Meal Prep Wednesday

I’ve been doing a lot of my cooking in the morning. I find it therapeutic to start the day that way. My routine recently has been wake up between 5 - 6 am, make coffee, read for 60 - 90 minutes, then walk and feed my dog. Most days I start cooking by 8 - 9 am. This Wednesday I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and before I knew it I had salmon, brussels sprouts, and vegetable soup all going at once.

Wild Sockeye Salmon

Ever since reading The New Fish, which confirmed all of the rumors I’d heard about the poor health of farmed fish and it’s harmful impact on the environment, I’ve been avoiding farmed fish. But finding wild caught fish in Colorado has thus far been a challenge, so I’ve been opting instead for flash frozen wild cod or salmon sold at the grocery store. The quality is fine, but I do hate that it’s wrapped in plastic. I guess nothing is perfect.

I defrosted two 6 oz filets and marinated them in 1 tbsp of olive oil, a generous tbsp of soy sauce, and sprinkled them with 2 pinches of sea salt, chili powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. I let them sit and marinate as I prepared the rest of the food I was cooking.

After marinating for 10 - 15 minutes I put the filets face down, skin up, on a baking sheet, and cooked them for 9 minutes at 350 degrees. I finished them under the broiler for 90 seconds to crisp the skin. The flavor and texture it gives it makes all the difference.

Vegetable Soup with Homemade Bone Broth

Christmas day was the first time I ever made a whole chicken in the crock pot. I’ve made one every week since. It’s just so easy and delicious. The meat falls right off the bone. In previous weeks I had been discarding the chicken bones and carcass, but listening to EC Synkowski talk about collagen supplementation put the idea in my head that I should make my own collagen supplement. Bone broth.

I also HATE FOOD WASTE. I LOVE the idea of using as much of every animal, vegetable, and fruit you can. So this past week I made my first bone broth in the instant pot. It was so easy. I’ve also been on a soup kick. So with fresh bone broth in the refrigerator I decided to use it to make soup.

For this soup I went with: chopped carrots, celery, red onion, garlic, salt and olive oil, which I cooked for 5 minutes in a pot. Then I added 2 cups of bone broth, 2 cups of water, a handful of sliced white and baby bella mushrooms, sliced tomato, bay leaves, parsley, 1 handful of Bob’s Red Mill Soup Mix, brought it all to a boil, then let it simmer for 20 minutes. Finally I added 1 cup of kidney beans and let everything cook for another 25.

The soup at first came out a little bland, but my girlfriend reminded me that I needed to add salt since we didn’t use store bought broth which contains sodium. Once she added salt we both agreed it was the best batch of soup thus far.

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels are my favorite vegetable. They’re really healthy, they can be cooked lightly or crisped, baked, boiled, or sautéed, and they hold onto a lot of flavor. It’s a rare occasion when there aren’t cooked brussels in my refrigerator. How I cook them varies just slightly every time.

Today, after cutting off the stems and quartering them, I added them to a mixing bowl with 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 pinches of sea salt, onion powder, and 2 slices of red onion cut in half. I tossed all the ingredients together until all of the brussels were evenly coated. Then I spread them evenly on a baking sheet to cook for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

I usually cook everything, brussels included, at 425, but I cooked them a little slower to see what difference it made. It turns out, not that much. But they were delicious. 

Reducing Waste

I really hate wasting food and materials in the kitchen. I try as much as possible to re-purpose ingredients, and re-use plastic bags, tin foil, parchment paper, whenever I can.

I cooked the salmon on tin foil that had been used prior to make roasted brussels sprouts. Tin foil gets tossed away so easily when it really has 2 - 3 good uses out of a single sheet. I was able to use the chicken carcass and bones to make a delicious broth for my soup. I’ve also been keeping my vegetable scraps in a bag in the freezer and using them to make homemade vegetable broth. It’s a trick my mom saw online and sent me.

It’s all part of my commitment to limit waste and re-use. These are small actions, but right now it’s the best I can do. I look forward to the day when we have a garden for compost, and when we can use our coffee grinds to grow mushrooms.

This was my meal prep Wednesday. For the next few days I’ll be all stocked up. All I have to do is open a container and grab a ladle of soup, a handful of brussels, and a filet of salmon, and breakfast, lunch, or dinner is served. It’s about 2 hours of work, but it makes eating healthy a lot easier. Plus, I love being in the kitchen and seeing my refrigerator stocked.

Cooking Rules

Rules to develop a sustainable and healthy practice of cooking.

• Keep it simple. There are only two ingredients you need to cook any dish you want:

  • Something to cook your food in (i.e. olive oil, avocado oil, grassfed and finished butter), and salt.

  • If you want, pepper. But it doesn’t even need it.

• Make the most of your time in the kitchen. If you have to be in the kitchen, make the most of it. Put something in the oven. Something in a pan. Something in a pot.

  • Almost any non-root vegetable can be cooked on a stovetop, on medium - high heat (depending on your stoves settings), in 10 minutes. This includes mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, broccoli and brussel sprouts.

  • Almost any root vegetable can be cooked in the oven in 20 minutes at 425 degrees. This includes carrots and beets.

  • Almost any lean meat (chicken thigh, chicken breast, steak, ground beef, fish) can be cooked in 20 minutes or less in the oven at 425 degrees. This will of course depend on thickness of the cut.

• Use your hand to measure for your plate:

  • Shoot for two handfuls of veggies, one palm size piece of lean protein (chicken, beef, fish), and one thumbs length of fat (4 almonds, 1/8 of an avocado), with every meal.

• Go heavy on vinegar and light on olive oil (any oil) when dressing your food:

  • Red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar can be used on anything in almost any amounts.

  • Fig and balsamic vinegars are hiring in sugar and shouldn’t be used as freely.

  • Oil is high in fat and calories, which can both sneak up on you if you’re not careful.

• Garnish generously with salt. If you’re eating whole foods then you’re not getting any salt from your food. You need to add it.

Meal Prep

Meal prep isn’t about getting everything cooked at once. Meal prep is making the best use of your time in the kitchen. If you’re going to be near the stove, you might as well make the most of it by utilizing all the different modalities it has to offer.

Bake chicken breast in the oven.

Boil broccolli.

Saute brussel sprouts.

Cooking in three different ways (boiling, baking, sautéing) also make it easier to compartmentalize what you’re doing, so you don’t forget to give anything attention.

The chicken in the oven is on a 25 - 30 minute timer.

The broccolli, once the water is boiling, only needs 3 - 5 minutes.

The brussel sprouts require the most attention, tossing them every few minutes for 10 - 12 minutes.

Fry up some brussels. Boil some broccoli. Bake some chicken. Make some extra and you’ve got lunch or dinner (breakfast?) for a few days.

Cheers.