Chris Meal Preps Lunch For a Week | From the Test Kitchen & Healthyish | Bon Appétit

I'm Chris, could we do a spoon check, spoon check? Oh, only six on this beautiful Wednesday morning. I don't know, I'm running out of nothing. Yeah, in total, I have like 50 more here, so when we talk. on the feel good

meal

plan, we're talking specifically today about your

lunch

strategy and the thing about having a

lunch

strategy is that, at least personally, my strategy is to try to do as little as possible but get the most out of it. whatever you do. do it, our strategy this year is based on this: just a big pot of very well cooked chickpeas.

Could you use canned chickpeas? You absolutely could, but the thing about making your own chickpeas is that not only are the chickpeas themselves better because you know they're fully seasoned the way you like, they have all the salt and the kind of flavor inside the chickpeas and they don't. I know about you, but generally the chickpeas I buy are a little flat, a little metallic. I need a lot of help and definitely a lot of salt, but the liquid you get from these chickpeas is what makes them so special, so I made this really big batch of chickpeas and I'm going to show you two ways you can make them. use them in two really easy-to-make lunches.

It all starts with beautifully cooked chickpeas that have lots of flavor, so I'm reheating them a little to get them nice and fluid again. Chickpeas have all that Fabra water. right you know it's got a lot of body and a lot of richness so you're actually getting something that's a little bit closer to knowing it's like a chicken broth that's super rich and buttery so it's Bushado once a pound of chickpeas in soak I think it's a couple of liters of water 1/4 cup olive oil A few strips of lemon peel, which may seem strange but it just adds a really nice fragrance to the chickpeas.

I'm a bit of a bright note 1 medium onion sliced ​​and I think 6 cloves of garlic don't sweat anything, you know, beforehand everything is poured into the pot, brought to a simmer and then simmered until they are tender and usually soaked chickpeas can take about an hour and a let's say a half or two hours and in that time you know you have plenty of free time to work on any other type of

week

end prep you want to work on , so this is just a base that can lead you to many things. places and you can riff on this however you want if you don't want to put lemon or onion or whatever Tommy mentioned, bay leaves, throw some bay leaves in here, it's just kind of a starting point, so in this case of like this kind of salad that we're going to make here and then the sandwich that I'm going to show you, really if you're just putting it together, you know you don't have to do much else, plus you know if you take some chickpeas.

I'm going to drain some of this liquid, but there's no way I want to throw away the liquid, so I have some chickpeas. I'm going to make this salad, you know, right here. this dish this is the kind of thing that you can make very easily in the morning before you go to work there, he's, yeah, the happiest he's been all

week

and he's like back with the coffee sauce and it's frankly good to have him back. You might notice a bottle, Wow, and I know, and is this your first cup of coffee? Well, I guess it seems like not everyone loves chicory.

You may notice there's a plate full of nothing but radicchio here, but this is what I love sour. They just like vegetables, they do it for me and they are super convenient from the point of view that you don't have to wash them, nobody washes lettuce on a Wednesday morning to get their mind off, you know, working during the day. well, it's easy to cut. I have some roasted carrots, you know, yesterday, super simple, this could be like roasted broccoli and cauliflower, you know, just spread all over the place, like work it like, frankly, I often make lunch for my wife and this is something I'll do. and I'll just build a container for it before I go to work.

These are ten minute eggs. By that I mean we lower the eggs into boiling water gently and start counting ten minutes from when the water boils again, 10 minutes gives you this where you have like a little bit of jam in the center of the yolk, you know, but the outer edge has begun to dry. So this tahini ranch, Tommy mentioned that he's a big fan. I'm a big fan. There's something about tahini when you balance it with olive oil and dilute it with a little bit of water so it's nice and creamy and emulsified, and you like to incorporate that. ranch flavor and that can come from a number of places, but I think the most important things are onion powder and garlic powder, which sounds a little strange, because does anyone still cook with onion powder and garlic powder?

This makes a clear case for having them in your spice cabinet. Part of the reason they work so well is that fresh garlic will develop and intensify flavors over time and you will ultimately like the flavor. The profile is going to mutate over time, where it will probably become very strong and eventually become a little bitter for you, so it's a little difficult to gauge how much to put in there, you don't necessarily want it to be that sharp. garlic flavor I feel like it's like a Paul Hollywood two-handed gesture I don't know, I feel like it's like hands like up here like a kind of grimace in the oven and I approve I'm sorry, I've been Watching so many great British baking shows, It's like everything is there.

There are certain things you would do on the weekend that you are never going to do on a weeknight, just like I will never make chickpeas on a weeknight. I probably won't. I turn on my blender on a weeknight, it doesn't matter how good the dressing is, but on a weekend, you know, in the light of a Sunday afternoon, where you feel kind of optimistic and positive about the world, yeah , I would like to take out the blender. I'll find all the pieces you know, each one is like a minimum of three pieces that your kids have always hidden, like various toy containers in the apartment, whether you take it as a small container to your work or just carry it around. pull out of the refrigerator when it's time to have lunch at home, whatever you make this dressing on a weekend will set you up for the best week ever so we've got our ranch in there and then any herbs you can get on hand , believe.

We've built a similar flavor in a way that you get from a rich type of cream, you know, like a kind of sour cream and, as you know, we're like a buttermilk, you know, like tons of flavor, but we've made it from a way that's not entirely obvious and yes, it's dairy-free and vegan. It's vegan boom vegan. You don't need all the elements here, you know, to make a great salad for lunch. that travels well is easy to prepare in the morning or very quickly, you know, in just a few minutes. I would say that's our appeal and I want to be a salad friend, it's gluten free, you're excited.

I'm excited Rover's chicory is excited because it travels very well, you could even dress it in the morning and it would probably last until lunch, no problem if it didn't have a little companion for your dressing. Roasted vegetables, in this case only carrots. but it could be anything you know, whether you want to include them or not, no big deal, sweet potatoes, absolutely, we have that kind of thing elsewhere and we like lunch and dinner to feel good, a

meal

plan and then eggs 10 minutes and then the dressing is tahini ranch. I think you can pack everything.

I think you can go two ways: pack everything in the container other than the dressing or dress everything and pack it in the container and leave the herbs on the side because it's like a little wet paper towel like they can hang out for lunch without worries or on its own merits yes, now you can layer, you absolutely know that. I think those Sam-like things that you do when you were a kid with all the colors and stuff exactly like that, yeah, yeah. walk it's a walk around the pools okay as long as you know a little bit of dressing a couple of these items the chickpeas obviously then you're good to go this is the number one option for lunch so we're talking of sandwiches for the lunch component of the feel good eating plan, one thing that I think is great that I didn't even know about until last year, so it's been a big 2018 for me is the hummus sandwich, which It's so full of flavor, it's so good for you it's full of protein, it's nothing but protein, you know, I have like maybe a cup and a half of drained chickpeas here that I'm going to use, it's kind of a base for the filling of this.

For the sandwich, I want to make sure I take all the kind of liquid you know from these just so it doesn't get too wet, so I'm going to add some sort of extra olive oil yogurt to give it creaminess, obviously you could use that. mayonnaise, but I crave yogurt, it's a little more on brand for a feel good eating plan. Maybe I will, so this will make two sandwiches. I'm going to start with about a quarter cup of yogurt. I'm going to mix this with a little bit of lemon juice. I'm a big fan of capers, you know, in things like this, just because they're so punchy and give you such a good, spicy flavor.

I'll just do it. it's a couple teaspoons coarsely chopped so they disperse a little more evenly, spread the flavor around the salt like always and then I'm not the biggest fan of raw celery, but celery just has that ability to give you that crunch. . and a little bit of contrast with that soft kind of meaty chickpea. I'm just going to chop up a little bit of this and then a little fork to shred it should get you most of the way there. minute, some regular puree to break up those chickpeas, make them a little creamy, get all these flavors together, you've added all the textures, okay, I see what's going on here, we need a little more yogurt, a little creamier , creamy, a little more salt and I actually need to break these chickpeas up a little more to bring out a little more of their creaminess and maybe a little more of this lemon, the other thing I wanted to mention about the tahini ranch.

I kept it in the set just because this is one of those things like you don't want to dress these chickpeas with anything but the tahini ranch, but a little spoonful will go a long way in terms of making this super creamy, helping it come together. and get tons of flavor in there and if you have it on hand, honestly, it won't taste like a spoonful, but it will make a huge difference in your sandwich. where are we here mmm that's good Top Gun is my favorite movie, he can do very little wrong in terms of his actual job, you know, and his performances, that last mission impossible, incredible, why did he do his own helicopter stunts, a little bit of the lettuce is great, you know, just as a barrier, at least for some of your bread, you can do it on both sides if you don't want to eat it right away, if you have a pack for lunch or whatever, we definitely like it . a little bit of that insulation and then a little bit of pickled onion, not too much, not enough to wet the bread or whatever, so luckily sandwich wrap is my specialty.

I feel like the way you treat it with a sandwich like this that wants to be a little messy, the wrapping will help keep it contained. Having parchment paper or wax paper is kind of the key to this, you can do it with aluminum foil, but it gets a little clunky. it's like bringing both ends up, folding the top down, going down each side of the sandwich and tucking in both sides once you have the sandwich contained and wrapped like this, we can take a serrated knife and then go to the right. through it and then boom, that just happened, hey Claire, this is called gourmet, feel good meal plan, don't worry, new concept we're working on, so this is kind of like crushed chickpea salad sandwich, a little bit of yogurt, a little bit. of olive oil starting to get a little runny on me so much ratio oh yes I love it thanks Claire great that's lunch oh the best season association yes it's Molly and her empty space where you can all relax the days alone.

I think that's the kind of platonic ideal for a similar kind of station that falls apart there oh yeah, sure, yeah, I mean, I don't, obviously, I'm very happy to be with Andi all the time, even though he's not here right now, so we can. actually he speaks, he speaks clearly, yeah, I'm surprised he didn't jump to the back of the frame here using his you know, there's a session going on, genius, you know?