What is a cook up?
According to
Urban Dictionary (the definitive word on all things), a cook up has several meanings. Some of my faves are:
- street term for crack
- what prisoners create out of various food items from the commissary list at their particular jail or prison
My definition is more simple. It's the process of cooking a lot of food at once, saving time during the week.
This morning, I got up and began cooking at 5:53 a.m. My plan was to complete 5 main dishes/protein sources. I finished at 11:21 a.m. So, I prepped and cooked for almost five and a half hours straight, but it was so worth it. I got most of these recipes from the amazingly wonderful cookbook called, "
Well Fed." I can't tell you how delicious these recipes are.
Here we go!
The first thing I made was the Blue Ribbon Captain Country Chicken. Here's a pic of the ingredients:
Here's my favorite cutting mat from a collection. It prevents cross-contamination. I got it from
The Container Store.
Here's a pic of all of the ingredients put together and ready to go into the oven.
While waiting for the other ingredients to cook in the oven, I toasted the almonds. These things are addictive!
Here's a pic of the finished product. I love all the different colors. It just makes it seem healthy.
The second thing I made was the Shepherd's Pie. Here's a pic of the ingredients:
First, I made the cauliflower topping. I started by boiling the cauliflower florets until they're soft, but not too soft. Then, I put them in my Ninja and pureed them as much as possible. Then I put them back in a pot with some almond milk, salt and pepper and made them even softer.
While the cauliflower was cooking, I chopped up the carrots and onions and sauteed them.
There was a little left over so, in the interest of not being wasteful, I put it in a container for use later in spinach or eggs or something.
Next, I cooked the meat along with the carrots and onions, broth, .
At first, it was very juicy.
Here's the finished product:
The next thing I made was the Salmon a L’Afrique du Nord. Here's a pic of the ingredients:
Here's the marinade:
This is what it looks like once I rub the marinade on:
Here's a pic of the finished product. The skin is nice and crispy. Mmm...
The next thing I made was a roasted/baked broccoli and shrimp dish. Here's a pic of the ingredients:
The last thing I cooked wasn't from a recipe. It was just throwing together a few things. When we were in Costa Rica on our honeymoon, I caught a trout. The way they cooked it was so lovely that I wanted to recreate it. Well, we didn't have trout at our house. We had tilapia. So I cooked that instead.
Here are the ingredients:
I started with some ghee in the pan. Ghee is clarified butter. It has a higher burn point than butter, which allows for high temperature cooking without any smoke being produced. I then used one part minced garlic, one part salt and one part pepper. I made a sort of rub and put it on the tilapia. Note to newbies: ghee has a bit of salt in it on its own, so be sparing with adding too much salt to your marinade/rub.
Anywho, here's the finished product. It probably doesn't look as good as it tastes. I'm not a professional chef and I don't use special lighting to make it look good.
This made approximately 24 servings of food. So, enough for lunch and dinner for Kelsey and me for the entire week (with a little for Taylor when she wants some).
