FYI: Hefty makes TV dinner trays (= convenient bodybuilding meal containers!)

[Kaido]

This is what I'm doing right now:

1. 150-pack of 2-compartment containers/lids for $55.99: (shipping is expensive)

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bla...e-container-with-lid-150-case/795MT2850B.html

Freezer-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher safe. These are thin & disposable if you don't want to keep them (roughly 38 cents per container). They also come in 3-compartment sizes, as well as oven-friendly versions if you want to make a bakeable dinner tray. If you chop up your food (like slice your chicken into strips), you can also get a 250-pack of disposable plastic cutlery (fork, knife, spoon, napkin) for $10.99: (pack food in morning + throw everything away = no dishes)

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/cho...ife-fork-spoon-napkin-250-case/346WKFSNM.html

2. Meal Plan: Lean meat + veggie

Examples:

Salmon + carrots
Shrimp + peas/carrots
Beef Burger + potato
Chicken + sweet potato
Turkey Burger + broccoli

I typically steam the frozen veggies in the microwave for 3 minutes, in a bowl filled with water. It takes about 3 minutes 3 seconds to do a full bowl, but if you under-cook it, then when you reheat your food in the microwave, it comes out perfect instead of rubbery. I either microwave or steam the potatoes; poke holes in the potatoes and do for 3 minutes, then flip, then another 3 minutes, or throw them in an electric steamer for 40 minutes (the electric steamer makes them really soft). I electric-steam the shrimp & salmon. The rest I pan-fry in a bit of olive oil or do on the grill, depending on how much time I have available. Grilled stuff obviously tastes a lot better because of the smoke flavor, but you can get great results in the pan too. I use a cast-iron pan for great texture & flavor.

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Found this gem at my local grocery store: (food not included! lol)

http://i.imgur.com/OzJSryA.jpg

Reusable TV dinner trays, with sealable lids. These are made out of that new thinner plastic that is microwave/freezer-safe, but that you can throw away if it breaks or whatever (not thick like Tupperware, but not nearly as expensive as Tupperware either). They make a couple versions:

2-compartment for $3.99 (2-pack)

3-compartment for $4.89 (2-pack)

Apparently they are pretty new because I can't find them on Amazon or too many places online. I am a big fan of make-ahead meals for convenience, so I'd like to get a truckload of these and just do a month's worth of different TV dinners. The format is just so convenient! Just pull it out of the freezer, microwave, eat, and throw in the dishwasher.

In my picture above, I have a chicken cutlet with marinara sauce & avocado, mashed sweet potato, and steamed green beans (a la microwave). The tray held up pretty well - it's definitely cheap, thin stuff (the corner of one of the plastic lids had already chipped off a set before I even opened the package), but good enough to be reusable, at least for awhile. For me, the convenience is worth paying for because even if I'm low-energy, I still have the ability to use the microwave, so I'd only ever be a couple minutes away from a hot, healthy meal. Here's a sample meal plan: (for frozen veggies, I just steam in the microwave in a bowl of water for 3 minutes)

2-compartment meals:

Salmon (steamer - I use the frozen boneless/skinless filets from Sam's Club)
Carrots (steamer - I use baby carrots, steam them for 20 minutes with the salmon)

Shredded chicken (boil for a few hours, pull apart like pulled pork, top with Garlic Salt)
1/2 mashed Sweet Potato

Asian Turkey Burger (pan-fry - ground turkey mixed with soy sauce, garlic salt, and sesame oil)
Broccoli & Cauliflower mix (steamer)

Shrimp (steamer - just buy a giant bag of frozen shrimp) & Marinara sauce (I use Prego 100% Natural, Traditional flavor)
Peas & Carrots mix (steamed)

3-compartment meals:

Bison Burger (grill - George Foreman or real grill)
1/2 mashed Sweet Potato (poke holes, microwave 4 minutes per side)
Broccoli (steamer)

Chicken cutlet (flatten with rolling pin & plastic wrap, cook in olive oil spray in a pan on medium) & Marinara sauce (I use Prego 100% Natural, either Fresh Mushroom or Basil Garlic, nom nom)
Green beans (steam)
1/2 mashed Sweet Potato (poke holes, microwave 4 minutes per side)

It will be nice to throw six of these into my giant picnic-sized insulated lunchbox with some freezer packs & chow down during the day! :thumbsup:

 

[Koing]

Looks good man

Koing

 

[Kaido]

Looks good man

Thanks! Something about it being a TV dinner tray makes it infinitely more accessible than a bunch of tupperware or smartspin containers in my lunchbox :biggrin:

http://i.imgur.com/KckwGB4.jpg

Did some shopping, time to start cooking!

 

[Corporate Thug]

anyone know where they have them in stock?

 

[Kaido]

anyone know where they have them in stock?

I went around to some of my local Stop & Shop grocery stores, but only one had them, so I went back & bought them out. Buy 2 get 1 free! Unfortunately they only had enough for 2 days worth of meals (6 meals a day), but that's enough to start out with. I already like them a lot better than my other containers. They're a much more familiar interface for eating out of, makes you feel like you're eating a meal instead of just bodybuilding food, you know?

 

[Kaido]

Burning through my stock of sweet potatoes. Chicken dinner plate:

http://i.imgur.com/uDjWLvW.jpg

Accidentally got the broccoli steams instead of the heads, d'oh! Burger dinner plate:

http://i.imgur.com/kg4FoW9.jpg

In the small freezer top of my fridge/freezer combo, I can stack about 5 high, 2 across, and 2 deep, so about 20 on the larger top rack, good enough for about 3 day's worth of meals. Nice! Good enough to start out with!

 

[Kaido]

I also have one TV dinner going in for long-term evaluation; I'll leave it in there for a couple months to see how it fares being microwaved down the road. These aren't super sealed like my FoodSaver vacuum-seal system, but I'd bet they could hold off the cold for at least a few weeks, if not a few months, thanks to the way the top lid clips down onto the bottom lid. Time will tell; I'll see if I start getting freezer burn on anything in a couple weeks.

If it does hold up, it'd be worth it for me to buy another upright deep freezer - my current one can hold about a month's worth of TV dinner trays, so if they hold up for more than a month or two, I'd only have to realistically cook like 6 times a year, haha! Every couple of months just spend a Saturday grilling & steaming the food.

The downside is the cost of the containers. I like the 2-compartment containers a lot (meat in one, veggies in the other), which are $4 for a 2-pack. So a month's worth is 31 days times 6 meals a day, or 186 trays. 186 trays divided by a 2-pack is 93 2-packs. 93 2-packs times $4 each is $372. So not super cheap, plus I don't know what the long-term reliability of the containers is (holding up to multiple dishwasher/freezer cycles). A decent 20-cubic-foot upright deep freezer is around $750 at Home Depot, so around $1125 for a month's kit (containers + freezer), plus the added electricity cost. But the benefits are tremendous:

1. I'd only have to cook once a month
2. I'd have healthy, delicious meals available 6 times a day
3. I wouldn't be spending money on any other (junk food) or buying food in a pinch
4. I'd never be wondering "what's for dinner?"
5. I could buy in bulk at the local club store (Sam's/Costco/BJ's)

My in-laws sort of do this on the bulk food side of things; they buy half a cow every year and then use it for steaks & burgers throughout the year at a really nice cost savings. Plus the meat is amazing! So that's definitely something to consider. Blowing a whole day cooking would kind of stink, but not having to cook for the remaining 30 days of the month i also awesome.

Another option is to find some disposable paper containers at a reduced cost. You have an ongoing expense every month, but you also wouldn't have to do dishes. Ever. That would be extremely compelling because then the workflow would be:

1. Cook
2. Freeze
3. Eat
4. Throw away

Just mullling some ideas over. My wife got onboard with the idea once I told her I wouldn't ask what's for dinner ever again :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

Okay, now we're making some progress - found a restaurant supply store online:

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bla...ble-container-with-lid-150-cs/795MT2850B.html

Found a freezer-friendly, microwavable 2-compartment disposable plastic container bulk package for $55.99 for a 150-pack (lid/container combo). $56 divided by 150 containers works out to about 38 cents per container, versus $2 per reusable container, which is over 80% savings (if I'm doing my math right). So my monthly container cost would be about $70 for disposable ones - no dishwasher required, more free time, less cost for running the dishwasher (hot water & detergent). Hmm. That sounds pretty good. That works out to about $2.26 per day for container cost, plus food cost & freezer electricity cost. This is starting to get interesting!

 

[Kaido]

Ran some more numbers:

$840 annual cost for disposable containers

-or-

$372 annual cost for reusable containers (assuming they can last 12 dishwasher cycles)
$160 annual cost to run the dishwasher (I have an old dishwasher; roughly based on this link)
= $532 total annually for reusable containers + using the dishwasher

So I'd be paying a $308 premium for disposable containers. Which might be even more if the reusable containers last more than a year. However, I'd also have more free time because I wouldn't ever have to do dishes.

$750 for 20cf upright deep freezer
$75 annual electricity cost for running the deep freezer

If I wanted to be super lazy, I could also throw in convenient bottles of water in bulk. I buy those sometime and keep them in my car's trunk just so I can grab some water if I need to. Anyway, this could actually be really interesting...not very environmentally-friendly, unless I recycled everything...but very interesting in that I could live a healthy but disposable food lifestyle. Cook 12 times a year, throw away the plastic containers, and keep bulk packs of bottled water at the house & car trunk. Super easy way to eat healthy, all I'd have to do is use the microwave 6 times a day, no dishes to clean up ever. And because I've mastered most of the recipes, the food tastes great too!

 

[Kaido]

Okay, quick food review: I reheated one of my chicken cutlet dinners (pan-fried chicken via a spray of olive oil from my Misto, a big scoop of Prego 100% Natural Italian red sauce, a mashed sweet potato with no skin, and green beans). Results:

1. Chicken: This came out AWESOME. Really really good. Like a restaurant meal. This is the recipe I use:

http://asweetandsavorylife.com/how-to-cook-tender-juicy-not-dry-chicken-breasts/

I use a Misto refillable sprayer and fill it with EVOO:

http://www.amazon.com/kitchen-dining/dp/B00004SPZV

Also, I use a rolling pin instead of a meat mallet. It helps the chicken to spread out more. Here's my basic workflow:

1. Purchase large, thick boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I've been snagging them on sale in the 3-packs or larger at the local grocery store).
2. Spread the chicken breast out on a cutting board, use a knife to cut off any cartilage, cover in plastic wrap, and pound it with the rolling pin until the whole chicken is flat, no more than .75" thick. The reason yo uget the big, thick chicken breasts is so it will spread out without getting too thin.
3. Spray a cast-iron pan pre-heated to Medium heat with the Mitso olive-oil sprayer and cook for maybe 5 minutes per side. It will get a nice crispy texture on the outside and be moist on the inside without drying out. That's why you start out with a thick chicken breast - if it's too thick originally, it will dry out, but if you pound it down, it kind of compresses it so it doesn't dry out, but gives you a great crust & nice white inside.

Then just pour on some Prego 100% Traditional Italian sauce, either regular, garlic/basil, or fresh mushroom, they're all good! Without having to add extra salt or flavorings to the chicken, your dinner now tastes like a restaurant meal, i.e. really good with not much effort.

2. Sweet Potato: This came out spongy. The texture changed to sort of a thick sponge, almost marshmallow-like. Not inedible by any means, but if you've ever had mashed potatoes in a real TV dinner before...kind of like that. Might try under-cooking these so that they finish when I reheat them. I think the chicken made it out perfectly because I cover it with sauce when I freeze it, so the water in the sauce keeps the chicken from drying out.

3. Green Beans: Very chewy; some of the tips were so hard I couldn't chew them. So definitely over-cooked. One option is to under-cook them when I'm steaming them during prep time; another option is to add a bit of water when I freeze them, which I think is what they do with real TV dinners, to add moisture & sort of steam them in the container during reheat. Mostly edible though, just not as good as freshly-steamed.

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Another option I could try is sealing each container in a FoodSaver vacuum-seal bag, although I don't know how well that would work since the FoodSaver sucks all the air out and there would still be big pockets of air in the compartments. I've had really good success with the FoodSaver keeping foods edible for years in the freezer, but the format of just doing them in bags makes it not as convenient to throw in the microwave. So that's another option to explore.

Overall that was really convenient though. I was hungry, I went to the freezer and took out a homemade TV dinner, hit the Reheat button on my microwave, and started eating. Yum yum yum. No gross feeling of eating a preservative-laced commercial TV dinner and the deliciousness of my homemade foods that I chose & cooked. 10/10 would eat again.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Thanks for caring about the environment!

 

[Kaido]

Thanks for caring about the environment!

Hah right? It's one of those split decisions - on one hand, that's an awful lot of plastic to go into the environment every month. On the other hand, my rental place has a huge dumpster dedicated for plastics & other recycling, so technically it would not really be that damaging to the environment because it would be re-used.

Although I'm not entirely convinced that they don't just dump it all into the same garbage pit when they drive back to the landfill :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

Thanks for caring about the environment!

The other interesting thing I've been reading about on these geeky appliance & utilities calculation sites is the cost of things we take for granted, like water usage, both economically & environmentally. The Energy Star site says that old dishwashers use an average of 10 gallons per cycle, so if I were to purchase a month's worth of reusable plastic containers and wash them every day (cooking for 3, so 18 containers @ 6 meals per day per person = 1 dishwasher load daily), I'd be using 3,650 gallons of water, plus dishwasher detergent, plus gas to heat my water heater to pump hot water to the dishwasher - versus simply throwing away the disposable containers and avoiding that entire environmental impact.

But then, who knows what the impact of disposable containers is, both in the creation process and in the recycling process. But saving 3500+ gallons of water a year sounds good too! I am not an environmentalist by any means, but I also don't think we should be reckless in our decisions about how we treat the environment either :thumbsup:

 

[iluvdeal]

Personally I avoid heating anything up in plastic in a microwave, BPA free or not. High heat and plastic around my food? No thanks.

 

[Kaido]

Personally I avoid heating anything up in plastic in a microwave, BPA free or not. High heat and plastic around my food? No thanks.

Yeah, and I'm not sure how good consuming microwave-cooked food is long-term to begin with. I was also considering eating only canned food for convenience (chicken, turkey, tuna, shrimp plus veggies), but there are even more drawbacks to that. There's some interesting reading on sodium content out there, as well as the BPA levels in canned foods:

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/eating-canned-soup-risks-major-health-problems/

But then again, food microwaved in plastic containers vs. eating junk food...I'll take the microwave for now!

 

[Java Cafe]

Personally I avoid heating anything up in plastic in a microwave, BPA free or not. High heat and plastic around my food? No thanks.

This is my concern too! It has been over two years that I have put anything remotely resembling plastic in the microwave or dishwasher. In my view, the risks do not justify the convenience of avoiding hand washing of plastics (and plastic-like materials).

 

[Kaido]

This is my concern too! It has been over two years that I have put anything remotely resembling plastic in the microwave or dishwasher. In my view, the risks do not justify the convenience of avoiding hand washing of plastics (and plastic-like materials).

I wonder what the actual effects of heating in the microwave for a couple of minutes vs. just being packaged inside plastic containers are. I mean, our food touches plastic from the farm to the factory to our grocery store. Plus, modern containers are supposed to be better:

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/mixing-plastic-food-urban-legend?page=3

"Generally speaking, any food that you buy in a plastic container with directions to put it in the microwave has been tested and approved for safe use," says George Pauli, associate director of Science and Policy at the FDA's Center for Food and Safety and Applied Nutrition.

 

[iluvdeal]

How many sessions in the microwave do you think your container will lasts? 5? 10? It won't be forever right? Since it's disintegrating each time you zap it, where do you think those plastic particles are going?

 

[Kaido]

How many sessions in the microwave do you think your container will lasts? 5? 10? It won't be forever right? Since it's disintegrating each time you zap it, where do you think those plastic particles are going?

If I go with the disposables, just once. If it's the reusables, at least a few times each, I'll have to see how they hold up. But people have been microwaving Tupperware for decades. Plus there's outgassing from carpeting, second-hand smoke from poor range ventilation in the kitchen, everything from 802.11 Wifi to 2.4ghz cordless phones to cell signals flying through my body all day long...how much worse would microwaving plastic be? Snopes even has a thing on cooking plastics:

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp

Do I think it's great for you? Probably not. But there's not enough proof to justify not doing it. Tupperware was started in 1945 and commercial microwaves were available as early as 1954, so we've been using this stuff for a long time, and not 100% of people have cancer. There are toxins out there though:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-microwave-safe-plastic.htm

But I think we also don't know enough about the history of cancer. I mean, people would just die in the past and they wouldn't know what caused it. As far as we know, cancer could have been the #1 killer of human beings until we introduced mass farming and nutrition, who knows, you know? If it was something with as much concrete evidence as say asbestos I'd be worried, but for now it seems okay.

 

[iluvdeal]

It's your health and body, do as you wish.

 

[Kaido]

It's chicken day!

http://i.imgur.com/Ai507s8.jpg

I definitely need moar containers:

http://i.imgur.com/63WMoVt.jpg

Lessons learned so far:

1. Microwave does a great job on Reheat. Surprisingly great. Not sure if it's the homemade food that makes the difference, or that it's a reusable (thicker) plastic container.

2. Cook frozen veggies in a bowl of water for 2:45 - almost done, but not quite (I usually do 3 minutes or 3:30 for a full cook, depending on the veggie). Reheating later finishes the job. When I drain the water, I leave a bit in so when I fill the compartment in the TV dinner tray, there's a little bit left to steam the veggies during Reheat. Eating the chicken dish with peas & carrots as I type this, came out perfect!

3. It takes a lot LESS time to cook a ridiculous amount of food than I thought it would. I pan-fried a huge package of chicken breasts in about 20 minutes, plus steamed a ton of veggies.

4. I am extremely lazy; this is a gamechanger for me in terms of consistently eating healthy. Remove from freezer, nuke, eat. Done. Blows away all the barriers to having to make & eat healthy food every day.

5. I like cooking chicken and other stuff in my cast-iron pan for flavor & texture, but my 10" skillet was too small for mass cooking. I picked up this bad boy for $30 on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-LDP3-Dou...dp/B002CMLTXG/

You can either straddle it across two burners in your kitchen, or just throw it on your grill. I tried it on the range today with good results. The middle doesn't get as hot because there's no burner there, but it's stuff useful because I can cook 3 large chicken breasts on one pan, cut them in half, and have fill up 6 meal trays. They cook for about 5 minutes per side or 10 minutes today, so in 20 minutes I can fill up 12 trays worth of food, and while that's cooking, I keep the veggies steaming in the microwave.

I also like it because one side has grill lines, so your food looks really nice. I've found that presentation helps a lot in making food appealing, because if it looks good, you'll want to eat it more. I'm picking up a small outdoor gas grill sometime this month, so I'll try it on there for more even heating. Plus I want to do more smoky stuff that I can't do in my kitchen, like Smash Burgers, so it will be nice to be able to do a whole bunch at once. After I get that going, I'll try out the disposable containers to see how those fare, and in a month or two I'll check on my long-term tray to see how bad the freezer burn gets.

 

[Kaido]

Somewhat related: 8 "Healthy" Snacks That Are More Fattening Than a Twinkie:

http://www.totalbeauty.com/content/gallery/fattening-foods

Spaghetti sauce: There's a reason why that jar of Prego can taste as good as a home-cooked sauce from a nonna's kitchen: It's got sugar in it. Loads of it. To be precise, just 1/2 cup of Prego Fresh Mushroom Italian Sauce has 11 g of sugar -- the same amount that's in a glazed Krispy Kreme donut.

Eat this instead: If you read labels and compare brands, it is possible to find a sauce with no added sugar. Another alternative is to make your own spaghetti sauce from chopped canned tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and a little dried basil.

Well crud, I didn't even think to check the sugar content on red sauce

 

[Kaido]

150-pack of containers arrived (not a very big box, surprisingly!). They are reusable, although it doesn't say how many times. Several were chipped in the corner from handling (box drop I'd assume), so they are fairly thin, but are dishwasher safe. So at 38 cents a pop, you can either throw them away, do a quick hand-wash, or toss them in the dishwasher. Very nice.

They microwave just fine, and the top is bubbled out in case you want to fit more food or tall food in there. I smash boneless/skinless chicken breasts down using plastic wrap & a rolling pin into cutlets and then cook them; I was able to chop one of those in half and fit it in the larger compartment of the 2-compartment container:

http://i.imgur.com/BVmri2l.jpg

I also got a 250-pack of utensils (plastic fork/spoon/knife & napkin). The knife is pretty much useless. The fork is flimsy but works fine. I think what I'll do in the future is cut the chicken (and other thicker foods) into bite-sized strips so I only have to use the fork, which makes it much faster to chow something down quickly since you don't have to slice it yourself. I may also just use a metal fork and bring my own napkins, but it is nice having the disposable stuff when you need it. You can eat the food cold or hot; fortunately I sit near to a microwave at work, so that's not a big deal.

I also found some store-brand sauce that is less sweet than Prego, but only has 4 grams of sugar (none added) vs. the 11 grams in Prego. The sauce really helps to keep the chicken moist when cooking and give you more flavor to dip in. Salsa would probably work pretty well too. Overall, I really like this idea. It's incredibly convenient to have healthy bodybuilding meals in a microwavable format, ready to go whenever you need them :thumbsup:

 

[Kaido]

Found a nice little trick today - you can shred meat in your stand mixer:

http://www.chow.com/videos#!/show/chow-tips/128639/shred-meat-in-your-stand-mixer

I've been doing a lot of crockpot cooking lately (chicken etc) and this will be super-handy for doing shredded meat for my TV dinner trays, which so far have been working out great! Whenever I grill, I just throw on some extra meat and bin them up for the freezer. Last night I did BBQ chicken & burgers:

http://i.imgur.com/nNjghbn.jpg

I'm pretty much doing entirely frozen vegetables now, aside from the sweet potatoes. Makes it really convenient because I can buy giant bags in bulk:

Broccoli
Cauliflower
Peas
Green beans
Carrots
Asparagus

Although the sweet potatoes are pretty easy, I use these little express bake sweet potatoes that come in a microwave-safe plastic wrap - they come out a lot better than microwaving regular sweet potatoes because they stay nice & moist instead of drying out:

http://farmfreshdirect.net/potatoh/

I'm also messing around with different meatloaf recipes, since they are easy to cook & easy to eat with just a fork:

Bison meatloaf

Chicken meatloaf

Turkey meatloaf muffins

Other than learning the facts about bodybuilding nutrition, I would have to say that stumbling upon the TV dinner tray concept has been the most beneficial thing to happen to me health-wise. It is ridiculously easy to eat food from a nice slim container and stay on my meal plan. Would highly recommend this route to anyone who is struggling being consistent on their diet.

 

[Ksyder]

Thats a pretty good idea. I'm trying to think of a cheap way to avoid the plastic containers though. What I think I might do is cook the meats/veggies/starches and then portion each of them out and heavily/tightly plastic wrap each portion and put into the freezer. Freezer bags could get pricey and more wasteful than simple plastic wrap, which you can buy in huge amounts at costo or other bulk places.

Then, grab one of each and use a glass container to carry/reheat them daily.