[00:00] I'm about to prep some lunches and some dinners for myself for this week. I find the betters of what saves me the most time, you know, I usually find breakfast
[00:12] quite easy, but lunches and dinners, they definitely take longer. So what I usually do when I'm meal prep is everything all in one container, you know, chicken rice vegetables all in one.
[00:24] And that is really great when I don't have to think about it, I just want meals that are ready to go. However, I do not always feel like eating the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, it depends what kind of week I'm having. I don't always want to do that.
[00:37] So I want to show you this new method that I've been doing. I've been calling it capsule meal prep because it's inspired by a capsule wardrobe. And if you don't know what that is, it basically just comes down to having a few
[00:53] core pieces of clothing that all go together that you can make a lot of different outfits with. So I thought why not use that same concept, that same idea in meal prep.
[01:05] So that is what I'm going to be doing today. I'm going to be prepping 10 ingredients that all go together. And that is what makes this different from flexible meal prep. I often find that when you prep a lot of random ingredients that don't all go together,
[01:21] you can end up wasting a lot of food. So I have made sure that all of these ingredients go together and you can make so many different combinations with them. The options are endless.
[01:33] You can make a lot of different combinations with these. I've made a lot of different combinations with these. So after I prep these, I am going to show you a few meals. I'm going to make a few meals that I've really been enjoying over the next few days from
[01:46] my show to the end here. And I mean, you can switch things up, you can change the portion sizes, you can, you never have to repeat a meal. And that's what I really love about this. I am looking forward to this this week eating all these things.
[02:01] Okay, let's pre-heat this oven. 425, that is roughly 218 Celsius. Okay, just to get started real quick, I'm going to wash a bunch of vegetables and some leafy
[02:15] greens and some rassen quinoa. I'm going to get the rassen quinoa and the stove first. And then I'm going to start getting things in the oven. So I think I should be able to get this done in an hour, roughly. Yeah, I think I should be able to get it done in an hour.
[02:29] We'll see. Grab my vegetables. I'm going to take this out. Got some sweet potatoes that I already want to use. And a few other vegetables.
[02:44] I love prepping these because they add a lot of flavor, as well as tomatoes also add a lot of flavor. And I'm washing the sweet potatoes really, really well because I'm going to leave the skin on. It just makes it easier to rip them that way.
[02:56] And some leafy greens, and you've got to draw these really well off to washing them if you want to prep them. So I'm just putting on some clean dish towels on the counter. I'm just going to spread these out, leave these to dry while I prep everything else.
[03:09] Then I'm going to come back to it, just dabbing it a bit. Last things to wash, some brown rice, about 1 cup dry, mixing that with about 1 and 3 quarters of a cup hot water, and some quinoa, also about 1 cup dry with about 2 cups hot
[03:23] water. Yeah, the rice and the quinoa are cooking.
[03:36] So we give the quinoa 15 minutes and then we'll turn it off. The rice gets 40 minutes, and in that time I'm going to do a lot of things. So I'm going to chop up the sweet potatoes that I washed, chop them right up, get them
[03:51] on a tray, throw them in the oven, going to make some delicious roasted sweet potatoes. I'm going to do a lot of different things with those this week. Then I'm going to chop up some peppers, onion, oh, got some chickpeas as well.
[04:05] Going to get all of those in the oven, get them roasting and then we're going to move on to the next thing. I'm just having a little quick snack. Always get hungry when I'm ill-prop, when I stop me ill-prop, and I'm like, oh no, I'm
[04:17] hungry. You need a little chocolate chip. Nothing I made yesterday. I'm going to start chopping up all these giant sweet potatoes.
[04:31] It's probably the most time consuming thing I'm going to do today. Everything else that I'm going to prep is actually quite simple to put together and make it. But I really like these roasted. It gives them so much flavor once they're prepped, and it's so easy to add to meals, so I think
[04:44] it's worth it. I'm just adding some oil, salt and pepper, keeping it really simple. I find that if you just keep certain things really simple, it makes it so versatile, you can use it in so many ways.
[04:56] These will take 30 to 40 minutes, so I'll just turn it on here.
[05:12] Send it for 40 minutes, but I'm going to check it off to 30, just see how it's doing. In the meantime, I'm going to chop up peppers, onions, and the oven, as well as some chick cubes. It's going to be good.
[05:24] I'm going to roast the onion and peppers together, and what I love to do is cut them into long strips, because then I can use them in a lot of different ways, which I will show you this coming week when I make my meals. I'm just getting them all tossed on a baking tray with a little bit of oil, some oregano,
[05:39] which adds some subtle flavor and salt and pepper, often it actually affects two, but then you're like committing to spicy the whole thing, so sometimes I just do their oregano, it depends. The idea is to just keep this capsule meal purpose versatile as possible.
[05:54] That's ready to go in the oven, but I just want to prep these chickpeas really quick, just cracking two cans of them, giving them a quick rinse. Adding some oil. I use avocado oil to cook by the way, but any neutral kind of oil works, then some mustard
[06:09] powder, some onion powder, a little bit of cane pepper. If you want them a bit spicy, these do like with a little bit of spice, really good. Some salt, pepper of course, and they're ready for the oven.
[06:23] I don't know why, but I just totally forgot that two trays cannot fit at the top of the
[06:36] oven, so these chickpeas did not fit, so the best I can do is throw them in this glass dish. It's not that big. Actually, I think they'll fit, I'm going to throw them in here and then throw them in the oven,
[06:49] so because the other dishes that I have I need to use for other things, so they should work. So I got the chickpeas situation sort of out, just changed the dish, and that worked well.
[07:01] We are almost almost done, just got a few more things to do. I'm going to make this really easy salad dressing that is not just a salad dressing, it can be used in a few different ways, so I'm going to be using that a few different ways
[07:14] this week, you'll see, it's very versatile and so easy, it's like five minutes to put together, so I'm going to throw that together quickly, and then I got two more things to put in the oven, they're so quick, not a lot of prep work, kind of just going to throw them in, so stuff in the
[07:28] oven will be like 20 to 30 minutes, I'm just going to see how it does, let's make the salad dressing. Even though this is so simple, this recipe has really great flavour, I use a quarter cup of oil,
[07:43] a quarter cup of white wine vinegar, about two tablespoons of mayonnaise, two tablespoons of dichon mustard, some maple syrup or honey, I do like one to two tablespoons, one and a half is like the perfect amount of sweetness for me, and just mix it together, and I was originally going to
[07:58] make a double portion of this, so I got off this big jar, and then I changed my mind, made a single portion, so I'm just putting it in a smaller jar to take a place in the fridge, but you can actually make it and keep it in the same jar for like two weeks in the fridge, and that's the salad dressing
[08:13] done, so I'm just going to prep the last two oven items really quickly, I got these baby tomatoes, about 450 grams, and I like to slash them all in half length ways, it's very specific, but I like to
[08:28] get them all in the baking tray facing up, and then drizzle a little bit of oil over, and the key ingredient here, some balsamic vinegar, like two tablespoons or so, as much as you need,
[08:40] oh don't go too overboard, but two tablespoons of the go to mind, I like to try get it all on top of the tomatoes, just to get that flavor in there, that's how I like to make them, and just finish it all with a bit of salt and pepper, and they're ready, but I'm just going to leave that aside for just a second,
[08:55] I just want to prep the very last oven items, then I'm going to switch everything you know in that one around, I'm using my biggest baking tray here, I'm adding about two pounds of chicken breast meat, cutting them in half really quickly, so they cook a bit faster, adding about two tablespoons
[09:11] of oil, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, just gives it a really great flavor, and a lot of dried herbs, I'm doing time, regular basil, like a heap teaspoon of each, and a little bit of salt, pepper, of course,
[09:25] these are all done, tomatoes, and chicken, so I'm going to get them in the oven, first I need to check the other things that are full in the oven, these sweet potatoes look ready,
[09:40] the peppers, and the onions are ready, the roasted chickpeas are ready, looking nice and toasted, can you hear the crispiness, crispy crispy, oh, I love it when the skin comes off,
[09:59] the little chickpeas skin, do you know what I'm talking about, and then you just get this ultra crispy piece, whoa, these are ready, get the tomatoes and the chicken in, 20 minutes, should be good for that,
[10:15] and you know what, we have only got two more things to do, okay, so the last thing that I'm going to do is just boil some eggs, and make a really simple salad mix, using the leafy greens that we watched earlier,
[10:30] they're sitting right here, and they are looking dry, so I think these are ready to make the salad, you really want the leaves to be nice and dry before you store them, because that's going to make them
[10:44] stay fresh, the idea is just that you don't have to wash them on the day, you know what I mean, they're just ready to go, what I'm adding to my salad is the other pepper that I washed,
[10:57] and also this cucumber, which half of it was eaten by me, so I've only got half left, but I was going to use a whole one, so we have left, but that should do, it's just going to be this really,
[11:10] really simple salad mix, and I'm going to use it for so many different things, there's so many different ways you can use it, where it's really, really simple, it's kind of like what I've done here, a lot of simple things, but you're going to see when you put them together, you can have a lot of flavour, anyway, okay, let me just stop talking, make my eggs and my salad,
[11:28] the rice and quinoa are actually both done, so I'm just moving them aside, so I can cook the eggs here, got some hot water just to get a boiling fast, and adding in six eggs using the spoon method, just so the shell don't crack when I put them in, and I'm going to boil them for like 10 minutes,
[11:44] which is more than enough time to put together this simple greens salad, just slicing up the bowl pepper into little pieces, and you know, this is going to add a nice crunch, you'll see, then halving the cucumber, what's left of it, length ways, and scraping off the seeds, I only do this
[12:00] sometimes when I want to prep the cucumber, you know, right now it's too watery, it's going to make all the salad greens, all the leaves go, you know, sorry, it needs to go, and I'm just slicing up the rest, and then taking the dried leaves, they seem to be dried right now, so adding
[12:17] them to a bag with some of the peppers and some of the cucumbers, this bag is almost full, so I'm actually going to use another bag for the rest, you know, the leaves, the peppers cucumbers, it just helps to have these washed, ready to go for the week, especially the leaves,
[12:32] so you're going to see me use these in a lot of different ways, sortle up the eggs they're ready, and these should be ready too,
[12:44] herb chicken, herb chicken to anyone, oh look it's very good, can you see it? kind of, there you go, I'm going to put some here, some very hot,
[12:57] and then you go and roast it tomorrow, he's had a lot of flavour, I'm very excited about these, two crispy ones, one over there, one over there, the next logical step is just put everything
[13:09] containers, we're done, everything's done, so much food, little ramis, so I need to put everything away, so let's solve the eggs, eggs are really easy, just peel them, put them in a container,
[13:29] and it's a little, a little egg tip for you, if you partially crack them and then put them in cold water for like a minute or so, the shell comes off really, really easily, and I'll show you my favourite thing to do with these later this week, so good, next the herb chicken, and what I like to do with
[13:46] this is slice up all the pieces in the dish, and then just leave the slices in there to soak up all the juices, it makes it so much juicier, it gets it so much more flavour, and I find the chicken's not like as dry when I come back to it, so I might leave, I might leave one or two of the pieces hold it,
[14:02] most of it is pre-sliced, so it makes it really easy to grab and use during the week, and of course just pour all that extra juice in there, get all that flavour, chicken is done, the vegetables are
[14:14] next, the pepper and onion mix, super easy, just straight in the container, done, sweet potatoes, straight in the container too, and I've used my biggest containers for the vegetables and the sweet
[14:26] potatoes because there's definitely a lot of them, I'll link all the containers in the sizes that I use below, tomatoes, I love these, I'm gonna go with the tomatoes, just really careful not to
[14:38] like mush them when you transfer them, I just use a spatula, it doesn't squish them, and they are ready, and you just pour the chickpeas right there and see the evening, they're looking very crispy by the way,
[14:50] I'm looking forward to them this week, the brown rice, that just fits really well in a medium-sized container I think, and the quinoa, same thing, just like a medium-sized container, and if you steam
[15:02] these for like, if you steam the quinoa for like five minutes off to cook in it, it goes like really nice and fluffy like this, just getting all the loads on, we are done. Okay so that is my 10 items, everything's prepped, so this is my capsule meal prepset, and I'm
[15:32] going to show you what I make with them, some meals over the next few days, I'm going to make my first thing now, because I'm hungry, one small, gonna have some dinner, and then I'll show you what I
[15:47] make with these things for the next few days when I make a meal with them, so let me show you my meals, I'll show you my dinner to start.
[16:04] What I really feel like eating right now is a bowl, and I can make one in like two minutes right now using some of the items that I've prepped, you'll notice that a lot of the meals I'll make this week
[16:17] I'll only be using items from my capsule set, because there's a lot of different flavors and textures within these items that complement each other really well, so like with this bowl, salad mix, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted spicy chickpeas, roasted vinegar tomatoes, and this creamy salad
[16:34] dressing, it's a well balanced bowl, balanced in you know, few groups and also textures and flavors. For my evening dinner today, I thought I'd have a rice and chicken bowl, and this is a Monday by
[16:46] the way, I wanted to start this on a Monday, so I could show you some of the meals that I eat throughout the week starting at the beginning, I'm just heating all of this up in the microwave, and the roasted peppers and onions, they have so much flavor, so they really go nicely with the rice and the chicken
[17:01] that have you know, a much more subtle flavor. Some of these items that have prepped are just basics, and some of them add flavor, but you need both in a capsule set to make everything work.
[17:16] It's Tuesday today, and for lunch I'm having a salad bowl again, but I'm going to be using a few different ingredients, some of the salad mix, the roasted sweet potato, the roasted peppers and onions, boiled eggs, sliced up, and some of the salad dressing, actually adding a little bit of pepper
[17:32] on top too, salt and pepper on the eggs, perfect, absolutely perfect.
[17:44] I really enjoyed my chicken and rice in the last night, so I thought I'd do something similar with the quinoa, so quinoa, roasted peppers and onions, and some roasted chicken slices,
[17:57] just heating it up quickly, and adding some olive oil, lots of fresh lemon juice. I also have a fresh avocado I want to use, so I thought I'd just add in a few slices and salt and pepper, so sometimes I add what I'm calling accessories to my meals, to go along with my core
[18:14] items, my core items from my capsule set, like how I've added the avocado here. I really enjoyed that quinoa last night, so having that again for lunch, but using it in a
[18:27] bit of a different way, making another bowl, which I've really been into lately, quinoa, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted spicy chickpeas, the salad mix, the green bulb pepper pieces,
[18:40] they're very very nice in the salad mix, at the really last little fresh crunch, and the main thing I'm adding to this bowl for flavour is the roasted vinegar tomatoes, which I've not yet used, these add so much flavour, you know you can't have too many, they are quite rich, but
[18:56] well very very good, and then just a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice, over everything, and salt and pepper.
[19:11] For dinner tonight, I'm feeling like something a little bit different and random, I love using this chicken, particularly for this chicken and mayonnaise sandwich, because it's got a lot of flavour already cooked into it, it's going to make quite a big difference,
[19:26] I just shredded or chop it up, then I use a small spoonful of the salad dressing, wow very good, combined with another small spoonful of pure mayonnaise, mix it together,
[19:40] like the toasted bread, this is my favourite gluten-free bread, I just keep it in the freezer for moments like this, get the chicken mix on top, then add some of the roasted peppers and onions on top
[19:52] of that, and this is actually why I like to cut them into these long strips when I prep them, so I can easily add them to sandwiches and racks if I want to, then a small handful of the leafy greens from the salad mix, this is an incredible sandwich, and it's using most of the items from
[20:10] my capsule meal prep said, the bread and the mayonnaise are like the excess reason this meal, if you try it, let me know what you think, I absolutely love it,
[20:22] today I thought why not combine the brown rice and the quinoa to make like a soupable with some salad mix, some roasted chicken slices, some roasted vinegar tomatoes, I'm using the other half of my avocado from Tuesday, I was like my accessory in this,
[20:38] some of that creamy salad dressing on top a little bit of salt and pepper, it's so well balanced, it's so delicious, all the food groups, flavors, textures,
[20:51] okay I am in the mood for another sandwich and I want to show you another one of my go-to's, I love a good sandwich, just chopping up two of the boiled eggs and this is my favorite thing to do with the boiled eggs, I said I'd show you, this is my favorite thing, adding a spoonful of the
[21:06] all purpose creamy salad dressing, adds a lot of flavor, a spoonful of mayonnaise, similar to my chicken sandwich I made, you might notice, also some salt and pepper, got some lightly toasted bread,
[21:20] some leafy greens from the salad mix on top of that, with the egg mix, some pickled onion, this is a really really great accessory, adds a lot of flavor and color and a little bit more pepper,
[21:33] this looks so gourmet, it only took like four minutes, so gourmet sandwich, absolutely love it, okay so it's Friday today and I really want to make a nice big salad to use up some of my leftovers
[21:47] like the salad mix, still got a bit of that, the spicy roasted chickpeas, you can just add like a whole lot of them, these are really good, the rest of the eggs chopped up, some roasted vinegar tomatoes
[22:01] all that flavor, a squeeze of lemon juice, some of the salad dressing and I mean you can make such great meals using basically just coin gradients, like I'm doing here, I just added some lemon juice,
[22:13] but it's basically just the coin gradients, or you know you can add some accessories just to switch things up completely, like by using a tortilla, this is another great accessory, I like to keep it in the freezer,
[22:30] because I don't use them all the time, so I'm just heating it up really quickly and I'm adding some of the salad mix on top, the last of the roasted peppers and onions,
[22:43] some of the roasted chicken slices, a little bit of avocado, the salad dressing, salt and pepper, I love something like this when I just want a really quick lunch or dinner,
[22:56] anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing all the meals I ate throughout this week using my capsule meal and of course using the occasional accessory like tortillas or avocado.