What's up everybody, Yoshua here from
YouEnjoyLife, and Greetings from Colorado,
one of my favorite places in the world.
I have been living with my friend for a
while and I am helping him convert his
2-acre property, which is on the mountainside, so it's been wild, into a
gigantic food forest.
I am learning so much every day, cooking
pretty much all of our own food, foraging
a lot of stuff, and just feeling super
nourished by the land.
But I've been traveling around the world
for a long time, and cooking and learning
about in all kinds of weird and wacky and
different types of situations, and what
I have come to see is that no matter what situation you are in right now, whether
you have a lot of property and you have never grown food, or you have a farm, or
you have a tiny little apartment with a small kitchen, and you are sprouting some
lentils on the kitchen counter, you can find a way to get more connected to the
foods that you cook and the foods that you eat, rather than getting caught up in
comparing yourself to, "I wish I had this
or, "I wish I had that". Just make small changes right now, start cooking more
meals, get connected to your food, and over time your life will radically shift.
Recently, a friend of ours named Stuart
has been visiting, and Stuart has been
living out of his van and he has just
been kind of struggling to make good meals,
He has got very tiny compact space and just an instant pot, so I wanted to get
together with him and see if could help
him out a bit.
I've been living out of this thing
for about three months. - How has it been going?
It has been going really well, it has been really intense. There is an adaptation
process that we have to go through when we start to live in nature.
It took me about 30 days to really get
settled and figure out my routine, which
has radically changed, because now
it is like every time I go to the bathroom,
every time I do everything, my processes
have all changed, basically. - What about food specifically? Because I
want to help you feel comfortable cooking.
So food, I have figured out a system. The
instant pot right there and the battery,
as long as I am off the grid, I can go off
the grid and on the grid. When I am on the
grid i can just go with the instant pot
everyday. Every meal, I can cook it out of
that. The coolest thing is little cleanup.
I try to do things as simple as possible.
I get frozen vegetables, I throw them in
the instant pot, I steam them, and then I
put a premade sauce and I only use one
sauce at a time because I have to
refrigerate it after I open it.
Yeah, so for me it is really about just
taking what you already have and just
adding little accentuations, because as
you know like food is an integral part of
life, but what I find is when you are just
adding those little things, and just put
in your own love into it, and just little
moments of excitement that it just makes
the meal more fun. So instead of just having steamed vegetables, you add a
certain spice, or you steam an egg in there at the same time, then you come out
of this pot and you top it with sauerkraut and sprouts or something, and all of a
sudden it fells like this whole complete meal, and not just something simple.
It is still really simple. The goal for me
is to not add to your clean up essentially,
Just still all in one pot, so what I was
thinking is, we could actually steam the
egg, take a bell pepper and actually cut
it in half, and then crack an egg on each
side, and then you will steam to get
pepper steamed and the egg steamed, but
I also made this, this is for you. You
were saying, black pepper and turmeric,
why do you want more of that?
So, turmeric is helpful for inflammation
and, I assume, chronic pain, and the black
pepper activates the turmeric.
So what I've got here, I'm actually making
a homemade spice blend, just to spice
things up a little bit. That's basically
black pepper garlic powder, some cumin,
coriander, I'm going to add some turmeric.
I want to make a spice blend that tastes
really good but that has a lot of flavor, that also has the things that he wants in
it, and what is cool about spice blends is they will last a long time, and you can
just sprinkle them in your food and have a little extra flavor. You might sneeze,
I'm about to sneeze. So this is something
you can sprinkle on anything if you are making veggies. You can do it fresh,
you can do it before you cook it, whatever you want.
I found adding those little elements of cooking just make it more fun and create
more of a connection to food, because
to me food is really about the connection
we have. - The creativity as well?
The creativity and the energy behind it, so I always say, "Use the best that you can",
don't look obsessed if you can't afford
organic or you don't know how to grow your own food. Just take small little steps to
get more connected to the food that you're making, and then over time it will
just grow and grow.
Let's have some fun. Cut this in half, and
this is a little bit of an experiment, I
feel good about it, but there is always an
experimentation of food. There is a little
fun element. It is like playing, so I am
just going to remove the seeds out on both
sides. Of course, this is something you
can always compost if you are buying
organic veggies, which also cool. You can
literally take the seeds and you can plant
them, so there are all these little things.
Also, when you start to learn more about
foraging, you can go out and find wild
greens and just add that too.
This here is a wax currant tree, and what
is cool is they will eventually become
edible berries, but before their berries
you can actually eat these flowers, so
that would make a really delicious,
nutritious sort of garnish, a wild garnish
that you could throw on. Another favorite
green of mine to forage is lamb's quarter you can see it right here. It grows like a
weed, it is considered a weed, but it is
like a wild spinach and it is very
delicious and easy to identify.
Just crack one right in there.
The salty eggs,
beautiful, and then let's use the stew
blend. So that is for you, you can take
around and do whatever you want with it.
Eggs, it works very well on that, nice.
So we lower the eggs in, but we are not
done. Let's take some brussels sprouts
and maybe we will just have them. We
are going to steam everything altogether
in that. - Got it, okay.
And what about overcooking?
One way to think about vegetables is kind
of the opposite of meat. Your meat
starts out soft and when you cook it it
gets more and more firm, vegetables are the opposite. They have their own tender,
You might say like, "I want to have a
medium rare steak", it's similar to vegetables. As you cook the brussels
sprouts, they will get softer and softer,
and you just find the point you like. There is no right, there is no perfect
when it comes to cooking, it is all about preference and experience, and making
mistakes is just part of it. You make a mistake and then you learn something new,
you don't see it as a failure, you still eat it.
Sometimes I make something, it does not turn out the way I want it to, but it turns
into something else because I made a
mistake, and then I have to go forward and
figure out, "What do I do next?"
And then, let's just pop on the lid and
let the magic thing do its work. - And then steam for about a minute?
- No, we are actually going to steam it
for about six minutes. - Oh wow.
How long do you usually steam your veggies? - One minute, and then I leave it in.
Yeah, so let's do six minutes so that
should cook the eggs, and then turn it on
and it's good, yep.
All right cool and then we wait.
[Music]
Next to the sauerkraut a couple things I
brought to help out. This little seed mix
that I made that you can take, and it has
just got quinoa, chia, put sesame
seeds in there, there is sunflower seeds
and just little things to add nutrients
and seeds, yeah you can mix and match, you
can sprout a lot of that stuff as well,
but you can just kind of sprinkle it on
like salads and things, and it adds a lot
of crunch and a lot of good nutrients.
All right, release the steam. I want to do
the reveal, let's see if it worked. You
never know, it's like a magic trick. Wow.
Yeah, so you could even steam them less if
you wanted to have them runny. -But this way do you think if I poke them
would the yolk come out? -I don't. I think the yolk is all cooked,
but you have options to play around with,
like, "what happens if I do it for three
minutes?", It would probably be more of
a soft boiled egg. - Yeah, okay.
Oh man, we lost one. Everything is a
little bit slower in a van, we just have
got to have a little more patience. - Absolutely, patience is something I have
learned a lot about in the last three
months. - Yeah, what I would personally do for
something like this is, you can take some
sauerkraut. You like sauerkraut? - Oh yeah.
You can kind of plate it. Plating is fun
me. To me, food is like impermanence. It is
like the art of impermanence. You spend all this time doing something, putting love
into it, and then there is the destroying
of it, letting fo, you know, not holding
on to it but enjoying the moment, being
present in the cooking process, and then
you get to eat and enjoy. It's crazy
because it slows down time as well. And
then a little bit of sprouts right on top,
sprinkle them even if there is a little
bit of dirt, I'll get that out. Okay and then
just for a little added bonus crunch you
can sprinkle this on, and then suddenly you
go from just eating the steamed veggies to
having this whole kind of masterpiece of
just magic, and everything is really
simple. Mostly raw stuff like with the
sauerkraut and the sprouts, you are adding
just raw elements that are going to stay
for a while, things that are dried or
things that are preserved really well, and
this is the key challenge of van life. It
It's essentially how to get fresh food,
and also have enough food to last for a
long time. So I am glad, we have hopefully
hit your challenge.
[Music]
This little egg pocket.
good. Cooked alright? - Hmm.
The craziest thing is you just put
intention to it, food tastes so much
better. - It really is. I honestly think
love is the number one ingredient to any
cooking, so even if you have a van, you
don't have many supplies, just basic
things, a little bit of intention, some
love, good ingredients and you will be
happy.
I hope that you got a lot out of that
video and are inspired to eat healthier
and cook more sustainably. If you did,
make sure to subscribe to Yoshua's channel.
The links are in the description to
follow him, and make sure to subscribe
to this channel if you have not already,
where there are many more educational and
inspirational videos to come. I love you
all very much and see you again real soon.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community