Time to Fire It Up
Marinading and Cooking Up Meats for Meal Prep and Healthy Summer Dinners
Happy Summer Time readers – the weather has certainly heated up here in New Jersey and thankfully where we live we have access to some pretty heavy duty grills, so we’ve been doing a lot of our meal prepping and meat cooking outside! There is nothing better to me than cooking outside on the grill, especially for chicken and steak and even vegetables. We like to purchase our meats and then marinade them overnight, then head out to the outdoor area in our complex and grill up our food. The best part is we can also sit outside on a nice summer evening and enjoy our meal which is so nice after a long day at work. We purchase most of our meats near by at the Stop & Shop in our town and always from the butcher. We also get most of our natural and organic chicken breasts from Trader Joe’s and sometimes some wild caught salmon from Stop & Shop as well. These we like to marinade pretty basic with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, black ground pepper, a lemon/pepper seasoning from Trader Joe’s and that’s about it. You really don’t need to add a lot to your meats to make them taste great. A great tip to follow is once you fire up your grill let it get to about 350 degrees before you even put your meats on. Let the grill get very hot, close the lid, and then when ready place your pieces of steak and chicken and let them sit and leave them alone! So many people like to flip flop their meats and not just let them sit – so as a rule of thumb I like to only flip 2 times total – leave your meats there and let them cook real good but don’t fuss with them!
I don’t eat a ton of red meat, maybe 1 time a week or every other week. As a former vegetarian back in my younger days I still have a hard time eating certain meats; red meat being one of them. The only way I will have it is if it’s not on a bone and it is not fatty. We usually get the small filet mignon steaks and marinade those with olive oil on both sides, salt and pepper. For me I always like my steak to be medium well so that it is pretty cooked through. I only usually eat about 4-5 ounces which is the size of your fist – make sure you understand your portions when you eat red meat as it can get pretty high in calories and fat if you eat very large portions. I always like to make lots of green vegetables for dinner; some of my favorites lately are brocolli rabe with olive oil and garlic or green beans with some garlic and low sodium chicken broth. The more greens in your diet the better!
We also are big fans of the thin sliced chicken breast from Trader Joe’s so I always make sure to buy a few packets of those. If we aren’t planning to cook them right away I freeze them as soon as I get home and then thaw them out the day we plan to grill them. For those I enjoy marinating with some basil, parsley, olive oil, salt, pepper and italian seaonings. This makes for a really good flavor especially when they are blackened and on the grill! I also always make sure to make a big hearty salad with cucumbers, carrots, sun dried tomatoes and sometimes with fat free feta cheese or dried cranberries! Salads are my favorite in the summer time!
For me I like to make lots of grilled chicken that I can easily use to make on top of salads, cut up with vegetables for a quick meal, or sometimes I diced the chicken breasts up into an egg white omolette in the morning – always protein packed meals in our house so having lots of grilled chicken is a must!
When grilling your meats I keep my chicken and red meat separate. This red meat was quite thick so it took a bit longer to cook through, whereas the chicken cooked really quickly because it was so thin. Again, don’t flip flop the meat – just let it sit and cook. Once your meat is finished, always let it sit for another 10 minutes before you go cutting into it. You want the meat to sit and let the juices really give it amazing flavor. If you cut into it right away it can dry your meat out pretty quickly.
I hope you enjoy firing up your grills this summer! It’s a fast and easy way to get your meats cooked and prep for the week ahead or just make a really tasty dinner and enjoy the nice weather! Cheers…
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