13: Save Time with Easy, Family Meals and the Component Cooking Method

How do you feel when you hear the phrase "What's for dinner"? If you're anything like me, it brings up a bunch of different emotions!

If you're trying to prioritize your OWN health, with anti-inflammatory meals, you might find that it's hard to cook for your family, too.

But what if I told you that I have a solution that let's you cook family meals just THREE nights a week - anti-inflammatory, easy, delicious, and family-friendly?! Sounds too good to be true, right?

In this week's episode of The Family Fork I'm giving you the complete method for making this way a cooking a reality. It's called the Component Cooking method, and it's going to completely change your life!

Once you've listened and taken notes, try the method for yourself, using the Family Fork Dinner Guide (available here for free!)

Then, grab monthly meal plans in the Supper Club, so you're never without a Component Cooking plan again.

Links mentioned, and ways to connect:
- The Family Fork Dinner Guide
- The Supper Club monthly recipes, bonus guides, coaching sessions, and more!

Ashley Malik is a women's health and wellness coach, helping busy moms lose weight in perimenopause. You can learn more, and discover how to work with Ashley, by clicking here!

*** Ready to lose 15 lbs in 10 weeks? The Method gives you all the tools to make it happen! We start April 2nd. To learn more about The Method, click here!

Transcript

Ashley Malik (00:05)
When you hear the phrase, hey mom, what's for dinner tonight? What thoughts come to mind? If you are anything like me, a busy working mom who's trying to prioritize her own health while not feeding her family garbage food, I don't know, the idea of what's for dinner actually brings up a lot of anxiety. And if I'm honest, I get really annoyed about that question. 

How can you feed your family meals that they will actually eat? What if what you want and what your family wants are two totally different things? You don't even have time to cook dinner, let alone plan some healthy options, and you're exasperated with the thought of dinner and often just resort to the drive-through because, Chick-fil-A is pretty healthy, right? I feel you. Thoughts of what's for dinner can bring up

a lot of different emotions. But what if I told you that you could prepare healthy meals for you and your family, prioritize your own health goals, and only cook three nights a week? and not have any weekend meal prep. This really sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Believe it or not, I have a solution that will let you do all of this. In today's episode of The Family Fork,

we're diving into my unique cooking method called component cooking. It's going to help you cook easy but healthy meals.

It's going to help you cook easy but healthy meals, feed your family what they want, and spend less time in the kitchen. How does that sound? Yeah, pretty good. I thought so. So let's dig in. All right. I've asked this question in a previous episode. So let's see if you've been paying attention. What is one of the biggest roadblocks to you achieving your health and wellness goals? What do you think? Believe it or not, it's your family.

When it comes to family, the reality is that they want what they want when it comes to food. If you have older kids at home, like teens or college kids, they have pretty established likes and dislikes, and they probably have their own money, and so they're often spending it ordering Burger King through Uber Eats or something to the house, which, my gosh, that is so expensive. With younger kids, they may be in that...

picky stage. That's exactly where Suraya my almost six-year-old is currently. They love mac and cheese one day, but then can't stand it for the next month. And who knows why? And it's really impossible to plan meals around that picky eating. And if you feed other adults in your house, you know that they're pretty accommodating for the most part. But they have their own likes and dislikes, and you try and work around some of those. Now...

think about layering in what you want. You're trying to eat an anti-inflammatory diet so that you can have more energy, especially if you're in perimenopause. And maybe you're working on dropping some weight and you really need to dial in your nutrition. So when you decide to start cooking healthy anti-inflammatory meals, you have absolutely no idea how you're going to swing it for everyone in your household.

You try making some of the healthy recipes for your family dinners, but those extra veggies aren't really met with a lot of excitement from everyone else. Or maybe you make a meal for yourself, but knowing that they won't like it, you just go ahead and make something else for your family. But then you find your spell.

But then you find yourself spending twice as much time in the kitchen, working on meals that are kind of only so-so for you and basically throwing together some pre-made or frozen food for your family just to get dinner on the table on time. Eventually, you start to give up because, well, time. You don't have time for all of this. And quite frankly, you're starting to feel

resentful. Resentful that you have to work so hard on cooking when nobody is really getting what they want anyway, including you. So let's be clear, this is not your family's fault, but trying to feed them what they want while trying to eat what you want and need has proven to be really, really hard. Can I get an amen for that? So you either give up

You just kind of give in and just eat what your family is eating, or you resort to a lot of takeout and fast food. And you know what? None of those options is going to get you to your health and weight loss goals. So let's solve this together, okay?

I want you to take some notes here because we're going to get into my method of cooking that I call component cooking. But first, I want to take you back about 10 years ago when I was a single mom. I was working 60 hours a week and more. I was commuting two hours a day and I was raising my son Jack all on my own. I had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and severe nutrient deficiencies and I knew

that one of the fastest ways to heal was to completely revamp my food choices and my nutrition. But at that time, that meant me eating a ton of veggies, fresh meats, including organ meat, like fresh liver, and cutting out dairy, gluten, and sugar. At that time, financially, I was doing fine. I was doing great. But I didn't want to spend money on takeout and fast food for my son.

And I didn't really want him to eat unhealthy food anyway, but I knew that he wouldn't eat organ meats or all the veggies. Now, our weekends were super, super busy with lacrosse and snowboarding. And then since it was just me, there were lots of house chores like cleaning and laundry and grocery shopping. Truth be told, there was zero time for meal prep, like making a bunch of freezer meals or cooking giant patches of chicken. There was just no time for that.

So what I did is I tapped into the fairly nerdy side of my brain and started developing a method that would allow me to eat anti-inflammatory meals while still giving Jack what he was wanting and craving, which at that time he was usually craving ribs and steak and baked potatoes and rolls, especially those Hawaiian rolls. Who can blame him? The result of lots of trial and error on this method eventually became

component cooking. So the overall goal of component cooking is to prioritize what you need from food and to spend less time in the kitchen. Basically, you get what you need and you spend less time doing it. Really great, right?

So how can you do all of this? With this method, each meal is made up of components like protein or meat, veggies, carbs, and then extras. In this method, there are very rarely one dish meals because they're just harder.

There are very rarely one dish meals when you use this method because it's harder to make modifications like how do you remove gluten or dairy from a lasagna, which is a one dish meal. This allows you to make one recipe that is anti-inflammatory first, but that allows for modifications for your family.

Alexa, stop.

Alexa, stop.

This allows you to make one recipe that is anti-inflammatory first, but also gives you flexibility for modifications for your family. See, you are putting your health first and then making sure your family has what they need. It's like in an airplane, you put your oxygen mask on first. The next step in this method is batch cooking. And hang with me because once we look at how this method works,

we're gonna run through a real life example. So it really makes sense. But with batch cooking, you're maximizing your time as much as possible. So for example, if you're grilling chicken one night for dinner, you double up the chicken that's on the grill. And then you have grilled chicken to use later in the week for a different dish. And see, because we didn't have time on the weekends, this sort of puts your batch cooking

during the week when you're cooking anyway. The goal is to create easy variety, not leftovers. Because if your family is anything like mine, my husband is great, but most of my family, leftovers are not a favorite. By cooking with components and filling your fridge with things from your batch cooking, you end up cooking full meals for three nights of the week. Then,

You repackage the components into other meals the rest of the week. This saves you so much time and it gives you a ton of flexibility. You can really pick which nights of the week that you want to cook. So on nights that you have a late meeting at work, lacrosse or dance practice or some other event, you will have components ready to pull together for a quick and easy meal.

Now, hopefully this is sounding doable, but let's look at it in action so you can really understand this method.

On Sunday night, you decide you're gonna make a chicken satay, that like chicken with a peanut butter or almond butter dipping sauce. My family loves that sauce. As you grill the chicken, you're gonna double up, but you'll only use half of the chicken for the satay dish that night. That night, you also add some roasted broccoli, roasted sweet potatoes on the side. And what's great is that broccoli and sweet potatoes

can be roasted in the oven at the same temperature at the same time. See, we're saving time. And your family can eat this and everyone can eat this, whether it's anti-inflammatory or not.

And the great thing is that everyone in your family can eat this. It is anti-inflammatory, but your family will still eat it and love it. Now, on Thursday night, you know you're driving to and from sports practice, so you don't have much time to make dinner. So what you do is you pull out the grilled chicken from Sunday night and you make Mediterranean bowls. Now in your bowl, you layer up some cooked brown rice, the grilled chicken from Sunday night,

and you top that with chopped cucumbers, kalamata olives, and red peppers. Your family, what's really cool here is they can have the same base of ingredients, but to their bowls, you can also add a bunch of feta cheese and maybe slice up some pita bread or add some pita chips on the side. Then if you use a balsamic dressing, it just pulls everything together and that works both for you and your family.

So you see, it's the same meal, but with slightly different components. Your dish is anti-inflammatory and your family can keep enjoying their gluten in the pita and the dairy in the feta cheese. As you can see, not only did you cook a meal that everyone would like on Sunday night, the chicken satay, but you maximized your cooking time so that you had a quick, easy and healthy

but still family-friendly dinner on Thursday in about 10 to 15 minutes flat. I don't know about you, but this sounds like meal plan magic to me.

Now, one more highlight of component cooking is that it really helps you when you're trying to lose weight. If you have ever tried to count calories or macros in a one dish meal, like a lasagna or a soup, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. Now, personally, I love measuring portions in order to hit my daily calorie intake. I actually find that I eat more when I measure my food.

And I've been doing it for a while, so it's really easy for me to just eyeball my portion sizes. But with component cooking, gone are the days of trying to figure out how much chicken is, say, in a scoop of chicken enchilada casserole. With component cooking, it's really easy to measure your portions of protein, veggies, and carbs so that you can stay on track with your weight loss goals.

I kid you not, the combination of component cooking and measuring my portions is exactly what helped me lose 55 pounds. So I know that this approach works. All right, I want to know what you think of this method. Can you see, like really see how it saves you time and gives your family what they want while you get to eat what you need? I'd love for you to try out this method.

and to make it easier for you, I have a really great free resource for you. I want you to head to the show notes and pick up the Family Fork Dinner Guide. In that, you're going to get a full week of dinners that is written in this component cooking style. And I promise you, these are recipes that your family is going to love. You've got bacon burgers, Italian meatball bowls, even quesadillas. And yes,

The recipes are anti-inflammatory first, but they also include family-friendly variations. And I promise, all of these recipes have been tested on my entire family, and they definitely approve.

I've also included a link below to the Supper Club, which is a monthly membership that gives you fresh component cooking meal plans every single month. You get that, but you also get bonus recipes and special guides every month according to whatever the season or the holiday is. And you get two coaching and planning sessions with me every month. And what's really great is that the membership is super affordable.

It actually costs you less than a single trip to Chick-fil-A. So it's going to save you time and money and help you eat exactly what you need.

Figuring out how to prioritize your own health and wellness can really be challenging on its own. But throw in what your family wants to eat, especially if it's different than you. And well, you're left with a lot of frustration and resentment and definitely wasted time in the kitchen. By following this component cooking method, you can change this all around. You prioritize your nutrition needs.

while still cooking your family what they want, all without spending extra time in the kitchen. And at the end of the day, you get to feel better. You get to have more energy and you get to hit your weight loss goals. And you'll be able to do all of that faster and with less stress. So go grab your family fork and dinner plan in the show notes, try it out today and let me know how you like it.