I spent a decent bit of time debating how I was going to do this post. I was originally going to write out what happened step by step, then put the pictures in where it was necessary, but I realised that would take a lot of work, and a lot of upload time on my slow internet. Instead, I've uploaded all the pictures I took of my meal prep process and put them at the bottom of the page in one of the nifty galleries that squarespace offers. I'll go over the main points in text, but for the details hit up the pictures and read the captions.
So hard not to just let my face fall onto the pile and make chewing motions. Nom nom.
So, meal prep. You might remember my worries about making food that would have to be heated up, as I didn't want to worry about pulling the truck over, or using the inverter that's hooked up wrong and heats up the tiny wire attached to it. Well, all of those worries have apparently gone out the window. It's so much easier to come up with ideas if you allow yourself to make food that needs to be heated. Plus, hot foot usually tastes better anyway. Seriously this chicken smelled so good while I was shredding it, and I hadn't eaten supper yet while I was cooking, so I was SO hungry. I couldn't resist a few nibbles, but if I had any less willpower, I would have had a lot less chicken for lunches this week.
The food I went with this week is pretty simple. I have a nice BBQ curry chicken, some brown basmati rice, boiled broccoli, and kernel corn. It's not the most inventive or original of ideas, but it works, and I'm hoping it tastes good. It has the benefit of everything tasting good when mixed together, and I can heat it up all at once. The only thing I need to add really is some soya sauce for the rice, and I got a small bottle to keep in the fridge in the truck.
I wish I would have started the prep earlier in the day though. I woke up nice and early at 7, had a tasty breakfast of toast, avocado, and poached eggs, with some coffee of course, then kind of didn't really do anything until about 1 o'clock. I have so many things that I could have done, but just sat around instead. Finally, after cereal for lunch, I convinced myself that there were things I told myself I would do today that wouldn't be able to wait for another day, so I got to it. I went upstairs and the kitchen was a bit of a mess. It wasn't dirty or anything, but our kitchen has always been very cluttered. I'm going to be doing a deep clean of it one of these days, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Basically it's just full of junk that accumulated over years and years of use. We have so many mismatched cups and mugs and plates and utensils it's ridiculous. I need to go through the whole thing, clean out all the cupboards, free up some space by throwing the stuff out that's been in there since before 9/11, and get the stuff off the counters. I didn't have time to do that today, but I seriously needed to free up some counter space, so I spent an hour cleaning. Dumping out years old alcohol that no one had even though of since Y2K, tossing stuff that has been sitting on top of the microwave so long it would probably give the elephant's foot a run for it's money in radioactivity, and wiped down the areas of counter I was uncovering for the first time since Watergate.
After the semi-deep clean I was already a little tuckered out, but I kept at it. Here's the thing about me and working like this. I've said it before, but I think it's something that will benefit me if I just keep repeating it, driving it even deeper into my dense skull. Once I actually start doing these things, I feel bloody fantastic. I was so tired at the end of my cookout today, but I had such a sense of accomplishment for completing a tangible goal that I had, it totally nullified the exhaustion. Anyway, With the kitchen finally clean, I was able to start.
Honey Nut Cheerios were unfortunately not included in this recipe.
I started to soak the rice first, because I knew that it had to be in the water for at least 30 minutes for maximum... uh... riceage, but I also knew if it was in longer than that it wouldn't be the end of the rice based world. So I got the brown basmati (which is slightly less delicious than the white basmati, not trying to be racist) going and started on my most dreaded task of the afternoon, deboning the chicken. I let my grandma convince me to buy this chicken breast on the bone. Now, I will admit, it was actually less that half as expensive as the boneless stuff, but immediately after finishing the deboning I have to ask myself if it's really worth it. Now that it's been a few hours and my bone fatigue (giggity) has subsided, I can say that yes it probably is worth it. But at the time, I really hated those stupid bones.
After I separated the dead bird from its former skeleton I had to spice it. I got this BBQ sauce at Davidson Orchards in Vernon, and now I need to find out where to buy it online, because it was stupidly low on calories, like 35 for 2 tablespoons, and it tastes de-fucking-licious. I kind of wish I had never tried it, because it has ruined all other BBQ sauces for me. Any others I've tried that taste even almost as good are like twice or thrice the calories. Sigh. Anyway I added the BBQ sauce and the curry. I'm not sure if this is a common mixture, but I really like it. It gives it that spiciness with the homestyle chicken tinge as well. Really yummy. If you have any suggestions for good, low cal BBQ sauces let me know, because I'm not sure if I'll be able to get this again anywhere local.
Once it was spiced and ready for the oven the hard parts were over. After that it was just putting the rice on boil, boiling the broccoli, and opening the corn cans. That's the nice thing about kernel corn, there's no cooking or anything. I literally just put it straight from the cans into a bowl so it was easier to spoon up later during plating, then into the containers. It just needs to be heated up. Nice.
The chicken came out of the oven and I performed the aforementioned shredding, then put everything in the containers. All in all it probably took me a little over 2 hours total, 3 if you include the cleaning beforehand. It wasn't bad at all, and if the meals heat up nicely and taste good, I'll definitely be adding this as a routine every time I get ready to go back on shift. Again, if you have any recipes you think I should try, hit me up in the comments. You can check out the gallery below for the full procedure for my meal prep. Thanks for reading!
