Chris Meal Preps Lunch For a Week

[Man] Chris, could we do a spoon check?

Spoon check.

A mere six on this lovely Wednesday morning.

I don't know, I'm sort of running low.

Better sort of pop up behind me.

[Man] Slow day ahead of you?

Totally.

I've got 15 more here though.

[upbeat music]

When we're talking about Feel Good Food Plan,

we're talking specifically today about your lunch strategy.

The thing about having a lunch strategy is,

at least personally,

my strategy is to try to do as little as possible

but get as much as possible out of whatever I do.

Our strategy this year relies on...this,

just a big pot of really nicely cooked chickpeas.

Could you use chickpeas from a can?

Absolutely you could,

but the thing that making your own chickpeas gets you

is that not only are the chickpeas themselves better

because they're fully seasoned the way that you'd like,

they have all the salt and kind of

flavor inside the chickpeas themselves

and I don't know about you but usually

the chickpeas that I buy are kind of

a little bit flat, a little bit metallic,

need a lot of help and definitely a lot of salt,

but the liquid that you get with these chickpeas

is what makes them so special.

I've made this really big batch of chickpeas

and I'm gonna show you two ways that

you can use them in two really easy to prepare lunches.

It all starts with having beautifully cooked

chickpeas that have tons of flavor in them.

I'm just rewarming these slightly

just so they kind of get nice and fluid again.

Chickpeas have all that aquafaba.

It has a ton of body and has a ton of richness to it.

You get something that's a little bit closer to

a chicken kind of stock,

but one that's super rich and unctuous.

It's just one pound of soaked chickpeas,

I think it's a couple of quarts of water,

a quarter cup of olive oil,

a few strips of lemon peel which may seem weird

but it just adds a really nice fragrance to the chickpeas

and kind of a bright note, one sliced medium onion,

and I think six cloves of garlic.

Nothing's being sweated beforehand.

Everything's just dumped into the pot,

brought up to a simmer, and then simmer 'til tender,

and usually soaked chickpeas can take

around an hour and a half let's say or two hours

and in that time you've got plenty of downtime

to be working on any other kind of

weekend prep you wanna be working on.

This is just a base that can get you to a lot of places.

You can kind of riff on this however you want.

If you don't wanna put the lemon in or onion or whatever,

Tommy mentioned bay leaves, absolutely.

Throw some bay leaves in here.

It's just sort OF the starting point.

In this case of this kind of salad

that we're gonna put together here

and in the sandwich I'm gonna show you,

you're just assembling.

You don't have to make that much more additionally.

If you take some chickpeas,

I'm just gonna kind of drain some of this liquid off,

but by no means do I want to discard the liquid.

I've got some chickpeas.

I'm just gonna kind of assemble the salad

kind of right here on this plate.

This is the kind of thing you can do super easily

in the morning before you head off to work.

There he is!

You made coffee?

Yeah.

[man laughs]

It's the happiest he's been all week.

[men laugh]

Andy's back on the coffee sauce

and it's frankly good to have him back.

I had a bottle of wine last night.

One bottle, you?

One bottle.

Wow.

Andy.

I didn't go to the gym.

No.

And is this your first cup of coffee?

New year, new Andy.

I guess so.

[man laughs]

Not everybody loves radicchio.

You may notice there is a plate

full of nothing but radicchio here, but this is the thing.

I love bitter greens.

They just absolutely do it for me.

They're super convenient from a standpoint

of you don't have to wash them,

nobody is washing lettuce on a

Wednesday morning before they head off to work for the day.

Cucumber, it's nice, it's easy to kind of cut up.

I have some carrots I've roasted yesterday.

Just super simple.

This could be roasted cauliflower, broccoli

kind of just spread around.

I'll kind of work it in.

I frankly often make lunch for my wife.

This is something I'll do and I'll just

kind of build in a container for her

before I head off to work.

These are 10 minute eggs.

By that I mean we lower the eggs into gently boiling water

and start timing 10 minutes from

when the water returns to a boil.

10 minute kind of gives you this

where you have a little bit of

jamminess to the center of that yolk there,

but the outer rim has kind of started to dry out.

This, tahini ranch.

Tommy mentioned he's a big fan.

I'm a super big fan.

There's something about tahini when it's

balanced with olive oil,

thinned out with a little bit of water

so it stays nice and creamy and emulsified

and bringing in that ranch flavor

and that can come from a number of places,

but I think the things that are most key are

onion powder and garlic powder,

which kind of sounds a little bit weird because,

does anybody actually still cook with

onion powder and garlic powder?

This is a clear-cut case to absolutely make

for having them in your spice cabinet.

Part of the reason that they work so well

is that fresh garlic,

the flavor's gonna build and intensify over time

and ultimately kind of the flavor profile's

gonna kind of mutate over time where it's

gonna kind of probably get real strong

and then eventually turn a little bit bitter on you.

It's kind of hard to gauge how much to put in there.

You don't necessarily want that sharp garlic flavor.

I feel like that's a Paul Hollywood

kind of double-hand gesture.

I don't know, it's hands up here,

kind of a little bit of a grimace.

Un depict, un depproved.

[man chuckles]

Sorry, I've been watching so much

Great British Bakings Show, it's all in there.

There are certain things you would do on the weekend

that you're just never gonna do on a week night.

I will never make chickpeas on a week night.

I probably won't turn my blender on on a week night

no matter how good a dressing is,

but on a weekend in the afternoon light of a Sunday

where you're feeling kind of optimistic

and positive about the world, yeah.

I'll bust out the blender, I'll find all the parts.

Each one is a minimum of three pieces

that your kids have kind of invariable hid

in various toy bins in the apartment.

If you bring a little container of this

to your work or just take it out of

the fridge when it's time to kind of

eat lunch at home, whatever,

making this dressing on a weekend

will set you up for the best week ever.

We've got our ranch on there,

and then whatever herbs you might have on hand.

I think we built flavor in a way

that you get from a rich kind of creamy,

kind of sour cream, or a buttermilk, just tons of flavor,

but we've done it in a way that

it's not entirely obvious and it's dairy-free.

Is it vegan?

It's vegan.

Boom.

Vegan.

You don't need all of the elements here

to kind of make a great kind of lunch salad

that travels well.

It's easy to kind of assemble in the morning

or really quickly in just kind of a few minutes.

I'd say that's artful.

Anna, do you wanna be a salad friend?

Sure.

It's gluten-free.

You're fired up, I'm fired up, Rhoda's fired up.

Radicchio because it travels super well.

I love radicchio.

You could even dress it in the morning

and it would probably hold up until lunch no problem

if you didn't have a little side car for your dressing.

Roasted vegetables.

In this case, just carrots,

but it could be anything if you wanna include them or not.

Sweet potatoes?

No big deal.

Sweet potatoes, absolutely.

We've got that kind of elsewhere

in lunch and kind of dinner for Feel Good Food Plan,

and then 10 minute eggs,

and then the dressing is tahini ranch.

I didn't get a chickpea.

[woman humming]

[man humming]

I love the fresh herb.

If you are bringing this to work,

how do you keep the fresh herbs fresh?

I think you go one of two ways.

You either pack everything in the container

aside from the dressing,

or you dress everything and pack it into the container

and you keep the herbs on the side

in a little damp paper towel,

they can hang out 'til lunch, no worries

Or on the very top maybe.

Or on the very top.

You can do layers.

Absolutely.

Like those sand things you make as a kid

with all the colors and stuff.

Exactly.

Just like that.

This is not gonna be a pretty bite

so I'm gonna walk away with this one.

It's a walkaway bite. Thank you.

Thanks Chris.

As long as you've got a little dressing,

couple of these elements, the chickpeas obviously,

then you're good to go.

This is lunch option number one.

We're talking sandwiches for the Feel Good Food Plan

kind of lunch component.

One thing that I think is cool that

I didn't even know was a thing until this past year

so it's kind of been a big 2018 for me

is the mashed chickpea sandwich.

It is so packed with flavor, it is so good for you,

it's full of protein, it's nothing but protein.

I have maybe a cup and a half of chickpeas here, drained,

that I'm gonna use as kind of the base

for the filling of this sandwich.

I do want to make sure I take all the liquid out of these

just so that it doesn't get too wet.

I'm gonna be adding additional olive oil,

some yogurt for creaminess.

Obviously you could use mayonnaise,

but I feel like yogurt's a little bit more

kind of on brand for Feel Good Food Plan.

This is gonna be for two sandwiches.

I'm gonna start with about a quarter cup of yogurt.

I'm gonna hit this with a little bit of lemon juice.

I'm a big fan of capers in stuff like this

just because they're so punchy and

give you such good kind of sharp flavor.

I'm only gonna do, I don't know, it's a couple teaspoons.

Roughly chop just so they kind of

disperse a little bit more evenly

and sort of spread the flavor around.

Salt as always.

I'm not the biggest raw celery fan,

but celery just has that ability to

give you that crunch and a little bit of

contrast with that soft, meaty chickpea.

I'm just gonna do a quick chop on a little bit of this.

Then a fork to mash should get you most of the way there,

might take a minute,

a little bit of sort of assiduous mashing

to kind of smash those chickpeas apart,

get them a little bit creamy,

get them to kind of bind all these flavors you've added,

all the textures.

I see what's happening here.

We need a little more yogurt, a little more creamy, creamy,

a little more salt,

and I need to break down these chickpeas a little bit more

just to bring out a little bit more

of their creaminess to them.

Maybe a touch more of this lemon.

The other thing I wanted to mention about the tahini ranch,

I kept it on set just because this is one of those things,

not that you'd wanna dress these

chickpeas with nothing but the tahini ranch,

but a little spoonful will go a long way

in terms of making this super creamy,

helping it bind, getting tons of flavor in there.

If you've got it on hand,

honestly you're not gonna taste just a tablespoon of it,

but it will make a big difference to your sandwich.

See where we're at here.

That's good.

Top Gun is my favorite movie.

He can do very little wrong in terms of

his actual work and performances.

That latest Mission Impossible, incredible.

[man laughs]

What?

He did his own helicopter stunts.

[man laughs]

A little bit of lettuce is great just as a barrier,

at least for some of your bread.

You could do it on both sides if you're

not eating it right away,

if you've gotta pack it for lunch or whatever.

Lettuce definitely gives you a little

bit of that insulation,

and then a little bit of the pickled onion.

Not too much, not enough that it's

gonna make your bread wet or whatever.

Luckily, sandwich wrapping is my specialty.

I feel like the way that you kind of

deal with a sandwich like this that

wants to kind of be a little bit messy,

wrapping is gonna help keep this contained.

Having parchment paper or wax paper is kind of key for this.

You could do it with foil but it gets a little bit clunky.

Just bringing both ends up to the top, folding the top down,

coming down on either side of the sandwich,

and tucking in both sides.

Once you have the sandwich kind of

all contained and wrapped like this,

we can take a serrated knife.

[men laugh]

[Woman] Here you go sir.

[Man] Chris has gone mad with power.

Then just go right through it and then boom.

[camera crew gasps]

That just happened.

Hey Claire.

This is called gourmet makes Feel Good Food Plan.

Don't worry.

It's a new concept we're working on.

This is kind of smashed chickpea salad sandwich,

little bit of yogurt, little bit of olive oil.

Started to get a little bit runny on me.

Look at that great sandwich proportions.

It's a quick-pickled onion?

I love it.

It'd be great in a flatbread you would use for a wrap.

So good.

Can I take this with me?

Yeah.

Alright, thanks Chris. Thanks Claire.

Cool.

That's lunch.

[Man] Who do you think is the best

station partnership in this kitchen?

The best station partnership?

It's Molly and her empty space

where she gets to spread out every day by herself.

I think that's the kind of platonic ideal

for kind of station kind of breakdown there.

[Man] Sometimes you just need a little you time.

For sure.

Not me obviously.

I'm so happy to be with Andy all the time.

He's not here right now though

so we can actually speak plainly.

I'm surprised he didn't sort of

jump in to the back of the frame here

wearing his there's a shoot going on jeans.

[men laugh]