Busy Bee Meal Prep Sunday (27. January 2019)
It's Monday again!
I had a lot of fun doing meal prep yesterday... so without much ado let's start.
Here are the ingredients:
We have:
Vegetables: coleslaw (pictures but unused), celery sticks, green beans, spinach, paprika, broccoli, carrots, green onions, pumpkin, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and 2 cans of corn.
Proteins: 2 pieces of salmon (150g each), 4 pieces of codfish (100g each), 500g chicken mince, 500g mixed pork/beef mince, 500g marinated chicken (teriyaki marinade). We also have: 2 cans of beans
Carbohydrates: rice and quinoa
What is not pictured: pureed tomato (I forgot. This is such a staple in almost every quick and healthy food I often forget to put it on pictures...)
And here is the food these ingredients made:
The foods from top left to - wait hold on this doesn't make sense - let's just start with the soup pot.
The soup is a chicken pot pie soup with lots of veggies (4 portions). To the right of this: a row of rice with chicken-vegetable teriyaki-black-pepper stir-fry (4 portions). Then a row of stir-fried vegetables with sweet potatoes (hidden underneath) and a piece of fish (2x codfish and 2x salmon - half the salmon pictured above - 4 portions). To the right of this a row of quinoa-chili with codfish pieces (4 portions as well) and next to that a row of minced meat 'regular' chili with rice (4 portions again).
The bowl in the bottom left corner: A rice red lentil spinach stew with salmon pieces on top. This is a representative sample of a whole pan of the dish (3-4 portions).
The box between the soup pot and the rice red lentil spinach stew is again quinoa chili but this time without the codfish pieces (about 2 portions in the box).
The recipes:
Recommendation! The first thing you want to do if you're making a batch like me is to make three cups of rice. This will go into about half of the dishes and you don't really have to watch it all the time.
Recommendation 2! If you have another person making this with you tell them to cut ALL THE VEGETABLES (or as many as you want) into chunks while you make the chilis.
1. The chilis
I made two batches of chili as one of them is vegetarian (except for the fish) and the other has meat in it. Those can be made simultaneously in two pots though.
The first step is to roast onion in a pan. Then you add as follows: carrots (and meat if you want the meat version). As soon as the carrots are soft-ish (not entirely soft because they're supposed to be crunchy and also you want them to keep their nutrients) and the meat is brown you add: beans (in the vegetarian version I have black beans. In the meat version I added white beans. But you can use whatever beans you like really.) and a half can of corn each.
In both of your pots should now be all the 'chunky' ingredients: onion, carrots, beans, corn, meat if applicable.
The next step is to add pureed tomato (or canned tomato blocks or even tomato sauce - either way you will likely need 2 cans/boxes) and spices. The spices can be whatever you like. I used cumin, coriander, pepper, chili pepper, and salt.
The meat version: After adding tomato and spices, simply mix it all together, and cut in some paprika for extra health, mix in the paprika, and take the pan off heat immediately (since we're going to microwave these dishes it's not necessary to fully cook all the veggies. The paprika will be cooked by the residual heat of the dish and the microwave later on).
Congratulations. You're done. Put some of your rice (it should be done by now) into a box and add chili. Repeat x 4 or whatever portion size you like.
The quinoa-and-fish version: Once the tomato sauces/blocks/etc and spices are in add an additional two cups of water and half a cube of beef bouillon. Bring this to a boil and add about 150g of dried quinoa.
Let this sit about 20 minutes and voila! There's your vegetarian chili. Distribute into boxes and later when you're doing your stir-fry and the fish is done put in chunks of codfish. I used two codfish cubes of 100g each to make 4 portions of fish for these chilis.
2. The stir-fry with fish
Heat oil in pan and add fish. I started with the codfish to distribute them to the chilis first and then moved on to the salmon (plus remaining codfish for stir-fry boxes). Distribute codfish and one salmon filet into boxes (I cut up the salmon to have two pieces). Keep the other salmon filet somewhere handy.
After the fish is done cut and stir-fry the vegetables. I used sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans, carrots, celery, pumpkin, and potato.
Tip! Stir-fry in batches. The first things should be sweet potatoes, then potatoes, then pumpkin, in that order or all together depending on the size of your pan. Why? Because they take longer than the rest of the vegetables and should be cooked through to be edible at all.
Tip 2! I don't really use oil to stir-fry vegetables. I used a bit for the fish and then just re-used the pan without cleaning it. I have a non-stick wok pan so if you don't have a non-stick pan maybe it's useful to use oil.
After stir-fry (and seasoning to taste with any spice you like) put the veggies into the boxes with the fish pieces.
3. The chicken-vegetable-teriyaki-black-pepper stir fry with rice
You'll need some more of these cut veggies and the marinated chicken. If you haven't marinated it over night don't worry. It's not important in capital letters. It will taste just as well if you only marinate them for the five minutes it takes you to clean your wok/stir-fry pan and heat it again with a little bit of oil.
When the oil is hot put in the marinated chicken pieces. They'll be done in about 2-3 minutes. Then put in some vegetables (green beans and carrots - wait for another 2-3 minutes - then add broccoli and celery. After another 2-3 minutes add zucchini and another 2 minutes afterwards some paprika. The paprika as always comes at the very last! Otherwise it will be overcooked.)
The sauce is easily made as well. You make it in the same pot atop the chicken and all the vegetables. I personally used some pepper and teriyaki sauce and then added two teaspoons of black-pepper sauce (Lee Kum Kee brand). The black pepper sauce isn't 100% necessary. Teriyaki on its own is tasty as well. After the sauces and teriyaki I recommend adding some water (with a chicken bouillon if you want more taste) and then thickening it with corn-starch once it boils to make a real 'sauce' rather than a soup-like liquid.
That done you distribute some more of your rice in 4 more boxes and pour over the chicken-veggie sauce mixture.
4. The rice red lentil spinach stew
This is what we've been saving the last piece of 150g salmon for (and why there's a veritable mount of spinach in the ingredients picture).
The first step is to heat oil in a pan. I was running out of onions so skipped them and used only carrots instead. These were heated in the oil until they were crunchy but I needn't be afraid to crack my teeth when eating them. I then added four tablespoons of brown rice and about 100g of red lentils. Lid on and let this cook for about 20-30 minutes.
The time doesn't really matter. All that does is that by the time you think it's done the rice is soft (but not flabby) and the lentils are nicely big and soaked.
The next step is to add the corn (remember those two cans of corn? The first can was used on the chilis. The second can will be used in this stew and the chicken pot pie soup below.) and salmon. Then as the last step comes the spinach. The spinach will make a mountain of green in your pan/pot. No matter. Put a lid on it and let it sink into itself. In a few minutes you can stir it and it'll look like in the bowl above. (Tip! Don't overcook it though. As we're re-heating all these foods the spinach will have time to shrink even more later anyway.)
Once this is all done and your stew is either stew-like (liquidy) or a bit drier (like mine) you can distribute it into your boxes. And you're done! The last dish is quite voluntary as the ones you've already made will probably be sufficient if you're feeding two for a week.
Anyway! The soup!
5. The chicken pot pie soup recipe can be found here: Link
As always I changed the recipe and did not slow cook it nor add yoghurt. The reasons are simple: a) slow cooking takes time and I didn't feel like 'letting it simmer for 4-5 hours' and b) I forgot to buy yoghurt so we used a tiny bit of milk instead. I also didn't used chicken breasts but minced chicken. Tastes just the same!
I hope you like these dishes! Please feel free to ask any questions in the comment sections or leave... a review? Cheers!
I had a lot of fun doing meal prep yesterday... so without much ado let's start.
Here are the ingredients:
We have:
Vegetables: coleslaw (pictures but unused), celery sticks, green beans, spinach, paprika, broccoli, carrots, green onions, pumpkin, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and 2 cans of corn.
Proteins: 2 pieces of salmon (150g each), 4 pieces of codfish (100g each), 500g chicken mince, 500g mixed pork/beef mince, 500g marinated chicken (teriyaki marinade). We also have: 2 cans of beans
Carbohydrates: rice and quinoa
What is not pictured: pureed tomato (I forgot. This is such a staple in almost every quick and healthy food I often forget to put it on pictures...)
And here is the food these ingredients made:
The foods from top left to - wait hold on this doesn't make sense - let's just start with the soup pot.
The soup is a chicken pot pie soup with lots of veggies (4 portions). To the right of this: a row of rice with chicken-vegetable teriyaki-black-pepper stir-fry (4 portions). Then a row of stir-fried vegetables with sweet potatoes (hidden underneath) and a piece of fish (2x codfish and 2x salmon - half the salmon pictured above - 4 portions). To the right of this a row of quinoa-chili with codfish pieces (4 portions as well) and next to that a row of minced meat 'regular' chili with rice (4 portions again).
The bowl in the bottom left corner: A rice red lentil spinach stew with salmon pieces on top. This is a representative sample of a whole pan of the dish (3-4 portions).
The box between the soup pot and the rice red lentil spinach stew is again quinoa chili but this time without the codfish pieces (about 2 portions in the box).
The recipes:
Recommendation! The first thing you want to do if you're making a batch like me is to make three cups of rice. This will go into about half of the dishes and you don't really have to watch it all the time.
Recommendation 2! If you have another person making this with you tell them to cut ALL THE VEGETABLES (or as many as you want) into chunks while you make the chilis.
1. The chilis
I made two batches of chili as one of them is vegetarian (except for the fish) and the other has meat in it. Those can be made simultaneously in two pots though.
The first step is to roast onion in a pan. Then you add as follows: carrots (and meat if you want the meat version). As soon as the carrots are soft-ish (not entirely soft because they're supposed to be crunchy and also you want them to keep their nutrients) and the meat is brown you add: beans (in the vegetarian version I have black beans. In the meat version I added white beans. But you can use whatever beans you like really.) and a half can of corn each.
In both of your pots should now be all the 'chunky' ingredients: onion, carrots, beans, corn, meat if applicable.
The next step is to add pureed tomato (or canned tomato blocks or even tomato sauce - either way you will likely need 2 cans/boxes) and spices. The spices can be whatever you like. I used cumin, coriander, pepper, chili pepper, and salt.
The meat version: After adding tomato and spices, simply mix it all together, and cut in some paprika for extra health, mix in the paprika, and take the pan off heat immediately (since we're going to microwave these dishes it's not necessary to fully cook all the veggies. The paprika will be cooked by the residual heat of the dish and the microwave later on).
Congratulations. You're done. Put some of your rice (it should be done by now) into a box and add chili. Repeat x 4 or whatever portion size you like.
The quinoa-and-fish version: Once the tomato sauces/blocks/etc and spices are in add an additional two cups of water and half a cube of beef bouillon. Bring this to a boil and add about 150g of dried quinoa.
Let this sit about 20 minutes and voila! There's your vegetarian chili. Distribute into boxes and later when you're doing your stir-fry and the fish is done put in chunks of codfish. I used two codfish cubes of 100g each to make 4 portions of fish for these chilis.
2. The stir-fry with fish
Heat oil in pan and add fish. I started with the codfish to distribute them to the chilis first and then moved on to the salmon (plus remaining codfish for stir-fry boxes). Distribute codfish and one salmon filet into boxes (I cut up the salmon to have two pieces). Keep the other salmon filet somewhere handy.
After the fish is done cut and stir-fry the vegetables. I used sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans, carrots, celery, pumpkin, and potato.
Tip! Stir-fry in batches. The first things should be sweet potatoes, then potatoes, then pumpkin, in that order or all together depending on the size of your pan. Why? Because they take longer than the rest of the vegetables and should be cooked through to be edible at all.
Tip 2! I don't really use oil to stir-fry vegetables. I used a bit for the fish and then just re-used the pan without cleaning it. I have a non-stick wok pan so if you don't have a non-stick pan maybe it's useful to use oil.
After stir-fry (and seasoning to taste with any spice you like) put the veggies into the boxes with the fish pieces.
3. The chicken-vegetable-teriyaki-black-pepper stir fry with rice
You'll need some more of these cut veggies and the marinated chicken. If you haven't marinated it over night don't worry. It's not important in capital letters. It will taste just as well if you only marinate them for the five minutes it takes you to clean your wok/stir-fry pan and heat it again with a little bit of oil.
When the oil is hot put in the marinated chicken pieces. They'll be done in about 2-3 minutes. Then put in some vegetables (green beans and carrots - wait for another 2-3 minutes - then add broccoli and celery. After another 2-3 minutes add zucchini and another 2 minutes afterwards some paprika. The paprika as always comes at the very last! Otherwise it will be overcooked.)
The sauce is easily made as well. You make it in the same pot atop the chicken and all the vegetables. I personally used some pepper and teriyaki sauce and then added two teaspoons of black-pepper sauce (Lee Kum Kee brand). The black pepper sauce isn't 100% necessary. Teriyaki on its own is tasty as well. After the sauces and teriyaki I recommend adding some water (with a chicken bouillon if you want more taste) and then thickening it with corn-starch once it boils to make a real 'sauce' rather than a soup-like liquid.
That done you distribute some more of your rice in 4 more boxes and pour over the chicken-veggie sauce mixture.
4. The rice red lentil spinach stew
This is what we've been saving the last piece of 150g salmon for (and why there's a veritable mount of spinach in the ingredients picture).
The first step is to heat oil in a pan. I was running out of onions so skipped them and used only carrots instead. These were heated in the oil until they were crunchy but I needn't be afraid to crack my teeth when eating them. I then added four tablespoons of brown rice and about 100g of red lentils. Lid on and let this cook for about 20-30 minutes.
The time doesn't really matter. All that does is that by the time you think it's done the rice is soft (but not flabby) and the lentils are nicely big and soaked.
The next step is to add the corn (remember those two cans of corn? The first can was used on the chilis. The second can will be used in this stew and the chicken pot pie soup below.) and salmon. Then as the last step comes the spinach. The spinach will make a mountain of green in your pan/pot. No matter. Put a lid on it and let it sink into itself. In a few minutes you can stir it and it'll look like in the bowl above. (Tip! Don't overcook it though. As we're re-heating all these foods the spinach will have time to shrink even more later anyway.)
Once this is all done and your stew is either stew-like (liquidy) or a bit drier (like mine) you can distribute it into your boxes. And you're done! The last dish is quite voluntary as the ones you've already made will probably be sufficient if you're feeding two for a week.
Anyway! The soup!
5. The chicken pot pie soup recipe can be found here: Link
As always I changed the recipe and did not slow cook it nor add yoghurt. The reasons are simple: a) slow cooking takes time and I didn't feel like 'letting it simmer for 4-5 hours' and b) I forgot to buy yoghurt so we used a tiny bit of milk instead. I also didn't used chicken breasts but minced chicken. Tastes just the same!
I hope you like these dishes! Please feel free to ask any questions in the comment sections or leave... a review? Cheers!
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