The Lazy Genius Podcast - #154 - How to Add Freshness to Repetitive Meals

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

We’re still in a shelter-in-place situation in most parts of the country and part of this process includes not going to the grocery store as often. Thing are weird, and new meals don’t really fit in with our weird. We’re eating a lot of the same things over and over again, but I’m sharing five ways to add freshness to repetitive meals. Helpful Companion Links Bri McKoy is great at a lot of things, but I love love love the sauces and dressings she comes up with. Here’s a link to her cilantro yogurt sauce which pairs perfectly with Change Your Life Chicken (if you like cilantro of course). Speaking of meals that will change your life, Change Your Life Shawarma is a staple in our house lately. Bri also inspired me to switch up our rice and make it in the Instant Pot with coconut milk. The Favorites File is a free download that helps you be a genius about the things that don’t matter, like celebrities you’d be quarantined with, famous actor partnerships, and so on and so forth. It’s really fun, and 100% free.  Download a transcript of this episode. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there. You're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 154. How to Add Freshness to Repeditive Meals. We are still in a shelter in place situation than most parts of the country in the world and part of this process includes not going to the grocery stores often. Or if you're like me, trying new recipes is just not in the cards right now. My energy. is not well spent if I'm experimenting and throwing new foods at my kids. Things are weird and new meals don't fit with our particular weird. So we are eating a lot of the same meals over and over again. But even if you're not, you might still feel like your meals are a little blah because of limited groceries or just limited energy. You might even feel like meals are blah because like you haven't eaten out at a restaurant in two or three months, which is like a thing that I'm realizing that I miss a lot.

So today I'm going to quickly share five ways to add fresh. to repetitive meals. I'm going to jump right in, but at the end of the episode, I will tell you about the favorites file real quick if you haven't heard about it already, or have and want to know a little more about this insanely stupid but ridiculously fun little set of pop culture assignments that I put together for you. Okay, first way to add freshness to repetitive meals. Fresh herbs and citrus. This is the most obvious food-related idea you might be rolling your eyes at me right now. Food feels blah because it's bland. There's nothing bright. There's not enough contrast. And often you're missing something fresh. So have you ever noticed like when you order, say,

street tacos from a Mexican restaurant? The difference in a bite of like just the tortilla and chicken versus a bite with tortilla and chicken and then like fresh green salsa and cilantro, way different. Not necessarily better for a lot of people. Like some people don't like those things, but fresher and exciting. Herbs and citrus are massively helpful in freshening up repetitive meals. So let's say you make chicken soup. That's like a go-to, warm bowl of chicken soup. Add in a squeeze of lemon juice at the end or sprinkle fresh parsley on top.

For stir fry, add fresh scalyan or green onion. For a bowl of pasta and red sauce, you know, just put fresh basil on it. you make tacos, lime, and cilantro. This is not revolutionary. This is not revolutionary advice. But sometimes we forget how much herbs and citrus can perk something up, especially something you've been eating a lot of lately. And in terms of keeping those things from going bad, because you're like, I don't want to, you know, this is like shelf stable land, man. Citrus, if you keep it in the fridge, it's going to last a long time. And then another thing you can do is actually, like if it's starting to go bad, the lemons or limes or oranges or whatever,

but you still want the juice is squeeze out the juice and freeze them in ice cubes. You can do that. So there are lots of ways that you can actually make citrus last a long time. And as far as herbs go, your best bet for like leafy herbs, parsley, mint, cilantro, basil, that kind of thing, is to put the herbs like a bouquet of flowers in a cup of water, put a paper towel over top of the, like you put stems down, stems down in a cup of water, like a bouquet of flowers. You put paper towel around the leaves, and then you put a plastic sandwich bag over top of that. And it makes like a little greenhouse and it lasts forever. You can do the same with like stick herbs, like thy herbs, like thy herbs, and they'll last even longer.

So that's how you can keep your herbs super fresh. Okay. So first way, herbs and citrus. Second way to add freshness to repetitive meals is to make. Make a sauce. Okay. So maybe Change Your Life Chicken is a staple in your house like it is in mine. But even in its like life-changingness, it's getting a little sad. Make a sauce. Make an herb sauce. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a post by my beloved Bree McCoy. And she's like one of my favorite cooking people. She knows flavor like a boss. I tell you what. She has a cilantro yogurt sauce. But in that post that I

link to for that sauce. She also includes links to her other sauces that she makes. She has a fresh herb dressing, which is phenomenal, her Chipotle honey honey mustard dressing, all of which can be used, even though the word dressing is there. They can all be used as sauces to freshen up a repetitive meal. Make sauces. Make sauces. Make sauces. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Okay. Number three, switch out one regular component of your repetitive meal. So we make Change Your Life Shwarma, which is on my blog. We make that every two weeks, if not more. It's just so easy and good, everybody likes it. Now, we have always served it with white rice, and we've made rice bowls, like no big thing. Well, recently, I made homemade yellow rice to go with it, just because I wanted to. And it was a completely different meal. It was so good. So I saw a brie, again, I saw brie making rice in the instant pot, which I usually don't do. We have a rice cooker. She made rice in the instant pot with coconut milk. The recipe is on her blog. And I have made rice with

coconut milk before on my stove made this yellow rice. But I was like, huh, I never made in the Instapot. Let's try it. So I, it's a different, it's a slightly different recipe than hers. I'll still link to hers, but it is, I add like another, like, quarter cup of liquid. I use actually like coconut milk usually because it makes the rice, like, a little bit fluffier for how my kids like it. I double the salt because I'm a freak about salt. and then I add maybe like a quarter or a half teaspoon of ground turmeric, and then like, boom, it's delicious yellow rice. It is perfect with the shwarma. And it was like a new meal. It really was. So switch out a component. So maybe you eat tacos a lot. Instead of tacos, do sheet pan nachos. All the same stuff, but instead of a taco shell, you do chips, right? Again, this is not rocket science.

This is not anything you haven't heard before. It's just a reminder that you can switch. up one thing to make things feel less repetitive in your meals. Okay. Now, fresh does not always mean like new from the ground or just made or whatever. It could mean different and surprising. Sometimes our meals need freshness in ways beyond the food. So number four is to eat from different dishes. This might feel weird. But maybe instead of normal plates, normal plates, like the normal place that you normally use, I guess. You serve a meal from like a giant wooden cutting board. Like if it's not soup or something, you know, obviously. Maybe if you have kids, or you could just do this yourself, like put brightly colored straws in your cup. Use a set of dishes that you don't

usually use. Use the brightly patterned dishes that live in your picnic basket all year long. You know, like those really like gingham melanin plants, plants, plates. You can put soup in a mug instead of in a cup. Very simple, all very simple, but surprisingly nice as a way to add freshness and newness to just one meal even, not all the time, just once. And then finally, tip number five is to eat in a different location. The standard spot for a meal is your main table, right? But look around for other places. The couch, obviously. The front porch steps. The backyard grass. A car table set up by a big living room window on a blanket in the middle of the hallway. If it's just you or like you and a partner or roommate, like basically if kids are not in the equation, you can eat in different

places like a lot because you're coordinated enough to sit like on your step and eat a meal without spilling everything and like most three year olds. So it's a really, really fun way to add freshness to repetitive meals. Okay. So to recap, these five ways. Number one, herbs and citrus. Two, make a sauce. Three, switch out one regular component for something else. Four, eat on different dishes. And five, eat in a different location. Now, don't feel like you need to do all five at once either. You know, like save them up, spread them out. If you feel yourself being kind of bored with a meal, just do a quick pass of that meal through these five things and see if something adds a tiny bit of freshness, a bit of lightness, a bit of newness.

Sometimes one simple change is more than enough to give us a good mental reset around dinner. And that's it. Okay. So speaking of a good mental reset, just a quick reminder about the favorites file. So the favorites file is a free download. It helps you be a genius about the things that don't actually matter, things like celebrities you'd be quarantined with, famous actor partnerships that you love, your favorite TV characters of all time.

I am posting daily prompts on Instagram that you can do when, whenever you want, if you want in the feed or on stories, maybe even on Facebook. And then there are some templates for you to share parts of your favorites file. Those are in a highlight on my Instagram account, so called Fave File. So all the fun is happening like in your own living room with the file. And then on Instagram, if you want to share and see what other people are sharing to. It's just, it's just been so fun. I hope it's been fun for you. It's been so fun for me. So I am at The Lazy Genius on Instagram. If you don't already follow me there, I'd love for you to follow me there.

The link to the favorites file itself is in the show notes. Or you can go to the Lazy Genius Collective.com slash TFF for the Favorites File. Okay, that's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra, and I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you are living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that.

More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves.

Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcast. Thanks.