Making Health Easy // My Favourite Batch Cook Recipes
Posted by Josh Gape onIf you're anything like me and you have a very busy work schedule, train 3, 4 or 5 times per week and cook 95% of the meals you eat, you'll appreciate how time consuming and challenging doing this week after week can be.
For me personally I wouldn't be able to keep up without batch cooking meals. Over the years I've nailed down three super simple and extremely nutrient dense dishes that I rotate and eat as my lunch pretty much every day.
This saves me time, effort, money and takes the thinking out of lunch, so I can allow my mind to relax before getting back to work. Not only this, but all three meals are really healthy and packed with micronutrients so I know I'm going to be flooding my body with what it needs to perform in the gym and at work in my afternoons.
As I'm writing this, I'm remembering my previous life, working in finance and eating a burrito on lunch. The slump I'd feel at my desk come 3pm was all-consuming and on occasion I genuinely used to drink an expresso and immediately after go for a power nap in the toilet. Fifteen to twenty minutes later the coffee would snap we out of my slumber and I'd be back to work. On days when this extreme technique wasn't required, I'd still need a coffee or two to get through the afternoon and it wasn't long before this seriously started impacting my sleep. How times have changed...
Now my lunches have me feeling energised and excited to get back to work. I usually just have one coffee per day (max two) and never after midday. At the time of writing my sleep and health in general has never felt better.
Before I list out the meals and recipes, I want to explain the thought process behind their creation beyond saving time, etc and making them as nutrient rich as possible.
- The first one is to do with rotating foods. Food sensitivities are becoming more and more prevalent today. This is because people are eating the same foods over and over in a stressed out state. Eating in a sympathetic (fight or flight) as opposed to a parasympathetic (rest and digest) state is not a good idea. When we're in fight or flight mode, the villi on our intestinal wall are spread apart. This allows food particles to get through the stomach lining in a bigger format than they should. When this happens, the body recognises the food as a foreign invader like a virus or bacteria and will attack it. As a result you'll develop a sensitivity to this food and you'll likely have an autoimmune response every time you eat it. There's nothing inherently wrong with the food itself and this often does happen with really healthy foods, with a very common one being eggs. This is why elimination diets can be really effective. For example if you're noticing a sensitivity to a particular food, cut it out of your diet for ten days, work on healing your gut lining (Colostrum & Bone Broth) and then re-introduce it and see how you respond. Chances are, you'll be able to tolerate the food fine. Rotating foods is a method to help you not run into this issue in the first place. Therefore you'll notice that the meals below are built around three different meats; goat, lamb and beef. If you alternate batch cooks so you're not eating the same food for more than four days in a row, this will help you avoid autoimmune issues.
- The second one is around food digestion. When you cook meals like the ones laid out below, that have either been made using mince and / or are slow cooked, this results in the meal being way easier on the body to digest. Mince, finely chopped vegetables and rice are already in small particles when you eat them, meaning your body has less of a job to break them down through chewing, stomach acid, etc. The same applies for foods that have been tenderised in a pressure cooker or through slow cooking. Although you should definitely be conscious to thoroughly chew your food and optimise your gastric juices (e.g. Apple Cider Vinegar stimulates Hydrochloric Acid (HCL) aha stomach acid, which breaks down protein and bitter vegetables like rocket stimulate bile production, which helps break down fat), making meals this way acts as a first line of defence.
* If you found the above interesting and want to understand more about gut health, leaky gut and how to prevent or heal it, I've written a full article on the topic here.
Right, onto the recipes:
Curried Goat
Ingredients
- 1kg goat meat (cut in chunks)
- 4 teaspoons beef tallow or ghee
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 -2 teaspoons minced ginger
- 1 medium onion sliced
- 4-5 tablespoons curry powder
- 1- teaspoon white pepper
- 1-2 teaspoons fresh thyme
- 2 green onions sliced
- 2 medium potatoes
- 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 scotch bonnet pepper (adjust to suit taste buds or replace with any hot pepper)
- Celtic sea salt to taste
Instructions
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Season goat with, salt and pepper. Set aside
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In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat, until hot, and then add the goat meat sauté stirring, frequently, any browned bits off the bottom of the pot, until goat is brown.
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Add curry, stir for about 1-2 minutes.
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Add the garlic, ginger, white pepper, onions, thyme, tomato paste, green onions and scotch bonnet pepper stir for about a minute.
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Pour in just enough water to cover the goat and bring to a boil and let it simmer until tender (depending on the goat size and preference) about 2 hours or more, stirring the saucepan occasionally and adding more water as needed..
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About 15-20 minutes before you remove from the stove add potatoes. Continue cooking until potatoes are tender, if you want really thick curry goat let the potatoes cook even more .
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You may adjust thickness of soup with water or stock.
- Optional - cook some white rice to go with.
* Here's the link to the original recipe, which I altered to make a bit healthier: https://www.africanbites.com/jamaican-curry-goat/
Monster Mash
Ingredients
- 1kg of beef or lamb mince. Personally I use a lamb mince with 15% organ meat (heart, liver and kidney) mixed in. I get this from Dirty Clean Food in Australia. I don't know of anywhere that makes this in the UK yet, but I'm involved in another company Oath Food Co that will be making it soon. Follow us on Instagram or sign-up to the email list on the website and we'll let you know as soon as it's ready.
- 3 teaspoons beef tallow
- 200g white rice
- 2 large carrots
- 1 onion
- 4 pieces of garlic clove
- 500ml of bone broth
- Celtic sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Add beef tallow to pressure cooker, slow cooker or pot and melt down.
- Add mince and brown.
- Turn to a low heat before adding 500ml of bone broth and 500ml of water.
- Add finely chopped carrots, onion and garlic.
- If you're using a pressure cooker, set it for 30 minutes or if you're using a slow cooker / pot on the hob, set to a low temperature and check it every so often and stir until the sauce reaches your desired thickness.
- Cook white rice and serve together, seasoning with salt to taste.
Bolognaise
Ingredients
Instructions
- Add beef tallow to pressure cooker, slow cooker or pot and melt down.
- Add mince and brown.
- Turn to a low heat before adding the chopped tomatoes and water.
- Add finely chopped carrots, mushrooms onion and garlic.
- Add tomato paste and mix in.
- If you're using a pressure cooker, set it for 30 minutes or if you're using a slow cooker / pot on the hob, set to a low temperature and check it every so often and stir until the sauce reaches your desired thickness.
- Cook rice noodles and serve together, seasoning with salt to taste and add parmesan if wanted.
I really hope this article helps you get on top of your food preparation so you can maximise your nutrient intake, whilst looking after your gut health and save yourself some time and energy.
Here's to More Life,
Josh
