Easy Food Hacks
Food Hacks
My clients all lead very busy lives, often juggling work and childcare. As a result, it’s often challenging to eat tasty, nutritious food, that’s also quick and easy to prepare.
I thought I’d share some of the things I do so that, most of the time, the food I eat energises me and helps me feel good.
I know lots of personal trainers advocate meal prepping and spending time producing all your meals for the week ahead, on a Sunday. My family life doesn’t allow for this so I have developed some alternative solutions which mean I can save time on a daily basis, without spending too much time in advance.
With a little planning, you can create a quick, nutritionally rich meal in minutes. Having the fridge and cupboards stocked with a few essentials at the start of the week really helps with this.
Meal Plan and Bulk Shop
It’s an obvious one. Planning definitely helps to reduce stress, frees the mind from constantly working out what to cook and enables us to make the right food choices for our families.
Yet it’s one thing that so many of us don’t do. As I mentioned, I’m not a fan of meal prep for the whole week ahead but there are some things I do to plan and prep in advance that make life a little easier.
Spend 30 minutes over the weekend planning what to eat as a family for the week ahead. I do Monday to Friday only, as I like to be more flexible over the weekend.
Do your weekly shop so that the fridges and cupboards are stocked by Sunday/Monday.
Don’t feel pressure to be constantly creating new dishes. Most weeks, my meals are the same or very similar at least 3 nights a week (chicken, spinach and green bean curry, pasta & tomato/veg sauce and prawn stir fry all feature heavily).
Bulk Cook
Think ahead and buy/cook more than you need so if you are making something like a curry one evening you have plenty spare to portion up and put in the freezer. I don’t put aside time to bulk cook but if it’s curry night I make three times the amount I need, so I can get next weeks curry out of the freezer.
The children have pasta and tomato sauce once a week but I only cook the sauce once a month, the rest of the time I take portions out of the freezer.
Bulk cook veg
Cook extra vegetables with dinner and keep them to throw cold in a salad the next day.
Plunge the spare veg in cold water straight away once it’s cooked, otherwise you’ll end up with soggy grey veg the next day. Slightly under cook the veg, then you’ll end up with lovely crisp crunchy veg. Green beans, runner beans and broccoli work well.
I love a salad that’s been bulked out with green veg. A quick lunchtime meal for me is a big handful of left over crispy veg, raw baby spinach and feta, all mixed up together, drizzled with lemon infused olive oil (Carluccios do a great one) and lots of black pepper.
Have good sources of protein easily to hand
· Include some or all of the following items in your weekly shop
Frozen tiger prawns (stir fry straight from the freezer with a bag of stir fry veg)
Feta (brilliant added to salad or on top of hot stewed lentils or beans)
Salmon and mackerel (great with raw baby spinach and red onion)
Pre-cooked grains and pulses (pouches of quinoa, lentils and tins of beans)
Chicken - I often roast a large whole chicken on Monday night which makes a couple of family meals (Roast chicken one night, chicken wraps the next) and provides me with protein to include in my lunch for a few days.
I’m normally on my own at lunch time, so it’s a great time for me to eat exactly what I like and not have to please anyone else!
My main priority is to have something with great nutritional value that is light and the key for me is to have core ingredients in the fridge or cupboard all the time. Then I can just grab the ingredients, mix them up in a big bowl, chuck them into a dish and eat.
I generally makedouble or triple the amount, so tomorrow’s lunhc is already prepped and in the fridge.
Here are some meal ideas based on my favourites.
Quinoa and Roasted Veg
Open a packet of pre-cooked quinoa, throw together with some pre-roasted veg* and a few salad leaves then add in some pre-cooked chicken*.
No need for any oil as the veg is already quite oily.
*I’ll make this if I have left over chicken from a roast. You can buy pre-prepped veg for roasting at home or do your own (red pepper, courgette, red onion, garlic, tomatoes). I would roast the veg in advance when I was cooking dinner another night or get out of the freezer from a previous bulk cook.
Falafel, spinach and thinly shaved courgette, lemon juice and olive oil.
Use a veg peeler to slice the courgette long ways into thin strips. Mix with raw baby spinach leaves, some olive oil, lemon juice. Leave for a few minutes to soften a little then grate some parmesan on top. I’ve added falafel and some hummus but you could sprinkle with a little feta or have it with grilled chicken or halloumi if you wanted something more substantial.
Spinach, Beetroot, Chickpeas and Feta
Open a bag of raw baby spinach, throw together with grated raw beetroot, feta and chickpeas. Mix with a little olive oil and lots of black pepper.
