everything else we did. Yes, we were their dish washers hehe.
The best tip I can give you is to cook things that involve leftovers. Whether you eat them the next day or freeze them for later, it gives you at least one day of no cooking...or at least just re-heating. So casseroles, chili, ham and beans, soup.. or anything you can crock-pot. Aside from that, having some of your favorite easy recipes written down on cards that you can flip through for inspiration and to make grocery lists easier and faster to create.
something I'd add to this... if the things you buy come in larger quantities that what you actually need to use, and say you dont have the space to store leftovers, keep the ingredients for the end of the week meal, where you can use everything together in a fried (sauteed) potato hash or a stir fry or something similar. I do this a lot. and it actually forms part of our meal planning
@@badestly yes. In the UK, we call fried up mashed potato with veggies (usually onion, cabbage, peas) "Bubble and Squeak". It was typically served on a Monday, when you had the veg (and meat) left over from your Sunday roast dinner. You'd get given a plate of cold slices of meat, bubble and squeak and a dollop of Branston Pickle / chutney... Maybe a couple of slices of bread and butter to go with it, if there wasn't much to go around. My Nanna was the epitome of the British 1950's housewife, with all the post-war know how for cooking, cleaning, repairing etc. I'm blessed she taught me so much 🖤
I'll often cook up extra meat (chicken breast or thighs, pork chops or loin, steak...), then slice it up for a stir fry with fresh rice and (frozen) veggies the next night.
As a 20-something who cooks for almost every dinner, albeit just for himself, routine/experience is such a pivotal part! When things aren't going great, it's invaluable that you can just put something together without thinking too much about it. Avoiding temptation is another; when I do shopping for a whole week ahead of time, I buy a lot less nonsense, and if there's a plan there's no takeout/restaurant to consider.
I second all that. When you can do something braindead-ly (for me its putting rice in the rice cooker, cutting up a chicken breast, and stir frying it with some random sauce, onions, and tomatos) I can do it all on auto pilot and while I'm listening to music and "recharging" from work
@@DeathEaterLink that's all great tips! Having simple sauces in the house (homemade is best but not mission-critical) to throw onto some pasta or something is a great shortcut!
Yaaay! I'm so excited about this. Just my two cents - home cooked meals can absolutely be 'semi-homemade'. Frozen pie crust, canned veggies, whatever. Sometimes this is easier, cheaper, and just as tasty and healthy as making every single darn thing from scratch.
Agreed that there are tons of convenience items that can take a lot of the effort out of cooking. Canned beans, frozen veggie blends, jarred sauces, etc.
One trick from way back in the day is to use soups (especially pureed ones) to speed up the cooking process. Just add them to what you are making. I like to have a lot of different ones on hand so I can get enough variety to avoid getting bored with the same dishes over and over.
I'm just gonna add to the "helpful suggestions" here in the comments: 1) always cook enough for at least 2 meals-this will be tomorrow's lunch or frozen for later; 2) alternate the veg and meat you buy at the supermarket,so your always looking forward to eating 'that thing' you haven't had recently 3)Don't worry too much about recipes and techniques being perfect, just follow your instincts. You'll have some failures this way in the beginning,BUT being able to look in the fridge and come up with a meal without needing to plan out every ingredient will save you time and money 4) try a new recipe now and then of something that's a little out of your comfort zone so you feel challenged; e.g. think fermentation, bread making,beer making,baking etc. 5) prep a grain (rice,pasta etc) in a batch enough for a few meals and leave it in the fridge, so when you are in a hurry you only need to make half of the meal on the fly 6) enjoy the process of cooking by making it your 'down time'; no interruptions-just you, a glass of wine, some music, and the food 😊 7) new house rule: whoever cooks does not clean up. 8)My Italian in-laws discuss what meals they are going to make at breakfast each day like it's a little family meeting. I used to laugh at this level of preparedness,but it's actually genius,and makes you look forward to what your gunna have later.
Great suggestions! China might need everyone to clear out of the kitchen on her cooking nights to have her own down time. I love my cooking time too.
Рік тому+1
We cook almost all our meals at home and you've had some great suggestions, especially about not sticking to recipes so strictly. Personally, I'd argue with #5. Cooking rice or pasta is so easy and tastes way better when it's fresh. I'd only prepare more portions of things that can be heated in the oven or in a frying pan. (We don't use microwave.)
I really love Mike (on UA-cam) from Pro Home Cooks and Ethan Chlebowski. They are both guys who really push meal prepping COMPONENTS instead of the entire meal. They're super helpful if you you want a way to make things easier but still have variety!
In the Netherlands, most supermarkets sell "fresh packages" which are carton boxes with a recipe on it, filled with almost all the ingredients you need + a list of the things you still need to buy. I normally suck at meal planning, but these packages have made it a lot easier. It's really helpful (and I think they cost about the same as the seperate ingredients).
As a fellow dutchie, it kind of blows my mind that that isn't a more widespread thing! You'd think that the States, with its reputation of processed foods, would be primed for something like this
Interesting, the closest thing I can think of in the United States is a pre-chopped meal that you just bake in the oven. I think that would really catch on over here.
We had a chain of grocery stores open up that was based around that concept (in California) but it never took off and they went out of business pretty quickly.
My wife and I pull this off by making a big batch of chili at the beginning of the week (which takes about an hour) then using the chili as the main ingredient in two or three other meals throughout the week (enchiladas, nachos, burritos, etc). Saves us a bunch of time and the chili is super cheap. It also doesn't really take any longer to make a double batch than it does a single batch.
It's fine if you can eat the same thing over and over again.i would hate chilly at the end of the week, my husband will probably be fine with it for the rest of his life:)
I did this last week. Made a huge pot of chili and froze half of it, then proceeded to add chili to everything. 😂 Chili tacos, chili home fries, chili and rice, etc.
Try Cincinnati chili too! Which is just chili over plain hot spagetti, all topped with lots of shredded cheddar cheese and sometimes frito chips lol. It sounds weird, but it's basically "chili mac."
This hits really close to home. I work full time and living with ADHD, it’s hard to find the energy/motivation to cook. Never had an interest in cooking. So this video has lit a fire in me to make it happen lol. Excited to see the challenge video!
Good for you, 😊 it's never too late to start! I didn't grow up cooking either,or in a family that was into cooking and always saw food as a chore. But it's actually really fun, and there's something in it everyone can enjoy.
Fellow ADHD'er here and I feel you, I often lack the motivation to cook. But I've grown my skills over the last year, mostly just by cooking more so my partner didn't have to all the time, and I'm much more comfortable in the kitchen now. The one thing that helps me find the motivation and start-up energy to cook is to spend a bit of time earlier in the day choosing a recipe that I'm excited about. Now I find myself looking forward to cooking sometimes, because it means I'll get to eat the tasty thing after! Hopefully you'll find a place of comfort with cooking as well so it doesn't feel so taxing every time!
One thing to consider is having fairly simple, "good enough" foods (spaghetti, etc) that you can keep the ingredients on hand (noodles, sauce, etc) for "oh shirt, we have nothing planned!". We have a few simple fast and (kinda) healthy meals like this.
you guys make me feel so validated in my feelings of struggling to solve my life function issues. i appreciate how vulnerable you both are. i'm a bit younger so it's actually reassuring that there's no timeline to figure anything out and we're always working to try and be a bit better. thanks yall
The one thing that forced my husband and I to cook whether we wanted to or not was signing up for a CSA subscription. Getting random assorted fresh veg every couple of weeks means we have to do something with them or they go bad.
I'm biased because I run a small CSA, but I think it helps to have a fresh box of delicious ingredients that (generally) taste better than what you'll find at the store. And you'd be supporting a local farm. And sometimes the CSAs send out newsletters with what to make!
Some advice I have for cooking more, as someone who cooks most of the time (and enjoys it!): 1. I started by eating on a schedule in college. Monday spaghetti and meatballs, Tuesday salmon, etc etc, and usually left weekends to eat out/try something new. Yes it can get boring, but since I was so stressed about school, this let my brain auto pilot. I bought groceries easily and didn’t have to think about what I was gonna have for dinner at all. It can be a good gateway to cooking more regularly. 2. Similarly to meal prep, you can cook a large batch of food and freeze it in portions. I make RainbowPlantLife’s bolognese, for example, and freeze even 5 servings of it, so when we’re feeling lazy we can just heat it up and make some pasta. The amount of effort to cook one meal vs 5 is the same, but I get quite a few low effort meals out of it. 3. Frozen veggies make a big difference. No one likes the plastic bags, but it undeniably helps to have a prechopped vegetable (there’s even prechopped onions!). Barring that, you can always chop your own veggies and freeze those in batches/servings yourself. 4. Of course, as is your sponsor, there are meal kits. Cheaper than takeout, and you don’t have to think too much about what you want to eat. Definitely allows for more variety and gives you new ideas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t know if this is helpful to anyone, but I’ve always loved cooking and these were the things I did to keep myself going. 😁
Exactly this ^ I buy frozen chopped onions (worth it to avoid the crying) and peel, chop & freeze other veggies in bulk to make every day easier. My Crockpot, large wok & big pans are vital for batch cooking and freezing a tonne of homemade ready meals in a fraction of the time too 💗👏
I found that even the cheaper meal kits are still more expensive than necessary. $10 a portion is too much for what tends to be just carrots and chicken breast. I think they are nice for beginners though learning some recipes.
@@Alter292the meal kits are actually totally worth it if you think of them as DIY cooking classes on your own time! I kept any hello fresh recipe cards that I liked and now they are in my recipe rotation.. so the premium price *can be* a temporary expense
Yes, to all the ideas AND one more: make cooking part of your daily routine. Once you get good at it, you can incorporate activities that make it more enjoyable (ideas: listen to music, podcast, glass of wine/beer, light snack, chat about day with significant other). Cooking each night is so automatic for me that I barely think about it at all. But, I plan ahead (usually a day or two) and buy all ingredients, and start early: think 4ish.
I think 2 big tips I've got for cooking more at home is 1) find meals where a portion of it can be prepped in advance. That way it's more like 1 or 2 nights of cooking coupled with 1 or 2 nights of just throwing things together (borderline reheating) so you don't burn out on making something original and from scratch each day. You can try to overlap these meal ideas by alternating days too, where you have 2 days of meal A, 1 day of meal B, go back and finish meal A, then 2 days of meal B. That's basically a week of meals. 2) keep around something SUPER simple that isn't really cooking. For my partner and I, it's "Survival Disks" aka Pizza's. You never know what days you simply won't have the energy for cooking, and a doctored up frozen pizza is infinitely cheaper than take out/delivery. This can also take the form of one of those Costco meal pan things, it could be a Pasta Roni box and some frozen breaded chicken in the air fryer, anything that takes almost no effort so you can recuperate and be ready to cook again the next day.
My husband and I eat out only 1-2 times a month and love to cook at home! A few things that have helped us: - keeping a well stocked pantry and freezer. That way if you don’t know what to cook, you pull some meat out of the freezer, bbq, make some rice, and steam some veggies. We do this probably 1-2 times a week. When you shop you are: buying fresh veg & dairy, or refilling the pantry/freezer. - Anything you can batch cook and freeze (ex, chilli, stew, etc), cook enough for 2-3 meals and freeze the extra portions. Then next week when you don’t feel like cooking one night there is a meal ready to go. - Keep other things like pirogies and dumplings in the freezer. Also easy to pull out, add a protein and veg and serve. We do all this and usually end up only cooking full meals where it feels like a lot of effort 3 days a week. The other four days are filled with the items mentioned above.
I'm gonna be real with you Craig, learning to cook at home and prepping for it is one of the most satisfying things in life. Your children will appreciate it (later in life), you will end up enjoying it, and your wife will be amazed by your craftsmanship. I'm no chief but I have been cooking dinner for our family of 4 for the past five years and some of my most memorable moments was my kids and wife telling me that dinner "slapped".
A great way to learn to really love making food in general is baking. With even a small amount of practice, almost anyone can make better buns and cookies than what you can typically buy, so you get near instant gratification. And nothing makes you feel like more of a wizard than turning water and flour into a golden loaf of crusty bread. No, baking doesn't put dinner on the table, but sometimes getting excited about the Yorkshire pudding with gravy is what makes eating at home feel like an upgrade versus going out.
This was my biggest problem a few years back when i was trying to save money. Made a big pdf/ oneNote document with my 15 recipes I knew I could make regularly and liked enough. Listed out what I needed and grouped them together by overlapping ingredients. Helped me actually stick to my new vegan diet aswell.
I cook almost every meal for myself and had to completely rework it several times due to diet issues. Things I'd reccomend; 0. Recipie book. Make notes, ask relatives for good recipies, make magazine cuttings or paste printouts, collect handwriting, and when you figure out what went right or went wrong, write it down. Its not meant to be a pretty work of art, its a 'living' notebook for your family in the kitchen. 1. Storecupboard meals - things that take less than 30 mins to cook that can be made from a small set of ingredients kept in the cupboard for a long time - you find yourself not wanting to cook - you do a storcupboard meal. Pasta+Canned sauce/sauce ingredients + cheddar and whatever veg you have in the fridge, one pan for the pasta, one for the sauce, done in 15 mins. You can prep the veg as it cooks, so you don't have prep time either. I can be out the kitchen within 20 mins. I have a few faster options than that too - practically empty ingredients into bowl and put in the microwave. When you find one you like and works well, you put it in the book. You will want these for when you mess up cooking -which you will. An easy fallback plan matters a lot. 2. Knife skills. You don't have to be great, but mastering the basic 'I can cut veg fast and sharpen my knife without injuring myself' dramatically speeds up recipies. Most recipies have these gaps in that are meant to be for prepping the next ingredient, but if you aren't fast enough you have to prep them beforehand. Once you get ok-ish you can relax around veg prep, which makes the whole process a lot less stress. 3. Fitting in other stuff. I like to get the washing up done as I go, run youtube on my phone, cook, clean surfaces, chat, prep ingredients for my next meal while I have stuff on the stove. A 20 minitue meal can have something like four '15 min' tasks that have periods of waiting in them. 4. Substitutions. Oh no, you didn't go to the shops, and you don't have the stuff to make the meal you were planning? Substitutions. There are bad subustitutions - like using curry sauce instead of tomato sauce for your pizza, and there are good substitutions, like swapping butter for veg oil because you ran out of butter. Learning what each part of a recipie is meant to do lets you start adapting them to meet your needs. Pizza bases can be fried, sauces can be made in the microwave rather than the stove, Buckwheat flour works fine in gingerbread in place of flour, Pancakes can be a side dish for anything. As you make swaps, sometimes you find something good. Write it down. I have cut down versions of chef's work in my books that take half the time because I'm prepared to swap ingredients and rush things for an imperfect result. Or you can polish things up and figure out where to put in a little extra effort for incredible results. Either way, it makes recipie yours - its what makes cooking worth it. 5. They don't do michelin stars for soups and stews because it is too easy to make them world class. This is all I need to say on the matter.
Hey Wheezebags! On every Tuesday why don't you have cheddar rice and broccoli with cheese curds melted in like me?!? (everyone in the comments has great suggestions so I figured I should give you a not as good one to temper the comment section a little)
Thank you for talking about this! I struggle so much with cooking at home. We have three adults with ADHD in my apartment and we cannot get it together in terms of cooking. I think I’ll try the challenge with you! 👩🍳
Step 1 Buy airfrier. Step 2 google 10 recipes where you can use the airfrier. Step 3 Use airfrier. My wife cooks most dinners in 15 minutes and they are all healthy and taste good. We cook at home 5-6 days a week. At least 4 of them are airfried. Easy example: Salmon mushrooms and spinach. Set the airfrier to broil, season salmon and put on for 9 minutes. Take mushrooms and olive oil on a pan on oil salt pepper. At the 2 minute mark on airfrier add spinach with onion powder, garlic powder and pepper and cover. Done. Total of 8 minutes of cooking at 2 minutes of prepping.
Great tips on here! Here are mine... build a strong pantry- do you have a variety of rices/pastas/beans? Have regular and quick versions of a base grain of choice. Then build a plate- grain/starch, veg, protein. Lean on frozen items as you get into the swing. Stock the freezer well so you always have options if your fresh items are bad or you don't have time to shop. I totally understand wanting to go out if you work from home. I would trickle it down... but commit to no takeout/delivery- pretend it doesn't exist. Good luck!
The best home cooking tip is to identify dishes you love that taste just as good fresh as they do after being frozen! For instance, I often prepare a generous batch of delicious butter chicken and freeze most of it (sometimes even keeping a ziplock bag of "starter mother sauce" in the freezer for the next batch). When hunger strikes, I simply toss some basmati rice in the rice cooker, take out a container of frozen butter chicken, pop it in the microwave for 10 minutes, and step away. In less than 30 minutes and without any extra effort, I have a wholesome, incredibly flavorful homemade meal. It's even quicker than delivery, and it costs a fraction of what dining out would (if not less, given that you can buy all the ingredients in bulk).
My girlfriend and I have a list of 20 categories like Meat & Potatoes, Fish & Rice, Salad, Tacos/Burritos/Wraps, etc. On the weekend, we will roll a d20 and whatever number comes up, we write on the meal board for the 5 week days. Then we'll make a shopping list for anything we need and shop for it on the weekend. It's really helped resolve some of this conflict.
My husband and I cook every night in a way that’s not super complicated, and we don’t use recipes. We just always have a protein, a vegetable (or veggie medley), and a starch. Proteins and veggies can either be baked or pan fried. And then we just also cook rice, pasta, or potatoes (easy ways are roasted or microwave-baked). Reuse the pans. If you cook fish filets in a pan on the stove, reuse that pan to fry the veggies. Use different sauces and spices to change it up. There are still always dishes to wash, but we typically tag-team that too so it’s not too boring and tedious. You can do it!!
I still remember the day that I realized I ran out of ranch dressing and thought about how much effort I would have to put into going to the store last minute and that it was equal to making it at home because I already had the ingredients on hand. It was a pleasant surprise.
Hey, as a fellow alleged adult who also has problems cooking at home (though mine is due to anxiety and also avoiding the endless dishes), I appreciate you revisiting this. It's helpful to see that other people that I like on the internet also have this problem. Thank you for always posting interesting everyday-type content, Craig!
Meal delivery kits have been a gamechanger for us. We cook at home 5 nights a week, but all the pain of decision making and shopping for ingredients is gone. It's great! We eat way healthier now.
Following ppl who cook tasty and easyish recipes gets me motivated to cook again after falling off the wagon because it looks so yummy and is a little challenge. Also getting new cookbooks from the library keep it exciting too! We make our grocery lists after getting them to help with the same thing you mentioned about knowing what you’re making ahead of time. And my partner and I swap where one person cooks then the other does dishes and that feels great to either get a free meal or no clean up. Oh finally we LOVE our instant pot!! And freezing chickpea burgers. Keep us updated and I hope you have a tasty month!!!
cooking at home is easy and fun its just finding the motivation to do it. also using canned frozen and dried foods like pasta, veggies meat ect lets you keep it on hand without letting it go bad. spam fried rice can be made with fresh or shelf stable ingredients.
This is my weekly struggle & you're speaking STRAIGHT to my heart. 😂 I'm 41 and I still haven't figured it out, even though I know how to cook (and like to)! It's exhausting (clean-up sucks). Meal-prepping is exhausting and gives me decision-fatigue. Meal-prepping is exhausting and I Just don't do it.
I highly recommend watching Jamie Oliver's "Jamie at Home" TV series... it's only two seasons, filmed entirely at his house. The situation you are in was where I was at prior to that show and it completely changed how I view food in general but specifically why it's a worthwhile investment to learn to cook. It is inspiring, educational and very well done. No flash, just substance and in such a positive way... I absolutely love it.
I am constantly on the lookout for protiens that can be cooked from frozen or quick thawed. Fish is quick to thaw, IQF beef crumbles can be cooked from frozen. If you're willing to take the time to indiviually freeze thin-sliced chicken breast cutlets, they can also be cooked right out of the freezer. Look for slow cooker "Dump and go" meals that you can prep, freeze and then dump into a slow cooker before you leaqve the house or start to work. Plan on feeding 6 people, so if your friends call and want to head to a restaurant, you can invite them over instead. I think this was one of the stumbling blocks for the meal planning initiative. If there's no company, it's leftovers. Warm leftovers for 30 minutes at 200F in the oven, not the micro. Don't worry about "wasting" excesss food, remember the alternative was dining out at 5x the cost.
i love your idea of doing meal planning each day. i think i might try "night before" meal planning. that way i still have time to thaw meat in the fridge overnight if need be. great video guys!
I rely on staying well stocked rather than "planning". - Base: lots of dry staples or root crop - Supplement: in season produce - Bulk: add a frozen protein - Tip: egg, seitan or canned fish are amazing meat alternatives that don't need defrost, won't spoil or make a mess. - WOW: sauce is boss...take it up a notch with DIY veggie stock from scraps or a mushroom buillion (more versatile than meat derived options), some sort of dairy, and a fresh herb. -OOPS: keep some fun/emergency frozen goodies on hand (think Trader Joes) to replace the takeout ease/thrill.
I've been watching your videos for something like 12 years and I want to say that the authenticity and sincerity in how you approach your ideas, process, content, audience, and life in general are really inspiring - in other words, you're a cool dude wheezy. On the topic of food: I only eat out or get take out maybe once a month. I always determine what needs used next and plan around that. I'm careful about making anything that turns nonperishable ingredients into a more perishable substance. I've gotten very comfortable with pickling a veriety of things, making up stock bags of frozen scraps, and enjoying more flavor combinations and textures as well as learning canning and glassing. If anyone really wants to save money and minimize waste, learn to love soup and vinegar and learn how to augment and stretch your dishes - easier said than done I know. Figure out your nonperishable staples and a small variety of things you and your family will actually eat and enjoy. My partner and I both work full time and have a child, we don't travel for work and we raise chickens and grow a lot of our own food. Everyone's situation is different and I'm fully aware of my privileges as a land owner, but gardening is one of those things that everyone should know at least a little about and try their hand at if they have the opportunity. If you're transitioning from eating out consider the experience aspect of it and make sure to replace the social interaction and/or entertainment with something equivalent to help stay cooking at home. Find your own balance, don't force systems or ideas that don't work for you and communicate with your friends and family to know what does and doesn't work for them. Good Luck!
I would recommend a meal delivery kit. You will get ideas of portions and new recipes. Bonus, you don't have to shop for it, it's delivered right to your door.
Dr. Carroll is always so great to listen to. I love how he's so balanced and realistic with expectations. "Doing X is the better choice. But doing X is difficult, and I enjoy Y as well. I get it." I value his thoughts a lot more because of that realistic acknowledgement of the situation.
Very interesting and fun vidéo, thanks ! I'm french and my husband and I very rarely eat outside or get take out. We cook everyday.We have 2 little kids and I cook 3 Times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner). This culture différence is really interesting cause yes, planning menus and cooking is taking soooooo much time!
My fav trick is if you're cooking ground beef Monday, cook double and then save it for your next recipe on Wednesday or Thursday. Then you only have to cook the other stuff with that next beef meal. My other life changing trick was I made an excel spreadsheet of all the meals my family likes, categorized by type of meat. So when I open my fridge and see I have chicken, I look at the list of the chicken meals we like and then choose one, and make it!
like a spreadsheet, but we just have a word doc with a giant list of all the stuff that has been nice to eat, including what sides it's normally with, cause i always forget what kind of vegetable might go with stuff.
As someone with food intolerances/allergies and who has always done cooking at home, and honestly am underwhelmed by the sub-expectation experience I tend to have eating out (because I do cooking lots and got good at it) I relate to this zero percent but it’s interesting to see the other side of things. My husband basically didn’t care about food other than it let him live and sort of holds this mindset/ issue and ‘struggles’ to make a meal I can eat… and also says I’ve ruined food for him because now he is also underwhelmed by the eating out experience. All this to say that like most things in life it just takes practice and I’m sure you’ll find a way to make cooking at home more enjoyable that works for you 😊😊
I grew up with my mom doing meal planning every week, so to me is the most natural thing, but I what I found really helps me, is allowing some leeway, and having some easy recipes in the middle, acknowledging I don't have time every day, and also always having other quick options in the freezer that are not in the meal plan, to go to in case that I am not feeling it. Also, I contemplate going out as well, just not every day and usually not even every week, but it's nice to be "ah, I know Friday I won't have to think about cooking". And make big meals to have leftovers, and not have to cook every day. Never really got into meal prepping. I'd much rather just cook the day of.
Learn to cook right from the freezer. We often will buy a frozen salmon, frozen veggies, and rice. Throw the frozen salmon in a baking dish with some butter, cover in garlic, onion, and paprika powders. Cook for 20 minutes at 375. Flip, cover in garlic, onion, and paprika powder. While oven is heating up / salmon cooking, put the rice in a rice maker, put frozen veggies in water and boil. Once all is done cooking plate, salt and pepper to taste. Buy dried pastas, and a pasta sauce you like. Boil pasta, strain, add pasta sauce. (Add toast with some garlic powder and butter on top as a side) (Yes carb heavy) (Buy boxes of Kraft Dinner, add frozen cutup hotdogs) Buy frozen pre-made pizzas etc. There are alot of ways to cook quick meals, and they taste good, maybe not as great as going out but it will be faster then ordering at a sit down restaurant. As an experiment, you can try growing some of your own food (Like potatoes) Then make them into a meal. With all the effort put into growing the food, it can be more motivating to cook the fruits of your labour.
Bigger meals is great! Saves energy (and your personal energy). If you dread the repetition of getting thru all the food, throw half of it in the freezer for later. Thaw a day or two before an evening you know will be busy, and boom! You’ve got a precooked homemade meal.
I struggled with this too. My husband and I have found that cooking every night is overwhelming, so we build in eating leftovers into the plan. So, we cook 3 or 4 nights a week and we'll have enough food for the whole week. We also have a rotation of about 20 recipes that we've found over the years. So we know how to make them, how much time we need for prep, and how well they heat up. About once a month, we try a new recipe and decide whether or not to add it to the rotation as well as talk about things we're getting tired of and what needs to be removed. This helps keep the rotation from getting stale and repetitive.
I love cooking and meal planning! I get a weekly vegetable delivery and this changed my planning- I now work backwards from a list of everything in my fridge/pantry/vegetable box. I plan my meals around using up what I have first. Step 1: generate hand written list of everything usable in the fridge (I do this on my garbage day, so I’m cleaning the fridge or anything gross while I’m inventorying). Step2: Then I sit down with my list and see what can be made with these ingredients? Step 3: I then go through the meal ideas I’ve picked and check the recipes to see if I need to buy anything. Step 4: shop. I have my weekly staples (eggs milk and the like) and then whatever I need from step 3. Groceries become easier because I’m supplementing instead of buying everything on the ingredient list. Im also wary of recipes with new spices, having decluttered my spice cabinet of any expired stuff, so I preferentially find recipes with spices I have on hand. Step 4: execute, in order of the oldest or most perishable ingredient first. Last bit of advice- really figure out what you actually like to eat. Forget the fantasy you that thrives on salads and smoothies and fresh fish if all you really want is a hamburger! Be true to you and cooking can be great fun! Deviate and cooking can be another method to shame yourself for falling short in some meaningless metric- and ain’t nobody got time for that!
I have a feeling it's not just you, but a large portion of your viewership too doing the challenge. I sure will attempt to improve my meal planning this month. Let's do this thing together!
We also hate eating the same foods over and over which makes meal prep hard. We use The Food Nanny meal plan system which has daily themes to narrow down choices, making it easier to pick what to make and have variety in your meals. I have a list of recipes we love divided into our 7 daily themes, so when it comes time to make the two week plan, I can just pick some or all from the list.
I think you guys might benefit from a chest freezer. We have a chest freezer full or beef, pork, and chicken, and veggies for quesadillas and stuff. It makes it so you have most of what you need to make a meal without having to go to the store.
Challenges are challenging and therefore cause us to crave a break and look forward to the end, which is why usually after a challenge we just go straight back to our old ways. I prefer "soft challenges" - like, if I can cook at home 4 days this week I get a special treat lol. Excitement + rewards = sustainability
My biggest cultural shock when visiting American in 2006 was that no one made food at home. I visited many people and it was take out lunch and dinner, even breakfast for some houses. Now with mobile phone internet the ordering and delivery aspect it’s so easy. Living in the country where I live we do 0 take out. 0 fast food. It’s not an option for our household. Gradually the world follows America so it’s certainly happening in the cities here and mcDonalds is popular as F
I meal prep every weekend, and I hate wasting a huge portion of my Sunday before working my desk job through the week, BUT I feel so much less stressed when I know we're already covered for the week. I get to spend an hour or two with the husband instead of cooking again
I've had to really streamline meal-planning for a bunch of reasons, and I primarily live by two rules: 1) cook once eat twice (at least), and 2) at least two of those weeknight cooks should be more like assembly than cooking. Like when the weather's good, I might grill two days' worth of chicken with some onions and peppers, but we're going to eat that with microwave steamer broccoli and sweet potatoes one day, and make tacos or chicken salad with it the second. Sometimes on that second day when we're eating leftovers, I'll throw stuff in the crock or instant pot to pack up before bedtime for another day as well. If you want to eat a fancy home-cooked meal, do it on a weekend or less-busy day, same for when you want to do a big bulk cook to freeze in portions, like lasagnas or chili.
We embraced the “challenge” way of life beginning more than five years ago. Then, 2019, we completed a “virtual” CDT through-hike; following 2020, with a virtual PCT completion and in 2021, a virtual AT completion. We completely left all forms of alcohol in 2019; shed 30 lbs. each during 2020 (and kept the weight off). Our most recent challenge involved renting a six cubic yard dumpster (filling it twice) while decluttering - oh so liberating. We have not eaten in a restaurant, ordered food or consumed fast food items in almost four years. We began keeping notes each year to see how much money we saved by making better decisions on purchases, DIY, repurposing and negotiating better rates or buying on sale….. We’ve enjoyed watching your channel where you often confirm what we have learned. Thanks!
It's handy to have like some standard ingredients that you always get that can be put into many different meals or just eaten raw on the go. Eg; avo, tomatoes, carrots, tinned pulses, onions, garlic, potato etc. And when you do cook, try to cook a whole batch and portion it up into the freezer cos no one likes to cook every day
It's so interesting that this is clearly a habit thing. In the UK it would be so so unusual to eat out many nights of the week - eating out is pretty much always a special treat. So my mind's default is to always cook, there isn't really another option. I guess there are households in the UK where takeaway is more of a default. But i would guess that cooking is just most people's expectation. Restaurants are for dates or special occasions or meeting with friends.
I find stir fry and slow cooker meals to be a great place to start. Relatively short meal prep times, and the skills can be used across a variety of flavours.
Plan to eat the app changed our house. There is a learning curve and it can take awhile to build up a robust amount of recipes but we have been using it for many many years.
I think a lot of people find this tricky, for me it's more so because I'm cooking for one person and that complicates amounts/buying individual portions/left overs. My obsessive way I try and make it as easy as possible for myself is a FOOD master list in my phone notes with: lists of meals, lunches and snacks I can cook and enjoy eating, a week by week list of what each days lunch and dinner will be (sometimes it's half filled in, or I do a whole week and edit as I go along (when plans come up/ I have more leftovers than I thought etc)), links to recipes I have used and like, a wishlist of meals I want to try or want to do in the future, any cravings I randomly get to add to next week, a general list of what items I have that are extra or need using up, a grocery list, what's in my freezer rn etc etc basically a huge document designed to be both organisation and inspiration for cooking that removes as much of the friction of it as a chore as possible. The general meals I like list is so so helpful for when I'm uninspired, and updating as I go along means I don't beat myself up if I skip a day and re arrange it because I went out for dinner spontaneously. I like it being a phone note because I edit things constantly on it and it doesn't get all messy like a physical note you changed every day would, plus it helps me feel like it's truly am evolving tool instead of a set of rules or mandatory things, I don't ever feel guilty for changing things up mid week. A huge help too is having a few recipes to hand that are minimal ingredients effort and time that are the go to back up for any given day I might suddenly need a break, so marcella hazans tomato pasta sauce is four staple ingredients, plus pasta veg and cheese and that's my lazy night go to. Mostly writing this for any others reading comments for inspo - hope you enjoy your trip and your cooking experiment when you get around to it! good luck!
I would love to see you try a different variety of meal prep each week of the challenge - one week with pre-prepared purchased meals (like HelloFresh or Factor ;)), one where you do the prep all on the weekend, one where you cook simple meals but every meal is different, one where you cook a few more involved meals to repeat throughout the week - could be an interesting way to compare the pros and cons of all of the meal prep options!
Why cook every day? We always cook enough for 2 days and we eat the same dinner 2 days in a row. We also have a list of our go-to means hanging in the kitchen to remind us of the meals we are good at making easily and that our kids like, so we don’t really have to think much about it.
I sit down after taking a quick inventory of what is in my pantry, fridge and freezer. Then base a lot of things off of what I have. Making a plan for 3 weeks (just dinner) and repeat that same menu plan 2 to 3 times before doing a big change. It's OK to repeat things, like Friday homemade pizza night. Thursday leftover cleanup. My kids are little so we do mostly meat, veggies and a starch. Also planning the night you eat out feels empowering that you are sticking to things, cutting that out feels like a fun sucker for your family.
Here's some things that might help :) Start with easy stuff that doesn't require a million different things going at once, staples that you love is a good place to start - if you all like chicken, broccoli and carrot - you'll like a roast chicken with steamed veges. When you're starting out, better to play safe with easy things you like, rather than spending hours making something that no one eats. You dont necessarily have to have rigid meal planning. I like to make way too much of one thing, that way you're kinda cooking dinner and making the next dinner easier at the same time. Eg Beef bourguignon/Stew in a slow cooker - use the excess stock for -> Spaghetti Bolognese (hide veges by grating them in) - use excess bolognese for -> Lasagna Thinking of ways to use the elements of the last meal as the next meal is one of the things I enjoy about cooking for myself. Also I think there's a lot of pressure to make everything taste and look amazing. If it fills you up, relatively nutritious and it doesn't make you sick, it's food. Nothing wrong with eating a steam bag of veges and a protein with a little gravy to make the boring veges taste better, still cheap, easy and good for you.
longer? not sure. driving to restaurant, finding parking, waiting for food, eating, leaving and driving home. I'd say it would be close to par in most cases. Cooking is a big effort though. No doubt about it. We eat out once or twice every couple weeks and order a pizza or something maybe once a week. We keep easy thing in the freezer too. high quality processed "throw in the oven" type things for lazy days. Its hard though.
I learned a meal prep strategy from Brian Lagerstrom that involves prepping/cooking a bunch of ingredients (chicken breast, salmon, 3-4 hearty vegetables, rice, potatoes), store them in the fridge in separate tupperwares, then throughout the week you have most of the prepwork done to put together great meals. There's loads of ways to whip up a meal with those ingredients + some pantry items so you keep that element of flexibility every day, and you're not prepping full meals ahead of time so it's much much less work. Check out his video "How I Cook 20 Healthy Meals in 1 Hour" as he includes a bunch of recipes at the end that you can use as a reference or template for new recipes!
In our home, the kids have their cooking days for dinner, too. We have lazy dishes that are basically noodles/rice/potatoes with a pan full of frozen veggies or fresh ones depending on what we have at hand, some sort of meat and a sauce (tomato, cream or a ready-made one). While the carbs cook it is easy to make the rest of the dish. Takes 30 minutes even for our kids to make. It is even quicker with ready-made Gnocci or other regional stuff. It is so versatile that you can switch it up easily without thinking too much, and you can even use left-overs. There are other days when we like to cook other stuff or try new recipes, but the pan meal was a game changer. There are also days when we just warm up frozen stuff, but it is once a week, and never stuff that we could make ourselves. We started with elaborate meals, but it is so frustrating to try out new things that most of the time do not work. So we made a list of all the things we loved to eat as a kid and went from there. It was great to eat all the flavors from our childhood again and give our kids the same experience. Our oldest kid now sends me pictures of his dinners and even though he doesn't cook every day, he is very proud to be able to cook for himself. Oh, a game changer was our rice cooker. No more rice crust in the pot or water boiling over the lid. There even are ways to cook your veggies on top of the rice, too. Or use it to steam veggies without the rice. It is a very hands-off cooking tool and I love it for that.
When ill I hired someone to come in and do meal prep, it was fab. Daughter helped her during school holidays and learnt a load of recipes too. I got really lucky with the lady who came round and often I would say, ‘here’s some meat what can you make with what’s in the cupboard?’. She would make the main then we would add salad or veg as and when needed. Boosted our in-house knowledge of favourite recipes too. Why not try a month of, we hired someone to help us once a week challenge!
Cooking constantly at home is such a tough habit to keep doing. But it is worth it and I need to keep doing that because the difference is mostly fresh foods versus eating junk or foods with extra fat/sodium to make it tasty.
Yeah, this is tough and it's good to hear other adults struggle with this. I try to make some things for myself every week and try out cooking new things occasionally, but particularly when there is something I'm stressed out about at work I'll get into eating out a bunch and put on a lot of weight too.
Been subbed since 2011, first comment I think. What works for me and my partner is that she cooks 6 nights a week but I handle all of the kitchen cleaning and house cleaning. She cooks almost every night and for breakfast and lunch I have Huel, which is a nutritionally complete meal replacement that is provably healthy, cheap, and super easy to prepare. As someone who is lazy like you Craig, I think this could work. The Huel also helps me regulate calorie intake. But I also get to have a cooked dinner each night (except a Saturday night restaurant). I've never had a good system until this. Try it!
I did subscriptions boxes for a while, which did help a lot. What I started doing was scrolling through IG to get recipe ideas, save them (or look up similar but better recipes), then review before grocery shopping to decide what I feel like making. I also made sure to do a fridge + pantry check to see what I already had on hand and see if I could cut down on what I needed to buy. Grocery lists are a must to keep you organized even if you don't buy everything on the same day. I do all this during my passive time, i.e. when I'm just scrolling on my phone anyways. I don't do meal prep, but I do prepare like meal "components" sometimes. For example: rice, stir-fried veggies, or some protein can be prepped but you won't necessarily eat this combo the same way each day. Sauces + toppings help immensely to create variety for each meal. Good luck!
I like to cook but it takes way more time than you think. I always think a simple dinner will take about 30 minutes to put together and it turns into an hour and a half, no matter what. Not counting cleaning up. I have no idea why. I do it anyway, but then we end up eating later than we would like.
Exactly, I loved Meal Planning…it’s just that…it takes me hours to do it and I thought I could do it during the weekend, but nope…not usually because we either are travelling on weekend, either visiting one of our families…so meal planning, meal prepping and cleaning goes out of the window on weekends because I can’t count on them being free. Today I’m doing a shorter meal plan in the evening for 2 days only - I plan 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners (I cook double portion of dinner so I can reheat as lunch) It works for me, most of the time…except when I have a social event in the evening and/or I am really tired in the evening to do it. Also, as a person who struggles a lot with making decisions - I have a list where I rotate ideas for meals like: vegetarian recipe, soup and a side, meat - chicken recipe, salad evening, vegetarian, meat-beef recipe, pasta, fish night…kind of like this. So if I prepared salad for an evening, next day’s dinner I’ll search for a vegetarian and beef recipe…I’ve also started collecting recipes as I make them but I still have just a few of them. Cost wise, for us - cooking at home versus ordering out can be often a similar price because I try to buy organic and varied. I can also find ordered food that is pretty cheap and healthy in my area… A salad cost me as much money per portion as a restaurant because I am using good quality and varied food so it tastes delicious, for example. Thanks for offering a realistic perspective on this subject. For real… Aaand the cleaaaning after…yes! I don’t have a dishwasher, I’m sad….
Key is to buy mostly the same stuff every week and put it together in different ways. Find repeatable meats like turkey burger, pork cutlets, roast chicken, soy sauce chicken etc then vary the carb and veggie: potatoes, pasta, rice and whatever veggies or salad looks good at the store.
Most of the time you spend cooking is actually waiting. So from 1 hour of cooking you chop, stir, turn over etc. for 20 minutes max. Therefore you have at least 40 minutes to do other things. There are a bunch of meals that take 15-20 minutes to cook. Watch Jamie Oliver for inspiration. So time is a pretty poor excuse. Also, where I live we have groceries delivery and you don’t need to go shopping if you don’t want to. Go for it peeps! It’s fun and simple. Burp
My husband and I have been trying different things for this and our most recent arrangement is that I do all the planning and he does all the cooking (just for dinner. Lunch and breakfast we make for ourselves or use leftovers) -- so I plan dinners for the whole week (minus two days, one day he plays DnD in the evening and doesn't have time to cook, and we set Sundays as a day where we decide together what we want to make for dinner that day). Then I send him the list of meals and he makes a shopping list for me. I do the shopping for the week, and then throughout the week he cooks dinner. This probably wouldn't work for a lot of people, but we've been really enjoying it. He is a MUCH better and more experienced cook than me, and he enjoys the actual cooking much more than the planning. Whereas I feel stressed about having to cook but don't mind doing the upfront logistics, especially when I know the cooking part will be taken care of each day. We don't have a specific person assigned to clean up but I usually end up doing it more often, which feels fair to us since the cooking alone is pretty labor intensive. Really looking forward to seeing how this goes for you and Chyna!
When you start cooking, think repurpose. Roasting chicken, cook extra. Have it roasted with a side the first night, later in the week make chicken tacos, chicken spaghetti, chicken salad. Basic easy meals - hot protein on greens and veggies. Don’t over think it, it’s really easy once you get the hang of it. And it does take time. I used to plan the menu for the week, shop and spend a couple of hours chopping all the veggies, portioning the proteins, making sauces/spice blends and dressings putting in baggies so it ‘s only a meter of pulling the “meal kit” out of the fridge and cooking. It was a life saver when our kids were young and I was working. Good luck!! While I enjoy the process , I’m aware many do not.
I made a menu for the even weeks, an uneven weeks. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. So I've got 21 meals a week, 42 in total. Sometimes, I eat something else than that's on the menu but that has to do with leftovers etc. I try to eat my dinner from yesterday, as breakfast today. Creating this even and uneven week menu, has been a life saver for me. I'll never have to think about what to eat anymore, since I've got it in writing. I don't have to think about what to get for groceries, cause I know in advance what I'll be making and take it into acccount.
a big thing is that food is punishing when you screw up eating your own mistake is cruel as hell. i cook all the time and dont blame anyone who had a bad experience and never tried it again tbh
My friend and I made this meal once where we cooked shredded carrots in a pan with a bunch of seasonings (can't remember what) it was devastatingly bad, but is a great memory lol
Funny how a problem for someone could be inexistent for others :) French guy here, I've never had the choice, it's a pleasure : you treat yourself first when you know how to cook :) Then your family. Your video is really interesting from my pov.
Best of luck!! Something that helps me is getting shelf stable ingredients that are seasoned. Like the cumin garlic chickpeas from trader joes, jar of pesto, salsa, curry paste. I like to bake bread and a loaf is a solid base for many meals. Roasting in the oven takes less effort. Charcuterie where you just make a few items from scratch and a few things from packages or jars. I'd also say splitting a CSA box with friends could be great. It gives you inspiration and pressure to have produce there. And it's better riper produce, so it makes cooking more fun, and easier to make it taste good.
I'm actually writing a book on this topic. Often meal prepping lacks the variety people crave and really doesn't teach people how to cook intuitively ie without a recipe. What I recommend is choose a prep day. On prep day: 1) Get a protein, I'd start with a rotisserie chicken and break it down. This will teach you how to breakdown a chicken easier than raw chicken. Separate white and dark meat. White meat is used throughout the week in cold or quick cook preparations think chicken salad or have it heat up in ramen. Dark meat can be used to create longer cooked dishes like Tikka masala or braised meat tacos. 2) Veggies: on prep day, choose a firm veggie everyone at least tolerates think broccoli, squash, or sweet potato. Either blanch or roast the veggies. Blanching is quicker and roasting tastes better. Choose a leafy veggie. If you desire you can blanch it but I tend to just leave them raw. Use leafy greens in salads and on sandwiches. If you have picky eaters or you just need help hitting the FIVE TO SEVEN servings of vegetables most experts recommend, add cauliflower to rice or creamy sauces for a veggie boost. Add shredded zucchini almost anywhere you have ground meat or tomatoes and you can't even tell. 3) Beans: Legumes, the broader name for members of the Fabaceae family and their cousins, are incredibly nutritious and versatile. On prep day drain a can of chickpeas and put them on a plate. Dry them off and microwave them. If you want to cook with them later, microwave for about 6 minutes. If you want a crispy snack go for 10 minutes. Of course microwaves are all different keep an eye on them so they don't burn. So you've spent 3 hours in your kitchen. Was it worth it? Monday you can make chicken salad wraps using the white meat chicken, some pantry staples, and your leafy veggie. Make a quick sharshuka, a Middle Eastern stew, using a can of tomatoes, your 6 minute chickpeas, dark meat chicken if you desire, and add eggs to be poached in the stew. The options are really great and you can be as creative as you want or have the energy for. Have I just put a bunch of these prepped items in a bowl, nuked it and ate it with hot sauce? Of course and honestly it was decent.
Just wanted to say, been watching since your waiting days and it's just so great to see you happy and with a wife and kid. I remember you first introducing when she was just your girlfriend and your proposal using video titles. You'll always be my favorite youtuber Craig
I don't enjoy cooking. So I assemble basic meals. I keep 4 cooked proteins, on their own shelf in the fridge, for the week. It just needs to be warmed up (i.e. grilled meat, crock pot chicken with taco seasoning, seasoned sliced pork) when you're assembling your meal. It's just protein and spices. Keep it simple. Take
An option for meal prep that my mom uses is batch making some foundational elements that can be used to put together actual recipes or improvised meals. So its like making a bunch of tomato sauce, cooked beans, cooked ground or shredded meat, soup stock, etc and then you can mix and match these premade elements together or use one of them to make something. Its pretty smart and often times doesnt involve a ton of effort on my mom's part. I haven't done this myself because my partner is picky about their food so one of these days we need to go through a bunch of recipes we both like and see what efficiencies we can enact
As a 45-year-old who has been menu planning for 25 years and was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, I have some advice. Choose 5 recipes per week, shop for those recipes only, and make those recipes when it’s convenient. Choose some recipes that take longer to make, some that are easier. Then you’ll decide day to day which recipe will work for that day. You’ll save money, have a varied menu (more complicated or easy), and have everything on hand you need to cook. Good luck!
Great tip!
This is what I do. Only started it because we didn't have much money.. but it helps massively with time keeping too😊
This is more or less what we do. It's the only way I can do it.
Yeah, that's roughly my method. We sit down and make a decision on what we'd like in the week before shipping, get 5 or so roughly in my head - then I cook what I fancy from that selection each day depending on how I feel and how much time I have.
Gives you the variety, keeps some flexibility, but also gives you a limited choice you have to pick from (too much choice I found was making things difficult).
Works great - but I find it's much easier if one person's manages the food purchasing and cooking pretty much solo.
This is what I came to say. Don't meal plan, menu plan. It's absolutely way easier.
1. Craig learns knife skillz. 2. Craig learns to bake bread. 3. Craig tries ten new foods. 4. Craig takes a nutrition class. 5. Craig bakes a pie. I'd watch any of those.
My husband took a cooking class (which improved his knife skills) and it was a life-changing experience for both of us (in that after it he cooked more and FASTER). Maybe Craig could reach out to a knife company to sponsor it!
Craig tries a specific cookbook or online cooking system would also be neat. (And sponsorable, depending on the cookbook or cooking system...)
I already baked a pie in a video!
@@wheezywaiter Make cobbler! But where's the harm in having more than one pie video, I ask you.
@@wheezywaiter My bad. I missed the baking. I thought the apples were still in the fridge.
@@wheezywaiter As Meat Loaf sang it, "'Cause one out of five ain't bad" or something like that ...
Reason 5: It's good for your kid to start learning. Both technique and habits.
It takes even longer to make dinner when you've got a young kid "helping" you, but the time together teaching them something important is incredibly valuable in a bunch of ways.
My one piece of advice is to include your daughter in your meal prep, cooking, and cleanup. Ever since I could reach the countertop (and my parents bought me a stool to get me there sooner), my mom made me responsible for my own school lunches. Very quickly, I learned to enjoy cooking. My brother and I were even cooks during high school and university. Now I'm a pretty damn good cook, without any need for a recipe in many cases (unless I've never made it before, then I check a few to see common ingredients and their rough proportions).
Popovers are a nice starter recipe. They only use three ingredients, take 20 minutes to bake, and poof out and “pop over” in the baking pan. Fun!
100% agree with this. I cooked with both of my kids and they are both competent in the kitchen today. Honestly, my older daughter is almost better than I am at this point.
I can remember one of her first grade friends coming over and they decided that they wanted to make a pie. My daughter had done this several times but her friend, in spite of her parents owning a restaurant, had never held a knife before and had no idea what she was doing. We had a lesson in how to use a knife to cut apples into chunks safely and she had a blast. Felt like a good dad when my 1st grader was coaching her friend in holding a knife safely. Also, not a real surprise in retrospect, and I am entirely sure that it's a normal recipe for someone, but apple blueberry pie slaps (1st grader's idea). (I knew her family and was sure that they'd be OK with it and I told her mother what we had been up to when she went home.)
My sister and I very quickly learned how to prepare our own sandwiches. I'm not sure what age we were, but the fact that I don't recall a time when my parents prepared it for us, could be some indication. I think it was since age 7 where we learned how to do the dishes. Sharp knives and such they did for us, but everything else we did. Yes, we were their dish washers hehe.
My mum did exactly the same thing with my four sisters, three of whom became avid and excellent cooks.
The best tip I can give you is to cook things that involve leftovers. Whether you eat them the next day or freeze them for later, it gives you at least one day of no cooking...or at least just re-heating. So casseroles, chili, ham and beans, soup.. or anything you can crock-pot. Aside from that, having some of your favorite easy recipes written down on cards that you can flip through for inspiration and to make grocery lists easier and faster to create.
YES!! I feel officially old, but I LOVE my Crockpot 😂 Batch cooking and homemade ready meals are totally the way forward 💗👏
something I'd add to this...
if the things you buy come in larger quantities that what you actually need to use, and say you dont have the space to store leftovers, keep the ingredients for the end of the week meal, where you can use everything together in a fried (sauteed) potato hash or a stir fry or something similar. I do this a lot. and it actually forms part of our meal planning
@@badestly yes. In the UK, we call fried up mashed potato with veggies (usually onion, cabbage, peas) "Bubble and Squeak". It was typically served on a Monday, when you had the veg (and meat) left over from your Sunday roast dinner. You'd get given a plate of cold slices of meat, bubble and squeak and a dollop of Branston Pickle / chutney... Maybe a couple of slices of bread and butter to go with it, if there wasn't much to go around.
My Nanna was the epitome of the British 1950's housewife, with all the post-war know how for cooking, cleaning, repairing etc. I'm blessed she taught me so much 🖤
I'll often cook up extra meat (chicken breast or thighs, pork chops or loin, steak...), then slice it up for a stir fry with fresh rice and (frozen) veggies the next night.
Thank you for the extended description. I thought you just meant intestinal distress (bubble) and then farts (squeak).
As a 20-something who cooks for almost every dinner, albeit just for himself, routine/experience is such a pivotal part! When things aren't going great, it's invaluable that you can just put something together without thinking too much about it.
Avoiding temptation is another; when I do shopping for a whole week ahead of time, I buy a lot less nonsense, and if there's a plan there's no takeout/restaurant to consider.
I second all that. When you can do something braindead-ly (for me its putting rice in the rice cooker, cutting up a chicken breast, and stir frying it with some random sauce, onions, and tomatos) I can do it all on auto pilot and while I'm listening to music and "recharging" from work
@@DeathEaterLink that's all great tips! Having simple sauces in the house (homemade is best but not mission-critical) to throw onto some pasta or something is a great shortcut!
does the rainbow marshmallow swiss miss hot chocolate count as nonsense or is that an essential item
Yaaay! I'm so excited about this. Just my two cents - home cooked meals can absolutely be 'semi-homemade'. Frozen pie crust, canned veggies, whatever. Sometimes this is easier, cheaper, and just as tasty and healthy as making every single darn thing from scratch.
Agreed that there are tons of convenience items that can take a lot of the effort out of cooking. Canned beans, frozen veggie blends, jarred sauces, etc.
@supernova622 Yes, jarred sauces! So easy to purchase and then jazz up however you choose.
One trick from way back in the day is to use soups (especially pureed ones) to speed up the cooking process. Just add them to what you are making. I like to have a lot of different ones on hand so I can get enough variety to avoid getting bored with the same dishes over and over.
I'm just gonna add to the "helpful suggestions" here in the comments:
1) always cook enough for at least 2 meals-this will be tomorrow's lunch or frozen for later;
2) alternate the veg and meat you buy at the supermarket,so your always looking forward to eating 'that thing' you haven't had recently
3)Don't worry too much about recipes and techniques being perfect, just follow your instincts. You'll have some failures this way in the beginning,BUT being able to look in the fridge and come up with a meal without needing to plan out every ingredient will save you time and money
4) try a new recipe now and then of something that's a little out of your comfort zone so you feel challenged; e.g. think fermentation, bread making,beer making,baking etc.
5) prep a grain (rice,pasta etc) in a batch enough for a few meals and leave it in the fridge, so when you are in a hurry you only need to make half of the meal on the fly
6) enjoy the process of cooking by making it your 'down time'; no interruptions-just you, a glass of wine, some music, and the food 😊
7) new house rule: whoever cooks does not clean up.
8)My Italian in-laws discuss what meals they are going to make at breakfast each day like it's a little family meeting. I used to laugh at this level of preparedness,but it's actually genius,and makes you look forward to what your gunna have later.
Great suggestions!
China might need everyone to clear out of the kitchen on her cooking nights to have her own down time. I love my cooking time too.
We cook almost all our meals at home and you've had some great suggestions, especially about not sticking to recipes so strictly.
Personally, I'd argue with #5. Cooking rice or pasta is so easy and tastes way better when it's fresh. I'd only prepare more portions of things that can be heated in the oven or in a frying pan. (We don't use microwave.)
I really love Mike (on UA-cam) from Pro Home Cooks and Ethan Chlebowski. They are both guys who really push meal prepping COMPONENTS instead of the entire meal. They're super helpful if you you want a way to make things easier but still have variety!
Ethan is 100% the guy for this. His video on picking style, protein, etc was groundbreaking.
I love them both, but my award for “Best ratio of recipes I actually make because they are easy vs. videos I only watch” goes to Adam Ragusea.
In the Netherlands, most supermarkets sell "fresh packages" which are carton boxes with a recipe on it, filled with almost all the ingredients you need + a list of the things you still need to buy. I normally suck at meal planning, but these packages have made it a lot easier. It's really helpful (and I think they cost about the same as the seperate ingredients).
Awesome!!! I would love our (UK) supermarkets to start doing that instead of the usual ready meals!
As a fellow dutchie, it kind of blows my mind that that isn't a more widespread thing! You'd think that the States, with its reputation of processed foods, would be primed for something like this
Something like that would be amazing to have in our US grocery stores.
Interesting, the closest thing I can think of in the United States is a pre-chopped meal that you just bake in the oven. I think that would really catch on over here.
We had a chain of grocery stores open up that was based around that concept (in California) but it never took off and they went out of business pretty quickly.
My wife and I pull this off by making a big batch of chili at the beginning of the week (which takes about an hour) then using the chili as the main ingredient in two or three other meals throughout the week (enchiladas, nachos, burritos, etc). Saves us a bunch of time and the chili is super cheap. It also doesn't really take any longer to make a double batch than it does a single batch.
It's fine if you can eat the same thing over and over again.i would hate chilly at the end of the week, my husband will probably be fine with it for the rest of his life:)
I did this last week. Made a huge pot of chili and froze half of it, then proceeded to add chili to everything. 😂 Chili tacos, chili home fries, chili and rice, etc.
Try Cincinnati chili too! Which is just chili over plain hot spagetti, all topped with lots of shredded cheddar cheese and sometimes frito chips lol. It sounds weird, but it's basically "chili mac."
@@bodyofhope I do this all the time for lunches! I had no idea it had a name. I just call it chili pasta.
Just did this . Haha chilli, chillidogs, chilli burritos, or even a chilli omlet. Croc pots are amazing.
This hits really close to home. I work full time and living with ADHD, it’s hard to find the energy/motivation to cook. Never had an interest in cooking. So this video has lit a fire in me to make it happen lol. Excited to see the challenge video!
Good for you, 😊 it's never too late to start! I didn't grow up cooking either,or in a family that was into cooking and always saw food as a chore. But it's actually really fun, and there's something in it everyone can enjoy.
Fellow ADHD'er here and I feel you, I often lack the motivation to cook. But I've grown my skills over the last year, mostly just by cooking more so my partner didn't have to all the time, and I'm much more comfortable in the kitchen now. The one thing that helps me find the motivation and start-up energy to cook is to spend a bit of time earlier in the day choosing a recipe that I'm excited about. Now I find myself looking forward to cooking sometimes, because it means I'll get to eat the tasty thing after! Hopefully you'll find a place of comfort with cooking as well so it doesn't feel so taxing every time!
One thing to consider is having fairly simple, "good enough" foods (spaghetti, etc) that you can keep the ingredients on hand (noodles, sauce, etc) for "oh shirt, we have nothing planned!".
We have a few simple fast and (kinda) healthy meals like this.
you guys make me feel so validated in my feelings of struggling to solve my life function issues. i appreciate how vulnerable you both are. i'm a bit younger so it's actually reassuring that there's no timeline to figure anything out and we're always working to try and be a bit better. thanks yall
Crockpot and pressure cooker meals are amazing. Always have leftovers for lunches when done right
The one thing that forced my husband and I to cook whether we wanted to or not was signing up for a CSA subscription. Getting random assorted fresh veg every couple of weeks means we have to do something with them or they go bad.
I'm biased because I run a small CSA, but I think it helps to have a fresh box of delicious ingredients that (generally) taste better than what you'll find at the store. And you'd be supporting a local farm. And sometimes the CSAs send out newsletters with what to make!
Some advice I have for cooking more, as someone who cooks most of the time (and enjoys it!):
1. I started by eating on a schedule in college. Monday spaghetti and meatballs, Tuesday salmon, etc etc, and usually left weekends to eat out/try something new. Yes it can get boring, but since I was so stressed about school, this let my brain auto pilot. I bought groceries easily and didn’t have to think about what I was gonna have for dinner at all. It can be a good gateway to cooking more regularly.
2. Similarly to meal prep, you can cook a large batch of food and freeze it in portions. I make RainbowPlantLife’s bolognese, for example, and freeze even 5 servings of it, so when we’re feeling lazy we can just heat it up and make some pasta. The amount of effort to cook one meal vs 5 is the same, but I get quite a few low effort meals out of it.
3. Frozen veggies make a big difference. No one likes the plastic bags, but it undeniably helps to have a prechopped vegetable (there’s even prechopped onions!). Barring that, you can always chop your own veggies and freeze those in batches/servings yourself.
4. Of course, as is your sponsor, there are meal kits. Cheaper than takeout, and you don’t have to think too much about what you want to eat. Definitely allows for more variety and gives you new ideas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t know if this is helpful to anyone, but I’ve always loved cooking and these were the things I did to keep myself going. 😁
Exactly this ^
I buy frozen chopped onions (worth it to avoid the crying) and peel, chop & freeze other veggies in bulk to make every day easier. My Crockpot, large wok & big pans are vital for batch cooking and freezing a tonne of homemade ready meals in a fraction of the time too 💗👏
I found that even the cheaper meal kits are still more expensive than necessary. $10 a portion is too much for what tends to be just carrots and chicken breast. I think they are nice for beginners though learning some recipes.
@@Alter292the meal kits are actually totally worth it if you think of them as DIY cooking classes on your own time! I kept any hello fresh recipe cards that I liked and now they are in my recipe rotation.. so the premium price *can be* a temporary expense
Yes, to all the ideas AND one more: make cooking part of your daily routine. Once you get good at it, you can incorporate activities that make it more enjoyable (ideas: listen to music, podcast, glass of wine/beer, light snack, chat about day with significant other). Cooking each night is so automatic for me that I barely think about it at all. But, I plan ahead (usually a day or two) and buy all ingredients, and start early: think 4ish.
I think 2 big tips I've got for cooking more at home is
1) find meals where a portion of it can be prepped in advance. That way it's more like 1 or 2 nights of cooking coupled with 1 or 2 nights of just throwing things together (borderline reheating) so you don't burn out on making something original and from scratch each day. You can try to overlap these meal ideas by alternating days too, where you have 2 days of meal A, 1 day of meal B, go back and finish meal A, then 2 days of meal B. That's basically a week of meals.
2) keep around something SUPER simple that isn't really cooking. For my partner and I, it's "Survival Disks" aka Pizza's. You never know what days you simply won't have the energy for cooking, and a doctored up frozen pizza is infinitely cheaper than take out/delivery. This can also take the form of one of those Costco meal pan things, it could be a Pasta Roni box and some frozen breaded chicken in the air fryer, anything that takes almost no effort so you can recuperate and be ready to cook again the next day.
This is what we have been doing and it is miles easier than the full meal prep we tried.
For real, those pre-made salmon with butter packs at Costco are amazing. Throw it in with some veggies and you're good.
Could you create a cooking video series featuring you cooking for the family? That way the meals are built into your day to day work.
My husband and I eat out only 1-2 times a month and love to cook at home! A few things that have helped us:
- keeping a well stocked pantry and freezer. That way if you don’t know what to cook, you pull some meat out of the freezer, bbq, make some rice, and steam some veggies. We do this probably 1-2 times a week. When you shop you are: buying fresh veg & dairy, or refilling the pantry/freezer.
- Anything you can batch cook and freeze (ex, chilli, stew, etc), cook enough for 2-3 meals and freeze the extra portions. Then next week when you don’t feel like cooking one night there is a meal ready to go.
- Keep other things like pirogies and dumplings in the freezer. Also easy to pull out, add a protein and veg and serve.
We do all this and usually end up only cooking full meals where it feels like a lot of effort 3 days a week. The other four days are filled with the items mentioned above.
I'm gonna be real with you Craig, learning to cook at home and prepping for it is one of the most satisfying things in life. Your children will appreciate it (later in life), you will end up enjoying it, and your wife will be amazed by your craftsmanship.
I'm no chief but I have been cooking dinner for our family of 4 for the past five years and some of my most memorable moments was my kids and wife telling me that dinner "slapped".
A great way to learn to really love making food in general is baking. With even a small amount of practice, almost anyone can make better buns and cookies than what you can typically buy, so you get near instant gratification. And nothing makes you feel like more of a wizard than turning water and flour into a golden loaf of crusty bread. No, baking doesn't put dinner on the table, but sometimes getting excited about the Yorkshire pudding with gravy is what makes eating at home feel like an upgrade versus going out.
This was my biggest problem a few years back when i was trying to save money. Made a big pdf/ oneNote document with my 15 recipes I knew I could make regularly and liked enough. Listed out what I needed and grouped them together by overlapping ingredients. Helped me actually stick to my new vegan diet aswell.
I cook almost every meal for myself and had to completely rework it several times due to diet issues.
Things I'd reccomend;
0. Recipie book. Make notes, ask relatives for good recipies, make magazine cuttings or paste printouts, collect handwriting, and when you figure out what went right or went wrong, write it down. Its not meant to be a pretty work of art, its a 'living' notebook for your family in the kitchen.
1. Storecupboard meals - things that take less than 30 mins to cook that can be made from a small set of ingredients kept in the cupboard for a long time - you find yourself not wanting to cook - you do a storcupboard meal. Pasta+Canned sauce/sauce ingredients + cheddar and whatever veg you have in the fridge, one pan for the pasta, one for the sauce, done in 15 mins. You can prep the veg as it cooks, so you don't have prep time either. I can be out the kitchen within 20 mins. I have a few faster options than that too - practically empty ingredients into bowl and put in the microwave. When you find one you like and works well, you put it in the book. You will want these for when you mess up cooking -which you will. An easy fallback plan matters a lot.
2. Knife skills. You don't have to be great, but mastering the basic 'I can cut veg fast and sharpen my knife without injuring myself' dramatically speeds up recipies. Most recipies have these gaps in that are meant to be for prepping the next ingredient, but if you aren't fast enough you have to prep them beforehand. Once you get ok-ish you can relax around veg prep, which makes the whole process a lot less stress.
3. Fitting in other stuff. I like to get the washing up done as I go, run youtube on my phone, cook, clean surfaces, chat, prep ingredients for my next meal while I have stuff on the stove. A 20 minitue meal can have something like four '15 min' tasks that have periods of waiting in them.
4. Substitutions. Oh no, you didn't go to the shops, and you don't have the stuff to make the meal you were planning? Substitutions. There are bad subustitutions - like using curry sauce instead of tomato sauce for your pizza, and there are good substitutions, like swapping butter for veg oil because you ran out of butter.
Learning what each part of a recipie is meant to do lets you start adapting them to meet your needs. Pizza bases can be fried, sauces can be made in the microwave rather than the stove, Buckwheat flour works fine in gingerbread in place of flour, Pancakes can be a side dish for anything. As you make swaps, sometimes you find something good. Write it down. I have cut down versions of chef's work in my books that take half the time because I'm prepared to swap ingredients and rush things for an imperfect result. Or you can polish things up and figure out where to put in a little extra effort for incredible results. Either way, it makes recipie yours - its what makes cooking worth it.
5. They don't do michelin stars for soups and stews because it is too easy to make them world class. This is all I need to say on the matter.
Hey Wheezebags! On every Tuesday why don't you have cheddar rice and broccoli with cheese curds melted in like me?!? (everyone in the comments has great suggestions so I figured I should give you a not as good one to temper the comment section a little)
Thank you for talking about this! I struggle so much with cooking at home. We have three adults with ADHD in my apartment and we cannot get it together in terms of cooking. I think I’ll try the challenge with you! 👩🍳
Step 1 Buy airfrier. Step 2 google 10 recipes where you can use the airfrier. Step 3 Use airfrier. My wife cooks most dinners in 15 minutes and they are all healthy and taste good. We cook at home 5-6 days a week. At least 4 of them are airfried. Easy example: Salmon mushrooms and spinach. Set the airfrier to broil, season salmon and put on for 9 minutes. Take mushrooms and olive oil on a pan on oil salt pepper. At the 2 minute mark on airfrier add spinach with onion powder, garlic powder and pepper and cover. Done. Total of 8 minutes of cooking at 2 minutes of prepping.
Great tips on here! Here are mine... build a strong pantry- do you have a variety of rices/pastas/beans? Have regular and quick versions of a base grain of choice. Then build a plate- grain/starch, veg, protein. Lean on frozen items as you get into the swing. Stock the freezer well so you always have options if your fresh items are bad or you don't have time to shop. I totally understand wanting to go out if you work from home. I would trickle it down... but commit to no takeout/delivery- pretend it doesn't exist. Good luck!
I got a proper extended belly laugh from "I just got really bored by what you were saying"! 😂😂😂
I love you both. 🧡
The best home cooking tip is to identify dishes you love that taste just as good fresh as they do after being frozen! For instance, I often prepare a generous batch of delicious butter chicken and freeze most of it (sometimes even keeping a ziplock bag of "starter mother sauce" in the freezer for the next batch). When hunger strikes, I simply toss some basmati rice in the rice cooker, take out a container of frozen butter chicken, pop it in the microwave for 10 minutes, and step away. In less than 30 minutes and without any extra effort, I have a wholesome, incredibly flavorful homemade meal. It's even quicker than delivery, and it costs a fraction of what dining out would (if not less, given that you can buy all the ingredients in bulk).
My girlfriend and I have a list of 20 categories like Meat & Potatoes, Fish & Rice, Salad, Tacos/Burritos/Wraps, etc. On the weekend, we will roll a d20 and whatever number comes up, we write on the meal board for the 5 week days. Then we'll make a shopping list for anything we need and shop for it on the weekend. It's really helped resolve some of this conflict.
My husband and I cook every night in a way that’s not super complicated, and we don’t use recipes. We just always have a protein, a vegetable (or veggie medley), and a starch. Proteins and veggies can either be baked or pan fried. And then we just also cook rice, pasta, or potatoes (easy ways are roasted or microwave-baked). Reuse the pans. If you cook fish filets in a pan on the stove, reuse that pan to fry the veggies. Use different sauces and spices to change it up. There are still always dishes to wash, but we typically tag-team that too so it’s not too boring and tedious. You can do it!!
I still remember the day that I realized I ran out of ranch dressing and thought about how much effort I would have to put into going to the store last minute and that it was equal to making it at home because I already had the ingredients on hand. It was a pleasant surprise.
5:58 "I'm always trying to find reasons why peolple like things" is such a lovely and wholesome mission statement for this channel ❤
Hey, as a fellow alleged adult who also has problems cooking at home (though mine is due to anxiety and also avoiding the endless dishes), I appreciate you revisiting this. It's helpful to see that other people that I like on the internet also have this problem. Thank you for always posting interesting everyday-type content, Craig!
Meal delivery kits have been a gamechanger for us. We cook at home 5 nights a week, but all the pain of decision making and shopping for ingredients is gone. It's great! We eat way healthier now.
Following ppl who cook tasty and easyish recipes gets me motivated to cook again after falling off the wagon because it looks so yummy and is a little challenge. Also getting new cookbooks from the library keep it exciting too! We make our grocery lists after getting them to help with the same thing you mentioned about knowing what you’re making ahead of time. And my partner and I swap where one person cooks then the other does dishes and that feels great to either get a free meal or no clean up. Oh finally we LOVE our instant pot!! And freezing chickpea burgers. Keep us updated and I hope you have a tasty month!!!
cooking at home is easy and fun its just finding the motivation to do it. also using canned frozen and dried foods like pasta, veggies meat ect lets you keep it on hand without letting it go bad. spam fried rice can be made with fresh or shelf stable ingredients.
This is my weekly struggle & you're speaking STRAIGHT to my heart. 😂 I'm 41 and I still haven't figured it out, even though I know how to cook (and like to)! It's exhausting (clean-up sucks). Meal-prepping is exhausting and gives me decision-fatigue. Meal-prepping is exhausting and I Just don't do it.
I highly recommend watching Jamie Oliver's "Jamie at Home" TV series... it's only two seasons, filmed entirely at his house. The situation you are in was where I was at prior to that show and it completely changed how I view food in general but specifically why it's a worthwhile investment to learn to cook.
It is inspiring, educational and very well done. No flash, just substance and in such a positive way... I absolutely love it.
I am constantly on the lookout for protiens that can be cooked from frozen or quick thawed. Fish is quick to thaw, IQF beef crumbles can be cooked from frozen. If you're willing to take the time to indiviually freeze thin-sliced chicken breast cutlets, they can also be cooked right out of the freezer. Look for slow cooker "Dump and go" meals that you can prep, freeze and then dump into a slow cooker before you leaqve the house or start to work. Plan on feeding 6 people, so if your friends call and want to head to a restaurant, you can invite them over instead. I think this was one of the stumbling blocks for the meal planning initiative. If there's no company, it's leftovers. Warm leftovers for 30 minutes at 200F in the oven, not the micro. Don't worry about "wasting" excesss food, remember the alternative was dining out at 5x the cost.
i love your idea of doing meal planning each day. i think i might try "night before" meal planning. that way i still have time to thaw meat in the fridge overnight if need be. great video guys!
Exactly, 100%. I started doing it like this and it’s easier for my Adhd brain.
I rely on staying well stocked rather than "planning".
- Base: lots of dry staples or root crop
- Supplement: in season produce
- Bulk: add a frozen protein
- Tip: egg, seitan or canned fish are amazing meat alternatives that don't need defrost, won't spoil or make a mess.
- WOW: sauce is boss...take it up a notch with DIY veggie stock from scraps or a mushroom buillion (more versatile than meat derived options), some sort of dairy, and a fresh herb.
-OOPS: keep some fun/emergency frozen goodies on hand (think Trader Joes) to replace the takeout ease/thrill.
I've been watching your videos for something like 12 years and I want to say that the authenticity and sincerity in how you approach your ideas, process, content, audience, and life in general are really inspiring - in other words, you're a cool dude wheezy. On the topic of food: I only eat out or get take out maybe once a month. I always determine what needs used next and plan around that. I'm careful about making anything that turns nonperishable ingredients into a more perishable substance. I've gotten very comfortable with pickling a veriety of things, making up stock bags of frozen scraps, and enjoying more flavor combinations and textures as well as learning canning and glassing. If anyone really wants to save money and minimize waste, learn to love soup and vinegar and learn how to augment and stretch your dishes - easier said than done I know. Figure out your nonperishable staples and a small variety of things you and your family will actually eat and enjoy. My partner and I both work full time and have a child, we don't travel for work and we raise chickens and grow a lot of our own food. Everyone's situation is different and I'm fully aware of my privileges as a land owner, but gardening is one of those things that everyone should know at least a little about and try their hand at if they have the opportunity. If you're transitioning from eating out consider the experience aspect of it and make sure to replace the social interaction and/or entertainment with something equivalent to help stay cooking at home. Find your own balance, don't force systems or ideas that don't work for you and communicate with your friends and family to know what does and doesn't work for them. Good Luck!
I often skip over these videos, but when I do eventually click on one I am reminded just how much of a joy it is to watch these videos.
I would recommend a meal delivery kit. You will get ideas of portions and new recipes. Bonus, you don't have to shop for it, it's delivered right to your door.
Dr. Carroll is always so great to listen to. I love how he's so balanced and realistic with expectations. "Doing X is the better choice. But doing X is difficult, and I enjoy Y as well. I get it." I value his thoughts a lot more because of that realistic acknowledgement of the situation.
Very interesting and fun vidéo, thanks ! I'm french and my husband and I very rarely eat outside or get take out. We cook everyday.We have 2 little kids and I cook 3 Times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner). This culture différence is really interesting cause yes, planning menus and cooking is taking soooooo much time!
My fav trick is if you're cooking ground beef Monday, cook double and then save it for your next recipe on Wednesday or Thursday. Then you only have to cook the other stuff with that next beef meal. My other life changing trick was I made an excel spreadsheet of all the meals my family likes, categorized by type of meat. So when I open my fridge and see I have chicken, I look at the list of the chicken meals we like and then choose one, and make it!
like a spreadsheet, but we just have a word doc with a giant list of all the stuff that has been nice to eat, including what sides it's normally with, cause i always forget what kind of vegetable might go with stuff.
Great life hack!!😊
As someone with food intolerances/allergies and who has always done cooking at home, and honestly am underwhelmed by the sub-expectation experience I tend to have eating out (because I do cooking lots and got good at it) I relate to this zero percent but it’s interesting to see the other side of things. My husband basically didn’t care about food other than it let him live and sort of holds this mindset/ issue and ‘struggles’ to make a meal I can eat… and also says I’ve ruined food for him because now he is also underwhelmed by the eating out experience. All this to say that like most things in life it just takes practice and I’m sure you’ll find a way to make cooking at home more enjoyable that works for you 😊😊
I grew up with my mom doing meal planning every week, so to me is the most natural thing, but I what I found really helps me, is allowing some leeway, and having some easy recipes in the middle, acknowledging I don't have time every day, and also always having other quick options in the freezer that are not in the meal plan, to go to in case that I am not feeling it.
Also, I contemplate going out as well, just not every day and usually not even every week, but it's nice to be "ah, I know Friday I won't have to think about cooking". And make big meals to have leftovers, and not have to cook every day. Never really got into meal prepping. I'd much rather just cook the day of.
Learn to cook right from the freezer.
We often will buy a frozen salmon, frozen veggies, and rice. Throw the frozen salmon in a baking dish with some butter, cover in garlic, onion, and paprika powders. Cook for 20 minutes at 375. Flip, cover in garlic, onion, and paprika powder. While oven is heating up / salmon cooking, put the rice in a rice maker, put frozen veggies in water and boil. Once all is done cooking plate, salt and pepper to taste.
Buy dried pastas, and a pasta sauce you like. Boil pasta, strain, add pasta sauce. (Add toast with some garlic powder and butter on top as a side) (Yes carb heavy) (Buy boxes of Kraft Dinner, add frozen cutup hotdogs)
Buy frozen pre-made pizzas
etc. There are alot of ways to cook quick meals, and they taste good, maybe not as great as going out but it will be faster then ordering at a sit down restaurant.
As an experiment, you can try growing some of your own food (Like potatoes) Then make them into a meal. With all the effort put into growing the food, it can be more motivating to cook the fruits of your labour.
Have you considered making bigger meals that generate leftovers? That can help with cooking at home, but not having to cook every night. Thoughts?
We tried that but my so has a habit of not being able to not eat all the food. No matter how big a meal I/we cook, so eats all of it No leftovers.
Bigger meals is great! Saves energy (and your personal energy). If you dread the repetition of getting thru all the food, throw half of it in the freezer for later. Thaw a day or two before an evening you know will be busy, and boom! You’ve got a precooked homemade meal.
Mallagalla, that means you’re doing a great job! 👌🏼
I struggled with this too. My husband and I have found that cooking every night is overwhelming, so we build in eating leftovers into the plan. So, we cook 3 or 4 nights a week and we'll have enough food for the whole week.
We also have a rotation of about 20 recipes that we've found over the years. So we know how to make them, how much time we need for prep, and how well they heat up. About once a month, we try a new recipe and decide whether or not to add it to the rotation as well as talk about things we're getting tired of and what needs to be removed. This helps keep the rotation from getting stale and repetitive.
I love cooking and meal planning! I get a weekly vegetable delivery and this changed my planning- I now work backwards from a list of everything in my fridge/pantry/vegetable box. I plan my meals around using up what I have first. Step 1: generate hand written list of everything usable in the fridge (I do this on my garbage day, so I’m cleaning the fridge or anything gross while I’m inventorying). Step2: Then I sit down with my list and see what can be made with these ingredients? Step 3: I then go through the meal ideas I’ve picked and check the recipes to see if I need to buy anything. Step 4: shop. I have my weekly staples (eggs milk and the like) and then whatever I need from step 3. Groceries become easier because I’m supplementing instead of buying everything on the ingredient list. Im also wary of recipes with new spices, having decluttered my spice cabinet of any expired stuff, so I preferentially find recipes with spices I have on hand. Step 4: execute, in order of the oldest or most perishable ingredient first. Last bit of advice- really figure out what you actually like to eat. Forget the fantasy you that thrives on salads and smoothies and fresh fish if all you really want is a hamburger! Be true to you and cooking can be great fun! Deviate and cooking can be another method to shame yourself for falling short in some meaningless metric- and ain’t nobody got time for that!
The clickbait is brilliant 🎉
Damn you Wheezy Waiter, I wanted drama.
I have a feeling it's not just you, but a large portion of your viewership too doing the challenge. I sure will attempt to improve my meal planning this month. Let's do this thing together!
We also hate eating the same foods over and over which makes meal prep hard. We use The Food Nanny meal plan system which has daily themes to narrow down choices, making it easier to pick what to make and have variety in your meals. I have a list of recipes we love divided into our 7 daily themes, so when it comes time to make the two week plan, I can just pick some or all from the list.
That's awesome, I'm going to check that out!
I think you guys might benefit from a chest freezer. We have a chest freezer full or beef, pork, and chicken, and veggies for quesadillas and stuff. It makes it so you have most of what you need to make a meal without having to go to the store.
Challenges are challenging and therefore cause us to crave a break and look forward to the end, which is why usually after a challenge we just go straight back to our old ways. I prefer "soft challenges" - like, if I can cook at home 4 days this week I get a special treat lol. Excitement + rewards = sustainability
My biggest cultural shock when visiting American in 2006 was that no one made food at home. I visited many people and it was take out lunch and dinner, even breakfast for some houses.
Now with mobile phone internet the ordering and delivery aspect it’s so easy.
Living in the country where I live we do 0 take out. 0 fast food. It’s not an option for our household. Gradually the world follows America so it’s certainly happening in the cities here and mcDonalds is popular as F
I meal prep every weekend, and I hate wasting a huge portion of my Sunday before working my desk job through the week, BUT I feel so much less stressed when I know we're already covered for the week. I get to spend an hour or two with the husband instead of cooking again
I've had to really streamline meal-planning for a bunch of reasons, and I primarily live by two rules: 1) cook once eat twice (at least), and 2) at least two of those weeknight cooks should be more like assembly than cooking. Like when the weather's good, I might grill two days' worth of chicken with some onions and peppers, but we're going to eat that with microwave steamer broccoli and sweet potatoes one day, and make tacos or chicken salad with it the second. Sometimes on that second day when we're eating leftovers, I'll throw stuff in the crock or instant pot to pack up before bedtime for another day as well. If you want to eat a fancy home-cooked meal, do it on a weekend or less-busy day, same for when you want to do a big bulk cook to freeze in portions, like lasagnas or chili.
We embraced the “challenge” way of life beginning more than five years ago. Then, 2019, we completed a “virtual” CDT through-hike; following 2020, with a virtual PCT completion and in 2021, a virtual AT completion. We completely left all forms of alcohol in 2019; shed 30 lbs. each during 2020 (and kept the weight off). Our most recent challenge involved renting a six cubic yard dumpster (filling it twice) while decluttering - oh so liberating.
We have not eaten in a restaurant, ordered food or consumed fast food items in almost four years. We began keeping notes each year to see how much money we saved by making better decisions on purchases, DIY, repurposing and negotiating better rates or buying on sale…..
We’ve enjoyed watching your channel where you often confirm what we have learned. Thanks!
It's handy to have like some standard ingredients that you always get that can be put into many different meals or just eaten raw on the go. Eg; avo, tomatoes, carrots, tinned pulses, onions, garlic, potato etc.
And when you do cook, try to cook a whole batch and portion it up into the freezer cos no one likes to cook every day
We have a similar problem. We don’t enjoy cooking and do enjoy eating out. Time is not the issue but motivation is.
something i noticed when you start making your own food, restaurant food starts to feel overly salty and fatty--you're retraining your taste buds too.
It's so interesting that this is clearly a habit thing. In the UK it would be so so unusual to eat out many nights of the week - eating out is pretty much always a special treat. So my mind's default is to always cook, there isn't really another option. I guess there are households in the UK where takeaway is more of a default. But i would guess that cooking is just most people's expectation. Restaurants are for dates or special occasions or meeting with friends.
I find stir fry and slow cooker meals to be a great place to start. Relatively short meal prep times, and the skills can be used across a variety of flavours.
Plan to eat the app changed our house. There is a learning curve and it can take awhile to build up a robust amount of recipes but we have been using it for many many years.
I think a lot of people find this tricky, for me it's more so because I'm cooking for one person and that complicates amounts/buying individual portions/left overs. My obsessive way I try and make it as easy as possible for myself is a FOOD master list in my phone notes with: lists of meals, lunches and snacks I can cook and enjoy eating, a week by week list of what each days lunch and dinner will be (sometimes it's half filled in, or I do a whole week and edit as I go along (when plans come up/ I have more leftovers than I thought etc)), links to recipes I have used and like, a wishlist of meals I want to try or want to do in the future, any cravings I randomly get to add to next week, a general list of what items I have that are extra or need using up, a grocery list, what's in my freezer rn etc etc
basically a huge document designed to be both organisation and inspiration for cooking that removes as much of the friction of it as a chore as possible. The general meals I like list is so so helpful for when I'm uninspired, and updating as I go along means I don't beat myself up if I skip a day and re arrange it because I went out for dinner spontaneously. I like it being a phone note because I edit things constantly on it and it doesn't get all messy like a physical note you changed every day would, plus it helps me feel like it's truly am evolving tool instead of a set of rules or mandatory things, I don't ever feel guilty for changing things up mid week. A huge help too is having a few recipes to hand that are minimal ingredients effort and time that are the go to back up for any given day I might suddenly need a break, so marcella hazans tomato pasta sauce is four staple ingredients, plus pasta veg and cheese and that's my lazy night go to.
Mostly writing this for any others reading comments for inspo - hope you enjoy your trip and your cooking experiment when you get around to it! good luck!
I would love to see you try a different variety of meal prep each week of the challenge - one week with pre-prepared purchased meals (like HelloFresh or Factor ;)), one where you do the prep all on the weekend, one where you cook simple meals but every meal is different, one where you cook a few more involved meals to repeat throughout the week - could be an interesting way to compare the pros and cons of all of the meal prep options!
Why cook every day? We always cook enough for 2 days and we eat the same dinner 2 days in a row. We also have a list of our go-to means hanging in the kitchen to remind us of the meals we are good at making easily and that our kids like, so we don’t really have to think much about it.
I sit down after taking a quick inventory of what is in my pantry, fridge and freezer. Then base a lot of things off of what I have. Making a plan for 3 weeks (just dinner) and repeat that same menu plan 2 to 3 times before doing a big change. It's OK to repeat things, like Friday homemade pizza night. Thursday leftover cleanup. My kids are little so we do mostly meat, veggies and a starch. Also planning the night you eat out feels empowering that you are sticking to things, cutting that out feels like a fun sucker for your family.
Here's some things that might help :)
Start with easy stuff that doesn't require a million different things going at once, staples that you love is a good place to start - if you all like chicken, broccoli and carrot - you'll like a roast chicken with steamed veges. When you're starting out, better to play safe with easy things you like, rather than spending hours making something that no one eats.
You dont necessarily have to have rigid meal planning. I like to make way too much of one thing, that way you're kinda cooking dinner and making the next dinner easier at the same time.
Eg
Beef bourguignon/Stew in a slow cooker - use the excess stock for ->
Spaghetti Bolognese (hide veges by grating them in) - use excess bolognese for ->
Lasagna
Thinking of ways to use the elements of the last meal as the next meal is one of the things I enjoy about cooking for myself.
Also I think there's a lot of pressure to make everything taste and look amazing. If it fills you up, relatively nutritious and it doesn't make you sick, it's food. Nothing wrong with eating a steam bag of veges and a protein with a little gravy to make the boring veges taste better, still cheap, easy and good for you.
Really love this! I feel like you could write a book!
longer? not sure. driving to restaurant, finding parking, waiting for food, eating, leaving and driving home. I'd say it would be close to par in most cases. Cooking is a big effort though. No doubt about it. We eat out once or twice every couple weeks and order a pizza or something maybe once a week. We keep easy thing in the freezer too. high quality processed "throw in the oven" type things for lazy days. Its hard though.
Great idea. Don't get hung up on following recipes perfectly, improvise where you need to and you'll do great. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.
I learned a meal prep strategy from Brian Lagerstrom that involves prepping/cooking a bunch of ingredients (chicken breast, salmon, 3-4 hearty vegetables, rice, potatoes), store them in the fridge in separate tupperwares, then throughout the week you have most of the prepwork done to put together great meals. There's loads of ways to whip up a meal with those ingredients + some pantry items so you keep that element of flexibility every day, and you're not prepping full meals ahead of time so it's much much less work. Check out his video "How I Cook 20 Healthy Meals in 1 Hour" as he includes a bunch of recipes at the end that you can use as a reference or template for new recipes!
In our home, the kids have their cooking days for dinner, too. We have lazy dishes that are basically noodles/rice/potatoes with a pan full of frozen veggies or fresh ones depending on what we have at hand, some sort of meat and a sauce (tomato, cream or a ready-made one). While the carbs cook it is easy to make the rest of the dish. Takes 30 minutes even for our kids to make. It is even quicker with ready-made Gnocci or other regional stuff. It is so versatile that you can switch it up easily without thinking too much, and you can even use left-overs. There are other days when we like to cook other stuff or try new recipes, but the pan meal was a game changer. There are also days when we just warm up frozen stuff, but it is once a week, and never stuff that we could make ourselves.
We started with elaborate meals, but it is so frustrating to try out new things that most of the time do not work. So we made a list of all the things we loved to eat as a kid and went from there. It was great to eat all the flavors from our childhood again and give our kids the same experience.
Our oldest kid now sends me pictures of his dinners and even though he doesn't cook every day, he is very proud to be able to cook for himself.
Oh, a game changer was our rice cooker. No more rice crust in the pot or water boiling over the lid. There even are ways to cook your veggies on top of the rice, too. Or use it to steam veggies without the rice. It is a very hands-off cooking tool and I love it for that.
When ill I hired someone to come in and do meal prep, it was fab. Daughter helped her during school holidays and learnt a load of recipes too. I got really lucky with the lady who came round and often I would say, ‘here’s some meat what can you make with what’s in the cupboard?’. She would make the main then we would add salad or veg as and when needed. Boosted our in-house knowledge of favourite recipes too. Why not try a month of, we hired someone to help us once a week challenge!
Cooking constantly at home is such a tough habit to keep doing. But it is worth it and I need to keep doing that because the difference is mostly fresh foods versus eating junk or foods with extra fat/sodium to make it tasty.
Yeah, this is tough and it's good to hear other adults struggle with this. I try to make some things for myself every week and try out cooking new things occasionally, but particularly when there is something I'm stressed out about at work I'll get into eating out a bunch and put on a lot of weight too.
Been subbed since 2011, first comment I think. What works for me and my partner is that she cooks 6 nights a week but I handle all of the kitchen cleaning and house cleaning. She cooks almost every night and for breakfast and lunch I have Huel, which is a nutritionally complete meal replacement that is provably healthy, cheap, and super easy to prepare. As someone who is lazy like you Craig, I think this could work. The Huel also helps me regulate calorie intake. But I also get to have a cooked dinner each night (except a Saturday night restaurant). I've never had a good system until this. Try it!
I did subscriptions boxes for a while, which did help a lot. What I started doing was scrolling through IG to get recipe ideas, save them (or look up similar but better recipes), then review before grocery shopping to decide what I feel like making.
I also made sure to do a fridge + pantry check to see what I already had on hand and see if I could cut down on what I needed to buy. Grocery lists are a must to keep you organized even if you don't buy everything on the same day. I do all this during my passive time, i.e. when I'm just scrolling on my phone anyways.
I don't do meal prep, but I do prepare like meal "components" sometimes. For example: rice, stir-fried veggies, or some protein can be prepped but you won't necessarily eat this combo the same way each day. Sauces + toppings help immensely to create variety for each meal. Good luck!
I like to cook but it takes way more time than you think. I always think a simple dinner will take about 30 minutes to put together and it turns into an hour and a half, no matter what. Not counting cleaning up. I have no idea why. I do it anyway, but then we end up eating later than we would like.
Exactly, I loved Meal Planning…it’s just that…it takes me hours to do it and I thought I could do it during the weekend, but nope…not usually because we either are travelling on weekend, either visiting one of our families…so meal planning, meal prepping and cleaning goes out of the window on weekends because I can’t count on them being free.
Today I’m doing a shorter meal plan in the evening for 2 days only - I plan 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners (I cook double portion of dinner so I can reheat as lunch) It works for me, most of the time…except when I have a social event in the evening and/or I am really tired in the evening to do it. Also, as a person who struggles a lot with making decisions - I have a list where I rotate ideas for meals like: vegetarian recipe, soup and a side, meat - chicken recipe, salad evening, vegetarian, meat-beef recipe, pasta, fish night…kind of like this. So if I prepared salad for an evening, next day’s dinner I’ll search for a vegetarian and beef recipe…I’ve also started collecting recipes as I make them but I still have just a few of them.
Cost wise, for us - cooking at home versus ordering out can be often a similar price because I try to buy organic and varied. I can also find ordered food that is pretty cheap and healthy in my area… A salad cost me as much money per portion as a restaurant because I am using good quality and varied food so it tastes delicious, for example.
Thanks for offering a realistic perspective on this subject. For real…
Aaand the cleaaaning after…yes! I don’t have a dishwasher, I’m sad….
Key is to buy mostly the same stuff every week and put it together in different ways. Find repeatable meats like turkey burger, pork cutlets, roast chicken, soy sauce chicken etc then vary the carb and veggie: potatoes, pasta, rice and whatever veggies or salad looks good at the store.
Most of the time you spend cooking is actually waiting. So from 1 hour of cooking you chop, stir, turn over etc. for 20 minutes max. Therefore you have at least 40 minutes to do other things. There are a bunch of meals that take 15-20 minutes to cook. Watch Jamie Oliver for inspiration. So time is a pretty poor excuse. Also, where I live we have groceries delivery and you don’t need to go shopping if you don’t want to. Go for it peeps! It’s fun and simple. Burp
My husband and I have been trying different things for this and our most recent arrangement is that I do all the planning and he does all the cooking (just for dinner. Lunch and breakfast we make for ourselves or use leftovers) -- so I plan dinners for the whole week (minus two days, one day he plays DnD in the evening and doesn't have time to cook, and we set Sundays as a day where we decide together what we want to make for dinner that day). Then I send him the list of meals and he makes a shopping list for me. I do the shopping for the week, and then throughout the week he cooks dinner. This probably wouldn't work for a lot of people, but we've been really enjoying it. He is a MUCH better and more experienced cook than me, and he enjoys the actual cooking much more than the planning. Whereas I feel stressed about having to cook but don't mind doing the upfront logistics, especially when I know the cooking part will be taken care of each day. We don't have a specific person assigned to clean up but I usually end up doing it more often, which feels fair to us since the cooking alone is pretty labor intensive. Really looking forward to seeing how this goes for you and Chyna!
When you start cooking, think repurpose. Roasting chicken, cook extra. Have it roasted with a side the first night, later in the week make chicken tacos, chicken spaghetti, chicken salad. Basic easy meals - hot protein on greens and veggies. Don’t over think it, it’s really easy once you get the hang of it. And it does take time. I used to plan the menu for the week, shop and spend a couple of hours chopping all the veggies, portioning the proteins, making sauces/spice blends and dressings putting in baggies so it ‘s only a meter of pulling the “meal kit” out of the fridge and cooking. It was a life saver when our kids were young and I was working. Good luck!! While I enjoy the process , I’m aware many do not.
You worked and still made dinner ✨😌
I made a menu for the even weeks, an uneven weeks. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. So I've got 21 meals a week, 42 in total. Sometimes, I eat something else than that's on the menu but that has to do with leftovers etc. I try to eat my dinner from yesterday, as breakfast today. Creating this even and uneven week menu, has been a life saver for me. I'll never have to think about what to eat anymore, since I've got it in writing. I don't have to think about what to get for groceries, cause I know in advance what I'll be making and take it into acccount.
a big thing is that food is punishing when you screw up
eating your own mistake is cruel as hell. i cook all the time and dont blame anyone who had a bad experience and never tried it again tbh
Tbh I don't mind it that much if I do something meh - as long as I don't burn everything to a crisp 😊
My friend and I made this meal once where we cooked shredded carrots in a pan with a bunch of seasonings (can't remember what) it was devastatingly bad, but is a great memory lol
I like the reality you both have with this. I also struggle with the same things. Great job with the video!
Funny how a problem for someone could be inexistent for others :) French guy here, I've never had the choice, it's a pleasure : you treat yourself first when you know how to cook :) Then your family. Your video is really interesting from my pov.
Best of luck!! Something that helps me is getting shelf stable ingredients that are seasoned. Like the cumin garlic chickpeas from trader joes, jar of pesto, salsa, curry paste. I like to bake bread and a loaf is a solid base for many meals. Roasting in the oven takes less effort. Charcuterie where you just make a few items from scratch and a few things from packages or jars.
I'd also say splitting a CSA box with friends could be great. It gives you inspiration and pressure to have produce there. And it's better riper produce, so it makes cooking more fun, and easier to make it taste good.
I'm actually writing a book on this topic. Often meal prepping lacks the variety people crave and really doesn't teach people how to cook intuitively ie without a recipe. What I recommend is choose a prep day. On prep day:
1) Get a protein, I'd start with a rotisserie chicken and break it down. This will teach you how to breakdown a chicken easier than raw chicken. Separate white and dark meat. White meat is used throughout the week in cold or quick cook preparations think chicken salad or have it heat up in ramen. Dark meat can be used to create longer cooked dishes like Tikka masala or braised meat tacos.
2) Veggies: on prep day, choose a firm veggie everyone at least tolerates think broccoli, squash, or sweet potato. Either blanch or roast the veggies. Blanching is quicker and roasting tastes better. Choose a leafy veggie. If you desire you can blanch it but I tend to just leave them raw. Use leafy greens in salads and on sandwiches. If you have picky eaters or you just need help hitting the FIVE TO SEVEN servings of vegetables most experts recommend, add cauliflower to rice or creamy sauces for a veggie boost. Add shredded zucchini almost anywhere you have ground meat or tomatoes and you can't even tell.
3) Beans: Legumes, the broader name for members of the Fabaceae family and their cousins, are incredibly nutritious and versatile. On prep day drain a can of chickpeas and put them on a plate. Dry them off and microwave them. If you want to cook with them later, microwave for about 6 minutes. If you want a crispy snack go for 10 minutes. Of course microwaves are all different keep an eye on them so they don't burn.
So you've spent 3 hours in your kitchen. Was it worth it? Monday you can make chicken salad wraps using the white meat chicken, some pantry staples, and your leafy veggie. Make a quick sharshuka, a Middle Eastern stew, using a can of tomatoes, your 6 minute chickpeas, dark meat chicken if you desire, and add eggs to be poached in the stew. The options are really great and you can be as creative as you want or have the energy for. Have I just put a bunch of these prepped items in a bowl, nuked it and ate it with hot sauce? Of course and honestly it was decent.
Just wanted to say, been watching since your waiting days and it's just so great to see you happy and with a wife and kid.
I remember you first introducing when she was just your girlfriend and your proposal using video titles.
You'll always be my favorite youtuber Craig
I don't enjoy cooking. So I assemble basic meals. I keep 4 cooked proteins, on their own shelf in the fridge, for the week. It just needs to be warmed up (i.e. grilled meat, crock pot chicken with taco seasoning, seasoned sliced pork) when you're assembling your meal. It's just protein and spices. Keep it simple. Take
An option for meal prep that my mom uses is batch making some foundational elements that can be used to put together actual recipes or improvised meals. So its like making a bunch of tomato sauce, cooked beans, cooked ground or shredded meat, soup stock, etc and then you can mix and match these premade elements together or use one of them to make something. Its pretty smart and often times doesnt involve a ton of effort on my mom's part. I haven't done this myself because my partner is picky about their food so one of these days we need to go through a bunch of recipes we both like and see what efficiencies we can enact