#mealprepped

Happy August! Summer is in full swing!

Whenever I think of summer, I think of all of the delicious fruit that I eat to stay cool and healthy! However, most people throw out the fruit peels, and I am guilty of this too. We should all actively be trying not to fill up landfills, so there isn’t as much production of harmful greenhouse gases. Composting is always a good idea, especially if you have a small garden at home but here are fun ways to use the peels of different fruits and vegetables this summer!

Citrus Bath

Save leftover orange, grapefruit, lemon, and lime peels and throw them into your bath for a nice citrus essential oil bath. The water from the bath draws out the essential oils from the fruit peels.

Here are some benefits to certain citrus essential oils:

Lemon essential oil has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties

Orange essential oil is a mood booster. It relieves stress, anxiety, and depression

Grapefruit essential oil promotes weight loss and clearer skin

Cleaning Product

Because of the high concentration of citric acid in lemons, they make the perfect natural cleaner. Just use leftover lemon peels and rub it on faucets, shower doors, countertops, etc. Also, you can use some smaller pieces and throw them in the garbage disposal to freshen it up.

Shine Your Shoes

Instead of going out to buy shoe polish, you can use a natural shoe polish: banana peels. Rub the inside of a banana peel on your shoes and wipe off any excess bananas off the shoe. Your shoes will become polished and scuff-free in no it! The key ingredient in making the shoes shiny is potassium.

Spa Day

Many fruit and vegetable peels promote healthy skin. For example, put potato skins under your eyes and kiss the dark circles goodbye! Rub avocado peels all over your face and leave it for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes is up, wash your face, and your skin will feel moisturized. Sprinkle sugar on the inside of peach skin for an excellent, natural exfoliant.

dough source, mealprepping source

Time

1 hour prepping and baking + 1 or 5 hours rising

Materials

4 separate bowls to let the dough rise in

Big bowl for mixing + hand/stand-mixer or a stirring utensil

Scale

Baking tray OR rack + pizza stone (I use my 35cm cast iron pan)

Parchment/baking paper

Ingredients:

Flour, 500gr

Yeast, 7 gr / 2 tsp (short version) OR 3 gr / 1 tsp (long version)

Salt, 10 gr

Water (lukewarm), 300 mL

Oil (olive), 2 tbsp

Method:

Rising the dough

Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix them together (with your hands or with the dough-hooks on an electric mixer).

Knead for 8-10 mins.

Let rest for 15 mins.

Divide into 4 parts (for each pizza). If you're making 'pizzabroodjes' or smaller pizza's, divide into more parts.

Cover the dough and let it rise at room temp for 1 hour. If your home is cold, you can put the oven on the lowest temperature and let it rise in there.

Prepping for baking

Preheat your oven to 250 C or the highest it can go. Try to use your oven rack for this, as your baking tray will bend with these temperatures (I speak from experience).

If you have a pizza stone or something that can serve as a pizza stone, add this while preheating. A cast iron pan works really well. I've been told that a pizza stone is primarily for using as another heat source, so you'd put it somewhere else in the oven. What I've been doing is using the cast iron pan as baking tray & pizza stone: I put it on the rack and bake my pizza's in it.

Add flour to your workspace (or the baking paper). With your hands, press each ball of dough out until you have a pizza shaped dough. Try to make the diameter around 30cm. You can use a rolling pin for this. (I've found a better way that I'll write down later)

Baking and storing: 3 options

Option 1a: Store pizza dough in the fridge (max 2 days)

Before rolling out the dough, wrap it airtight in some plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.

When using the dough, get it out of the fridge an hour before using to let it come to room temperature. Roll out the dough, cover with sauce & toppings and bake for 10-15 mins at 250C.

Option 1b: Store pizza dough in the freezer (max 3 months)

Before rolling out the dough, put the balls of dough on a cutting board or something flat and loosely cover them. Add them to the freezer and wait until frozen.

When frozen, you can add all the balls of dough to a container or plastic bag.

When using, let it thaw in the fridge and then come to room temperature. Roll out the dough, cover with sauce & toppings and bake for 10-15 mins at 250C.

Option 2: Store pre-baked dough with or without toppings

Add pizza sauce to the dough.

Bake the pizza in the oven for 3-6 mins, or until the bottom is just about firm enough to not fall apart.

Let it cool to room temperature and then put the whole pizza in the freezer. You can freeze it on a cutting board or similar, and then when it's frozen add multiple pizza's together in a bag or something.

Store for 2-3 months.

When using, bake the frozen pizza for 8-12 mins at 250C.

Option 3: Store freshly baked pizza

Add sauce & toppings to the dough.

Bake for 10-15 mins at 250C.

Let cool down to room temp, then put it in the fridge (store for 1-2 days) or freezer (2-3 months).

source: bf’s recipe

Materials:

Big pan (dutch oven)

Ingredients:

Jar of Heinz Spageroni sauce (spicy one)

Tomato paste, 3 tins of 70gr

Ground beef, 1 kg

Onion, 1 or 2 big ones

Garlic, 2-3 bulbs (?)

Hot peppers such as red pepper (not bell pepper), jalapeño’s or green peppers or madame jeanette’s, 2 or 3

Sambal manis, 1 tbsp

Salt&Pepper

Method:

Dice the onion, de-seed the peppers (optional) and slice them. Crush and chop the garlic (or use the garlic-tool).

Heat up a pan over medium-low heat. Add oil and the onions, cook until they’re translucent.

Add the garlic and peppers, cook for a few seconds, until you can smell them. Don’t cook them for too long and burn them.

Add the meat and S&P. Cook until you see no more pink ground meat.

Add the tomato paste and sambal and stir in.

Add the jar of Spageroni sauce and cook for a few minutes.

Notes:

This is (a lot of) sauce only. You can serve this with spaghetti noodles (and cheese!) and a salad on the side. We used it as the tomato-sauce on homemade pizza. There are ideas on using it instead of chili in chili-dogs (whatever those are). Endless possibilities really.

Pizza recipe (bf’s): pizza dough, sauce, lots of different cheeses (gouda old and mozzarella are not optional)

Pizza recipe (mine): pizza dough, sauce, optional cheese, red onion half rings, sliced paprika (bell pepper, yellow or red), slices of chorizo sandwich meat (better than salami), more cheese. Cheese choices are gouda old, mexican cheese mix (gouda young/cheddar/mozerella), mozerella, gouda young, i imagine you could use parmesan, cheddar.

It is a lot of sauce. Seeing as you’re using a kilo of meat, this can easily serve up to 10 people, if you’re using it as a spaghetti sauce and serving it with noodles and cheese and a salad on the side.

source

Materials:

Grater with big holes

Bowl

Pan for frying

Freezer-space when meal-prepping

Oven baking sheet or something similar when meal-prepping

(Optional) silicon cupcake molds when meal-prepping.

Baking paper when meal-prepping

Ingredients:

Potatoes, ~400gr (i used the non-crumbly but it really doesn’t matter)

Onion, 1 small

Salt&pepper, 1/4 tsp each

Smoked paprika powder, 1/4 tsp

Chili flakes, a few

Flour, a few tablespoons

Egg, 1 smedium

Oil for frying/baking

Method 1, making them the day of:

Peel and shred the potatoes. Rinse the shredded potatoes until the water is clear, drain well (aka let sit for some time) and if needed squeeze dry.

Dice the onion.

Combine the shredded potatoes with the onion, egg, spices and however many flour you need to make it not watery anymore, mix well.

Heat your pan over medium-high heat. Add a good amount of oil, the hash browns don’t need to be deep fried but they do need to get a bit crispy. With a serving spoon or soup spoon, place a portion at a time in the pan, pressing the top after letting it drop in the pan to make sure they are as flat as possible for even cooking.

Turn halfway to make sure both sides are crispy. Remove from the pan when done and let drain on a plate with paper towels.

Method 2, meal-prepping a whole bunch of them:

step 1, dicing and slicing:

Peel and shred the potatoes. Rinse the shredded potatoes until the water is clear, drain well (aka let sit for some time) and if needed squeeze dry. This step is optional if you have a lot, it’s mainly to remove the starch from the water, but then later you’re adding starch with flour so whatever.

Dice the onions.

step 2: mixing

Combine the shredded potatoes with the onion, egg, spices and however many flour you need to make it not watery anymore.

Mix well. When doing this for big batches, towards the end of prepping the mix can be more watery. I added more flour but I can see that I did that in the end result. Maybe potato starch / maizena will work?

step 3: freezing without silicon molds

Add baking paper to your baking-sheet or other big flat surface you can put in the freezer to freeze them (big cutting board, baking sheet, big plates, etc).

If you don’t have silicon cupcake molds, make a hash-brown with your hands, on the baking paper, the shape you want them. Make sure the hash-browns don’t touch each other.

When the plate is full, add it to the freezer to freeze for a few hours at least, I recommend 3+ or overnight.

After they’re frozen, remove them from the baking paper (yes, this is difficult, because the hash-browns have lots of liquid in them they stick to the baking paper making it harder to remove. I learned this by not using baking paper and having to take a hair blower to my baking sheet).

Add all the frozen hash-browns to a freezer-bag, I use cheap zip-loc bags. They keep for a long time, I mostly use as reference that if something’s more than a year old I should throw it away.

step 3: freezing with silicon molds

This is easier when you also have the cupcake baking pan to put the molds in.

Add the potato-mix to the molds, fill them about halfway to 2/3rds of the way.

Put the baking pan with molds in the freezer for at least 1 hour.

Remove the almost frozen hash-browns from the molds, the outside will still be kinda liquid-y, this make the process easier.

Put the half-frozen hash-browns on a baking sheet lined with baking paper to freeze for 1 more hour. During this time you can freeze the next set of hash-browns in the molds.

Remove the hash-browns from the baking sheet, they’re now frozen enough to store in a bag. If you have a lot, this is the time to put the 2nd batch on the baking sheet and the 3rd batch in the molds.

Continue until all hash-browns have been made.

Final step: cooking them from the freezer

Don’t thaw the hash-browns.

Heat up a pan over low-medium heat. Add some oil and the hash-browns. Add a lid.

Cook for about 5-10 mins, turning them halfway.

If aren’t crispy enough at the end, turn up the heat for a minute or so, then serve.

Notes:

This can be meal-prepped in advance or made on the day of. I meal-prep a bunch of then and then freeze them, highly recommend.