15 Mistakes Beginners Make Cooking Food For the Week

being a prom cook is not about being the best at cooking it's about being the best at providing food for yourself for your friends for your family and to do that we have to really nail down the art of meal prep because we're all busy and we can't just spend all day in the kitchen cooking food so we need some strategy we need some skills and that's what today is going to be about i'm giving you all my knowledge everything i've learned about meal prep over the last 10 years all my skills all my tricks all my tips it's coming at you in this video and the first mistake that i see all the time is just a lack of variety this is not the meal prep you want i'm not sure how this bodybuilding calorie increasing style of cooking coined the term meal prep but for me this is not what meal prep has to be we want variety in our food we want to keep it interesting throughout the week so we're excited again to get in the kitchen and eat home-cooked food throughout the week the struggle of tupperware a pro home cook's worst nightmare is bad tupperware which i've had a lot of over the years so i can tell you right now buy yourself some good tupperware it is a great investment something that's going to keep your food safe locked in and also that will last you many many years you're also going to want to get different size tupperwares having an assortment of sizes is going to make your life a lot easier so when you are cooking a certain size of food well it can go directly in that one tupperware and you don't have to put it in multiple tupperwares and it's definitely nice to have tupperware with a strong locking mechanism because your food will leak especially if you're traveling with your food i've had so many cases where i put one of these tupperware's in my book bag and it leaks so having that strong locking system is a huge bonus get yourself some of these takeout containers in different sizes but make sure they are bpa free these are going to be wonderful for just food organization having a ton of these that i can reuse has completely changed my kitchen and fridge organization because you just want maximum storage there's always something to put away and if you aren't organized things can get pretty sloppy in your fridge or your pantry the number one excuse i hear from people for not cooking is being too busy and we're all busy people but being busy is not a good excuse to not get in the kitchen because it's amazing how much you can get done in a very short period of time whether it's just a few hours on a sunday or for me i have a baby so when the baby goes to bed like i'm in the kitchen i'm getting you know breakfast prepared lunch whatever it is so that's my next tip get it done when you have the time you have to get in that kitchen and just start working and i'm telling you you will be very surprised how much you can get done in a short period of time why am i standing by the spice rack well i'm tired of you eating boring and bland food all week and one of the easiest ways to fight against that is to make one all-purpose spice mix that will be like your secret weapon throughout the week it's gonna come in handy with so many different dishes and it couldn't be easier to make all you have to do is pick out a bunch of spices and for me i just have fun with it trying different combinations every week there's really no wrong when it comes to making a homemade spice mix i'm going to use a spice grinder which i recommend every pro home cook should have but you can use a mortar pestle or you could just use pre-ground spices and mix those together i'm adding some cardamom pods some cumin seeds some mustard seeds some dried thyme dried oregano dried chilies a little bit of cinnamon and salt and pepper and grind that up until i had a nice consistency and you'll see this spice mix come up throughout this video [Music] i'm always a bit confused when people comment in and they tell me cooking is too expensive which is ridiculous the amount of money i've saved being in quarantine over the last few months being forced to cook all of my own meals is incredible but one of the best ways to put those savings into full effect is to really start building out your pantry over time and one of the best ways to do that is the sponsor of today's video which is thrive market thrive market is an online membership based market on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone and i'm a big fan of thrive market because it's just an enjoyable online shopping experience i know i can count on them for having quality products organic products healthy snacks whatever it is and you can actually break up your shopping experience to fit your own personal needs whether it's a paleo diet or a keto or vegan or bpa-free whatever it is it's really easy to search and they have such an incredible variety of products which is great when you're building out your pantry and you don't have to go anywhere which is a huge bonus i love a well-optimized food shopping experience that you can just pick out your stuff and boom it shows up and you can stock out your pantry this is what i'm talking about the stock pantry this is options these are savings over here all potential meals even if we come over here we've got a whole bunch of different grains we can use in dishes we have different flours for baking we've got popcorn all types of stuff so many options for pantry items and thrive market offers different types of memberships to fit your own personal needs so you can choose a 12-month membership or you can just do a one month membership for me i went with the 12 month which came in at five dollars a month and if you click the link below in the description and join thrive market you'll get a free gift from thrive up to 24 dollars in value so now that my pantry is stocked i've got my thrive products well it's time to go it's time to start meal prepping and start saving over time one of the biggest mistakes i see when it comes to food prep is people just running out of food which then leads to the problems of ordering out spending a ton of money which we're trying to avoid and one of the best ways to avoid that is to have a base grain in your fridge cooked and ready to go and have a lot of it something like a rice or a lentil or a quinoa think of it as like a really good pair of jeans once you have that pair of jeans well you can just throw on a shirt or throw in some accessories and build off of it but you need that base i'm going to be making some standard long grain rice there's so many uses for this and all i need is a pot for some perfect fluffy rice so the first step is take some type of cup to measure out your rice again i'm doubling this and pour that rice into your pan and make sure you wash your rice there's a lot of starch on rice and if you want gloopy rice well then skip this step but if you want perfectly fluffy rice make sure you wash it until it runs clear once your rice is washed and drained you can put it back in the pot and i'm going to take that same measuring instrument and double the amount of water minus a little bit because there is still a lot of water left over from washing the rice so if it's one cup of rice you're using just under two cups of water bring that up to a boil stirring it just a few times so it doesn't stick to the bottom and then when it hits that boil you can put a lid on it and turn your heat down to the lowest it goes and let it cook for 15 minutes and then turn the heat off and you can let that rice steam in there and just continue to cook off the heat for another five minutes and there you go perfect fluffy white rice ready to turn into so many different dishes throughout the week i feel like when people start cooking for themselves they're almost shocked at first how much food they actually need and they end up burning through all of their food very quickly in like one or two days so you need to cook a lot of food and one of the best ways to do that is to take advantage of sheet pans like this because look at all that surface area we throw a bunch of veggies on that in the oven boom we've got a lot of food and that's exactly what i'm gonna do for my meal prep is roast some veggies and the best part is you can do everything on this sheet pan so i've got some broccoli chop that up including the stems they're delicious roasted cut up some cauliflower and some onion added that to my pot hit it with some oil and a great place for that flavor blast spice mix to really enhance these veggies mix everything up right on the sheet pan until it was well coated and threw that into a 450 degree oven for about 15 minutes until i had perfectly roasted veggies then you can just toss those in a tupperware and use them in different dishes all week long like i said with that spice mix it is all about finding simple ways and hacks to just make your food taste better and one of the best ways to do that is an all-purpose sauce you make one sauce that you can pretty much put on anything throughout your entire week so i'm going to teach you this recipe which i love it's pretty much a healthy ranch you replace the yogurt with avocado so to make it it's really simple i'm going to take out a food processor add one clove of garlic and a bunch of dill and parsley the herbs are key to really give it that flavor i squeezed in the juice of one whole lemon and started processing that until it broke down a bit then i added in one avocado which is a great way to replace mayo and make it a little healthier but you still get the fattiness and the creaminess and then finally a few spoonfuls of yogurt and salt and pepper and i blended that until it came together and checked out the consistency and at this point i can adjust the consistency with either more citrus or more water which i use in this case until i get the perfect consistency that i'm looking for i'm milking this funnel because this sauce is a little thick and if you want to turn this into a salad dressing just add a little more citrus or just add more water but i love this type of all-purpose sauce because i could sauce up some seared chicken throw it on top of some veggies and that's what i'm going for when i make one of these all-purpose sauces thinking about something that can have multiple uses throughout the week and speaking of cooking a lot of food one thing i really like taking advantage of in the kitchen for meal prep are machines like this pressure cookers slow cookers anything that's gonna make your life easier something that you can set it and forget it so you can go work on other meal prep so what i'm gonna do is slow cook some meat because if we have a bunch of slow cooked meat well that is just great food great protein to have throughout the week so i've got some beef chuck roast right here any slow cooking type of cut will work great for this and i coated it again with the flavor blast spice mix coming in handy with multiple things already then i seared that off inside my pressure cooker to build a little extra flavor which i would highly recommend and then through a bunch of ingredients in there i've got some onions and some carrots some garlic and just a little bit of cooking wine and some soy sauce i'm keeping it pretty simple here i'm not making a stew i just want some incredible tender meat so i put that on pressure cook for about two hours and of course you can slow cook that over hours and still forget about it but for me i've got a bit of a time crunch so i'm gonna pressure cook and after two hours i have beautiful tender beef that is gonna provide some really good sustaining meals over the week so the next few tips are all trying to accomplish the same goal which is giving you some ideas on how to eat healthier throughout the week which is vital and i know a lot of people struggle with this but we need to eat well because we're all busy we're cranking away at jobs or school or whatever it is and good healthy food is gonna give us the energy to perform those tasks much better so the first thing i do all the time is i freeze my own fruit which is great because once you have that frozen fruit you can just eat it and snack on it you can turn it into smoothies or you can make healthy snacks out of the fruit which you'll see in a second but rather than just getting fresh fruit and throwing it into a bag you're going to want to follow this tip which is taking your fruit washing it off making sure it's dry before it goes in the freezer and then put it flat on a sheet tray and what this is going to do is it's going to freeze each piece individually so when you then put it in a container or a bag it's not gonna clump together making it much easier to use straight out of the freezer now of course you can make a fresh smoothie for breakfast or just a nice little energy kick but also it's just extending the shelf life and frozen fruit just as is is a really good snack if you're feeling a little hungry and speaking of snacks that is my next tip you gotta have healthy snacks around this is one massive mistake that i see with so many people if they don't have healthy snacks in between meals that's when you're gonna get a little naughty you're gonna get into the cookies the chips whatever it is and you can go downhill and crash in the middle of your day when you're trying to work so here are a few of my favorites that i make all the time number one is just popcorn i pop my own popcorn and boom what are we gonna use that all-purpose flavor blast spice mix is such a great way to take this popcorn from something that's all right just salted popcorn to an incredible munchie the second snack is so simple that it's almost ridiculous but i would get so jealous when my brother would whip out a batch of homemade trail mix he always traveled with homemade trail mix and it's just a great thing to have around when you need that little salty or sweet kick but you can control all of the ingredients going into it and you can customize it in whatever way you want now my third healthy snack might be my favorite of all time the ultimate guilt-free ice cream and we're going to be using those bananas that we just froze throw them in a food processor along with some coconut milk and some maple syrup and then i hit it with a little bit of salt because i like my ice cream salty and give that a blend until it is silky smooth now i prefer texture in my ice cream and a great way to get some texture in this is just add some nuts i'm going to add walnuts because they go great with bananas and then chocolate i can't resist chocolate and these chocolate chips are sweetened with stevia which is also a great little hack and then i just blend that up until those ingredients are roughly chopped and i transfer that to some type of tupperware and put that in the freezer until it's hardened and then you're ready to serve that up all week for an incredible guilt-free ice cream so the goal of meal prep is to really nail down a balance of foods and i find if i'm lacking some raw food in my diet i just don't feel as good i just need some raw veggies in there so what i like to do is in the beginning of the week i'll buy one or two nice heads of lettuce whatever's looking fresh at the market and then i get that prepared so i put it through the salad spinner wash it off dry it off put it in a bag so that's ready to go for salads for lettuce wraps for just dipping in a sauce whatever you want and then i also like cutting up some other raw veggies whether it be cucumber or radish or carrots and when you have those on hand pre-sliced i find that i'm just more tempted to eat them it's the reason why baby carrots are so popular they just shredded down a big carrot into a lot of little carrots but for whatever reason those just look more tempting to eat so whenever baby carrots in the fridge you'll snack on that you know i'm sick and tired of people saying that in order to bake well you need to follow recipes perfectly there's definitely some truth that if you want you know perfect results every time but for me i bake every single week i make some type of baked good a brownie a banana bread a muffin and i don't follow any recipes because i like to use what i have in the pantry and also i like to incorporate more healthy stuff into it where possible because it is amazing to have a baked good for breakfast or a snack in between dishes so i do pretty much bake every single week so here are my sweet potato tahini swirled brownies [Music] one of my biggest pet peeves are people that don't take advantage of leftovers don't know what the reason for this is but if you want to make it as a pro home cook you've got to start getting creative with your leftovers looking at what you have in the fridge and putting it to use throw out the recipe and start getting weird with it so after a few days after you've gone through those main dishes that you prepared well check out your inventory and put your brain to work so for me i had some extra meat i had some extra rice i had some extra veggies so what am i gonna do well the first thing that came to my mind was fried rice because i did have a few eggs as well and right there i just made you know one or two lunches or dinner or whatever you want to use it for get creative with those leftovers the last mistake i see when it comes to food prep is thinking that it's a chore we've got to get out of that mindset because if you're stuck in that mindset when you're not going to be very motivated to get in the kitchen so just five quick tips to break out of the chore mindset number one is make cooking a little more fun listen to a podcast throw on some music there's nothing better than listening to a good podcast getting some information and getting the meal prep done for the entire week number two get a helper someone in the family that can help you out maybe doing dishes or taking care of one thing like a baked good anything that can help you will be a huge bonus for cooking for the week number three is make it a challenge with one of your friends see if you can just sustain off your own food for the entire week send pictures of your packed lunches challenges can always add an extra motivation to get in the kitchen number four is look at meal prepping as a way to experiment and try new things in the kitchen because there's nothing less motivating than cooking the same thing over and over again and number five is keep in mind who you're doing it for for me that is the biggest motivating force as a cook is cooking for other people when i'm meal prepping the goal is to provide home-cooked food for my family and that to me is the only motivating factor that i need to get in there every day and show up as a pro home cook home cooking will change your life even if you're doing it just for yourself so i hope you enjoyed this video and got at least something out of it i really tried to put a lot in there i hope you just you know at least got one tip that you can incorporate into your home cooking and remember to check out that link below to sign up for thrive market if you join today you get that gift up to 24 in value and you can check out these videos here if you want some more home cooking skills and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 1,256,283

Rating: 4.9527049 out of 5

Keywords: meal prep, cooking for the week, how to cook for the week, meal prep ideas, how to eat healthy, healthy eating, what to cook, work meals, school lunches, how to cook for the family, school lunch ideas, new, cooking a lot of food, what to cook for my family, food prep, best tupperware, mike g, mike greenfield, prohomecooks, pro home cooks

Id: ghsw19qAG1g

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/DasDangerBear]

Wish my kitchen was that big!

[u/mart-e]

I liked this video because it insisted on the importance of variety. Too often, when talking about meal prep, you see a picture of one guy having 12 containers with the same dish. I like the approach, cook a bunch of veggies, rice, sauce,... and just mix them for the week.