What I Eat When It’s 100° and The AC Is Out

Look at that baby. I messed up before I even turned this camera on. It is so hot here. My AC went out last night. So I've been working in an 89 degree, 30 Celsius. Fans blowing everywhere. I apologize ahead of time. Cold food on a hot day. I chopped up a good amount of romaine lettuce here and I'm gonna make a cold salad. Something that is worth really sinking my teeth into because if I'm gonna eat a salad, it's gonna have to be worth it. There's one item I'm gonna cook because I'm trying to limit how much heat I use in this house because it's already hot. I had to put Gary at a friend's house because there's no AC here and I need to open the doors and blow the fans, which I have all over the place. So Gary won't be here today, but Frankie's here and Frankie stays by my side. She doesn't go anywhere. Anyways, let's get this going. Romaine, I've already rinsed it and it's just dripping into the largest bowl I can possibly find in the house because I only have one huge bowl and then everything else is small and medium. For the salad, like everything else, I like to get everything prepped ahead of time. I have a half of red onion. Julienne, if you don't like onion, don't add onion. Salad is gonna be colorful, nutritious, most of all, delicious filling and it's a great item for one of these hot days. Onion, done. I bought some of these little cherry tomatoes. I like these a lot, but what I'm gonna do is just half them. You don't have to half them, but I like to half them. Oh, one second. Quick edge on the blade. Hand down. Tomatoes. I have half cucumber. Just remove the plastic. Quick half. I have a can of chickpeas. I am gonna strain and save the aquafaba. Just strain them off and then I just add them to a container to use. Save this aquafaba. We're gonna use it. Celery sticks. Just gonna dice these, but I'm gonna do it at an angle just to make them be a little bit bigger. Easy. I could be adding all this right to a salad bowl, but I like to keep things separate and make a nice little, you know, half of eating is eating with your eyes and I always try to make, even when I'm eating by myself, make the food look as presentable and delicious and as fancy as possible, even when it's not. All right, two cups. This is roasted red, roasted, fire roasted red peppers. And then I have some kalamatas that are pitted already. I'm just gonna add this to this. Easier for me to grab them. The juice from the jar of the peppers, I'm gonna add to the aquafaba. Just squeeze that a little bit here. There's flavor in that brine. So I'm gonna save that because I want to use most of these. For these, I'm just gonna chop, not dice, just chop, pretty good size, turn, chop. And you go out. Okay, see you in a minute. I like to keep everything in the separate containers in case I want to make another one tomorrow and I don't want to use it all right now. So then I have natural meal prep for myself. I have a couple other things I'll share in a minute, but I want to make a dressing. I'm gonna make a dressing right in one of these containers. So I'm gonna add a little bit of vinegar, apple cider vinegar. I'm just gonna use about a quarter cup. This is the aquafaba and the roasted red pepper juice. Just gonna use all of that. I have a little bit of mustard in here. I don't have a lot, so I'm gonna just use this. I don't like wasting Dijon. Just get rid of this. Way to reuse everything. So there's that little bit of mustard I'm gonna add there. It was probably like a good size teaspoon, small tablespoon full of mustard that was in there. And then I also have some capers. Just about a tablespoon. Nice and tart. Then I have nutritional yeast. That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight tablespoons. This is the salad dressing I'll use for more than one salad. But I love nutritional yeast. So I don't think this is big enough. I'm just gonna add it right to this. I have some olive oil here. And I'll probably add a good amount. And I'm not drizzling in, cause we're not whisking it. But I'll use half of this, so it's probably like a quarter cup. For ships and giggles, I'm gonna add a tablespoon of sesame oil. And then I'm gonna cover that. Make sure that cover is on tight. And shake it. Yum. I'm gonna pop this in the refrigerator. And we're gonna add this afterwards. Just gonna crank this on. Give this a couple minutes just to heat up. It's the only thing I'm gonna heat in this house. And I'm gonna avoid turning on this vent just so we have better audio. And you can tell, it's hot. Perfect. I'm gonna take a little bit of neutral flavored oil. A lot of people ask me what neutral flavored oil means. It's either veg, canola, rapeseed, avocado, whatever I decide to buy. Peanut sometimes. I try to limit that in case of allergies. But I'm gonna add just enough to coat the bottom and a little bit extra. Done using tofu. I found these and I've had them once before and I really like them. It's just the unbreaded beyond chicken strips. And I know some people might not like them, but hey, I love them. They're super easy solution. And I like the texture. And the flavor's good, but I'm gonna make it even better. I like to just spread them out on this and give them a minute just to get used to the pan and to the oil and to the heat. And then a little trick to help them cook along a lot faster. I'm just gonna take a little bit of water, not much, but I have a cover that can fit this. So I'm just gonna add a little bit of water right to it. And we're gonna steam them because they are frozen. With the heat, I don't want the heat inching up over the pan. I want it to stay under the pan. A, it helps not burn my arm hairs. And then it also concentrates the heat to go into the middle because the whole gas is just on the edges and I kind of want it all the way on the pan. Beautiful. Looking good. I'm gonna take a wooden spatula here. Frankie, this, you talk about ultra-processed. What does it take to grow all the crap they put on the feed for the animals, all the stuff that they put in the animals and then kill in the animals and what they do to preserve that? I'm taking this every day of the week over an animal product. And this really does help. A, it's a super easy solution for me to have during the week when it's hot as balls out like it is now. And I don't, I love it. I like it. I don't show a lot of it on the video because I try to share more whole food style, but I do eat this. Somebody had asked a question of like, oh, do you eat less chef-y things? Yes. Besides cereal and oatmeal, I'll eat and use some of the products that are out in the market. Heck, I used to develop them. I think they're a great solution in moderation and in as a condiment. Stir this up now. I just have some barbecue rub. Generously add to the top here. And these kind of soaking up the oil. So I'm gonna add a little bit of oil on the top around the edges again. Give that a shake. And this is all we're gonna do. Now, I'm just looking for some color. Some brown, crispy bits. And it's starting to smell really good. And I can tell I'm gonna start sweating over this stove. I'll cover it one more time. Thanks. Come on in, babe. Come on in. It's not much cooler out there. Or hotter. All right, so this is ready. I might leave it on here for another minute or two just to get some of the browning. Because that, to me, is where all the flavor is gonna be. Bowl. The chicken is done. I'm just gonna put it in this for now because I wanna clean out this cast iron while it's hot. If you clean it out when it's hot, it doesn't stick. It's very, very simple. And you just keep re-seasoning over and over again. I keep drilling this in every single video. Quick rinse. Quick oil. Cover in the sink. I use paper towels because I don't wanna ruin my cloth towels on wiping a pan out. And then that's it. And I get underneath it, too. Because that's it. Clean, done. Ready for the next time. All the prep. Frankie, good point. But as soon as I add that little bit of mineral oil on it, it's gonna be fine. It's my cutting board. It's meant to be used. A fair amount of lettuce. I make enough of this salad so I have leftovers tomorrow to eat for either breakfast or second lunch or second dinner, whatever it's gonna be. I think that's probably even. Cucumbers to the side. We'll do some red onion right down the line. Some of that celery. This is how we used to do salads in any one of the number of restaurants I used to have or worked in. Chickpeas down the middle. Just a good handful. Some tomatoes. Nice, colorful, super beautiful, attractive. Some olives. I've got those over on the side here. Mix them in. That roasted red pepper. I don't want two things that are red on one side. I'm gonna put it over here on the side near the olives. Just a couple tablespoons here. Love a little bit of that. I love roasted red peppers, especially in a salad. It's amazing. Then we have that chicken. I'm gonna put that chicken on the side right over here. And this is the main ingredient, the main protein in this dish, so yum. That looks good. It's about half. Trying to make it even. And then I have one other thing I wanna add. I got some pumpkin seeds just for some extra crunchy bits right in the middle. All right, looks like a lot of ingredients, guys, but it's just stuff I had in the fridge or in the cupboard. Boom. Last but not least, I have some bacon bits. Bacon bits are vegan in the salad section for salad toppers. Just check the ingredients. Half of them are vegan. This one is. So I'm just gonna sprinkle that right in the middle. Love a little bacon-y flavor. Much better than the real thing. Crispy onions as well. Again, things I have in my cupboard. And I'm gonna add those right over here. Guys, there. Look at that baby. That looks awesome. Let me simulate a turntable. Dressing from the fridge. It's nice. It's staying together. It hasn't separated. It's beautiful. I'm gonna just pour this on. And you can mix this up however you like. Ira, this one's yours. Thanks, buddy. And then for mine, I'm just gonna add the same. More dressing for one or two salads tomorrow. Delicious. I'm excited. I'm always excited to eat these. So I just like to mix it up a little bit. I like mixing it all up. Mm, so good. I love the nutritional yeast salad dressing. It's just super quick, super easy to make. The Beyond Chicken's awesome. I know there's Beyond, there's Impossible out there. There's a whole bunch of other ones. It's so good when you're in a rush or kind of feeling lazy like I am right now, or it's just too freaking hot. Whatever you wanna call this, Mediterranean salad, crunch salad, chicken salad. You can mix and match this. If you like this video, check out these videos over here. I super appreciate you guys. Thanks for supporting. Thanks for watching.