 back to my channel. So today we've got another meal prep video. If you're new here, I do these about every two weeks, so twice a month. So that's why I call them monthly freezer prep videos. My freezer is not that big. We eventually want to get a deep freezer for in our garage, but for now, if every two weeks works out the best for me, I can kind of stock up and then replenish as things run out or just be making new recipes. So the whole idea behind this is I try to make healthy things that we can use instead of just buying a bag of chicken nuggets, you know, things that work quick and easy. And I've been getting questions about how I reheat these meals and the things that I make for in my freezer. And it's kind of a combination. I do use the microwave at times. And then we recently got an air fryer, which that's been awesome. I've been using that a lot to reheat things. So yeah, I will leave the playlist below of all of my meal prep videos that are similar to this because I know that you guys really enjoy those style videos. And I have a lot of great things to make today. First thing that we're going to dive into making is some chili. And to be honest, I've kind of gotten into a thing of having chili in the freezer most of the time. And my husband knows it. And the other day he went to make some chili dogs and he's like, there's no chili in the freezer. Just because it's such a simple meal if we need it really quick. And obviously making chili dogs is also a perk whenever you're in the mood for that. So what I like to do is make a pretty big batch and then divide it out into like two portions. We may actually have one of the portions for dinner tonight just because since I'm already making it, we may just eat that. I make my chili without beans. I just started doing it this way a few years ago and really prefer it. And I don't have exact measurements every time I'll show you everything that I'm going to be putting in it today. And you can kind of get the gist of like what I use as a base to make chili without beans. Also wanted to address something really quick. I've been getting a ton of comments about plastic wastes and you know using freezer bags or saran wrap and things like that or just like reusable containers stuff like that. And sometimes I do that out of convenience, but I've been hearing you hearing you and I've been doing a little bit of researching and so I have some reusable silicone gallon bags coming. They're not here yet. So today I'll be using disposable, but I have some coming to try them out to see if I like them. And then I will let you guys know some options that might work well for reasonable things that you don't have to be constantly using plastic and throwing it away. That sort of thing. Sometimes it's handy just to not have the extra dishes to do on a really busy day because most of the time when I get things out of the freezer it is on a busy day and it's just easier for me to be able to like throw away whatever um everything is in. And of course if you're buying a bag of nuggets at the store they're in a plastic bag. If you're buying dinner at you know takeout they are in something that's generally recyclable which plastic bags are. So just keeping those things in mind. Moderation in life everywhere you are I always talk about moderation and there are sometimes that things like that just save us moms a little bit of time and one less thing to wash. My favorite way to make my chili is in my Dutch oven. So this is if you've never seen something like this it's basically like a stone it would be similar to a cast iron skillet but it is a big pot and it has a really heavy lid. The whole thing is pretty heavy. I've had this one for a pretty long time and I'm actually I have about a pound and a half of meat in here. I just took a three pound block and like split it in half but you could put two pounds in easily. It's just ground beef and then I put the lid on. Basically what this does is it's similar to a slow cooker. So you really could use this like a slow cooker you could put a roast in it put it on low on the stove and just let it really cook low. So that's why I like to make my chili in here because it kind of gives it the taste that it's been sitting cooking a long time when it really hasn't something about the way that it keeps the heat inside does a great job of that. So I've got this on I just threw it in there didn't put anything else in there and I'll show you what I'm going to work on while this is getting cooked up. So one of the things I really like to put in my chili as a base since I'm not using beans is rice cauliflower. So that is what's in this bag. So I'm going to be putting this in and then I also love to use bell peppers. I just think they're so sweet and delicious in chili. So I've got three bell peppers. I don't know if I'll use all of them. I'll kind of cut them up and put them in one at a time see how it goes. I need to wash them and then I also have an onion and sometimes I've even done a bigger onion than this. Like I said it's not exact measurements but you're getting the idea and then I have some diced tomatoes and then some tomato sauce. So I'm going to get all of this I'm going to get these diced up and the onion diced up until then the meat should be probably kind of close to being done. And then I put this stuff in with the meat once it's like almost browned and start cooking the veggies and as they soften then I add in like the sauce and the tomatoes and the spices we'll get there. Once you see the onions start to get a little bit clear means that they're getting cooked through. You're going to let this simmer when you're all done mixing everything together but I just like to make sure that stuff is like mostly cooked till I put the tomato product in. So I'm going to be putting the tomato stuff I showed you a little bit ago and then also some chili powder, some onion powder, some cumin and garlic and to be quite honest with you I shake it in as I go. I just kind of know and taste as I go and figure it out from there. Also some salt and then if I want it to be a little bit of a sweeter chili I'll add in some stevia. I'm probably just going to let it be today instead of doing the sweeter chili and then the other thing I throw in is the rice cauliflower but you don't really want to do that until you add the tomato products just because it already is kind of like it cooks up really fast. You wouldn't really want to add that into what's going on now. Just came home but I wanted to let you guys know that today's video is sponsored by Skillshare. I've worked with them quite a few times before so if you've been around my channel long enough you know how much I really love them and they've been my favorite sponsorship I've ever done just because I'm so about learning new things and picking up on new skills and I'm also a very visual learner and Skillshare really brings that to the table whenever you're trying to learn something new. Skillshare is an online learning community that provides thousands of classes. The range is honestly amazing. They've got anything from culinary classes so if you want to learn how to do some different kind of cooking or photography, design, even classes on being more productive which I can always use in my life. Skillshare is for anybody. It can be from somebody that's a master in something to just a beginner. Obviously right now we're all doing a lot of social distancing and being at home so this is one way to fill your time with doing something super productive. It's also a good way to calm your anxiety or just get your mind off of maybe some of the stresses of life right now. The Skillshare community is also a great way to meet other people that do things that you enjoy as well and make new connections. So if you guys are interested in trying out Skillshare which I highly recommend, I use it myself. The first thousand people to hit the link in the description box will get two months free to try out Skillshare and you guys will definitely want to keep using it. It's something that I've been using for quite a few months now. So back to cooking, back to what we've been working on. So the chili, one of the thing I wanted to make a comment about is we like our chili a little bit thicker and you can add water to it and thin it down but one thing that that frozen rice cauliflower brings to it is it does bring some liquid in. So I didn't add any water or broth or anything like that just because we like it on the thicker side and the added liquid it needs was already there. You guys have been watching for a while. One thing I really like making for my girls as a healthy snack is ice pops. So I get these baggies. I have to grab them actually and I'll show you in a second off of Amazon. Always leave them linked below but they're a really great way to fill your own ice pops with healthy ingredients. So today we're going to make some with some pineapple and some strawberries. I'm just going to throw it all in the blender and add probably a little bit of water or almond milk just to water it down and then fill up the ice pops. Add any water to this. It had enough liquid in it and my girls always love these. We've been out of them for a while so they're going to be so excited when they wake up from their naps and see that I've made a bunch of them. So these are the bags. I hope you can see them they're a little hard to see on camera but they're the kind of like a long skinny ziplock bag and then I take a funnel and this does come with a funnel. I use a little bit of a different one that I have but it does come with a funnel and then you just fill it up and I have put yogurt in these. If you guys go back through my meal prep videos you will see that I've put a lot of different things in these and they're just a really great way to get a lot of nutrients into your kids and they don't really think about it because they already love ice pops and it's something that they want to eat. So I'm going to fill these up in between doing some of my other cooking. Actually the next afternoon I decided to film this over two afternoons just while my girls were taking naps. It's a little bit easier for me to get stuff done obviously whenever they're sleeping. So I'm going to be doing some french toast in the air fryer. So I got some gluten-free bread from Aldi here and I have eggs, milk, heavy cream, cinnamon, sugar and then some vanilla. I'm going to link the recipe I'm using below but I think I'm going to go about it a little different way. I'm going to mix the eggs, vanilla, milk and heavy cream together and then flip the bread in that and then I think I'm going to make a mixture with the cinnamon sugar to put on top right before I put it in the air fryer. So I'm going to test it out and you guys can see the result. I think it's going to turn out well. Obviously the more traditional french toast would be with like Texas toast style bread, the thicker bread but since we have some gluten sensitivity and I try to do things that are gluten free we are going to try out this bread. I've never done this before so we'll see how it goes. While I'm working on putting the french toast sticks in and by the way I'm trying out individual sticks I think it'll work out good that way. I may end up just putting whole slices in but I actually think I can get more in the air fryer when they're cut before they're fried. So going to see how that works out. Now I'm going to make something that I've actually made before and this is a really great alternative to the packets of oatmeal that a lot of us use that you can heat up really quickly. So I have these muffin silicone liners. They are from Amazon and what I do, there's a recipe for this. I will link below but this is my own version of it I guess if you want to say it that way. You have to use Quick Oats just because the rolled oats dry out a little easier and this reheats a little bit better than the whole oats. So we're using some Quick Oats and then what you do is you cook it up. I have some milk here and then she suggests using brown sugar in the recipe but I like to use this pure uh stevia sweetener just so that they're not getting all the sugar which is kind of the point of doing this instead of the packets just because there's a lot of sugar in the little oatmeal packets and then so you cook that up and then you put them into these and you top it with fruit. The girls like some shredded coconut that kind of thing and then I put them in the freezer let them freeze the whole way through and then you can just pop them out and keep them in a container and all you got to do is grab out the cup throw it into a little bowl and warm it up in the microwave or you know whatever you want to heat or stuff in and it's a really fast way to have oatmeal. The last time I made these the girls really raved about them and I think it's definitely one of their favorite breakfasts. It's taken a little bit of experimenting to figure this out so I started doing them in three like one piece since they're a larger piece of bread. I did them in three strips and this was my first batch they were a little bit too dark so this is my second batch and now this is my third batch and I'd say that they're looking really good really great to reheat you don't want to overdo them because you will heat them again whenever you get them out of the freezer but I think it's going well and what I'm doing is the first side I'm doing four minutes at 375 and then I flip them over and I do them three minutes and then they're done. The next thing that we're going to make is some chicken patties I've actually been wanting to try this out for a while just because I feel like it's a super rounded meal idea lunch idea for kids so I've got two chicken breasts in here I just cut them in half I put about a cup of water in so I'm going to put those in my pressure cooker cook them up you could cook them any way you want you can put them in your oven, fry them on the stove whatever but you do want the chicken to be able to kind of shred so I find that doing it in my pressure cooker makes them soft and I can kind of shred them up and they'll go into the patties really easily and then I'm going to be putting some of these just quick mixed vegetables into this pot and cooking them up these are going to be my veggies that are going to go into the patties. So this is a cup of these veggies it's two chicken breasts and then I'm going to be putting in a cup of this gluten-free flour you could use regular flour you could use a keto flour mix whatever you want I've never tried this before but it's kind of convenient they come in individual packages of one cup so you can keep them for a long time and they'll stay fresh and I'm going to put in about four eggs and then I'm going to put some dill weed some salt and some onion powder we're going to try out that consistency like I said this is my own recipe I'm kind of coming up with it as I go so I'm going to mix it all up and then see how it seems if it's a little bit runny I might have to add in a little bit more flour but we'll see how they go all right so this ended up being a really great consistency I'm super happy with it so I'm going to put some olive oil in the pan and then I think I'm going to try using a cookie scoop to scoop them in and then kind of flatten them out so they're going to be really small I would say like pretty bite-sized but I want them to be finger food size so that the girls can easily eat them so we're going to try this out and if for some reason they're not cooking through or something like that I may add another egg I actually think that they're a little bit thicker the batter or whatever you want to call this is a little thicker than I expected it to be but I think it's going to work out these turned out so delicious the girls really enjoyed them and I enjoyed them myself I definitely think I can do different variations of them and they're so healthy and just a great lunch option I hope that this video inspired you guys don't forget to check out the links in the description box if you're new around here I'd love it if you subscribe to my channel give this video a like leave me a comment below I love reading your comments and getting back to you guys and I'll see you guys in my next video