 So today we are going to tackle another weekly meal prep. I have a lot going on this week So I really wanted to get things just all prepped as much as possible So we are actually experiencing a winter wonderland. We've been getting some snow lately So it's a perfect day to just be working in the kitchen make the house nice and warm by cooking Get those good yummy aromas going. I did make myself some coffee and I Got out the meat out of the freezer that I'm going to be needing for this prep yesterday or the day before And so I have everything ready to get started Oftentimes in these weekly meal preps I lay out the meals for the week and kind of show you all What I'm prepping for each day of the week and how I'm putting all of those meals together Well today, I am showing you how human I am and this week I just simply was not as organized I prepped a bunch of things with some thoughts of some of these things going together as meals, but some of it was also Just sides that I would have ready to go with some things we thought we would cook through the week So just know that even if you don't have a true mapped out plan Like having every single meal figured out you can still take some time a few hours To prep out a few things so that it just gives you that head start so the first thing I'm putting together here is a Garlic brown sugar chicken this turned out So so delicious, and I'm just emincing up some garlic I didn't have any brown sugar made up So I just mixed some molasses in with my cane sugar added in my salt and pepper and then it just added the Garlic in and kind of made like a dry rub. Of course all of these recipes will be linked below I found a lot of recipes on Pinterest that inspired me this week So some of those will be linked in the description box where you can follow along and make these as well This one's really easy. I think it's like five ingredients to cover the chicken and I did it in my insta pot on the slow cooker setting now. I'm using the butcher box Chicken thighs bone-in chicken thighs and butcher box is actually sponsoring today's video I'll share more about them in just a bit But I just opened the whole pack up and put the thighs onto a plate So it was a little easier for me to coat Each one and make sure that the skin side was up inside of my slow cooker or my pressure cooker Used on the slow cooker setting so I'm just Coating each one with the dry rub and then just laying them in the bottom of the pot And I'm not adding any extra liquid to this. They will make their own liquid As they slow cook so I wanted to do this first because I was going to let them slow cook on high for four hours While I was working on prepping a bunch of the other things this day Like I said today's sponsor is butcher box. We love getting their meat and Even the day that our box arrived this week I called my husband told him what pieces and cuts we got and we were so excited about how we were going to Incorporate some of this meat into our meals for this week I get a lot of questions on where to source good meat and butcher box is awesome for that You get a hundred percent grass-fed beef free range organic chicken pork raised Crate free and wild caught seafood delivered right to your doorstep They always have free shipping and the quality of meat is so good. We enjoy this so Much you can curate and customize your box this time We got a beef box which had a lot of Steaks and ground beef and other pieces that we can use either in the kitchen or on my husband's smoker We do a lot of smoked meat in our house So this is a great way to source meat for our smoker But your box is a certified b-corp meaning that they meet the highest standards of social and environmental impact right now new users that follow on my link can choose between Chicken thighs ground beef or premium steak tips to receive in every box for a year So you're gonna get either three pounds of bone-in chicken thighs two pounds of grass-fed and grass-finished ground beef or One pound of premium grass-fed and grass-finished steak tips, which by the way are one of my husband's favorites But your box is a reliable and cost-effective way to source excellent quality meat and I'm gonna show you how I'm going to incorporate some more of their meats here in these Recipes but do go ahead and check out the information in the description box below and I know that you will enjoy it as much as we do so Here I am going to make up some spicy Asian inspired coleslaw to go along with the brown sugar garlic chicken with that I'm also cooking up some rice. I just make that up with my homemade chicken broth And then when it comes off the heat, I let it sit for a little bit and I throw a little bit of butter in it I know it's not very authentic, but we just enjoy a little butter in our rice and This slaw was so simple to make and it was really really good My husband was sampling it while I was making it and it just has the right flavors And yes, I am using a squeezable mayo I did not make up my own mayo this week I Kind of go back and forth with it It is a little project of its own and if I don't get it accomplished and I give myself some grace and I just use regular Mayo So you just mix up that with some sriracha and lime juice And then you're gonna cut up some green onions and some cilantro This has like a very fresh Pop of flavor and I think whenever it comes to wintertime meals a lot of times we go for that comfort and cozy sort of foods and When you can throw in something really fresh like this that's super simple to make I think that it just lightens up the meals a lot Here's a quick little tip if you're not super handy with a knife when it comes to Herbs and things like green onions using some good kitchen shears or Scissors always helps out with cutting it up nice and small and just making it a whole lot easier than trying to get your knife to Cut the way that you want it to I feel like often in the winter I kind of neglect making Cold salads and it's something that I think of more during Barbecues and hot summer days But it's such a good way to get some raw veggies in your diet without doing like a veggie tray and dip So once I was done making the slaw I just went ahead and put that in to a storage container when it comes to Cold salads like this they actually almost taste better if you let them sit for a day In the refrigerator. So that was what I was planning to do And then I just put the rice into a container as well so that we can heat that up when we're ready to eat This meal. Okay. So the next thing that I was going to prep was some beef stew. So talking about comfort foods and warm delicious Meals during the winter time beef stew is just one of those That's so delicious and it's honestly so easy to make You can do it in a slow cooker or a crock pot But since mine was taken up this day with the chicken I had prepared I decided to pull out my dutch oven. Also. I'm sorry for the very bright Sun shining into this video with the snow outside It would kind of come in and out and whenever the sun shines on the snow It just acts as a reflector and then it makes everything super bright So we were enjoying the bright sun shiny day, but it might be a little over bright here in the video So here I am just peeling up some potatoes I'm going to chop those up into nice bite-sized pieces To put into the pot with the carrots. I also added some of the beef bone broth that I can at home It's so delicious and it cooks into the vegetables and just makes them all the more tasty And I'm going to be cooking all of this very low and slow kind of like if it was in the crock pot I think I did cook a total of four hours on the stove top Just want to set it to low let it simmer And it makes the beef so so tender so speaking of the beef I pulled out the roast that came in our butcher box And I just cut that all up into bite-sized pieces If you didn't know you can very easily do this and my husband actually had to find me a nice sharp knife Because we need to sharpen our knives here in our house, but I finally found one That was working well to just dice up this beef I just kind of cut it into sizes that were just a little bit bigger than the cooked size I wanted them to be because beef does shrink just a little bit whenever you cook it So keep that in mind when you're cutting up a roast like this Another taste component that I think has to go in to be stew is some Worcestershire sauce I know every time I say this you all let me know in the comments how to say it I always just say w sauce that works too And then we love this kinder's steak seasoning. This is what my husband uses on steaks All the time in fact, we ran out this past week and I had to get myself some from amazon But whenever I can get it from Costco, that's the best price and it just makes beef taste so good So I thought it would be fantastic here in my stew So to go along with the beef stew I decided to make up some buttermilk biscuits and I wanted to nail down a really good gluten-free buttermilk biscuit recipe and for the buttermilk biscuits You obviously need buttermilk. So one of my little kitchen tricks is I keep this jar of powdered buttermilk It's actually organic from azure Standard I keep this in the back of my refrigerator and it can last I think the expiration date was like a year to two years away or something like that And I just simply mix up what I need whenever I need it And I don't have to go to the store or remember to put Buttermilk on my grocery list because I always just have it there So I just mix that up with some cold water temperature is really important when it comes to making biscuits A lot like pie crust because you're looking for a flaky type of product at the end So I went ahead and used the king arthur's gluten-free flour mix And it has some salt. I'll leave the recipe linked below. It has some salt baking soda baking powder And then you're going to go ahead and take butter and I used a pastry cutter to cut that in and The pastry cutter is so convenient. I find a lot of uses for it In my kitchen I definitely try to be as minimal as possible and I'm even trying to be more minimal Just having the things that I need and not being overboard But a pastry cutter is one of those that is a little bit hard to Use another tool to create the same outcome as a pastry cutter I know some people use forks, but It just works the best to cut butter in to your dough with a pastry cutter So I went ahead and put the butter in there and then I added my buttermilk and then I made a big mistake Yes, I'm showing you my mistakes today I was supposed to put a three fourth cup of buttermilk into this batter and for some reason I just went ahead and put the full cup I mixed up into the batter So you're gonna see whenever these come out of the oven They are a bit flatter than I would wanted them to be And I know that they would have fluffed up nicely for me if I wouldn't have had the extra weight Of that extra buttermilk in there. However, the flavor was on point with these So delicious. We actually um used some apple butter on them So great with beef stew and my daughters really enjoyed them as well now to cut out the biscuits Speaking of minimal kitchens Something you don't need is a biscuit cutter if you have Jar rings around just use a regular mouse jar ring and you're going to have the perfect size biscuit And in fact, I'm going to go ahead and say this without actually knowing But my guess is that most of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers Probably cut out biscuits with jar rings Not always a biscuit cutter So Um, I just cut these out. You're supposed to get about 12 out of this batch And put them on some parchment paper. I thought maybe they would Stay come off of the sheet a little bit better if I did it that way And popped them into the oven. So I am stirring my Beef stew every once in a while while I'm prepping Once I got it up to a good simmer, then I turned it back a little bit just to Keep it low and slow Now I'm going to go ahead and get some potatoes in the oven. We wanted to do burgers One night this week and I thought baked potatoes would be really good with that So I'm wrapping them in the foil the other week I had told you all that I don't always like using foil with this You guys gave me so many ideas of how to make baked potatoes And one of them is in my pressure cooker, which of course I was using to make the chicken So I went ahead and just used the tin foil and threw these all into the oven And making baked potatoes ahead of time is so handy. They take so long to make, you know, at least an hour in the oven And so whenever I can make them ahead of time, we can just reheat them. They're just as good reheated So here I got out my air fryer and I got out a pound of bacon out of my freezer and Um, it wasn't completely solid I was trying to rip it apart and put it into the air fryer Because I was going to also be making some broccoli salad this day and we've got to have bacon in our broccoli salad Here i'm using my butcher box ground beef actually correction My husband is using the butcher box ground beef So we have this little joke in our house that I am not allowed to make the hamburger patties Which funny enough I started out making these I got the meat out and everything And my husband was going to tell me how to make it and then he was like never mind. I'll just make them I told him that I think he just is very particular about his hamburger patties Which he does make a lot of the meat in our house. Like I said, he has a smoker He does um brisket and pork butts and things like that And so he has his ways. He likes to do this So one of the things he likes to use on our burgers is creole seasoning And so that is what he's shaking on the sometimes he mixes other things into the burgers But this day he said he just wanted to go ahead and use the beef And then add the seasoning on top And I honestly should have left the audio in this and all of his instructions that He was giving on how to make these patties because it was making me kind of grin at him But he does do a lot of cooking as well I know you all see me doing a lot of meal prepping and a lot of cooking But i'm going to go ahead and give him a fair shout out He makes a lot of the meats and things like that in our house Which is one of the reasons why I was prepping a lot of sides this week Because I knew that he was going to be making some different projects on the smoker And then all I have to do is make sure we get some veggies in there And some other sides So here is how my biscuits turned out. They are a little bit flat But it's because of that extra weight Of the moisture that I put into them. So I'm definitely going to try this recipe again The flavor was so good and I know they'll turn out great if I follow the instructions correctly So like I mentioned, I'm making some broccoli salad up and just adding some mayo some mustard A little bit of w sauce and then I'm just stirring that all together I like to make up my sauce in the bottom of my bowl And speaking of my bowl Did you notice through this video and I've talked about this before but I'm pretty much using the same mixing bowl I'm just stopping Washing it with soap and hot water and then starting the next project And that's one thing that I do try to do. I have chaotic days in the kitchen where I end up with a thousand dishes, but On days whenever I can remember it I do try my best to reuse and use the same dishes and other things over and over Stopping to wash because then at the end you don't have a massive pile of dishes You know, you're able to kind of manage the mess by using the same mixing bowl or the same cookie sheets or those sorts of things and again that kind of goes with the minimal kitchen idea I'm going to be talking a little more about that over on my home channel If you guys want to head on over there and subscribe if you aren't subscribed to that channel Um, I do a lot of home organization and just home making and those sorts of things and my Thinking on home making has been changing a lot lately and I'm Getting ready to share a whole lot of that over there. So now I got the bacon. I shred it up the cheddar cheese Broccoli salad is so easy and again It's one of those things that definitely is better if you let it sit in the refrigerator overnight It just helps all the flavors from the sauce combined into the veggies and in this case the Bacon and cheese, you know that you get that bacon flavor Through the entire broccoli salad. So here I'm just putting this into a meal prep container to put in the refrigerator as well So if you're having a crazy wake like I've had Just go ahead sit down write down, you know four or five different recipes that you know, they don't even have to be Necessarily things that go together because you know what you can always pull out burgers and then at least you have a broccoli salad made or a coleslaw made or Maybe you want to make barbecue baked beans or something like that You know, even if you have a side made it's at least one less thing Within the meal that you need to make when it comes to dinner time Okay, so back to the stew I had let it cook for quite a while at this point and I added in some parsley and a little bit of time And I just got it all stirred up and kind of just checking on it again making sure That it is Not boiling too much That's one thing that you got to watch is if you're going to slow cook something You don't want to overcook it and then everything's really mushy Or the meat isn't as tender as you're hoping for it to be So another side that I made to go with this week is I decided to make up some Roasted zucchini and I did not cook it this day So this is a prep without cooking Or baking in this instance. So I just got out my mandolin I got some zucchini and some yellow squash and I just sliced it at the thickness I wanted And then I oiled the bottom of my nine by 13 And then I just layer these in and they look so pretty together I don't know how anyone could pass up this veggie dish It's so appealing to the eye and I just did some of my buttery steakhouse seasoning on it as well as Kind of dicing up some butter and putting that throughout The layers as well And then I also layered in some feta cheese. I just thought that would be a nice little twist instead of doing like Harm or a cheddar Feta cheese is so good and it has its own flavor profile To where you kind of recognize. Oh, this isn't the norm. This isn't cheddar You know something that you are used to tasting if you don't eat feta very often anyways like we don't So I thought it would be a good change up to the normal cheese that I usually um Putting into my recipes I get so many questions on how I heat things or bake things So like for this Dish I will just put it in the oven Whenever I'm ready to use it at 350 and I'll just keep an eye on it until the zucchini is as tender as I'd like it to be But I'm not going to sugar coat it guys. There are times that we microwave things There are times we throw stuff in the air fryer. There are times I put things in the oven It just depends on how much time I have or Potentially what else I'm making so say I'm going to make this particular dish and I'm also going to make up Poor man steak in the oven. Well, I would obviously throw this in with whatever else I'm making so Some things if you start doing a lot of meal prepping You will realize how some things heat up certain ways better than others And you kind of have to test the waters out for that So this is that chicken that we started out with once it came out of the slow cooker I popped it in the oven and put it under broil just to crisp up the skin. It was Amazing. So thanks a lot for watching today guys. If you're new here, don't forget to subscribe I hope you got a ton of meal prep inspo out of this video Don't forget to check out butcher box and the link below in the description box and I'll see you all in the next one