Power cooking- what this means and how to do it.
The term "power-cooking" is something I literally just made up, as I was attempting to describe to a friend how I go about meal prep. You see, I am not the person who has "meal-prep" scheduled out on my Sunday calendar at 2:00pm. I've seen people do this and I honestly wish I was that organized. That is just NOT me. I think this can cause me to think about cooking as a chore, and I have to be careful with this, as I think this can quickly act as a stressor in my life.
So the question is, how do I keep my family well-fed with nutritious meals, avoiding take-out every night of the week?
I DO NOT.
Seriously, if you have the expectation of cooking every night of the week a perfectly nutritious meal, then props to you! I however, do think this is a reason for many of us to give up- because we feel this is the expectation. Its either all or nothing. The first piece of advice I will give to you is don't expect perfection. You will never reach it!
I really encourage you to think about starting small and working to progress to five meals made from home from each category per week. So this would equate to 5 breakfasts, 5 lunches and 5 dinners, but they can be in any grouping you desire. Then, this leaves two meals from each category for take-out or going out to eat. The key is to PLAN for times where you don't have to cook. This will allow you to maintain sustainability and prevent burnout.
In order to do this, you still have to be in the kitchen quite a bit. If we rely on convenience foods and take-out, we will rely on grocery stores and restaurants to keep us healthy. Let's just say, that will not end well. The average American makes 8.4 meals per week (out of the 21 that are typically consumed with a typical 3 meal per day lifestyle). That is just about one third of the meals consumed are eaten in the home. This number is considerably less than seventy-five years ago in the 1950's when the typical American consumed most all of their meals at home, with an occasional evening to eat out on the weekends. The reality is that we have food at our fingertips, so why make it at home?
Well, let's start with the fact that we want to know WHAT is in our food. Do you remember the finger in the Wendy's chili story? I don't know about you, but the fears that linger when you pick up a food made outside the home is that there is a lot of room for error. Not only that, but the additives in our food can be the thing that is making us sick, especially with many hydrogenated oils and refined sugars being used in our cooking. The goal with cooking in the home is to reduce added calories, fats, additives and extras in our foods that could be making us sick and overweight.
If you are overwhelmed by the amount of food you have to cook in order to feed your whole family, or even just yourself, then the power cooking method is so important! You want to take all the cooking energy you have and harness it into 1-2 hours of time, 1-2 days per week. Then, from there all you need to do is smaller and easier tasks like reheating or defrosting. See below what a typical power-cooking session looks like for me.
I take everything out of the fridge that I might need to use. I use this time to lightly clean up my refrigerator of things that are old or spoiled. I make sure my dishwasher is mostly empty, as it fills up over the course of the power-cooking venture.
I take everything out of the pantry that I might need to use. I pack together things that I use often, such as all the pantry ingredients for powerballs or homemade granola bars.
I get a big chopping board and go at it. I set up my cutting board right above my pull out trash can to make clean up easy. I chop up veggies to throw in the oven to roast. Once I get those in the oven, I move to my next stop.
I get my mixer out and start with powerballs. Add all the ingredients in (I have the recipe memorized, otherwise, be sure to have that ready) and mix! Sometimes I roll them right away, other times I move onto something else to get it going before I roll them.
Chop up veggies for the soup. I chop up extra onion, celery and garlic and add to freezer bags so that next time I don't have to get out a chopping board! They are ready to go!
Make the soup (vegetable beef). I roll the powerballs while the soup cooks.
Lastly, I pour a bag of chopped kale into a bowl and use scissors to chop up finer. Add some veggies that I set aside from chopping before, then add some canned chicken or tuna to a bowl for a protein source to go with the salad. I might add some capers and greek yogurt and stir it altogether.
Divide tuna/chicken salad between containers and do the same for the salad. Now these are ready to grab and go for the lunch box.
I let the soup cool, then refrigerate in the saucepan, as reheating will be easiest on the stove.
Store the powerballs in the freezer and divide some 2-3 at a time in baggies for lunches as well.
The roasted veggies go in a glass storage container to reheat in the air-fryer when we grill chicken one night this week.
DONE!
This session may seem like a lot. Trust me, it is a skill and it takes time to learn, but don't let that stop you! Once you do anything enough, you get really good at it. Trust me, the feeling is satisfying! Your power cooking session can look however you want it, but the key is being flexible. Learn how to adjust ingredients if you don't have something, as you don't need that side-lining you. If you want to learn more about this, let me know! I would love to hear from you!
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