Mediterranean Meal Prep Cookbook
Quick and Easy Recipes That You Can Cook for The Week.
Healthy Meal Prep Ideas to Free Up Your Time
MILA DAVIS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Are you new at cooking? Do you face difficulty in preparing a meal and managing time? Do you want to know every beneficial way to prepare food for yourself and your family? Then start meal prepping. Anyone who likes preparing full meals without having the trouble to manage time for their busy schedule should opt for meal prepping, which is the most efficient way to start cooking or a diet without compromising on health.
People with more knowledge of health and nutrition would believe that it is necessary to spend more time in the kitchen while preparing food when it's not the truth. A strict diet or basic simple meal can be achieved with less time, with preparing the basic ingredients, chopped vegetables, prepared broth, grains, e.t.c. Recipes that take up so much of your time and energy can be deduced, making you more active to create more meals. You just have to come to the kitchen and combine and cook to prepare delicious meals.
Stress can also come while cooking when you do not have a meal prep, making the process of cooking not enjoyable. Grocery shopping or packing lunch for oneself often leads people to spend a lot of money on food, but with meal prep, you will get more aware of your taste buds, and habits, which will lead you to make a grocery list or your lunch in the budget and with ease. In addition, starting your day with a prepped meal gives you the advantage of not spending too much time in the kitchen and creating your favorite meals stress-free.
With this book, you will get increased knowledge of preparing your ingredients for cooking. You will also get tips on storing and freezing ingredients and for long storage. There are also many ways in this book for meal prep that will help you not get any food go to waste and use their full nutrition and health benefits. So, keep reading this book, and start your journey to meal prep today.
CHAPTER 1: MEDITERRANEAN DIET 101
WHAT IS MEDITERRANEAN DIET?
The Mediterranean diet is based on the people's daily diet of people who live near the Mediterranean Sea, including European countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain, some Asian countries, and some African countries, such as Morocco, Egypt, and Lebanon. Many researchers have found out that the people who reside in these places live longer and healthier than the others, and when asked about their lifestyle, it was found their traditional daily meals were the reason for their longer and happy life.
We might think that all these different countries may contain many differences, such as recipes and cooking methods. Still, their essence of the dish contains similar key elements of the Mediterranean diet.
The tradition of eating the key elements of the Mediterranean diet was started a long time ago, so the actual origins cannot be assessed. However, in the Middle Ages, they were people who ate products and food resources that were abundant in the regions they were living in, such as olives from the olive tree and seafood from the sea border.
Here, the ancient world consisted of the Islamic empire, the Roman empire, old Egyptians, and ancient Greece. In the Islamic empire, rice, spices, eggplant, and spinach were commonly used. The Roman empire, which later became Christian, consumed bread, oils, and wine. African countries brought with them polenta, couscous, and soup recipes to be traded along the sea. Later on, after the 17th century, the discovery of the Americas brought corn, tomatoes, and chili.
The diet has no strict restrictions, but only a few key principles you have to adhere to.
Principles include that every day, you need to eat a diverse source of fruits, vegetables, seeds, or grains. Also, you have to reduce eating processed food and take in more unprocessed food. You also need to use olive oil as much as you can, from cooking to flavoring.
It is important to get good fats from healthy sources and cut down on animal fat. You can get them from dairy products but consume them in moderation. Most importantly, you can have meat but focus more on white fish meat. And lastly, it's not mandatory but recommended that you eat your meals with your family.
MEAL PREP
Meal prepping is essentially preparing meals or ingredients in a way that is ready to go or ready to be used in recipes without any extra work.
Meal prepping is fully customizable. Prepping your meals before a week, or a day or hours before, is totally up to you and the ingredient in use. You will prep your ingredients or meals in a way that is stored for a while and can be used throughout the week or day; you just have to take the meal and start cooking your recipe to save you a lot of time and stress.
Advantages Of Meal Prep
Meal prepping is great for our nutrition and health. By following the meal prep, the high-calorie foods will be switched to fiber and vitamin-filled food. In addition, food that is being stored can be customizable in portions, which you think will be much suitable for you, and you can also comfortably make portable food. Meal prepping will also have the same advantages as grab-and-go options from restaurants and markets, but it will provide less fat and sugars.
Meal prep saves you from the day-to-day stress of what to cook or having to quickly prepare food for yourself or your family. Bulk cooking is one of the ways that can save you stress. Preparing a meal and storing it in a freezer will save your food for 1 or 2 days. The freezing method saves you a lot of time where there is no time in your busy schedule, and it saves you time for different work. In addition, it provides you meals for many times of the day, and the food being homemade also gives you the advantage of health and nutrition.
How To Do Meal Prep?
To take a shortcut from all the stress of cooking everything from scratch at home, at every lunch, dinner, or breakfast, meal prep is the promising way to go. These are the basic steps of starting meal prep.
Make A Plan
First, make a plan of what meals you are going to prepare for the day or week. If this is your first time cooking, it is better to opt for 2 or 3 meals per day or week. Variety may cause you a lot of stress. After planning the recipes, prepare the grocery list, and get all the ingredients within your budget.
Pick The Right Combination of Recipes
Picking the right recipe set is crucial, as it may get tricky for you and may lead to stress. Pick recipes with having past cooking experiences in mind. You can prepare any poultry item in the oven while you work on the stove; it will save time, but strive for what works better for you.
Do Not Prepare Too Many Meals
At the start of meal prepping, try to be far from preparing too many meals. In the beginning, look for the recipe that works best for you, preparing vegetables wise, cutting, and budgeting. Make the recipe that you are most comfortable in, in large portions, to help you in future meals and food times. Freeze the prepared ingredients or meals in a storage box, and freeze, and it lasts for days, which will help you unfreeze the meal and prepare your food at any given time. Prep the same meal a few times over a month, and set a date on which days of the week you will prep the meal for. Cooking a full week's worth of meals, in variety, may cause extra hard work in one day and a lot of stress from preparing.
Utensils To Use for Meal Prepping
