Good morning Splinterfriends, fellow Hivers and Digital Buddies :)
You may wonder why this completely unrelated post about healthy food ideas is going to include a Splinterlands tag...
So here's my reasoning - if we care about the people we call "friends", in real life or digital, we should share things that are helpful in the hopes that our friends can benefit from it.
You, my Splinterfriends, are seeing this because I care about your health and I hope that this may bene
In America, where I live, we have a rather unhealthy society and direct cause of this is from my research and work in this field can be attributed to this:
"Foodwise, everything fast and cheap that fits our budget and schedule - is terrible for us."
I won't share the whole story here and now but I took the broad array of skills and knowledge I had acquired throughout my very strange and non-linear path through life and applied it solving that problem.
I'll tell you more about that in a later post but today, I want to share a simple recipe and how to properly prepare and portion a delicious, super quick, healthy and extremely affordable meal!
This meal is easily scalable and can be done to feed yourself, your family or even prep some food for later on in the week (great way to save money at work!)
So lets go make some food!
Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast - the GOAT. The Staple of bodybuilders everywhere. A fantastic lean protein source that can be prepared in a variety of ways, seasoned six ways from Sunday and is really hard to screw up!!
There's a generic image for you - these are one of the LEAST EXPENSIVE sources of lean protein that you can purchase.
Locally, they are about $2.75/lb or if you get lucky and catch them on sale, they can be had under $2.00/lb. Oh, the pre-covid days of slightly less bad inflation, when these could be easily obtained for $1.85/lb or less!
Baby Broccoli aka Broccolini:
These are a recent addition to my menu and while they are more expensive than regular Broccoli, they are FREAKIN' DELICIOUS!!
Tender, crispity-crunchity unless you overcook the shit out of them... and slightly sweet! It has amazing flavor and it's extremely healthy!
Baby Potatoes or Creamer Potatoes:
These are typically found in soups, stews, pot roasts, etc - but they cook quickly, are relatively cheap and taste good :)
These lil guys are packed with flavor and again - are easy to cook!
Yeah, that's it... that's all the ingredients... this isn't a guide on how to make a Michelin Star meal... it's how to make affordable healthy food, with little to no training... seriously, I bet I could teach a 5 year old to make this and it would come out edible 😁
I am going to start with just ONE seasoning blend... the almighty Mrs. Dash!
For the simplest and easiest form of seasoning, Mrs Dash is a great SALT FREE blend that gives you a nice pop of flavor and keeps your sodium intake low!
Get the oven turned on and set to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or like, I dunno, probably like 138 Celsius? 219 C? 597 C? I have no idea what temp that is in Celcius.
Take a cooking tray out and spread or spray some oil on it (I like Avocado Oil). This prevents the Chicken from sticking to the tray...
PRO TIP: Place "Aluminum Foil" over the sheet, if you have it... and that makes cleanup SUPER EASY - and I like EASY!
After this, place the chicken breasts on the oiled up cooking tray with a little space in between them, kinda like in this stock photo:
Sprinkle Mrs Dash over them until they have a pretty decent covering all over them (it's ok to spill a little over into the tray)...
Flip them over and shake more Mrs Dash on the other side!
At this point... you're done prepping the chicken. Yes. That's it... Tray. Oil. Chicken. Sprinkle! Flip. Sprinkle! DONE!
For the Broccolini and Potatoes... are you ready for another super simple prep???
Step 1: Get a pot.
Step 2: Put water in pot
Step 3: Put a lil salt in pot
Step 4: Turn heat on HIGH and wait until boil.
PRO TIP: Water is shy, DO NOT WATCH IT, it will not Boil. You are collapsing the Wave Function of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Boil and thus "Watched Pots Never Boil".
Step 5: Once the water is boiling... JUST LIKE THIS:
At this point... I have to ask... how can you actually mess this up?
Ok... the prep is done... the oven is heated... the water is boiling... so what now?
Well... this is ALSO really easy and super simple...
Chicken: Put the chicken in the oven. Set timer for 12 minutes. When timer goes off, take out tray, flip chicken breasts over. Rotate tray 180 degrees, stick back in oven, timer for 12 minutes again.
When timer goes off, you're probably done. Use a thermometer to check or cut one in half and check to ensure all the pink is gone from it!
Broccolini: Take Broccolini. Dump into boiling water. Use utensil to submerge all the Broccolini. Cover. Set timer for 2 minutes 15 seconds for a slightly crisp Broccolini... set timer for 2m 30s for less crunchy Broccolini... any more and you're getting mush!
When timer goes off... stir Broccolini, ensuring bottom comes to top and top to bottom... cover. Do that timer again.
When done. Pour into strainer. After water drains out, put back in pot, fill with COLD WATER! Water will get warm. Repeat two more times or so. This is called "blanching" and will prevent the Broccolini from continuing to cook after it is taken out of the pot.
Potatoes: Pour potatoes into boiling water. Timer for 12m. Check potatoes... if you can poke a fork into the center without much resistance... they're done. If tough, give it 4-5 more minutes :)
Blanch just like the Broccolini.
A big part of healthy eating is not exactly what you eat... but HOW MUCH you eat!
When I worked with clients I would always start by asking how much they ate... then I'd ask ok well how many grams of protein was that? How many calories?
I was often met with blank stares.
If we don't know how much we are eating... we can't really tell what, if anything, is working.
It is VITAL to measure your food by weighing it :)
So let's see that in action!
With my container on it and it tared to zero, I can start my portioning :)
First, we start with the Protein - for me, I am using 6oz of the Cooked Chicken Breast as my Protein Portion of this meal.
According to the USDA there are 340 Calories in 6oz of Baked Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast and the macronutrient (macro) breakdown is: 50g Protein, 0g Carb, 13g Fat
Next up is the potato - I am using 7.5oz of Creamer Potatoes for my meal. This yields about 157 Calories of which there are about 5g Protein, 40g Carb and 0g Fat.
Finally, I layer the Broccolini on top and I aim for "1 Cup" which is about 100g or 3.6oz or so...
The Broccolini is super nutritious with only 37 Calories and of that there are 7.3g of Carbs... but 3.7g of that is FIBER! So the macros look like 2.5g Protein, 3.6g Carb and .5g Fat!
There we go! All done :) Now I just have to repeat a few times and I have lunch for a few days! I throw the stack in the fridge and when I am ready to eat... take it out of the fridge and pop it into the microwave for 2 minutes... DONE. READY TO EAT. BOOM!!
Adding all the nutrition content up this is our data:
Calories: 330 Chicken, 157 Potatoes & 37 Broccolini = Only 524 Calories for over a POUND OF FOOD!!!
Macros:
Protein: 50g + 5g + 2.4g = 57.4g Protein (57.4g x 4 = 229.6 Calories)
Carb: 0g + 40g + 3.6g = 47.3g Carb (43.6g x 4 = 174.4 Calories)
Fat: 14g + 0g + .5g = 13.5g Fat (14.5 x 9 = 130.5 Calories)
Back testing the data = 525.5 Calories so that's good enough!
Macro percentage = 43.69% Protein! 33.18% Carb and 23.13% Fat... which is about freakin' PERFECT to lean out!!
This is an awesome meal, packed with flavor and very nutritious! Of course you could always add a little Hot Sauce or go easy on a dip or something to make it EVEN MORE FLAVORFUL!
Keep in mind ya gotta count the dip/sauce/etc though...
There ya go friends, a look into what I do on Sundays - I hope you enjoyed it and let me know if you try it!
Cheers 🍻,
- Captaindingus
#Healthy #Nutrtitious #MealPrep #Chicken #CreamerPotato #Broccolini #PORTIONYOURFOOD
