Welcome to Jeff’s Kitchen
Written on January 10, 2009 – 10:43 pm | by Russ Turley
Jeff sent me this picture a couple weeks ago and I was way impressed. I told him he should post it, but I couldn’t wait to show you all. He also sent along a description of what you see below.
“Here are my next 35 lunches. I usually eat 2 of these a day for lunch and afternoon meal, but miss a couple on weekends when we eat out so I now cook about every 3 weeks. It is a total of 9lbs of chicken breasts, 16 lbs of mixed vegetables and 18 cooked cups of basmati rice.”
Let’s break it down into calories for you. The chicken breast in each meal is 3 oz and about 150 calories per meal. The rice is a half cup which is just over 100 calories per meal. And finally the vegetables are a cup and a half and account for 150 calories per meal, give or take a few calories. This is 400 calories of clean eating.
This is what it looks like to prepare meals in advance. Jeff is living the lifestyle that we talk about on the show. He’s prepared meals for 3 weeks in I’d guess an hour, two if he was really slow. He doesn’t have to think about where he’s going to get lunch from, or if he runs out of time the night before to prepare a lunch. A quick trip to the freezer and he’s out the door. Sure that freezer is bigger than my whole kitchen apparently, but it’s easy none the less.
How could you make your life easier by preparing meals in advance? You don’t have to prepare this many meals in advance, but what about a weeks worth of lunches? How about boiling a dozen eggs for breakfast for the next couple weeks? Even the smallest effort in advance in the kitchen will make it easier throughout the week to stay on track toward your goal.
Make the time to prepare yourself good foods in advance and the weight will take care of itself.
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Tags: chicken, meals, prepare, R.I.C.E., vegetables
15 Responses to “Welcome to Jeff’s Kitchen”
By John on Jan 11, 2009 | Reply
That IS impressive. I usually prepare stuff for a week or two ahead of time. As a matter of fact, I just made several things this morning to take to work for lunches and snacks for the coming week. I ALWAYS pack a cooler to take with me…even on the weekends.
The mix sounds good. Is there by chance a recipe for this?
By Jessica on Jan 11, 2009 | Reply
And no worries about getting tired of eating the same thing twice a day for that length of time? Wow!
By Dave Jackson on Feb 6, 2009 | Reply
I think you guys mentioned a report from a government study that recommended X amount of minutes of exercise, and in another episode you mentioned something from a scientific magazine and you always say you’ll put it in the show notes. I don’t see it. Can you help me?
Dave
By Jeff Ainslie on Feb 6, 2009 | Reply
Hi Dave,
We missed adding that to the show notes to Show #53, but the links are now there. What you are looking for is in the first paragraph here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=does-exercise-really-make
The direct link to the guidelines are here: http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/default.aspx
By Katrina on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply
Jeff, Just curious, is the food soggy textured after being in the freezer then reheating? And how do you cook your chicken?
By Jeff Ainslie on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply
I haven’t had any problems with it being soggy. I guess you just have to be careful that you don’t overcook the rice. I let everything cool before I put them into containers. I add the rice first and splash a little bit of soy sauce, then the chicken, and then I add the frozen mixed veggies right on top and put them right in the freezer. I keep 5 days worth of lunches in the fridge at a time. They last at least 2 weeks in the fridge.
I cook the chicken slowly in the oven and I add a little water to the pans to make it as moist as I can.
This is just how I figured out how to make them so I like them and to make it as easy as possible. I have heard that other people will make individual containers of just rice or chicken and then mix and match these portions together.
By Katrina on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the quick response. I have done this with grilled chicken and it wasn’t moist, so I will have to try it baked. I never put the veggies because I was scared of the texture, but I will have to try it. Thanks again.
By Russ Turley on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply
@Katrina: I had some time this past weekend to prepare my lunches for this week. I decided to replicate Jeff’s technique. I used brown rice instead of basmati rice, but it was basically the same.
First, take the container out of the freezer and put it in the fridge the night before if you can. It took a long time to heat in the microwave here at work because it was still partially frozen.
As far as the chicken, I put the breast in 13 x 9 pyrex baking dish, sprayed with olive oil, and sprinkled on some chicken seasoning and baked them.
The rice I made was probably a little too moist by itself, but after being frozen and then thawed and reheated, it was actually better than when I prepared it. Go figure.
By Katrina on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply
thanks Russ
By Russ Turley on Mar 14, 2009 | Reply
@Katrina:
I just put the frozen vegetables in on top of the rice and chicken and filled the container to the top. I didn’t ask Jeff, but it looks like he did the same thing.
By Katrina on Mar 14, 2009 | Reply
perfect thanks. My Rice and Chicken are done, I just didn’t know what to do with the frozen vegetables.
By kingdoc on Mar 15, 2009 | Reply
I do the same thing but I put everything in paper Chinese food take out containers. No dishes!
check them out here:
http://www.uline.com/BL_5617/Chinese-Take-Out-Boxes
By Jacqueline on Mar 15, 2009 | Reply
I didn’t actually think that those chinese boxes actually existed in real life. I thought that they were only on tv. We don’t have them in Canada, but I’m ordering some!
By charlie on Mar 16, 2009 | Reply
interesting………
very interesting!
By alex farguson on Mar 31, 2009 | Reply
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.