Pottering About #19: The meal prep that just keeps giving
I didn't expect to get so many meals out of this.
Greetings, readers!
I did this meal prep thing this week and have enjoyed the heck out of a bunch of meals that have come from this effort. So, I thought I’d share it with you. It has veggies and protein.
You could do this just as a vegan option, or, add salmon or chicken and you’ve got a fishy or chicken-y option. I do eat salmon and chicken these days.
Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or any kind of health specialist. No clue if this is good for anyone or not.
Okay, here’s the deal. This thing has multiple parts and can make a lot of meals.
Part 1: The base: a bean and veggie salad (there’s no lettuce)
In this were a lot of things.
Kidney beans - one can, drained and rinsed
Cucumber chopped into little chunks
Cherry tomatoes sliced in half
Corn from a jar
Chopped cilantro (leave out if you don’t like cilantro- some people hate it)
A sprinkling of pistachios
A sprinkling of dried cranberries
No secret to this part, I rinsed the stuff that needed rinsing, then patted dry any stuff that needed drying, then just assembled all this stuff in a big mixing bowl. I covered what I did not use the first time and have kept that covered in the fridge. This was super easy, mainly assembling.
Part 2: The salmon or chicken
I made both, on different occasions, and ate them on different occasions each for multiple meals. I made more than one portion of both the salmon and the chicken.
Salmon
I sliced a few slices of lemon, put those flat on a piece of aluminum foil (in the past, I’ve used baking paper instead), put the salmon on top of the lemon slices, skin-side down, folded it up in the foil or baking paper so the fish could steam in there, and baked it in the oven like that. At the end, I got this nice lemon-flavored fish that was steamed and moist. This is super easy. I literally do nothing else to it but that.
Chicken
I took some skinned chicken fillets cut up, put taco seasoning on them and baked that. That was it.
Part 3: The dressing — A lemon-tahini-pepper-maple syrup-mustard concoction
Also easy. A couple of spoonfuls of tahini straight out of a jar, some fresh-squeezed lemon juice, some ground black pepper, a bit of olive oil, a dab of maple syrup (honey would work), and some Dijon fine-grained mustard, all mixed together. And later on, when it occurred to me, I also added a bit of the sunflower-olive oil mix from the roasted peppers jar (see below).
I kept whisking it up in the rinsed-out corn jar and stored the extra dressing in there that I did not use in the first meal. I was adding the oil to make it a bit more liquid. Technically I don’t know if all of these things really blend together but it seemed to work. Tasted good to me.
Part 4: Pita or Quinoa
Pita
I cut it in half and toasted it. (See below, assembling the whole thing.)
Quinoa
I cooked up one cup of quinoa in two cups of water, boiling it on the stove with no lid until cooked. Careful not to let it burn. I put it into a few different storage containers and kept those in the fridge.
Part 5: Roasted peppers from a jar
I added some roasted peppers out of a jar, the kind that come in some kind of oil like sunflower oil or olive oil or a mix. ‘Antipasti’ ones (mixed red and yellow), or, on another occasion, a large single red pepper from a jar of just red peppers. I added these at the end, on the plate, and sliced them up on the plate into the other stuff. I did not add them into the salad mix that I made and kept stored in a bowl in the fridge.
One could roast these oneself if one were so inclined.
Roasted peppers are a pretty inexpensive way to boost up the flavor of a lot of different dishes. Also the oil is nicely flavored and a bit of that can be used in the dressing. I tried that and it was nice.
Part 6: Pomegranate seeds
I added these after assembling the meal and they added such a nice flavor and texture to the whole thing. You can peel a pomegranate and get those out; or, buy it in a container already prepared.
Here are some ways that I’ve enjoyed this bean salad thing already.
1. In a pita
This was the first way I had it. I did not put quinoa in the pita. I cooked the quinoa during the week once I had run out of pita. I cut a pita bread in half, toasted the halves in the toaster, then stuffed it with the salad, and added the tahini sauce. On the first couple of occasions, I ate it just like that as a veggie meal. It was really good. On another occasion, I added the chicken cooked with some taco seasoning and cut into bite-sized pieces. Also really good like that.
2. On a plate with salmon and quinoa
I took a plate, put some quinoa on there, added the bean salad stuff, and added a chilled salmon filet from the fridge, broken up into pieces. I added the pomegranate seeds as well as the tahini dressing and mixed the stuff up all together. Delish.
3. In a bowl with quinoa and chicken
Pretty much the same as above. The chicken pieces were already cut up into salad-sized pieces. I wasn’t sure how the tahini sauce would go with the taco seasoning but it seemed to work okay for my taste buds. I could see making a different sauce for this, for the chicken version. It seems like that should be green with some herbs in it. Got to think about that one. Again, the pomegranate was really making the whole thing very enjoyable.
I will definitely make this again as I like all the stuff in there. The other thing I really like about this is that the salad part is staying fresh pretty long, since there’s no lettuce, or spinach, or ‘rampon’ (lamb’s leaf lettuce) in there like I would usually have in a salad.
So, I was able to make this several days ago and I’m still working on the salad mix. I made a lot of it. I ran out of the chicken and salmon so I’m going to make some other protein next to go with the next batch. I still have to use all this up (below) it’s a medium-large mixing bowl so there’s quite a bit left in there!
Let me know if you try this out, and if you do, what you think. Or, if you’ve made something similar, feel free to let me know.
Until next time, take care,
Ellen