00:00I'm Lucy Fink and this is five days of meal prep. Hey guys, it's me. Happy 2018!
00:10Welcome back to Try Living with Lucy. If you're new to our YouTube channel, I promise you we are
00:15so fun, so informative, and so entertaining. So you should probably click right here to subscribe.
00:21And if you're a returning subscriber, then welcome back and please give this video a thumbs up.
00:26It's 2018, and I know that a new year always seems to bring that urge to start taking control
00:32of your life, and in my case, to start really being an adult. Because I am one. So I need
00:38to be one. And for me, a major New Year's resolution was to start meal prepping. Before this week,
00:44meal prep looked kind of like this to me. I love pizza. So this weekend, I spent a ton
00:51of time planning and organizing, and then I went out to buy the ingredients for five days
00:55of five servings of food. So for each of the days this week, I've made breakfast, lunch,
01:01a snack, dinner, and dessert. Yesterday on Sunday was my full meal prep day, so I spent
01:07three hours right there in my kitchen preparing everything for the week ahead. And here is
01:11what I made. Chia seed pudding for breakfast. Burrito bowls with a ton of fresh veggies for
01:16lunch. Roasted and seasoned sweet potato fries and chickpeas as a snack. Vegetable noodles with
01:22basil pesto, cherry tomatoes, and shrimp for dinner. And chocolate chip, peanut butter,
01:27chickpea bars for dessert. Yes. Chickpea. Don't worry because each day in this video as
01:33I go through five days of eating the meal prep foods, I'm going to focus on one of the meals.
01:38So either breakfast, lunch, the snack, dinner, or dessert so that I can break down the full
01:42recipe for you, and then also break down my strategy behind everything. I got all of my meal
01:46ideas this week from chef and cooking instructor Alyssa Gagarin, who is a meal prepping goddess.
01:53Through my experience, I've learned all the do's and don'ts of meal prep and have gathered
01:57my top tips for Lucy's meal prep. Woohoo! So tip number one is it's all about strategy.
02:04The total cost of meal prep to cook for one person for a week's worth of food is approximately
02:10$100, depending on what you choose. I spent $107 total on all of the ingredients yesterday,
02:16which, if you divide by five days and five servings of food a day, comes to $4.28 per
02:23dish. Pretty good.
02:26Overall, my first day of eating the meal prep foods went quite swimmingly, if I do say so
02:31myself. I ate my first breakfast chia seed pudding this morning, which was delicious.
02:35I brought all of my lunch bowls to the office and I stored them in the Refinery29 fridge.
02:41Dinner was so easy to compile because all of the individual pieces were in their own containers,
02:45and dessert was obviously delicious because it's dessert. So as I said, because I'm focusing
02:51on one meal a day, today on Monday I'm focusing on my breakfast. Here is how I made that chia
02:56seed pudding. I mixed four cups of coconut milk with one cup of chia seeds, added a teaspoon
03:02of vanilla extract and a drizzle of maple syrup, and then I cut up different types of fruits
03:09to make different toppings so that each day would have a bit of a different flavor. Then I poured
03:14them into individual mason jars, sealed them, and lined them up in my fridge for the week.
03:18Andrew, my cameraman, gave the pudding his final stamp of approval by actually licking the
03:23remainders of it from the bowl.
03:25Stamp of approval.
03:26It was good.
03:29Today I'm sharing the recipe for my lunch burrito bowls.
03:32If you've chosen any recipes with avocados, here's a pro tip for you. Buy avocados of different
03:38ripeness. One that's ripe to use now, one that will ripen in a couple days, and one that has
03:44the entire week to be ripe so that by Friday or Saturday it's perfect for a bold guac.
03:49Following Alyssa's recipe, I made a giant pot of rice, seasoned up the raw chicken with salt,
03:55pepper, paprika, and other spices, chopped up some vegetables like romaine, purple cabbage,
04:00and fresh tomatoes, and then popped open a can of black beans and corn. Once everything was done
04:06cooking, I assembled the burrito bowls into five separate lunch boxes with rice on the bottom and
04:12then the vegetables lined up on top in rainbow order. I know that what's most important is the
04:17way that it tastes, but the fact that it was so beautiful and looked like a rainbow on my plate
04:21didn't hurt at all. I am loving these little boxes that I got for lunch this week because they seal
04:26really tight to lock in the freshness. They're microwavable, they're reusable, and it's only
04:32day two but I'm already starting to notice how meal prep is drastically reducing the amount of waste
04:37that I'm creating throughout the day. And to make this week even more zero waste friendly, I'm using a
04:41set of bamboo kitchen utensils that I got from Lauren Singer's package-free shop in Brooklyn.
04:47Hashtag trash is for tossers. I'm one of those people who cannot go between lunch and dinner without
04:53munching on something. So I decided to make a really healthy snack idea this week but to turn
04:58it very delicious by adding spices and seasoning to it. I got pre-cut sweet potato fries and a couple
05:04of cans of chickpeas and I seasoned them both up with olive oil, salt, garlic powder, paprika, and more.
05:11I put them onto separate trays because they needed to cook for different amounts of time at different
05:15temperatures. That was really tough for me and it was difficult for me to balance the different
05:19temperatures with the different cook times. So at some point I just put them both into the oven
05:23together and decided to eyeball it. Now this is a very important thing to know about meal prep.
05:29From the footage that you've seen so far it probably looks like first I whipped up my chia seed pudding
05:34and then I made all of the ingredients for my lunch and then I moved on to seasoning my snack.
05:39You get the drill. But the truth is that is not how I did this at all. Sunday in my
05:45kitchen was a complete
05:46and utter whirlwind of chaos. I feel like I'm unchopped. How do we want to cook the chicken?
05:51How's my rice doing? Ah! These chickpeas are roasting. Ah! Oh no space! Racing against the clock!
05:59I was running around doing six things at once. I had the rice on the stove while I seasoned the
06:04chicken
06:05and the shrimp. I was roasting up my snacks while I put my chickpea and peanut butter brownies into the
06:09food
06:09processor. A lot of things. A lot of moving parts. Tip number three. When you are choosing your recipes
06:16for the week think of using multiple cooking methods that utilize various different tools so that you
06:23make the most of your time. As I was planning my meals for this week actually I took Alyssa's advice
06:28to heart and I realized how silly it would be if I chose meals that all use the oven or
06:33all needed the
06:34stove top because that would just not be strategic with my time and with my kitchen space. My proteins for
06:39lunch and dinner were cooked on the stove top. The snacks were roasted in the oven. The vegetables
06:44didn't need to be cooked at all. And my dessert was the only thing that needed a food processor.
06:48So you see what I did there. Very smart. Just had my fourth chia seed pudding cup of the week
06:57and
06:57they never get old. They are so good but I was a little bit extra hungry this morning so I
07:03woke up
07:03and I popped in a waffle. It was tough picking a dinner recipe for this week because if I know
07:10anything about myself it's that I really like diversifying the meals I'm having from one day
07:15to the next. And the only exception to this rule is pizza because I could literally eat pizza every meal
07:21every day forever. But sadly I wasn't making pizza this week so that was tough. I needed a dinner idea
07:30that
07:30allowed me to pick and choose different pieces so I could make it differently each night. I got a
07:34vegetable noodle medley made of sweet potato noodles, squash noodles, zoodles, and more. I kept
07:40them raw so they didn't get soggy. I cooked the shrimp with salt, pepper, and olive oil. I made a
07:46basil pesto
07:46and I halved the cherry tomatoes. The first night I made this I just tossed all of the ingredients into
07:52a pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper and I sauteed it up. On the second night I changed up
07:57the flavor a bit by
07:58trying out some different seasoning and spices on top. And tonight I was really not in the mood for
08:03a hot noodle dish. Instead I wanted something cold and refreshing like a salad. So I kept the noodles
08:08raw and crunchy and then instead of the basil pesto I just squeezed some lemon juice on top. And it's
08:13not just my dinner that I'm doing this with. Actually yesterday at lunch I wanted to spice up the burrito
08:18bowl a little bit so I bought a tortilla and I turned the burrito bowl into an actual burrito. And
08:24if I
08:24learned anything about myself from the experience it's that I cannot roll a burrito for the life of
08:29me. But I do have to say that turning the bowl into a burrito made the lunch look, feel, and
08:34taste
08:35completely different. So that was good. Happy Friday everyone! Today I'm sharing the recipe for these
08:43incredible chocolate chip peanut butter chickpea bars. Y'all ready for this?
08:50If you're one of those people who looks at a dessert made of chickpeas and seriously judges it
08:56for what it is, don't. And don't even try to imagine what this tastes like because you just can't until
09:02you try it. And when you do try it you'll see that it tastes like dessert not chickpeas. This is
09:08Alyssa's recipe and oh man, oh man, it was epic. I preheat the oven to 350 and then I mixed
09:15half a cup of
09:16natural peanut butter with one 15 ounce can of drained and rinsed chickpeas. I added two tablespoons
09:22of maple syrup, two tablespoons of honey, one tablespoon of vanilla extract, half a teaspoon
09:27of salt, a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder. I blended this
09:33all up in a food processor until it was smooth and shiny and delicious looking. And then I spread it
09:39into a baking dish and added chocolate chips on top. They baked for 18 minutes exactly and came out
09:52perfectly. I put them in a Tupperware and I had two rows with a piece of parchment paper in between
09:56and then I stored them in the fridge to give them a fudge-like consistency. And in a few hours
10:01I'm going
10:02to have my final serving of dinner and dessert and after that I will have officially eaten all of the
10:07meal
10:08prep foods that I bought and made this weekend. Actually taking the plunge and doing this challenge
10:12calmed my fears about a how long it would take to meal prep everything and b how expensive this would
10:18be. I actually think I saved money this week. Now I want to know some of your favorite meal prep
10:23recipes
10:23and if you've never done this before comment below and let me know if this is something you can see
10:28yourself trying. I would highly recommend it. And as always let me know what you want to see next
10:32time on Try Living with Lucy. Go Lucy, go Lucy, woo! If you're looking for more meal prep recipes,
10:40inspiration, or tips, find me on Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, all at Alyssa Gagarin or my website at
10:46AlyssaGagarin.com. Hey YouTube, thanks for watching five days of meal prep. Click here to watch another
10:53video on our channel, right here to subscribe to us on YouTube, definitely click here, and right here for
10:59my personal YouTube channel. See you next time!
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