The Home Cooking Survival Guide For Your Busy Work Week

there are your work deals right there my number one goal for this channel has always been to teach you how cooking can change your life in so many incredible ways because the truth is that's what it's done for me by having a really strong cooking practice I can provide for the people I love I can live a healthier lifestyle I can have more energy through the week I can save a ton of money all of these things are awesome but of course cooking takes time it takes effort takes patience and we all are super busy we all live really busy lifestyles I live in New York City the capital of work and even though I'm working all the time my wife is working all the time we're both very busy people I still figure out a way to cook for the workweek because I think it's so important to have homemade food because you're gonna have more energy when you're doing work you're gonna feel better and you're gonna be able to save money throughout the week so I'm very passionate about this idea I have a lot of skills and just tips from over the years of preparing food to bring to work and I'm really excited to share that with you in this series and this is definitely not like a meal prep you know it's not about cooking 16 chicken breasts and some veggies and stuffing them in Tupperware we want creativity we want meal diversity we want to just have delicious meals that we're really excited about eating during the workweek and remember I'm bringing you into my life I'm a pro home cook I'm trying to teach you how to be a pro home cook but no matter what level you're at in your cooking practice in your cooking career I guarantee you if you watch these next few videos you will be picking up on at least a few things that you can incorporate into your lifestyle that will make you a better cook that will supply better meals for the workweek in order to create homemade meals that you're gonna bring to work and make this a sustainable practice in your life I'm gonna take you through the entire journey so you really see how this is done from start to finish so you're gonna get some shopping you're gonna get some prepping and then of course executing the meals bringing them to work and just remember there are gonna be modifications for everything so don't worry if you don't want to make something homemade I'm showing you how to do this on like the highest home cooking level but you can always step it down a notch if you don't want to make something homemade well you know go get it in the market no problem there so first we got to get some food of course to make these meals so when it comes to shopping there are a few different avenues that I'll focus on and usually I'm gonna start right in my pantry and fridge because there's no point of getting a ton of extra supplies extra food if you already have stuff lying around in your fridge and pantry we want to get rid of that first because the key is to have no waste save as much money as possible and when you're constantly buying more ingredients and leaving things in your pantry and fridge that's when things go to waste so this right here is a pretty good sign that I was doing some good home cooking last week just random Tupperware's with like little things but not too many ingredients that went to waste and that is so important just getting rid of everything before I move on so there's a few things that I can use but it's pretty bare I definitely need a fresh start from a shopping standpoint my next line of defense is always gonna be where I can get the freshest stuff the highest-quality stuff and for me that's the local farmers market [Music] so whenever comes to shopping my first plan of action is always finding the freshest you know the highest quality the most local ingredient its hunting those down and for me that of course is the farmers market might be called something different where you're from but there's a great farmers market around the corner from me every Saturday morning and I try to get there as early as possible especially when I have a full day to cook to really load up on fresh ingredients so I can start prepping at home now when it comes to shopping at the farmers market it's pretty inspiration based for the most part I like going in there without too much of a plan and just kind of seeing what looks good what's inspiring to me but I do like getting some base ingredients making sure I have some good eggs some fresh milk definitely picking up some meat or fish and then of course fresh produce and unfortunately right now is the worst time of the year for fresh produce because nothing's growing in March and then you're really running out of all the storage stuff from the fall but at least by getting there early I'll still at least find a few things that will definitely get me through the week [Music] now when it comes to local food of course you could survive off that but I like a little bit of variety as well especially in the winter when I can't get too much here so that's when I implement just local market around me whatever supermarket you have and when I'm at this market you know I'm trying to fill in the gap since I can't get citrus on the East Coast I'm gonna pick up some lemons maybe some oranges and then of course fruit in the middle of winter I still want some fruit so I'll pick up anything that's looking good and then maybe a few vegetables if I'm feeling like I need some more fresh cheese in my life so I grab some bok choy a little bit of cabbage and then a little extra lettuce for salads I needed some garlic so I picked up some of that and then of course if your pantry is low this is where you would fill up on those ingredients anything you need for baked goods or if you need some rice or beans perfect time to get those now I'm feeling great so far from all the ingredients we've collected but there is one more option that I've been loving recently for my work week I'm very excited to share with you the sponsor for this series which is daily harvest and to be honest I've never been the biggest fan of meal preparation kits they never really fit into my lifestyle since I cook so much homemade food but the truth is I've been using daily harvest for a while now and I've just been loving having these cups around so daily harvests will send you a weekly or monthly delivery of these awesome chef curated cups and they have you know smoothie bowls Oh bowls they have harvest bowls different soups and stews so you really get an incredible variety and what's great about it is they work with local farms but they pick the produce when it's you know peak ripe and then they flash freeze it and put it in these cups so all you have to do is take a cup out of the freezer if it's a smoothie type Bowl you can add your favorite milk product if it's a harvest Bowl you can add maybe some homemade stock or some store-bought stock and you have a quick delicious and healthy meal at home when maybe you don't time to make some and completely from scratch but what I really like about these cups is you know they do a lot of the work for you but you still can feel ownership of the actual meal because you could add a homemade almond milk or homemade stock which is what I'm gonna be doing for these whenever I'm in a bind this week I'll whip a daily harvest cup out boom instant meal so I've taken care of the shopping and it's time to move on to the prep which i think is the most important part of this entire process and really the only way you're gonna sustainably be able to cook when you're busy throughout the work week so what I like to do is pick one day on the weekend when I'm free or even if you can just set a few hours aside when you're free on the weekend to cook as much food as humanly possible because if you have a ton of homemade food a bunch of elements well when you're busy during the work week it's going to be really easy to throw together meals in a few minutes a few months ago I made homemade yogurt for the first time and I really don't think I've gone a week without making it since then it's just one of those things once you kind of taste it homemade it's hard to go back to the store-bought stuff it's so much better than buying a store-bought unless you live in like Greece or something or someplace that just makes incredible dairy products but not here in the States and I love yogurt because you can use it for so many things not just you know eating it for breakfast but I can incorporate this in so many different recipes throughout the week so I'm gonna make a batch of yogurt and it's pretty simple it does require some instruments you need some type of incubator these instant pots work great and then you need cultures but you can also use regular yogurt as well so the first step is definitely getting some really good milk we took care of that at the farmers market but you want whole milk you want this yogurt to be creamy since we're culturing this milk you have to bring the milk up to a boil to sterilize it but also this will really enhance the overall texture when you boil it once it's boiled then you're gonna let the temperature come down to at least 115 degrees Fahrenheit so the cultures will survive and then you can sprinkle in your cultures and then just give that a little mix now all you have to do is hit the yogurt setting on your instant pot which is gonna keep it incubating at around 115 degrees and I like to let this sit for 24 hours so you get a really nice culture it's gonna be extra creamy and you could just mix this up and you're good to go but I do like to separate some of the way from the curds so it's a little thicker more like Greek yogurt so I strain it through a butter cloth but you can just use a regular towel which will work fine so here is my setup right here tied off the butter cloths at the top and then I just used a little hook and then through gravity we have the extraction of the way so you can see it's actually pretty clear right there and then that just pops down and there we collect that we'll save that and we'll have some nice creamy yogurt more like Greek yogurt nice and a bit I can't even begin to explain how much better this is then your your classic store-bought yogurt one taste of this stuff and that was that was all I needed to probably never buy yogurt in the store again definitely takes some work and some patience and you need some equipment but the investment is worth it I'll be able to use this in baked goods and salad dressings and just eat it as delicious yogurt oh goodness another essential thing that I pretty much make every single week is some type of bone broth because if you have a bone broth in the fridge if you have it available well it's gonna open you up to a lot of dishes throughout the week you can make soups you can make ramen you can you know drink it plain there are so many great things to do with the bone broth so I got these lamb bones at the farmers market of course you can use any bones that you can get your hands on or you can just buy a bone broth or stock in the store and it's pretty much a two-for-one because these bones have a ton of meat on them so when I make the bone broth I'll also get the meat which I can use in a ton of different dishes as well and it starts with cleaning off your bones so you're gonna put them in some water bring that to a boil and then dump out that liquid and wash off the bones you'll see a lot of sort of muck from the bones gets washed off so you have a nice clean broth make sure you clean out your stockpot and then you can put the bones back in there and fill it up with water and I like to bring that to a boil and then turn it down to a low simmer when you're cooking broth you want them to cook nice and slowly a long slow simmer after I've cooked it for a few hours it's really up to you how long you want to go that's what I like to add some flavoring and since these are lamb bones my mind's going more towards the Middle Eastern and Indian flavors so I'm gonna use some spices like coriander a little bit of cumin maybe some chili and then some aromatics I'll throw in some ginger a little bit of garlic and whatever else you have lying around that can really make this a flavorful broth I'll cook that for around another hour just to really extract the flavors out of those spices in aromat but to not overkill them and then I'll strain off all of those ingredients so you have your nice clean bone broth and then of course you can pick through that meat and then you've got some incredible told land when it comes to making granola this is where you really want to take advantage of what you have try to get rid of things because really you can put anything in granola so I'm just searching through my pantry right now trying to figure out if I don't know I got some extra ingredients maybe stuffed in the back so this is what I found we've got not quinoa this is oats not walnut this is quinoa I've got some almonds I will chop those up and we've got some kasha or buckwheat raisings those will go in just a little give it a stir and remember it's gonna change fast like at first that much is gonna happen minimal Brown really quickly be aware [Music] [Music] another must in the pro cook arsenal homemade nut milks again takes a little more effort a little more patience than buying it in the store but the flavour and just the texture it just completely destroys the store-bought stuff it's not even close throw out almond milks and cashew milk they're so watered down there not that flavorful when you make it at home it is incredible and you can use any nuts right here I've got a combination of cashews and almonds and I'm gonna soak these overnight and what that's gonna do is break down the cell walls in the nuts so it's much easier to milk them oh well you're not really milking them but you know what I mean to really extract the flavor on them once they're soaked the next day you can blend them and then just strain off the milk that works fine my favorite way to do it is using a masticating juicer and just funneling the nuts with a good amount of water and out the end comes beautiful pure almond and cashew milk and then you're gonna want to strain that off if you want its silky smooth because there will be some remnants in there and make sure you save all of the almond meal and the cashew meal that comes off of that because we are definitely going to take advantage of that we're trying to be zero waste here especially with something like that that's great flavor great texture that we can incorporate into some baked goods [Music] one of my more recent discoveries is that turkey meat is actually good and it doesn't just have to be eaten at Thanksgiving specifically turkey thigh which happens to be very cheap as well to be honest when you cook a good turkey thigh really well it almost tastes like I don't know mixture between chicken and pork it's its own flavor but I've really been enjoying it especially when you get the skin on you get all this crispy skin so what I've been doing is getting these turkey thighs and it's a ton of meat so I'll probably freeze half of it and leave the other for the week and to prepare it all I have to do is take out the bone and will definitely save that to flavor something else and then I like to dry out the meat and just season it with something you have I had this steak rub lying around that I made a few months back season it really well and make sure there's good amount of salt in there cuz what we're gonna do is actually cure these turkey thighs overnight so I put them on some type of wire rack and then I'll put them skin side up in the fridge and it's really gonna help the texture because the combination of the environment in the fridge with the salt is going to dry out the skin and you're just gonna get an incredibly crispy turkey skin but don't worry this will not dry out the actual turkey will still be super juicy and since its curing it's got the salt on there you can keep it in the fridge for a few days until you want to use it and then to fry it up it's really simple put a skin side down fry it on each side for about four to five minutes and then I'll throw it in the oven for another five minutes at around 350 degrees because these are really thick turkey thighs and then you have the most incredible turkey meat that you can put on salads that you can put in you know rice dishes that you pretty much can use for anything you want just incredible crispy one thing that I'm definitely gonna be eating a lot of throughout the workweek are salads because they're fresh they're really easy to prepare they're healthy but one thing that is a must for me is creating some type of homemade dressing and the best part about making a dressing is you only have to do it once you make one big batch that will last you throughout the whole workweek when it comes to making a dressing for me it starts out with the same base ingredients pretty much every time you got some type of citrus you've got oil you've got some herbs in there the creativity comes by just checking out what ingredients you have in the fridge that you can add to make this dressing different from all the dressings you've had before [Music] so this is a perfect time for a daily harvest bowl because I've been prepping a lot of food but I don't actually have a dinner I just have random ingredients so I figured I would use some of the lamb stock I made with the daily harvest bowl and then maybe a little bit of Turkey on top so I just search through the freezer and I found one that was looking really nice it's got some tomato wild rice some beans some avocado in there some maitake mushrooms and if you guys want to try daily harvest yourself make sure you click the link below in the description and type in the code word brothers green so you get three free cups off your first order but to make this it's really simple all you have to do is open up the cup pour the ingredients into some type of pan and then I'm gonna add the homemade lamb stock but you can just use water if you want and then cook that for around five minutes until it's looking nice and then I'm just gonna top that with some of those turkey slices for a nice quick dinner wow that is delicious I love a quick easy meal that's also healthy that I feel like I took part in but I didn't really have to do too much which is also nice oh we made it through the shopping we made it through the prepping I hope you picked up on at least a few tips there that you can incorporate in your lifestyle that's generally you know my ideal weekend if I can just prep as much stuff as possible I'm gonna be so set up for the workweek so it's really simple and that's what we're gonna be moving into on video to the execution how to put together the perfect meals for the workweek so you are just crushing it at work remember to follow me at life by Mike G to stay updated on the behind the scenes of what I'm doing and stay tuned for part two

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 259,379

Rating: 4.9181547 out of 5

Keywords: work meals, easy work meals, cook food for work, work meal ideas, work lunch ideas, breakfast at work, snacks for work, homemade snacks, busy work week food, healthy work meals, cheap work meals, meal prep, weekly meal prep, homemade yogurt, homemade nut milks, daily harvest, cook for the week, cook for my family, healthy food for the week

Id: 0boZvBnzQzc

Length: 21min 14sec (1274 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2019