What We Ate in a Week
Hiii, it’s me, Remi!
Today, I am going to take you all the way through everything Nate and I ate for a whole week. I’m excited to be covering this topic again because it’s been a while since I’ve made one of these videos! But in my new vlog, I’m showing you everything we cook and sharing some of my best tips to help you thrive in the kitchen — from recipes to my favorite ingredients to Nate’s signature bowl (that he eats pretty much all the time!).
As always, these are just some of the cooking tips and tricks I know and use a lot, but I don’t know everything! If you have any tips you’d like to share or questions about mine, please reach out! You can tag me or DM me on Instagram, @rrayyme, or even comment below this post — I’d love to hear from you!
With that, let’s get started with mine and Nate’s early morning routines!
It’s Okay to Use Cookbooks!
Before I get started, I want you guys to know — I actually use a lot of cookbooks! Often in my videos, it seems like I’m just inventing creative and colorful dishes, but I’ve learned a lot from looking at recipe books! I still look at them when I need help or inspiration for a recipe! Two of my favorites are Vibrant and Pureand Vermicular, but there are tons of other good ones out there! So if you’re ever not sure what you can cook with the ingredients you have on-hand, grab a cookbook and see what you can make! You might find your new favorite meal!
Another one of my favorite blog is called Just One Cookbook. It’s full of delicious Japanese dishes, and it’s really taught me a lot! Here are two of my favorite recipes:
One is a recipe for Oyakodon, which is a Japanese chicken, egg, and rice bowl. Here are the ingredients:
Chicken thighs
Sliced brown onion
2 eggs
Dashi (Japanese soup stock)
Mirin
Sake
Soy sauce
Brown sugar
Green onions
This is a one-pot meal that I can make quickly, and it’s SO GOOD! I highly recommend it for a quick weekday dinner.
Another recipe I learned from the Just One cookbook is this Japanese Eggplant and Chicken Stir Fry. It’s so simple — I just cook some miso, eggplant, okra, zucchini, bell peppers, and Sweet Earth Mindful Chick’n (it’s totally plant-based!) all together in a pot. Then, I serve that on top of some fresh spinach and a little bit of rice with Furikake!
Cookbooks are incredibly useful tools to help you out in the kitchen.
Pre-Workout Matchas and Post-Workout Smoothies!
First thing in the morning — you know I’m making a matcha! Matcha is full of caffeine and antioxidants, and it’s a great pre-workout drink! I make one almost every morning — sometimes, I treat myself to a double shot when I need a little extra energy!! — and it’s absolutely delicious. Definitely one of the best parts of my daily routine. If you want to try my favorite matcha recipes, check out these links and my blog post on the benefits of drinking matcha!
And if matcha isn't really your thing, that’s okay too! There are other ways to get your caffeine before a workout! I recommend a little iced coffee or a High Ball energy drink. Or, you could check out Nate’s favorite, Celsius fitness drink! This is all about finding what tastes yummy and gets you pumped up for your workout!
Matcha and energy drinks are great for pre-workout, but what about post-workout? After Nate and I finish filming HōmeBodies, we LOVEEE smoothies! In fact, Nate even likes to pre-cut some fruits and veggies and put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer early in the morning, so the fresh ingredients are all ready to go!
It’s sooooo important to refuel your body after a workout. When you exercise, your body uses up a lot of its energy and protein stores. If you don’t replenish those, you’ll end up with less energy, and you’ll end up feeling tired and lethargic. Smoothies are a great way to replenish all that protein and avoid running out of steam during the day!
If you want all the details about creating the perfect smoothie, you can check out my blog post here. But I do have one yummy green smoothie recipe that I’ll share here! You can use this one to replenish all your energy after a workout and refuel for the day! I like to start with a base of:
a handful of spinach
some protein powder
¼ cup of Fage greek yogurt
Almond butter
And frozen fruit
From there, I like to add some fiber, greens, a little healthy fat like avocado or almond butter, and a superfood like chia seeds, flax seeds, or hemp seeds. And finally, protein is an absolutely essential ingredient — a good source of protein is what’s going to really replenish your body after a workout! Here are a few of my favorites:
Vital Proteins Collagen Whey Protein Powder
Greek yogurt
Soft tofu
Blend all that together, and voila! You’ve got a delicious and healthy post-workout smoothie!
Farmer’s Market, Food Prep, and Nate’s Favorite Bowl
Between my matcha and my smoothie, my morning is pretty much covered! So what about the rest of the day? Personally, I LOVE a lot of variety in colors, textures, and flavors on my plate, and I enjoy mixing and matching lots of different fresh ingredients! And there’s no better place to get fresh ingredients than your local farmer’s market!
Nate and I make a trip to our farmer’s market here in LA every week, and we STOCK UP!! The farmer’s market is a great place to go for veggies — a few of our favorites are kale, fresh greens, Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and purple cauliflower. It’s also a great place to get fruits like my favorite yummy persimmons and Asian pears! And finally, we even like to get some fresh bacon, prosciutto, and Haloumi cheese, which is a kind of grillable cheese that is absolutely ADDICTING!
Once we have our fresh ingredients, Nate and I prep them through the week — it’s just another part of our morning routine! Every morning, Nate likes to cut up the ingredients he needs for his favorite bowl — which he probably eats multiple times per day! It’s pretty much the perfect dish because it’s perfectly macro-balanced, meaning it has a good balance of healthy fats, carbs, and protein! Plus, it tastes great, it makes Nate feel good, and he can digest it easily.
Nate’s Healthy Macro Bowl Recipe:
Black rice
Spinach
Brussels sprouts
Sweet potatoes (steamed and roasted, so they’re nice and soft!)
Asian pear
Chicken
Lentils
Quinoa
Cottage cheese
And, of course, we don’t want anything to go to waste, so Nate gives the pear cores to our sweet little Monks! He is one happy bunny!!
Of course, if you’re like me and you like a ton of different colors on your plate, you can try my favorite rainbow macro bowl recipe!
Remi’s Rainbow Macro Bowl Recipe:
Jade rice
Avocado
Spinach
Purple cauliflower
Sweet potato
Persimmon
Radish
Sweet Earth Mindful Chick’n (It’s totally plant-based!)
I love this recipe because it’s a healthy balance of healthy fats, carbs, and protein, but it’s also super pretty and colorful. AND it’s totally plant-based, so if you don’t eat meat, this recipe is for you!
Also, you know I love to make my delicious ginger sesame dressing! I mix together some olive oil, liquid aminos, honey, lemon juice, fresh ginger, sesame oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne, and I have an AMAZING dressing to improve my favorite salads!
Homemade Marinara!!!
But those aren’t the only fabulous recipes we make with our farmer’s market ingredients! Another one of my favorites is this INCREDIBLE homemade marinara! Store-bought marinara is super easy, but so is this AMAZING recipe! I heat up some garlic and onion with some of the fresh tomatoes and zucchini I cut, toss in a little bacon, and let that steam and soften with a little water. Then, I like to season mine with a little salt, pepper, and fresh basil!
I love to serve my homemade marinara over some fresh zucchini spirals! I use my favorite vegetable spiralizer to make the zucchini spirals, and serve it up with some fresh greens, cucumbers, sliced radish, and persimmons on the side and a little bit of Burrata cheese on top!
This recipe is so easy and SOOO delicious!
Mixing and Matching My Favorite Flavors
Nate might be able to eat the same meal over and over again, but I like a little more variety! That’s why I have a few go-to lunch and dinner recipes that let me mix-and-match my favorite fruits and veggies to create lots of different flavor combos!
For example, I LOVE to start off with my favorite steak and cauliflower salad for dinner one night, and then I can reuse the leftovers throughout the week. I start by seasoning a ribeye steak with some salt and pepper, and I just grill that over medium heat in a pan with some avocado oil. (That’s a tip I learned from you guys! Avocado oil has a higher smoke point!) I grill that to a perfect medium-rare, and it’s ready to top a beautiful cauliflower rice salad!
For the salad, I chop up a little garlic and cook that with some cauliflower rice and a little yeast in a separate pan over medium heat. Also, when the steak is perfectly cooked, I reuse the pan to grill a little bit of Halloumi cheese with all that yummy steak flavor! Finally, I plate it all with a handful of spinach, olive oil, my favorite Primal Kitchen lemon-turmeric dressing, and some sweet potatoes for a pretty pop of color!
This is a DELICIOUS salad that I LOVEEE to make on weeknights! But of course, I always have plenty of leftovers! And I like to repurpose those leftovers with a few new ingredients to create totally new dishes. For example, I reused my grilled Halloumi cheese to make this delicious salmon salad. I like to grill a salmon fillet in a pan on the stove and plate it with these fresh ingredients for a delicious and healthy salad:
Spinach
Black rice
Orange slices
Asian pear
Sliced radish
Leftover grilled Halloumi cheese
Primal Kitchen lemon-turmeric dressing
Another recipe I love to cook with leftovers is my YUMMY cauliflower rice! I’ll toss some leftover cauliflower and black rice in a pan, throw in some kimchi, a little leftover protein (I used my leftover steak, but you could use any protein you have!), some spinach, two eggs, some liquid aminos, and a little salt and pepper! Top all that with a little natto, and I’ve got a delicious cauliflower rice bowl!
And there you go! Two delicious dinners that reuse ingredients I already cooked earlier in the week. I love reusing ingredients because I get to try all kinds of new flavor and texture combinations.
Still Hungry?
So those are a few of my favorite meals!!! But if Nate and I get a little hungry throughout the day, we have a few go-to snack options! One is a simple rice cake with a little cottage cheese and fruit jam! Another is some yummy almonds or a handful of blueberries. These are delicious snacks that you can enjoy without disrupting your whole day!
You know we also love OATMEAL! Nate puts it on almost everything, and I have plenty of delicious oatmeal recipes that I love as well. You can check out a few of them at these links!
And finally, I think it’s so helpful to take some pre-sleep supplements. Nate loves to make his “sleep drugs,” by blending some supplements that help with sleep into a final protein smoothie right before bed. This just helps with a good night’s sleep and gives your body a little extra protein at the end of the day!
And there you have it! A few of my absolutely favorite recipes. I hope you learned something or found some inspiration to get creative in your own kitchen!
As always, I would LOVE to hear from you! Have you tried any of these recipes? Do you have any others that you’d like to recommend? What about cooking tips? Please make sure to leave a comment or tag me on Instagram, @rrayyme to share your favorite tips, tricks, and recipes!
Until next time, I remember to check out my vlog! I’ll talk to you soon. Byeee!!
