Summer Meal Prep | Whole Food Ingredients

Hello everyone and welcome back to 27 Fox Place. I know it's been a minute but I finally have a new meal prep video for you today and when it's hot outside I need meals that are quick and easy to prepare and don't heat up the kitchen. And prepping ingredients in advance helps to cut down on the amount of time that I need to spend in the kitchen and leftovers and pre-cooked meals are fine for breakfast and lunch but when it comes to dinner I need to have a variety of options to put together a freshly cooked meal. And there are times when I will make breakfast and lunch for the entire week and there are times when I will make enough at one meal to have leftovers the following day and it just depends on how much time I have to work with and how much energy I have that week. But prepping veggies and a few ingredients to get us through the week is a huge time saver throughout the week and it's much easier to prepare a meal when all the prep work is done ahead of time. I love burgers any time of year but they're perfect to cook outside on the grill when it's hot outside and a good burger needs a good bun. And these buns are a low carb grain-free quick and easy to make option and I'll be sure to leave a link to this recipe in the description box and I just added almond flour, psyllium powder, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl and I like to mix the ingredients together before I add the wet ingredients and the recipe calls for six egg whites but I would need to find something to do with the unused yolks so I used three whole eggs instead. And then I mixed everything together and this dough starts out very wet but it starts to come together once all of the liquid gets absorbed and this dough can be made into a loaf to be sliced as bread but I'm going to divide it up to make individual buns that I can use for burgers. And this dough is supposed to have a play-dough like consistency but I think I added a little too much water this time because my dough came out a little bit sticky but once I got them shaped into flat discs I sprayed the tops with a little oil so that the sesame seeds would have something to stick to and then I put them in an oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 25 minutes. So while the buns are cooking in the oven and the eggs are boiling on the stove I have about 12 minutes before the eggs are perfectly hard-boiled which should be just enough time to mix up a batch of banana bread and I like to use date paste in place of sugar when I make banana bread so I soaked about a cup of dates in water overnight to soften them up and then I just use an immersion blender to make them into a paste and I'm using the same mixing bowl that I used to make the bread to combine all the wet ingredients for this next recipe and since I already had the immersion blender out for the date paste I used it again to quickly mash up the bananas and any time that I measure out dry ingredients for a quick bread I measure enough for more than one batch at a time and store them in a mason jar and that way all I need to do is mix up the wet ingredients. Over-ripe bananas are perfect for banana bread but I never seem to have the time to make banana bread when I have ripe bananas so having the dry ingredients pre-measured makes it much easier to make a batch of muffins when I have bananas that are about to go bad and these muffins are perfect with a cup of coffee or paired with some fruit or a smoothie for a quick breakfast and they don't have any preservatives so they'll only last about a day or two at room temperature but they will keep for a week or so in the fridge or I can store them in the freezer for a month or two but they usually don't last that long. The banana bread is ready to go in the oven but the buns are still in the oven so I'll set the muffins aside so that I can get the eggs in an ice bath and I make hard-boiled eggs every week because they're the perfect protein to have in the fridge for a quick snack, breakfast on the go or just to chop up on salads. Anytime I meal prep I start with the things that will take the longest and couldn't cook themselves while I work on other things and I try not to use the oven when it's hot but when I do need to use it I cook everything that I need to while the oven is hot and I try to make enough for several meals at a time. It's much less chaotic to meal prep in a tidy space so whenever I'm in the kitchen I try to clean as I go and I try to reuse the same dishes as much as I can so that there's less cleanup to do but I need to prep all of the produce next and the sink is the only place large enough to hold all the produce at the same time so I need to clear out the sink and give it a good scrub. Even if I don't have time for a lot of meal prep I always wash and chop the fruits and veggies that I have for the week and I use baking soda to kill the bacteria and remove any chemical residues from the produce and I just add a few tablespoons of baking soda for every gallon of water and I'll let the produce bathe in the solution for about 15 minutes while I work on other things. And I also like to make a batch of rice and quinoa almost every week and whether you rinse them both is a personal choice. I'm using quinoa that's been pre-rinsed and quinoa has a bitter coating that can affect the flavor and rinsing the rice gets rid of the starch which can keep it from sticking together and I like to use broth to add a little extra flavor and nutrients and I just measure out half the broth into a measuring cup for the rice and I use the other half of the broth for the quinoa and I'll let them cook while I chop up the veggies. Watermelon is a refreshing summer treat by itself or as a side dish but I also like to add it to a bed of salad greens for a refreshing summer salad so this watermelon won't be in the fridge long enough to spoil. And I don't usually sit down to work out a menu for each day of the week but I do plan the meals around the ingredients that we picked up for the week and I like to prepare simple meals with simple ingredients and I have a handful of go-to recipes that I have on repeat. And I started meal prepping when I cut out processed foods from our diet and we try to avoid processed foods altogether and that includes most grains and most dairy and when I tell people that the first question they always ask is well what else is there and we mostly try to eat whole unprocessed foods with plenty of fresh fruits and veggies and we include a variety of meats. I started with the peppers before I realized that it was going to take too much time. The produce needs to soak in the baking soda solution for about 10 to 15 minutes in order to remove the pesticides and bacteria and dirt and soaking the strawberries for any longer than that can cause damage so I had to stop and rinse off the rest of the produce. I add peppers to just about everything when I cook and I like to use them in things like fajitas, kebabs, and stir fries and when the weather is cooler I add them to sheet pan dinners. So I like to cut some of them into chunks and some of them into strips and that way I have something ready no matter what I decide to make that night. We always have some type of fruit to snack on or to combine with meals and these strawberries will probably last about a week in the fridge but they won't be in the fridge long enough to go bad and in the summer I like to slice them up and add them to salads and the strawberry is a nice complement to watermelon on a bed of salad greens and as you'll see later I also like to use them with chia pudding parfait. And summer squash is another go-to veggie for me. I chop them up to use them in stir fry and I'll be using them with kebabs this week and stir fry is one of those meals that I can use whatever veggies I happen to have on hand and it's usually my go-to for the end of the week when we're running low on options. And we try to eat fresh produce but frozen produce is always a good alternative because it's less work and it lasts longer in the freezer and the freezing process locks in the nutrients but ingredients for my green smoothie recipe and I have a green smoothie almost every day so I try to prep the ingredients in advance and keep them in the freezer and the frozen chunks are a good substitute for ice cubes and I like to reuse the freezer bags that we use for the smoothie packs and I rinse out the bags and put them back in the freezer until I put together a new batch and I chop up enough cucumber and celery to last for a few weeks and I just roughly chop the cucumber into small chunks so that I can measure out about a cup for each bag and the smaller chunks make it easier to process in the blender and I'd planned on putting all the ingredients together today but they were out of celery so I'm just going to chop up the cucumber and I'll keep it in the freezer until I can get more celery. And I diced up one of the cucumbers to use in salads this week. Bibb lettuce is a much healthier substitute for iceberg lettuce and it also makes a great hamburger bun but I'm chopping up this head of lettuce for taco salad later this week and we try to eat a lot of leafy greens and I always try to buy lettuce and spinach that's been washed and chopped whenever I can because it saves time but bibb lettuce comes with the roots still attached so that it lasts longer and we buy bibb lettuce in packs of two but I only wash up one head at a time. And leafy greens last much longer when the leaves are completely dry so I use a salad spinner to remove as much water as possible and then I'll add a paper towel to the bottom of the storage container to absorb the extra moisture. I'm not really a big fan of the texture of chia pudding but I do love this creamy chia mousse recipe and I'll be sure to leave the ingredients for this recipe in the description box and I like to use medjool dates for this recipe and I have to remove the pits and I use about two large dates per serving just to sweeten the pudding and then I add the chia seeds and rock cow powder and I'm using collagen powder today but a protein powder is another good option and I just add all the ingredients to an airtight container and I'm using almond milk in this recipe but any type of milk would work and I also added a few drops of almond extract for a little extra flavor and once all the ingredients are measured out I can give the jar a good shake to make sure that the chia seeds don't clump together and I'll leave the mixture in the fridge overnight or for a few hours so that the chia seeds can absorb the liquid and the dates will soften. And once the chia seeds have had a chance to absorb the almond milk I pour the mixture into the blender and blend everything together until it's smooth and creamy and once everything is blended together I add a ripe avocado to thicken up the pudding and give it a creamy texture and it blends up much faster if I add the avocado to the mixture last and if the mixture is too thick to blend I just add a little milk until it's the right consistency and the mixture will thicken even more once it's chilled and this recipe makes about two cups of pudding but I doubled it so that I would have enough for the week and it's a quick and easy meal to keep in the fridge and it's my alternative to yogurt. This will keep in the fridge for about a week and it's good enough on its own but I like to add strawberries and a little grain free granola to make it even better and I like to layer the ingredients in a small mason jar so that it's easy to grab and go on busy mornings. Because most spice blends tend to have questionable ingredients I like to mix up my own blends and of course I like to make enough to last for a few months while I have all the ingredients out and I'll try to leave a link for these next two recipes in the description box but the first is a taco seasoning and I like to add it to ground meat for tacos or to onions and peppers for fajitas and I stopped buying taco seasoning when I found out that the main ingredient for most of these blends is corn and most processed corns you find is GMO so I started mixing my own taco seasoning blend. I love ranch dressing but it's been a challenge trying to find a dairy-free alternative and I'm still working on this recipe but I finally came up with a good substitute and it starts with a classic ranch seasoning mix and I'm measuring out the herbs and spices for the seasoning and I started with a mason jar but then I realized that I would only need a tablespoon per cup of dressing so I decided to make a smaller batch and once I measured it all out I transferred the mix to a smaller spice jar and gave it a good shake to combine and I found that cashew milk makes a good substitute for the traditional buttermilk and to make the cashew milk I cover the cashews in water and let them soak long enough to absorb the water and plump up and I usually let them soak overnight and when they're ready I drain them and give them a quick rinse before I add them to the blender and once they're in the blender I add enough water to cover the cashews and to give the milk that tangy buttermilk flavor I add about a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and then I just blend everything together until it's smooth and creamy and if I need to I add more water until I get the pourable consistency that I'm looking for and the mixture will thicken up a little bit more in the fridge so I try to make the milk a little bit thinner so that it's still pourable once it's been chilled and now the only thing left to do is put everything away and clean up and we recycle all the green waste so I'll take all the scraps from the produce out to the recycle bin but because I clean up as I go there's not a lot left to do I did leave the rice and quinoa on the stove to cool and the muffins have cooled down I can put them in a freezer bag and store them in the freezer and I can just pull out what I need the night before so they have time to defrost and I'll freeze half of the muffins now and I'll leave the other half in the fridge to enjoy this week that's all for today and I'll leave you with a few mouth-watering meals that I made this week and if you like this video remember to give it a thumbs up and be sure to hit that subscribe button and turn on the notifications before you go and thank you so much for spending your time with me today and I hope to see you next time