Tips for food prep at home. Most of us don’t actually cook 3 meals a day at home. Many of us go out for lunch or dinner several times a week or even daily. With the current restrictions on Illinois restaurants, it can be stressful to ensure you have on hand what it will take to ramp up your meal preparation at home. Hopefully, this list will help you panic less and prep more: Inventory your pantry and freezer.
Don’t panic and rush to the grocery to buy up everything when you don’t know what you already have in your kitchen. Now’s the time to see just how many bags of rice blends or frozen green beans you have waiting for inspiration. Determine how many proteins and veggies you actually have on hand.
Beans, nuts, tofu, tempeh, and grains like rice, bulgur, quinoa, barley, etc. …they can all be valuable ingredients in meal prep. And those 4 bags of cubed frozen butternut squash hiding behind the ice cube trays? Those count too. Create a meal prep plan.
Using what you have on hand as a guide, create a meal prep plan for the coming week and also create a looser plan for the following week. Then you’ll know what, if anything, you actually need to buy. Please refrain from overbuying, especially perishable items. Many items freeze well such as soups, sauces, and casseroles. This is a great way to reduce environmental impact on our land and farmers as well as reduce trash production. AND there are many bloggers and websites that provide meal plans and guidance. Here are two links to check out: JL Goes Vegan gives you a free 1-week meal plan when you sign up for JL’s newsletter. Additionally, she has a 12-week meal plan available for $12 ($1 per week). Not vegan or vegetarian but this post from Good Housekeeping provides a solid basic primer on what constitutes meal planning. And don’t forget our cookbook.
Our current cookbook contains many recipes we actually use in our restaurant. Also, stay tuned for future emails this week where we’ll share some recipes that will help you with meal planning. Balance comfort foods with more nutritional meals.
This is a stressful time for everyone and while comfort foods have a place in self-care, do include lots of veggies in your meal plan to ensure you get a balance. A great example would be including a side of seasoned broccoli or green beans and some cubed seasoned tofu with your bowl of creamy vegan mac and cheese. Consider using grocery delivery services for what you don’t have.
Instacart, Shipt, Amazon Prime, Vegan Essentials, Imperfect Foods, Misfits Market,…check out ALL your options for buying anything you still need for your pantry. Also look to your local mom-and-pop groceries and hardware stores for items. These smaller venues can be overlooked for key essentials. You may have to look around to get what you need but no need to panic. The great thing about meal prepping is that you can determine what to make based on what you have available to you. Also make sure that anything you don’t have yet isn’t needed for a week or so to give extra time for delivery. Build this week’s meals around what you actually have and next week’s on what you can order online. Join neighborhood Facebook groups.
Neighborhood Facebook groups are starting to pick up the slack when it comes to sharing and support during this time. For instance, we’ve seen folks share bananas with immunosuppressed persons stuck at home and others contribute shopping time for the elderly in their neighborhoods. Now’s the time to be part of your physical community, give back, participate, share, and care. Spend more time with family in the kitchen and at the table.
This is a good time to connect with family. Put down devices, come together and share the love. Family members can be your sous chef and garde-mangers during meal preparation and this can serve as a training ground for kids. And if you’re alone at this time, consider connecting with neighbors if you can. And please be considerate of others.
Even if you can overcome any infection yourself, you may still pass it onto others. Now is the time to pull together as a community to keep everyone safe. Whether than means staying home, limiting your runs to the grocery or pet store, or calling your neighbor just 10 feet away to check on them, let’s practice being better humans. We’ll make it through this. Thank you for your continued support and please stay well.
Chefs Jo and Jose | 