The Power of Food Prep with Amy Lawrence [Ep. 70]

Lisa: 0:00

This is the Well live well podcast. I'm Lisa Salsbury. and This is episode 70, the.power of food prep with Amy Lawrence. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. I know we are all busy this time of year. So I wanted to get this episode published sooner rather than later. I know we've been publishing one interview after another lately, but I thought this conversation was so timely that I wanted to get it out to you. Getting ahead on meals has always been important to me. In fact, in another life I used to teach freezer meal workshops. So when Amy asked if she could come on the podcast and share her method, I was happy to say, yes, We share many of the same methods. She has just really dialed it in and has way more ideas for you than I do. And she shares several tools that she uses. I found all those things actually, and linked them in the show notes for you. So if you're dying to use some of those things that she mentioned, you can find them in the show notes. Speaking of this busy time, I didn't rerecord my handling the holidays episode from last year, but I wanted to make sure that you knew about it. It's episode 15, it's called six tips to handle the holidays and I've linked it in the show notes as well. So that is there for you. It's still a great episode. To really help get you dialed in just a few little tips to, for you to think about during this season. Lastly, before we get into this episode, I want to remind you I'm extending my get unstuck session availability through the end of this calendar year. I want to make sure you're ready to hit 2024 running. So linked to get your session scheduled is again in the show notes. I've had a couple of people come just to discuss how to make it through the holidays. And that has been super helpful for them. But everyone that has done this has been like, wow, I have never thought of it that way. I think that's probably the most common comment I get. So I can't wait to talk to you and help you also. I get unstuck. If you're thinking like, well, this really isn't the best time. I don't know how I would start something like that at this time of year. I want to remind you that. Buying waiting. Anytime we wait to start something, if we think, well, we'll be less busy than. We're just reinforcing the kind of like overeat diet cycle mentality, or just reinforcing the diet mentality of there has to be a good time to do it. There has to be less, uh, less busy time. There really is no better time than during the holidays to start paying attention to your health and weight loss. Because if you can do it, then you can do it any time. And there just really is. No better time to let your brain know. We don't actually have to overindulge in order to have an amazing time with our friends and family. Now, just so you know, that doesn't mean I'm not going to try every single thing on the Thanksgiving table tomorrow. I absolutely am. But there's a difference between overeating every single thing and trying every single thing. So anyway, lots to know about the holidays. It's really a great time. Don't wait. As I always say, you can start working on your health and the very next bite. It is my very next bite strategy. So without further ado, let's get into my conversation with Amy. Welcome to the eat well, think well, live well podcast. I have Amy Lawrence here who is an author and a blogger, and we are going to talk about something I've never talked about before on the podcast, which is food prep. So Obviously, you know, if you've been listening for any length of time, I encourage pre planning your food, just deciding ahead of time with your higher brain, what you're going to eat. Usually that's happening the day of you're planning for the day, but there is some value in preparing food well in advance. And that's what Amy and I are going to be talking about today. So I'm super excited. Welcome Amy. If you could introduce yourself and tell everybody what you do and how you came to this work, that would be great.

Amy: 4:29

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited. Yes, I'm Amy Lawrence and I have a food blog called Gourmet and Skinny, but I didn't always have that. Um, I was in the tea business for a long time. I was a special ed teacher, did a bunch of different things. Life was going along great in 2014 and I had a Pilates accident actually and tore my vertebral artery and it caused a stroke. And so after that I kind of had a wake up call to life. I sold my tea business. I decided to go to India and see all the different tea fields. And when I got back from India, I saw the pictures and oh my gosh, I had gained like 40 pounds and it was all from just, I was just grateful to be alive. And so I was just eating whatever the heck I wanted. And when I saw those pictures, I'm just like, I mean, I knew I'd gained weight, but oh my God, it was just so depressing. And like everybody else, or I don't know, but that's how I feel. Um, when you want to lose weight, you, what do you do? You join weight watchers. So I did that.

Lisa: 5:31

For all the fad diets. Yeah. Lots of my clients and listeners have done all the diets. So yeah, Weight Watchers is right up there.

Amy: 5:38

exactly. And so I did that and I lost 40 pounds and, you know, I was, I was happy, but I was not happy with their recipes. and when I had, a tea room, in Northern California for many years. And I created my own recipes. Of course, those were all like butter, sugar, fat, you know, but I thought. If I could create those recipes, I could certainly create healthier recipes. And so that's how my blog, Gourmet done Skinny was born. And so I was doing that but I was really tired of the whole counting the points and saving your points for the weekend. It was all about the food. And it was, there was just so much stress wrapped around the food. it just drove me crazy. And so I knew there had to be a better way. So I started digging into, um, more intuitive eating. And I found somebody, a coach that I worked with and, um, it was just wonderful. I learned a lot of different principles about only eating when you're hungry and all those kinds of great things. And, so life was going along great with her. And one day she asked me to be a guest speaker in her membership group. And she said, do you mind talking about, food prep? And I said, yeah, No problem. And I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, I did a lot of food prep for me, but I just hadn't really thought about it teaching other people until she asked me to teach that class. And so I taught the class to her members. And oh my gosh, they were so excited. They had never, I just thought my techniques were just, you know, normal, whatever, but apparently they weren't. And so that got everybody excited. It got me excited. So I ended up writing my book, the power of food prep. And that's the one that went number one on Amazon international and, U S and then from then at the same time, I decided to, um, to do a food prep membership. And so that's how that got born. And so I am such a proponent of food prep and. The way I do food prep is a little bit different.

Lisa: 7:29

So, I mean, first of all, and this is a really common question that I ask most of my clients is I always start out with the why, why do we, why would we even care about this? Why would we bother food prep? Why not just make every meal when you're ready to go?

Amy: 7:44

right. Well, it's, it's a great question. Food prep saves you time. It saves you money. It saves you stress and it saves you calories. And the thing is we're going to eat and we're going to eat what is available. And if we have healthy food available, we're going to more likely eat healthy food than if we have, you know, junky food available. And so it's a self care. That's how I look at it. Doing something nice for yourself.

Lisa: 8:08

So in those things, like, tell me more, like, how does it save you time and money? How does it save you calories? Even though we don't count calories in my program, calories are still a measure of energy. And so it still is something to, to know about because it is a measure of energy.

Amy: 8:23

right, exactly. And I don't count calories anymore either. However, so here's a good example. When I'm making, and I, and my, my idea of food prep isn't the five black boxes that you see with chicken, rice, and broccoli, and you eat the same thing every day. And that's, that's not my idea at all. My idea is, you know, making a wonderful meal and preserving it for later or preserving the parts for later. And I, I'm a big proponent of using the freezer. So an example of how you might, you know, save calories or save, you know, save yourself some time and some headache when I make a batch of cookies, say, I will double a batch of cookies and I will take a little tiny ice cream scoop and I will scoop out all the little cookies. I'll flash freeze them, which means you put them on a baking sheet with parchment paper and you just. Stick it in the freezer just like that. No covering, no nothing. Then when they're frozen, then I package them into little packs, about six in a little pack. And then whenever we want, you know, say we do want some dessert and we plan for it and we're like, Ooh, that sounds good. Okay. So then we will thaw out, takes 15 minutes. We'll thaw out that little pack of six cookies and I'll toast them up in the toaster oven and everybody gets one but it's a nice little treat that you've kind of planned for and you're don't, it isn't like the cookies are on the counter and every time you go by the counter, you grab a cookie. It's all, you know, it's just six little cookies that you made. They're fresh, they taste wonderful. And then that's it. And so the focus is on having a nice little treat whenever you want it, but not overindulging, not making that big batch of cookies and eating the whole batch. And so that's, my method is a lot like that. I do everything in little portions. I freeze things in portions. And then that way, when you go to your freezer. You might pull out, you know, like, I don't know what I'm having for dinner tonight, but I'll just go to my freezer and maybe I'll pull out some chicken. Maybe I'll pull out some caramelized onion, some pesto, and maybe I'll whip it all up and put it in a pasta. Maybe I'll put some things over salad. It all depends on what I'm in the mood for at the time. And so the way my method works is You make things ahead of time, but it's not the big cook day like everybody, you know, like everybody thinks about meal prep. I have, I have three different methods that I use, for prepping.

Lisa: 10:34

let's get into that. tell us how your method is different and what it looks like to food prep, the way you teach it.

Amy: 10:40

Sure. So there's three different parts. There's the big cook day like everybody thinks, you know, the big exhausting where you cook everything you make, you know, all the lasagna or all the enchiladas or whatever you're making. And then you, freeze it. But it takes all day and that's what most people think of. They think of that, you know, it's just exhausting and then there's batch cooking. So like, well, I'll do is I'll make a batch of my crustless chipotle egg cups, which are great for breakfast. And so I'll make that's what I call a batch. So you might make a batch of something. And then, for breakfast, I might pull one of those out and then it takes, you know, about 30 to 60 seconds in the microwave or toast it up in the toaster oven. there's lots of things I get all excited about food prep, but people always think that you can just reheat things in the microwave and that's the best way. And that's not always the best way. So there's different ways of reheating things. Um, but that might be the batch cooking. So I'll make, pull out the chipotle eggs and I'll either. Put them in the microwave or toast them up in the toaster oven. And then there's also what I call the multiplat method. So if you think about it, if you're going to make a batch of say, chili or spaghetti or whatever.

Lisa: 11:47

Like for dinner that night, like I'm going to make spaghetti tonight for dinner.

Amy: 11:50

Yeah. Okay. So here's a good example. You're going to make spaghetti So you've got to make a list You've got to go the store you've got to make the food you need to do all the dishes and put it all away. And so you do that Now, if you think about it, if you would just multiply that by two times, just two times, you save all you, cause you're going to go to the store anyway to get the ingredients. So my, why not get double, you're going to cook it. It's going to take maybe a little bit more time, but not really much. Um, and then, you know, and then you're going to eat it and then you put away the rest. Now the portioning takes a little bit of time and the way I portion is way different than other people. A lot of people will portion. like a casserole, they'll portion the whole casserole. I don't do it that way. I portion things in one cup increments. So like when I make my bolognese sauce, I portion into one cup, increments in a little bag. And so then I'll pull out and it depends whoever's here for dinner. I mean, we have kids that aren't here half the time, so, um, they visit or whatever, and so I'll pull out, you know, if I know everybody's going to be here, I might pull out two cups of that bolognese, whereas if. If not, if it's just me, you know, then I might just pull out one cup and so it all depends on, on what you need. And the thing is food doesn't go to waste. and when you package it, you know, like you're supposed to, like if you do it in the vacuum seal bags, it keeps all the air from getting out. It prevents freezer burn. Cause a lot of times people don't like, meals in the freezer because they don't taste good. And so if you suck all that air out, you prevent all that freezer burn, then they'll taste great. And they last for a long time. So, which is great.

Lisa: 13:21

So, you're using a food saver

Amy: 13:23

Something like a food saver. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, food saver is one of the things you could use. I actually use a different one that I like better, but, um, A different brand. Yeah, I like a Nova just because it's only three buttons and it's easy and it's cheaper and, and, uh, yeah,

Lisa: 13:37

But any kind of vacuum

Amy: 13:38

any kind of vacuum seal because when you put something and just say even a Ziploc bag in the freezer, it has freezer burn in less than a week. I mean, it's fast. And. Yeah. And the thing is, if you take your time, if you're going to take a little bit of time to prepare your spaghetti, you know, you want it to be the best it's going to be. And so if you vacuum seal it away, that spaghetti, I mean, literally it'll, it'll last over a year for sure. If you've done it, you know, right. If, and didn't allow the air in.

Lisa: 14:05

And just to clarify, I'm sure this is what you're talking about. You're not talking about saucing up the spaghetti and putting it all in, in the noodles, you're talking about just the sauce.

Amy: 14:13

Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yes. Some pasta you can freeze a little bit, but like for spaghetti, I wouldn't, I would, I, so what I would do is I go to my freezer, I'd pull out my spaghetti sauce and then I would saute up some vegetables that night, which I mean, takes literally five or 10 minutes and then make your pasta, which takes, you know, about 11 minutes for the pasta to heat up and cook and then just whip it all together. So less than 20 minutes, you've got a meal that's fresh.

Lisa: 14:37

So it sounds like sometimes you do the big cook day then because you said there's three ways. So sometimes you do the big cook day.

Amy: 14:44

Yeah, mostly I don't. I mostly do the multiply it method because that works best for me.

Lisa: 14:50

so it's basically multiplying things that you're already going to make for dinner, just make more.

Amy: 14:56

right, but it all depends too on the part. So you might do, um, you know, it depends not everything you can freeze So I will do the batch it method like say I'll make a whole bunch of grilled chicken I'll go to Costco and I'll buy one of those seven pound bags of the boneless skinless chicken And I'll brine it and then I'll put it on the grill and it takes me about an hour and a half to two hours. And then I've got it all cooked. I'll chop it up and I'll put it in the little, one cup, packages. And then whenever we want, like, say pasta with that or salad or wraps or grain bowls or whatever you want to do, you've got chicken already, um, to go. So I'll do that as well.

Lisa: 15:35

Nice. Sometimes what I do with my meat from Costco is, just kind of one step back from what you're doing, which is I'll cut it up and season it. And then freeze it with my food saver. So actually like last weekend, I pulled out a flank steak that had, a marinade on it. And I was like, okay, just grill this up. And I sliced it for fajitas. So I do a lot of that where I'm, I don't like to freeze meat in packages that it comes home from the store or from Costco in, because it takes so much longer to thaw out when it's in that like big. thick brick kind of of meat. So. Yeah, I'll slice it up. I especially with chicken. I a lot of times will, cube it up for stir fry and then put it flat in the bag or I'll pound it flat. So it's ready to, put in the skillet. So that's kind of like one step back really from doing the whole grilling method. And I think that has helped me quite a bit. That's one of the things that I do for food prep, but I do like I have. I'm going to go to the effort. I might as well

Amy: 16:45

Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is. But the thing is too, like it's the, and you already have a food saver. So, or food sealer, which is great because a lot of people don't do that step or like they'll make a batch of soup, but then they won't portion it out. And so they'll just freeze a whole batch of soup. like you said, it takes forever for it to thaw out. Whereas if you portion soup into one cup portions, you can go in your freezer. I have a box that says soup. I've got all these different kinds of soups in my freezer. Everybody can pick out which kind they want. And then we heat it up and have dinner. I mean, it's, and it's quick. So,

Lisa: 17:18

So on that kind of thing, I do have to say and maybe it's different. By different brands of vacuum sealers. How do you successfully vacuum seal something that's very, very liquidy like chicken noodle soup or something? I just, I have such a hard time with that. So those are the kinds of things I just store in glass Mason jars with just, you know, leave a significant amount of headspace. If you're going to do that, because of course it will expand. Um, it's a little bit different when you've got it in the plastic. Bags with the, the food saver. But what's your best method on freezing things that are very liquidy

Amy: 17:53

there's a trick, obviously with the food sealer. I like, I balance it on the counter and then I kind of let the liquid hang down and then you do it that way, but there's been a huge game changer in the last few years. And I don't know if you've heard of souper cubes, but they are, oh my gosh. Yeah, but I take it one step further. So the super cubes

Lisa: 18:12

tell, I I've heard of them, but other listeners may not have. So tell us what super cubes

Amy: 18:17

Yeah, so there are silicone molds and you can actually bake in them as well. I don't typically because I like baking in pans, but, um, but you put, so you, you make your soup and then you put it in these silicone molds. Like they look like mini, well, they have different sizes, but the ones I like are the one cup for soup, the one, and there's like four and a little mold. And so you put the soup in there, you put the lid on and then you freeze it. Now. That works fine. But however, I don't like my super cubes always taken up with whatever's in there. I like, because I, I prep all the time. I mean, every time I cook, I pretty much save something. And so what, what you do with the super cubes is you let it, thaw out for about 15 minutes and then you can pop those little guys out and they're little bricks. And then you vacuum seal the little bricks and then they'll last a lot longer. So just in the super cubes themselves, I don't feel like they last, they, you know, they still can get freezer burned.

Lisa: 19:10

Right. Well, and there, I mean, I've looked at them. I actually don't own any of them. They're a little bit spendy. So if you want to have a lot of them to have enough

Amy: 19:19

right. And you don't need to have a lot of them if you do it my way. Yeah.

Lisa: 19:22

Yeah. So that's a good idea to just get a small set and then you can pop them out and then they're ready for the next time you make broth or soup. Another thing that I do that I think is really applicable for the super cubes, which is why I keep looking at them. I need to just pull the trigger and get them. Um, but when I get, when I roast a whole chicken or even sometimes I do this with a. Rotisserie chicken from Costco is I throw that in my Instant Pot and I make chicken broth or, you know, bone broth is what you're making really when you're using bones and vegetables in their water. You can get a recipe anywhere for this, but, I generally in the past, what I do with that as I put it in Mason jars, I just have gobs and gobs of Mason jars from my grandmother and my mom. So they're just like coming out my ears sometimes. But trying to thaw out a quart of chicken broth when I need a half a cup for the recipe is so annoying. And so I'm like, I have got to get some of those super cubes, but that's another way to just kind of get ahead too, is even if you're not making soup that week, if you've got bones, throw those in the instant pot and make some bone broth because that makes the, the best soup.

Amy: 20:30

Oh, it does. And I, I have a couple of those recipes. I have a beef bone broth on my website for Instapot and also a chicken one. And the great thing about the super cubes for the bone broth too, is And because I, I mean, I do this, so I have a lot of them, but I have the two cup, ones, and I also have the half cup ones. And, and so what I'll do is when I make my bone broth, I will freeze them some in two cups, some in one cup, some in half cup. And then when a recipe calls for two and a half cups, I can just, you know, I can make it mix and match it forever. I need it for. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Lisa: 21:04

so I think there's probably some people out there that are like, Oh my gosh, this sounds like a lot of work. Those people must be really organized. Like, I mean, I'm not like, I don't have like the full book like Amy does, but a lot of these things I, I highly recommend this is. This is the way I food prep as well, which is why I had Amy on, by the way. Because it's boring for me to just talk by myself about it. So, I think these ideas are so great. I think it's just makes your planning for the way we do planning. each day, your 24 hour plan so much easier because you can just look in the freezer, see what you've got, see what you can pull out, see what can be fast and easy for that day. If you've got a busy day, or maybe you look at your day and you're like today, I have some time. So today I'm going to make something from scratch and it's, and it's a doubling day or a tripling day. And also, I just want to throw out, this is such a great time of year. I hope I get this published before the holidays, because I was just talking to my sister in law and it was the first week in November that she told me this. And she was like, well, I'm going to Costco. I'm going to do some food prep. I've got all the kids coming for Thanksgiving. She's got older adult, young adult kids. And she's like, everyone's coming for Thanksgiving. So, you know, I'm going to get some granola in the freezer. I'm going to get this sauce and that. And I thought so smart, so smart. It's just so handy to get ahead. Like you can actually. You can make your cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving ahead of time. I mean, there's so many things so that on the day of for these kinds of events. And like you said, the cookies, if you've got cookie exchanges coming up at Christmas, you can do so much of

Amy: 22:42

It just makes your life so much

Lisa: 22:44

Yeah, it really does is when you, on a day when you have time is. Is the day as opposed to, you know, the day where it's crazy. And then you're like, Oh no. And I have this party tonight. So anyway, it sounds like Amy and I are really organized, but, or

Amy: 23:00

I'm not, I'm not, let me tell

Lisa: 23:02

Yeah. So like, how do you do this? If, if you're like, not really a type.

Amy: 23:08

Yeah. And I am a, I guess I'm a wannabe type A. So in my freezer, I have like what I call plastic boxes and it might say soup. It might say meat, it might say chicken broth. And then, so things are just thrown in there when the box gets low, then I pull out whatever, you know, I, then I decide I need to make some more, but the way my method works is you cook three days a week. So, and it depends on what, how you want to do things, but like every Sunday, I clean out my refrigerator. And I look to see like what vegetables need to be used up and I might make, you know, spicy roasted vegetables and I'll make those up for the week. And then I look at my week and I see what kind of time I have this week. Oh, maybe Tuesday I can make something. So I pick three recipes for the week that I want to make. And then on the other days, I just go to my freezer and I just pull out, you know, we have sliders in there. We might pull out sliders. one little tip that's kind of a nice little tip. Like if you ever go to Costco and you buy, like Croissants or their Shabbat bread or any other their good bread. most of the time, you know, nobody ever eats all that really. I mean, unless you've got a lot of kids. And so what I do is. Yeah, yeah, because they're so big. So I'll just bring home like say the croissants and I'll figure out how many we're going to eat in the next couple days. And the rest I will package into two in a, in a bag and I will suck the air out. You kind of have to be careful. You want to use the pulse setting and not the regular, cause you don't want to, you don't want to deform the bread. And then I'll throw those in the freezer. And then whenever we need, like, if we have soup and we want a little piece of bread, or like, if I want a little sandwich, I'll pull out one of those croissants, I'll put it in the microwave for about, wrap it in a paper towel for about 20 seconds, then I'll split it. And then I'll put it in the toaster oven for about three minutes on broil, about 400 degrees. Of course, it's not as great as if you just went to Costco and got it, but it's pretty darn good. I mean, it really is. And. You saved yourself all this money because you're not buying croissants all the time. And, you're making it all last And, and I do that with pretty much any bread, any, a nice good artesian bread. I'll put like a couple of slices at a time. And what I'll do is like, you don't want to put like slices all packed together. You want to kind of, layer them a little bit, like two or three, however many you think you might eat, and then freeze it that way. And then that way it, it, you know, it thaws out a lot quicker. But always use the toaster oven when you're going to do bread to toast it up just a little bit. So,

Lisa: 25:29

Yeah, I make the majority of my, of my bread. So one of the things that I do is I usually make five loaves of sandwich bread at a time. Just because again, same, same idea here. If I'm going to make one loaf of bread, I might as well make five loaves of bread because that's how

Amy: 25:45

Right.

Lisa: 25:45

have. but I only have one child at home that I make sandwiches for for lunch. And so I actually slice it all up and I double bag it. I don't use the food saver for that only because I, what I do is then each morning when I make her lunch is I pull out two pieces. And I make her lunch on literally frozen bread, which is nice because It kind of keeps the lunch. cold, you know, for a little bit longer. And then it's like, she has fresh bread like every single day. So, you know, when you buy bread from the store and it's already sliced, you can freeze that. So I've just decided, why don't I just slice it before I freeze it? And that has really helped a lot. Okay. do you have any ways we can get ahead on simple lunches? I noticed that for my clients, lunch seems to be the sticking point. They don't know what to make. And usually it's because. Breakfast tends to be easy for my clients, you know, eggs or oatmeal, it feels easier for them. Dinner tends to be more planned out because many of my clients tend to be the cook for their families. Not always, but they tend to be. So that's kind of like, while I'm, I'm gonna be making something for the whole family. Whereas lunch tends to be something they're making just for themselves. Kids are eating lunch at school or they're needing, you know, they're at work. And so they're eating lunch by themselves with meaning without their families. And so I find that people get really stuck on what should I eat for lunch?

Amy: 27:20

well, and the good thing is like with my method, you really don't get stuck because whatever you're making, if you're doubling and you're putting like, I have this drawer that's called, um, the grab and go drawer. And it's just one off. So like there's one piece of lasagna, one slider, or one, one piece of whatever. And those make great little lunches. Um, the other thing is grilled chicken makes a great lunch for anything. I mean, if you've already got it grilled, and you throw it, you know, throw a salad together, super easy. Have, you know, I've got a lot of salad dressings that you make up and it'll last two weeks in the fridge. So you're not having to make that up every day. the other thing I like to do is like the, the spicy roasted vegetables that I was talking about earlier. I have another one. It's called, Indian cauliflower medley. you make that up and it'll last about four or five days in the fridge, and then you can pull that out and put that with some grilled chicken, put some like green salsa on it, you could do a wrap, you could do a bowl, I mean there's all sorts of different things, so really, you know, with my method it's real easy to just, I mean I just go to the freezer and whatever looks good, I've got this orzo that I made a couple weeks ago for my members and I was, Talking about it and I could pull that out in 30 seconds. It'll be hot and ready to go. Soups, soups are great. You know, have them frozen and just ready to go. are you talking about more people that have, that work somewhere else or work from home?

Lisa: 28:39

Oh, both. I have clients in both situations, but,

Amy: 28:42

Cause most of the time they, everybody has a microwave, you know, uh, wherever they are, uh, toaster oven helps though. I mean, cause not everything does well with the microwave. But anyway, those are just some of my, you know, those are some of my quick, but the thing is, that's so great. And like my son, I mean, he's living at home right now and he takes, he takes whatever he wants to work. Like today he took leftover ribs that we had, like, I don't know, last month. And we just packaged them in little pieces and, you know, in little bags. And he took that and a couple of rolls, he just grabs that and goes, or he'll take little sliders or, you know, whatever. But the thing that's great is it. It doesn't matter. I mean, you can just take whatever dinner recipe you had, because I package everything into one or two, portions. And so it's easy to grab whatever you want for this. So,

Lisa: 29:27

So, a lot of times when I'm talking to people for the podcast, I think of what my listeners are thinking. And I'm wondering if anyone's thinking that feels like a lot of frozen, like what if I don't like frozen food? How else can you meal prep? Is there any way other ways that you use?

Amy: 29:46

I mean, I do do a lot in the fridge too, but the thing about frozen is it, you know, you can have great tasting things. if you leave it in the fridge, it doesn't, you know, I like things fresh. So what I do is I'll make the meat dish and I'll put that in the freezer. But then I'll do sauteed veggies, everything, all the veggies, I pretty much do fresh at the time, you know, cause they don't take very much time. But this, that is my method, my method, it does have to do with the freezer. But I think a lot of people think too, that they just think they're going to stick it in the. microwave and that's not, you know, that's one way to reheat, but that's not always the best way there's like little tricks and tips. So like, here's an example of just, uh, when, when we order and you could do it with homemade pizza too, but when we order pizza, like the kids will order pizza and stuff. And I like pizza hut. They don't, they like something else. I'll order a pizza and I'll eat one piece. And then I'll put the rest in single little packs in the freezer. And then when they order pizza again, I'll pull out mine. But there's a trick to do it. I mean, people just think, Ooh, microwave pizza, yuck. Well, if you, if you do it my way, it's not yuck at all. So I microwave it for about 20 seconds. And then I'll put it in the toaster oven for about three minutes, and it crisp it up. And so I think a lot of the hesitation with the frozen food is, they think it's just going to be this yucky, globby mess. And it's not. I mean, it all depends on how you reheat things.

Lisa: 31:09

The reheating is the key. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. I make a lot of stir fry type meals, whether they're curries or Asian stir fries, things that have meat and vegetables in them. How would you prep that ahead? Would you stir fry just the meat and put that aside and then just do the vegetables day of, or what would you suggest for combo meals of that?

Amy: 31:37

I pretty much do vegetables day of, I'm not a big frozen vegetable person at all. I like fresh veggies. and stir fries are so quick. So to me, I mean, Well, what I might do though, and I have been doing this, there's this great meat at Costco. Actually, it's very thinly sliced beef. And so I'll, I'll get that. And, you know, you get the big thing and I'll package that up and like little tiny packages of maybe one cup and I'll, I'll chop up the meat raw, like we were talking about earlier. And then I'll freeze that in the pouches. And then when I want to make stir fry, it doesn't take long for that. Thought either. And I will make a homemade hoisin sauce and sometimes I will freeze that in little tablespoons or my green scallion sauce. I'll freeze that in a tablespoons. And so then, you know, when I'm ready to do the stir fry, I'll do the vegetables. I'll throw in the meat, I'll throw in a tablespoon of the hoisin sauce or the green scallion sauce. And there you go. And leftover rice actually. In my opinion, I usually have 40 minutes, but not everybody does. And I do freeze leftover, but I mean, rice is very easy to freeze, so you could totally do that. the other great thing too, about the, the super cubes, the two cup ones that they have, if you put in rice. Um, and you put in, um, you could put in stir fry. I like it better fresh, but you could put in your meat and your vegetables in there. The cool thing about the two cup super cup cubes is you can freeze that just like that. And it's kind of, and then I put some, you know, you can put some hoisin sauce on it or something and freeze it just like that. And then you can just pop that out. And that's like a whole bowl ready to go. That's that's, that would be a great lunch. I mean, that's a time where I might do that just so I have a quick lunch.

Lisa: 33:17

Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. So, just to recap, I think this is just a good point. If you if you do like things that are kind of combo meals where they're meat and vegetable altogether, that's where you might want to be prepping just the raw meat, and you're not pre cooking it. And honestly, like, you think like, oh, that's not that that Really food prep to just cut up meat ahead. It makes a huge difference because then you don't have that Meaty knife and cutting board. You're only doing those dishes once. Like when I have pre cut up meat, I'm like, that felt like half the meal is already done. I know it feels dramatic, but. it really does make a difference. So I think that's a good, a good note on those kinds of combo meals. I just tend to make those a lot. I tend to make a lot of skillet meals or, um, just things where it's all kind of tossed in the same skillet with the sauce, but you can always do sauces ahead. And

Amy: 34:12

Right.

Lisa: 34:13

and things

Amy: 34:14

And you could do that grilled chicken and just throw, you know, cook your little veggies in your wok and then throw in the, the grilled chicken at the last minute. And so then that would already be ready to go.

Lisa: 34:23

that's true. That's true. I never,

Amy: 34:24

Having, having grilled chicken on hand is like a game changer for a lot of people. If you know what to do with it, you know, not just plain grilled chicken,

Lisa: 34:31

Yeah, another thing I love to make ahead. I know we're just kind of getting a little random here. But, if you are making a batch of meatballs. Oh, my goodness. I love having meatballs in the freezer. And I do the same thing you do with the cookies, which is flash freeze those. And so I'll just do them fairly neutral, like well seasoned with salt and pepper. And, you know, maybe just a neutral, like parsley, something like that. And then they go in teriyaki sauce over rice with sauteed veggies. They go in spaghetti. They go in with, Suzuki and tomato and cucumber, and they go into PETA for like a little Greek gyro. There's so many things you can do with turkey meatballs. I like them turkey.

Amy: 35:14

yeah, totally and vegetarian meatballs but yeah, meatballs are so versatile and you can put them in a wrap, you could put them on a sandwich, you could put them on a pizza. I mean, there's so many different things that you could do with meatballs. Yeah. Have you seen the Meatball Master? I have to tell you about it. I'm in love with it. Oh my gosh it's the best thing since sliced bread. It's this meatball thing. So you, so you pack it full of whatever you're doing. And then you put the top on and it cuts the meatballs. You have to push really hard. you're supposed to be able to freeze it just like that, but I think it's too hard to get out. So I just use it as a cutter. And then you've got 32 meatballs. And I mean, you literally spent no time making them. So it was just, it's just so fantastic. the only downside is. I don't make my meatballs quite that big. So it's a little bit bigger meatball. Like maybe I would probably eat one or two versus, you know, three of my tiny ones,

Lisa: 36:03

Yeah, I use a cookie scoop to portion.. There are, there are a lot of things out there that can help us get ahead. I mean, don't fill your kitchen with just gadgets, fill your kitchen with tools that really help you in. In the kitchen, but, yeah, having the right tools certainly makes a big difference. In fact, that's probably one of my biggest kitchen tips when my clients are starting to cook more from home is get a good quality knife, get a good quality cutting board and one really amazing pan and just start there. And, um, so all of these extra little tools are, are extras, but.

Amy: 36:40

Yeah. You don't necessarily need all that, but, uh, but the meatball, I think that is, and the super cubes, those two things are really great for food prep. So

Lisa: 36:48

Okay. Good. All right. Any last tips before I let you go?

Amy: 36:53

Oh, I guess one of my little tips and it, it sounds dumb, but it really is true. When you plan your menu and you go shopping, do not shop and cook on the same day. You go to Costco, you see avocados, you grab all this stuff, everything looks good, you have all these plans, you're going to make all this stuff. And when you get home, what happens? No, you order pizza cause you're exhausted. So you don't, you go to the freezer, you pull out with my method, you pull out whatever you want, but you don't cook on the same day that you shop because it's just, it's too much. It's a lot of work. So that's one of my little tips.

Lisa: 37:26

I do sometimes. I'm like, okay, go on a Costco. I'm going to be a hunter gatherer. Like it feels like that much work, right?

Amy: 37:34

It is. You've got to put it in the basket. You got to put it in the car. You got to put it in the house and, and you have all these grand plans. That's the thing. I come back, I go to Costco and I think I'm going to make this, this and this. And then I get home. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm exhausted. No. So

Lisa: 37:49

All right. Yeah. Be kind to yourself and look at your calendar. See when you have time and, and plan a little extra time. But I just love how, how a lot of your method revolves around cooking when you're already cooking. I think that's a huge time saver. Huge time saver is to think what https: otter. ai So valuable. Okay. Well, thanks again, Amy, for being here. where can people find you online or obviously your book is

Amy: 38:18

you. My book's on Amazon, The Power of Food Prep, and I'm Gourmet Done Skinny online as far as my food blog, and then my membership is Food Prep for Foodies, which I'm working on a new, website just for that, but you can find information about that on Gourmet Done Skinny.

Lisa: 38:35

Great. Well, we'll put all those links in the show notes, of course, and you have a great day.

Amy: 38:42

Thank you. You too.

Lisa: 38:44

If this episode has helped you in any way, all I ask is for you to share it. Share it with one friend or share it on your social media tag me. And I'll give you a shout out as well. I have been getting a lot of comments lately about how beneficial the free content is that I have been putting out in the world and sharing it can really help someone else. You can also leave a five star rating on apple and Spotify and review the show on apple podcasts. That also really makes it easier for other people to find it because apple loves that and then they push it out to more people. So your review actually helps other women. Have a great week and as always, thanks for listening to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.