- Hi, I'm Erica and I'm a personal chef,
otherwise known as a professional meal prepper.
Today we are at Jamie's house.
She is an aspiring vegan so I am here to help her out.
The food that I'm cooking today
is definitely vegan friendly.
It is fully plant based.
But, I eat meat myself and I find the things
that I'm cooking today to be super satisfying and delicious,
regardless of whether or not you are plant based.
Jamie lives alone so what I'm doing today is making her
three portions of two different things.
Essentially, dinners or lunches for the week for her,
plus one bonus meal.
We are doing an eggplant Parmesan with cashew cheese
and a tempeh bolognese.
And then we're also going to do a nice kale salad
that has some delicata squash, pomegranate seeds,
quinoa, white beans.
It's gonna be a really nice, beautiful, filling salad.
(energetic pop music)
We are working with tempeh today,
which is a vegan protein alternative.
Tempeh can be a little bit bitter,
so what I'm gonna do is
marinate it in some of these liquid aminos,
which is similar to soy sauce.
My goal is to always have the things that are gonna take
longest started at the beginning.
Here, that means I want to have my roasted items
in the oven first.
(upbeat orchestral music)
Next, I'm gonna work on getting a couple things on the stove
because we have something in the oven now.
The sauce recipe that I'm using is actually based on
a recipe from Minimalist Baker,
which is a great blog if you are looking for
plant based recipes.
(stove top sizzling)
I'm about to start working on these mushrooms.
They impart umami flavor and umami is something that
you get when you eat meat.
It's that deep, rich flavor,
and it's something that a lot
of plant based food is missing,
but you can get it from mushrooms.
If you're not a mushroom person and
the texture is the issue,
the texture becomes less of a problem when you
mince them up like this.
Something that I always ask perspective clients about is
dietary restrictions and allergies.
What are some of the things that you, if you order takeout,
find yourself ordering repeatedly?
Do you like mushrooms?
Some other polarizing foods I've found;
spicy, mushrooms, eggplant, turmeric, cumin, cilantro.
People either love it or they hate it.
I love a good kale salad but sometimes
I find the inner core, or the stem, a little chewy,
so I like to remove the leaf from its stem.
At the bottom of the leaf,
you take a piece of it off of the stem
and then you just grip the stem and you,
(leaf ripping)
pull.
And that's it.
(upbeat orchestral music)
(leaves crunching)
I'm gonna use these cannellini beans, which is a white bean,
and they're amazing for plant based or vegan cooking because
when you pair them with a grain,
which we're doing today with quinoa,
you create a complete protein.
(upbeat orchestral music)
I have the dressing that I just made in a separate container
and I'm not going to dress the kale salad.
I am going to very lightly massage it
with a little bit of olive oil.
If you're letting kale sit in a container
for any longer than an hour,
I would say just lightly massage,
just to take a little bit of the bite out of the kale.
What I have here is a plant based cheese substitute
that mimics ricotta.
All it has in it are cashews, some lemon juice, salt,
and then its blended with water and mellow white miso paste.
You can also use chickpea or a rice miso.
(upbeat orchestral music)
Now, I am doing one of my favorite activities,
which is just capturing what I have cooked.
(camera shutters)
It's been two hours and I've finished all of my cooking.
I am just now focusing on the cleanup.
We're all set here at Jamie's.
I had a ton of fun cooking up some really delicious
vegan meal prep for her.
I'm really hoping that this couple of nights of meals
will kickstart her on a path towards plant based eating,
because that's what she's interested in doing.
- My favorite of the two dishes was definitely
the eggplant parm, hands down.
It was so creamy and so delicious.
I could not believe it was vegan.
(upbeat orchestral music)