See the first chef's entry below and click HERE for all of them.
Melissa “Melicious” Joulwan, Well Fed
A Whole9 Envoy Extraordinaire, author of the blog The Clothes Make The Girl, and the cookbook Well Fed: Paleo Recipes For People Who Love To Eat (packed with more than 115 Whole30-approved recipes).
From frozen to feasting. When I just can’t bear to pack one more work lunch, and I’m feeling really lazy, I don’t even bother to cook my food. Just put two big servings of frozen vegetables in a microwaveable container then drizzle them with olive oil and a good shake of garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Add a microwaveable protein (grilled chicken, frozen cooked shrimp), cram on the lid, and shove the container your bag. At lunchtime, microwave the whole shebang for three minutes, and voila! instant lunch with no real cooking time. It’s not a 4-star Michelin experience, but we all need to eat, like, 28 times a week, so a few of those meals can be “good enough.” It’s nutritious, it’s tastes good, and it’s ready fast.
Declare “Fish Day.” Declare an Official Fish Day and eat no-cook fish for all your meals with raw veggies on the side: tuna salad for lunch, sardines or kippers for a snack, and (defrosted) frozen, already cooked shrimp for dinner. With plenty of fresh veggies, homemade mayo or homemade salad dressing, and a little fruit on the side, it’s a fresh, light meal that requires just a little chopping and no cooking. Bonus if you add a hard-boiled egg or two to the plate.
Get multiple pans going at once! When I’m doing a big cookup for the week, I always have two pans going on the stove at once: one for meat and one for veggies. I clean and chop all the veggies I want to steam-sauté, and I set up an assembly line so I can move stuff in and out of the pans without needing to wash in between. Start with the fattiest meat and sauté ’til browned in the “meat” pan, then remove it from the pan and use the same pan, conveniently greased, to cook the next, etc. While the meat is cooking, fire up your “veggie” pan and steam-sauté one veggie after another, using the same water. Just cook one veg, remove it with a slotted spoon to a storage container, keeping the water in the pan hot, so you can add the next veg to the steam bath. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Bonus points: On a third burner, hard boil a dozen eggs for high-quality, grab-and-go protein. I guarantee that with this method, you can make enough food for 3-4 days in about an hour.
Make freezer “pellets.” This is such a Helpful Hints From Heloise kind of thing, it’s kind of embarrassing., but… when you have sorry-looking oranges, lemons, and limes lying around, squeeze the juice out of them and pour it into ice cube trays. When they’re frozen, I pop them out into a Ziplock and store them in the freezer. Anytime you need fresh juice for cooking, just pop one into the pot. This trick also works with leftover tomato paste (because every recipe in the world needs 1 stinkin’ tablespoon of tomato paste, so there’s always leftovers). And when you’re not doing a Whole30, this is good for old red and white wine, too.
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