Prepping Food in Advance- the Primal Way

Wow can’t believe it’s almost the end of January. Time surely flies! Didn’t we just celebrate New Year?

I’ve been cooking and prepping lots stuff over the weekend so I won’t be stuck for hours after work in the kitchen making dinner.

K is not a big fan of batch cooking so we had a little argument about this. “It’s not good to have left over food that lasted more than 3 days! It’s much better to have fresh cooked meals every single time. Small portions are better.”

Yea, I know that but at the same time it TAKES A LOT of time to prep all the stuff and I try to minimize the time as much as possible.

“Teriyaki Inspired” Basil Chicken (Primal)
Ingredients:
2lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts -cubed
1/2 white onions -minced
1 shallot -minced
1-2 garlic cloves-minced
3 Tbsp tamari soy sauce
1 apple – diced
1/4 cup pineapple chunks
salt to taste
1-2 Tbsp avocado oil or any high temperature cooking oil of your choice
1-2 green onions -minced – separate the white and green parts
1 inch of ginger -julienne
Fresh basil leaves

Directions:
1. Marinate the chicken meat with 1-2 Tbsp tamari soy sauce for about 1 hour or overnight
2. Pan fry the chicken meat until golden brown – set aside
3. Heat up the cooking pan with avocado oil, saute ginger, onions, garlic, shallot, white part of the green onions
4. Pour in the apple cuts and pineapple – add a bit of water until everything’s covered
5. Reduce heat to medium and cover for about 5 minutes. The goal here is to soften the apples so it resembles applesauce texture

6. Mash them with your wooden spatula if necessary
7. When everything looked mashed enough, add in the fresh basil

8. Taste and add salt, tamari soy sauce accordingly
9. Lastly pour in the chicken meat – stir until combined
10. Pour in the green parts of the green onion

Serve!

I think this should last us for about 2 days (both K and I pack our lunch to work) plus for the next day dinner.

I also made “Beef Rendang“ (Indonesian Beef Stew)” for an additional meal.

Next in my fridge, I already prepared Chimichurri Sauce adapted from The Primal Palate recipe for my salmon steaks.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Lastly, I also marinated Star Butter Fish with some salt, curry powder, avocado oil and black pepper. I plan to either bake or pan fry these fellas.

So there you go, batch food prepping the primal way.

Batch cooking/prepping, are you a fan? Or do you prefer to cook small portions so each time you’ll always enjoy a fresh cooked meals instead reheating?

 

Too many things to do

Hello everyone! First of all I’d like to thank every single one of you of your complement and suggestions on my last post.

It is apparently hard to do the challenges but I’m determined to stick to it as much as I could. Of course I confess I am not 100% perfect, especially the not looking into the mirror to see how my muscles have developed…there were times I did take a peek but that only lasted for a second.

Anyway, I always think I could update my blog more often and could do at least a post on Saturdays and Sundays but that just not happening *sigh*

My weekdays are pretty much booked with full time job and there’s very little time to do after I got home. For weekends, I usually have too many ideas or recipes that just popped in my head uncontrollable and I just couldn’t stay away from my kitchen..HAHA.
That includes yesterday and today! Technically my inner OCD is not happy because I’ve been neglecting cleaning the house (wiping the furniture, windows etc..anything that look dusty to my eyes). And I still haven’t watched Inception….GRR…or re-read Harry Potter 7. Argh, why do I always have so many things to do???!

Anyway, I realize I’ve been always posting about recipes on each post, and it might get quite boring. I’ll save up those for next time. In the mean time, I’ll share you what I’ve been doing 😀

Grocery

kabocha and another butter nut squash (last time I mistakenly labeled it as banana nut squash..)

fresh basil leaves

bunch of spices! I love collecting glass jars and they become handy when you need to store your spices, which aren't sold in a bottle.

cornish hen..this guy is super small!!

And I made homemade taco seasonings (courtesy of Food Lover’s Primal Palate)

another good use of glass jar

Taco chicken with homemade taco seasonings. No sugar added btw 😀

And I finally made Beef Rendang (Indonesian Beef Stew) Miho – I used orange juice as the marinade…turned out great! 😀

And a traditional Beef Stew (again no sugar added, all sweetness comes from the carrots and jicama (I discarded the jicama)

beef stew with steamed spinach and saute shredded cabbage

I do miss these guys tho – fish sauce, oyster sauce, kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) and Maggi seasoning soy sauce

Made this Basil Minced Chicken with those guys for bro’s dinner to go with my aunt’s homemade noodles.

Smell so good and taste good too..but I can’t eat those – aint I a good caring sister, cooking stuff for brother but she herself won’t be able to have it? (*narcissistic mode on*) – ok bad joke.

Courtesy of Chocolate Covered Katie, I made this salad dressing based on her agar base recipe!
Agar base:
1 1/3 cup coconut milk or other non dairy milk
3 tsp agar powder (preferred non sugar added) – mine had sugar added, urhg- no sugar challenge FAIL! But Only 3 tsp shouldn’t hurt, right???
Lemon juice (I used 2 lemons)

Directions:
Boil the coconut milk with agar until boiling, let cool and put in the fridge
Whipped them in food processor – resulting this creamy and ranch looking salad dressing with a mild sour taste from the lemon. Sweet and sour for mine (next time I really have to get the no sugar added agar powder!)

I’m loving my salad for my breakfast! 😀

Plus loose leaf tea! The darker the better!

Finally I could add more variation to my non-grain/wheat/oats breakfast, so no need to always stick with this hardboiled eggs, spinach and avocado with lemon juice.

Do you like to collect glass jars? I LOVE COLLECTING THEM! From big to small ..haha..though I hate hoarding stuff, but glass jars are my weakness!

What’s your kitchen essential? Mine is the pressure cooker! I cooked beef stew under 1 hour and everything came out tender and tasty! Save my time, gas and electricity. Oh also my Cuisinart food processor!

Among all the food I posted today, which one interest you the most? If you have none, no worries just say it, I won’t bite! 😀

What’s your typical weekends look like? Mine mainly cooking and cleaning! haha sounds boring huh?

Do you prefer loose leaf tea or tea bags? Loose leaf tea is my weekend treat and I’m always looking forward to it!