Missed any of our previous four posts?
Part 1 – Nutrition is the Foundation
Part 2 – Eat Real Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.
Part 3 – Quality First
Part 4 – Resources
Read about our 2017 Nutrition Challenge and register here.
Here we go y’all! Let’s get ready to clean it up, feel and perform better!
Isernio’s breakfast sausage, zuch/pepper/onion frittata
To start off, prepping your food for the week on Sundays is great however, something that we’ve learned over the years is that you don’t need to prep for the whole week ALL on Sunday. You end up spending literally all day prepping: create your list, go grocery shopping, cutting, cooking, washing dishes, cooking more, waiting for dishes to complete before starting new ones. If you’re new to this, time management will be something you’ll play around with the first couple of weeks. So, to shorten up your Sunday food prep time, just prep it for the first three days. This allows you to 1) not spend your whole Sunday in the kitchen 2) not eat the same dish for 5 days straight (though some people would do just fine doing that) 3) have a plan for your next prep/cooking day. You can prepare for Wednesday or Thursday to be another cooking prep/day so you don’t feel like you’re in the kitchen for SO long. Boom!
We’re going to share our shopping lists with you every weekend so you can a.) bite and just do the same, or b.) see the general flow of things. We’ll keep you updated with all the things we complete and the things we don’t end up using too.
Things we ALWAYS have in stock our kitchen
stock (chicken, beef, vegetable, your choice)
Kerrygold butter (salted, unsalted if Sheena decides she’s making bulletproof coffee)
coconut oil
olive oil
sesame oil
salt
pepper
thyme
oregano
chili powder
garlic powder
finishing salt (this 3lbs bucket is all you’ll ever need)
Himalayan Pink salt (specifically for this recipe which we make at least once every three weeks)
Red Ape cinnamon (AB’s favorite brand)
Tabasco or Cholula
Red Boat fish sauce (AB’s favorite brand)
Coconut Secrets coconut aminos (AB’s favorite brand Whole30-approved soy sauce substitute, and here’s another brand we will try when we need to reup)
apple cider vinegar
Things that’ll be eaten THIS week. This will seem like a lot, but we’re using the excitement of the challenge to get in the kitchen more, knowing it’ll calm down later into the challenge. Also doing a lot of prep for the next week.
Sheena & Andrew’s shopping list:
2 lbs sweet potatoes
2 lbs purple yam (really any other color tuber. You can look in the International district for Hawaiian Purple Yam or “Khoai Lang Tim”) OR a spaghetti squash OR butternut squat OR 2-3 eggplants
1 lbs broccoli OR green beans (fresh or frozen)
large container mixed salad greens
a medium contain/bag of spinach OR kale OR chard
3-6 bell peppers (various colors)
4-6 cucumbers
5-7 bulk celery stalks
bag of carrots
clamshell of cherry tomatoes OR small heirloom tomatos
2 onions (or 2 bags of frozen chopped onions)
2-3 apples (Swet Tango is my newest addiction)
bananas
Dorot crushed garlic (thank me later!)
walnuts
white rice (Jasmine or Calrose)
cage-free eggs
approximately 3-5 lbs of various cuts of meat (4-6oz/meal for 3 meals/day for 2.5 people)
beef: ground, steaks
chicken: thigh, breasts
pork: Isernio sausages OR thick-cut bacon, loin
ground beef/bison/turkey/etc. (always keep 2 lbs in the fridge in case of emergency)
Other things we grab
Smith Bros (or Grace Harbor) whole milk OR almond milk (if paleo/Whole30)
Brew Dr. Superberry (or Happiness) Kombucha
Ellenos yogurt (plain or Latte or Chai or Pumpkin Pie)
We’re allocating three occasions to eat out as a family, otherwise leftovers for breakfast/lunch.
The real secret: cook a protein in a fat, serve with fresh or lightly cooked veggies and you’re set.
Recipes we’re using this week
Eggs & coffee. Start your day right! This is the true breakfast of champs. I prefer to make them with Kerrygold butter Gordon Ramsey-style (almost) and it ends up eaten with some quickly-sauteed spinach. Maybe half an avocado if there’s one nearby.
BCS: Named after one of our former coaches/athletes, she came up with this simple dish: Bell peppers + Cherry Tomatoes + Sausage cooked in olive oil. Easy. Also cool because those letters were also her initials.
We’re pairing this with a more-dense salad: Cucumber + Tomatos + Fresh Basil. Cut them up into small chunks, drizzle olive oil, add salt & pepper to taste, and BAM. Easy peasy. Plus if you make a bunch it can keep fresh for a couple of days. Prep = done.
Steak, potatoes, and green beans. Simple. Make extra veggies for lunch.
Chicken soup (stock, miripoix, spices, chicken) + rice. Go heavy on the miripoix- buy the ingredients in bulk and cut them into big pieces. I go a little overboard because it cooks down. Because I’m just watching my macros I’ll also make sure to workout a little harder today so I can have rice with my soup. Might add another green to it. I can make “breakfast soup” by storing some in a mason jar for the next morning or two.
Teddy’s Chicken + salad greens. Check out this video from a couple of years ago. Megan and Margot hosted us at their building so Teddy could show us basic knife skills. Then he made this delicious chicken recipe. We simply put it on a bed of salad greens (with a simple emulsion of freshly-squeezed lemon juice into olive oil) and tada! Protein, carbs, and a fat.
Porkchops + garlic mashed cauliflower OR potato. By week’s end we’re tired or busy or both. Another easy one to make that can yield plenty of left overs which means LUNCH.
Bam. Hope you enjoy your first week!
Alright. HERE WE GO!
