What I eat in a weekend: feel-good summer meals ☀️

The folks at Made In are offering up to 25% off during their Stock Up For Summer Sale ☀️ Use my link to get some of the best deals of the year: https://madein.cc/0525-rainbowplantlife
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All measurements for every recipe are in this free PDF guide: https://newsletter.rainbowplantlife.com/summer-meals
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🍌Banana Pancakes: https://rainbowplantlife.com/vegan-banana-pancakes/
🌶️ Roasted Red Pepper Hummus: https://rainbowplantlife.com/roasted-red-pepper-hummus/
🥬 Napa Cabbage Salad: https://rainbowplantlife.com/napa-cabbage-salad/
📖 Get Wil Yeung’s cookbook: https://bit.ly/44LFXNW
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👩🏽‍🍳 MY NEW COOKBOOK: Big Vegan Flavor is now available—and it’s a New York Times Bestseller and James Beard Award nominee! 🎉 Learn how to master vegan cooking in this comprehensive 600-page “vegan flavor bible” and enjoy 150 globally inspired, flavor-forward recipes! Grab your copy here: https://rainbowplantlife.com/bigveganflavor/
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🔑 KEY MOMENTS
00:00 Introduction
00:14 Day 1
05:04 Day 2
14:24 Day 3

(gentle upbeat music) – Oh, hello there. We’re starting this
video off the same way I usually start my weeks:
with a mini meal prep. Whenever I take the time
to prepare a few components like dressings, sauces,
proteins, or crunchy toppers, I find it so much easier
(water sloshing) to get delicious home-cooked
meals on the table during the week. Now this is normally a Sunday activity, but this Friday, I was able to fold it
into some recipe testing that was already on my to-do list. First, I roasted red pepper hummus. I’ve made this recipe with
canned chickpeas before, but today I wanted to test
it with dried chickpeas to see if it makes a
big enough difference. Aside from the roasted peppers, this recipe is pretty similar
to my classic hummus recipe that’s so many of you love. There’s lots of garlic, lots of lemon juice, and some cumin. And to compliment the
flavors of the peppers, smoked paprika, for more smokiness, and aleppo pepper, which
adds a mild fruity heat. To check if the chickpeas
are done cooking, grab one from the pot
and press down on it. If it gives in like my willpower around chocolate chip cookies, they are ready. (gentle upbeat music)
(chickpeas rattling) (food processor whirring) Once you have this nice chickpea paste, it’s time for the flavorings, chopped garlic, lemon juice, and tahini. We’re using quite a bit of tahini here, a heating half cup, so the quality really matters. I like to break up the bell
peppers a bit with my hands just so they incorporate more easily. In addition to the spices, we need just a touch of
extra virgin olive oil for that mouth feel that
only olive oil can bring. And one of my favorite ever ingredients, pomegranate molasses, which adds this unique,
sweet, sour tangy note. Blend everything until
it’s as smooth as possible. And as with any hummus recipe, the key really is to taste and tinker with salt,
lemon juice, and spices until it tastes perfect to you. (food processor whirring) (gentle upbeat music) Okay, so the hummus made of
canned chickpeas is very good. If someone were to make this for me or I was at a restaurant, I would be very happy. It is definitely better than anything you
can buy at the store. That said, the version with the dried
chickpeas is fantastic. I can taste the difference. It is just a better quality hummus. So if you have some extra time to cook your chickpeas from scratch, that would be my vote. The hummus will stay good for five to seven days in the fridge, and it makes a big batch. So there are lots of fun ways I can use it throughout the week, including in tonight’s dinner. For the second half of my mini meal prep, I got to work on a
simple lemon vinegarette. Having a salad dressing
ready in the fridge makes it precisely 183 times more likely that I will actually
eat greens in the week and it only takes a few minutes to make. So this one is a quarter
cup of lemon juice plus a tablespoon of zest.
(garlic rustling) One fat garlic clove gets
grated right in there. Two teaspoons of Dijon
mustard to help emulsify. And two teaspoons of maple syrup. Salt and pepper, and then a heaping third of a
cup of extra virgin olive oil. (gentle upbeat music) (vinegarette squelches) (gentle upbeat music) Always, always, always
taste your dressing first. Mine was a little too tart, so I added a touch more of maple syrup. (vinegarette squelches) Ah! Delicious. After showering and scrubbing off a day’s worth of recipe testing, I returned to the kitchen
to prepare dinner. Since it was Friday, I wanted something fun but still easy since I had already been
in the kitchen all day, like a mezze platter. It’s basically a
collection of small dishes originating in the Middle
East and Mediterranean. And you can serve individual
mezze as appetizers. But in summer, I like to
have a collection of mezze as my entire dinner. It’s like girl dinner, but for adults. I toss them cannellini beans
(garlic rustling) with some of the same
ingredients I used earlier. A bit of lemon zest and lemon juice reserved from the lemon vinegarette, a teaspoon or two of pomegranate molasses, garlic, and a touch of
extra virgin olive oil. I let the beans quickly marinate
while I made a quick salad using some tomatoes and
extremely adorable cucumbers I got on my last trip
at the farmers market. (gentle upbeat music)
(knife thudding) (basil snaps) I shift and added some basil, which I buy pretty much
every week in summer, then mixed up a roughly equal amount of the cukes and tomatoes with some of the lemon
vinegarette from earlier, and a few hunks of vegan
feta for creaminess. (gentle upbeat music) To round out the mezze platter, I served up the freshly
made red pepper hummus with some fluffy whole wheat pita. And this is the beauty of mini meal prep. In 10 or 15 minutes, I’ve got a pretty perfect summer meal and I’ve got plenty of
leftover hummus and vinegarette for more easy meals later this week. (gentle upbeat music) After an early workout
the following morning, I made what I call my
“Berry good smoothie,” or what max calls “Big Perp,”
(milk sloshing) as in the color purple, not perpetrator. It’s got soy milk, frozen
blueberries and raspberries, fresh ginger for a little zing, a tablespoon of flaxseed meal, and two tablespoons of almond butter. To bulk it up, I added a scoop
of chocolate protein powder. And before you tell me how much protein I need or don’t need, just know that since I started adding protein powder to my smoothies, my bench press has
increased to 350 pounds, and I could smoosh you into a ball. Some cinnamon and a pinch of turmeric, and just a touch of black
pepper since it helps the body absorb all the anti-inflammatory
compounds in turmeric. I promise, you cannot taste it. (gentle upbeat music) After enjoying my smoothie and finishing this fantastic novel that y’all should definitely read, I showered and changed and started prepping to
go to my parents’ house because we’re surprising my mom for an early Mother’s Day brunch
with some banana pancakes. Gotta bring my own maple syrup ’cause I think that my parents only have, like, generic pancake syrup. And one more thing, to cook the pancakes, I’m gonna bring over my carbon
steel griddle from Made In so I can cook multiple pancakes at once. Before I drive over, I do wanna thank Made In for
sponsoring today’s video. This griddle is super cool. It’s made from carbon steel, which has a lot of the
same benefits as cast iron, but it’s really light. The griddle comes
pre-seasoned out of the box. And the more I cook with it,
the more non-stick it becomes, which is really nice to
have a non-stick surface without any of the harmful
chemicals and coatings that a lot of non-stick pans have. It sits across two burners, which means I can cook
multiple pancakes at once. And as the weather has
been getting warmer, I’ve even used this on my outdoor grill, which is really fun. I’ve been cooking with Made
In pans for a couple years, and I love their pans. They make such professional
quality cookware for the home cook. They’re even used in some
of the best restaurants in the country. I’m talking three-star
Michelin restaurants. And they’re able to do that
by partnering with artisans and multi-generational factories. So you’re not gonna get some pan that was just cobbled
together in a few minutes and it’s gonna break
down in a couple months. So be sure to check out this
beautiful carbon steel griddle and Made In’s other cookware by using the link in the
description box below to save on your order. Okay, off to my parents. (gentle upbeat music) (Nisha gulps) Forgot about that. (gentle upbeat music) My mom has a huge sweet tooth. So, I am guessing she
will love the pancakes. The question is how much
maple syrup will she want. Once we arrived, I started by
cutting up some fresh fruit. As much as I love these banana pancakes, they can’t be the only
thing I eat at a meal or I will be ready for a
nap immediately afterwards. Plus, cutting up fresh fruit
is the official love language of all Indian families. – Oh my god, I’ve never
eaten raspberries so sweet. – So good, right? We also got to enjoy the
first of the season’s cherries from the farmers market, and some pineapple, not
from the farmers market, but still really, really good. And for something a little more satiating, I scooped out an entire container of this vegan skyr style yogurt. Once that was ready, I got to work on the pancakes and I made my mom sit upstairs so she wouldn’t know what I was making. I started with the vegan
buttermilk substitute, which is just a tablespoon
of apple cider vinegar mixed with one-and-a-half
cups of soy milk. The soy milk plus the acidity is really what gives these
pancakes a beautiful fluffiness. Then I got to work on the dry ingredients, which are pretty standard, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and a little cardamom because my family loves
cardamom, and brown sugar. And by the way, I’ve
created a free PDF guide with all of the recipes in this video. It’s linked in the description box below, so check that out after you
finish watching the video. Moving on to the wet ingredients, starting with the bananas. You want the super ripe
bananas with lots of spots. Those are the sweetest, and they work really well in banana bread, as you might know, as
well as banana pancakes. All right, that is it. (gentle upbeat music) After mashing the bananas, I added the other wet ingredients, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, the vegan buttermilk, which you can see has curdled a lot, thanks to the high protein
content in the soy milk. And finally, some melted vegan butter. Whisk it together and
try to avoid spilling. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix with a wooden spoon. Pretty simple stuff. Just be gentle to avoid over mixing as that can toughen the
gluten in the batter. To get cooking, I laid the carbon steel
griddle over two burners and preheated it over medium
low for several minutes. Since I’ve been cooking with
the griddle for a bit now, the surface is quite non-stick, so it needs just a light coating of oil. Being able to cook three pancakes at once is so much nicer than having
to cook them one at a time, especially when you’re making brunch for more than two people. And the pancakes, as you can see, are getting a nice even
color on both sides. I don’t know if it’s coming through because it’s a little dark in the kitchen, but these pancakes look perfect. Seriously, it’s pretty much impossible to get better looking pancakes than that. (gentle upbeat music) – (chuckles) Happy Mother’s Day. – Oh, thank you. Thank you. – Happy Mother’s Day.
– Cornflakes? Thank you, (speaks in foreign language). – [Nisha] I’m gonna give you some fruit. (parent speaking in foreign language) – [Spouse] She is not
going to eat that much. – [Max] Oh, no syrup for you. – Oh, it’s Mother’s Day. (Nisha chuckles) No? That’s my main thing for pancakes. – [Max] Wait, wait, wait, wait. – No, no, no, no, no, no.
– No, no, no, no, no, no. – [Nisha] No, no, no, no, no. I brought real maple syrup. As predicted, my parents
have a five-year-old bottle of Aunt Jemima pancake syrup. – That much syrup for four people? I will need that much just for myself. – (chuckles) Oh, look at that. Oh my god. – Can I start eating? Can I start eating? The taste of this syrup is so different. (Nisha and Max chuckling) – But now you know what real
maple syrup tastes like? (gentle upbeat music) – This is excellent. – Altogether, a very lovely early Mother’s Day
celebration with my parents. That afternoon, we
decided to treat ourselves to a luxurious sunny afternoon
at our local wine bar. Because life is short,
and also it’s Saturday. We’re in the mood for something light and
bright after brunch, so we ordered the pickled veggie plate and marinated Castelvetrano olives, which are the only olives I’ve ever seen Max not physically gag at the sight of. We also got the house salad
and housemade sourdough, which I dipped in olive oil and sea salt, the best combination ever. And of course, some wine
because we’re at a wine bar, a slightly effervescent
non-alcoholic white wine for me. Thank you. Truly the perfect way to pretend like you’re on
vacation in the south of France even if you were thousands of miles away. (gentle upbeat music) I have had a delicious day of food so far, but I feel like I need
something a little more balanced for tonight’s dinner. So I’m gonna take some of
that hummus from yesterday and make a hummus plate
with some lentils on top, maybe some farmers market veggies, but it’s gonna be fun and exciting. (water sloshing) I started by bringing some
water to a boil on the stove and then measuring out two-thirds of a cup or 130 grams of brown lentils, an excellent source of
both fiber and protein, plus essential vitamins and minerals like iron and potassium. While those simmered on the stove, I grabbed two of these large thin pitas and chopped them up into little pieces to make homemade pita chips. If you have never tried making
homemade pita chips before, it’s actually very easy. All you need is pita, olive oil to coat, salt and pepper to
season, and a sheet pan. (salt shaker rattles)
(pita rustling) Pop them into 350 oven for five minutes, toss and then bake for
another five to eight minutes until they’re crisp and
crunchy but not too crunchy. While that was happening, I chopped up some of this
seriously gorgeous lettuce from the farmers market, washed and dried it in my salad spinner, because no one likes
chomping down on sand. The lentils were ready by then, so I towel them off
’cause I don’t want them to have any excess moisture. And to finish the lentils, I heated up a
tablespoon-and-a-half of olive oil over medium low heat, followed by two heaping teaspoons of this shawarma spice blend. Basically, I’m just blooming
the spices in the oil to bring out their flavors. After 30 seconds, I dumped
in the cooked lentils and tossed them in this
delicious fragrance spiced oil for about four minutes, or until they just started to crisp up. This takes an extra five,
maybe seven minutes of work, but it really makes simple cooked lentils taste so much more exciting. I didn’t wanna wash another bowl, so I just tossed the salad directly in the enormous salad spinner bowl, salt and pepper, plus the lemon
vinegarette from meal prep, and a few cherry tomatoes. Super simple but lovely, thanks
to the homemade dressing. I plated the shawarma seasoned lentils on the roasted red pepper
hummus from yesterday, and this is another example of
the power of mini meal prep. Even though I’m reusing some of the components
from yesterday’s dinner, everything still feels
very fresh and exciting. (gentle upbeat music) (pita crunches) This is so freaking good. It’s got the perfect blend of textures and this really nice smoky, spicy flavor, but it’s still bright and fresh. It is so good that I cannot
wait to eat all of it, except that I have to share
it with Max to be nice. We’re gonna dig in, but I will see you tomorrow morning when it is time for breakfast. The following morning, we
went to my happy place, or as you might know
it, the farmers market. So we need berries, cucumbers, tomatoes, and whatever else looks good. It’s so nice to chat with
the farmers week after week, and to support local businesses. The produce is grown nearby, so it tastes so much better than anything you can
get at the supermarket. Look how cute and small. I’m just a baby. Good morning. Thank you. – [Vendor] Good morning. How are you? – I’m very good. How are you? Another part of my weekly
farmers market ritual is when I get home, I start washing my produce, at least the stuff that
isn’t too delicate. (water sloshing) Whenever possible, I try
to front load this work because it makes it so much more likely that I’ll actually use
all the stuff I’ve bought during the week. It also makes me feel like
a high functioning adult who has their life together. (gentle upbeat music) (water sloshing) For breakfast, I sliced up some of the very delicious strawberries I grabbed from the market, and served them over a bed of vegan yogurt alongside some blueberries. I also broke up some toasted walnuts for crunch and healthy fats. I’ve got a video on how to make
those, so I’ll link it here. And for more healthy fats and fiber, I sprinkled some chia seeds on top. (gentle upbeat music) I get a lot of questions about
how to become a better cook or how to make your food taste better. And honestly, the biggest cheat code is to shop at your farmers
market, especially in summer. The produce is just so good that it’s gonna make
whatever you’re eating, even something simple like this, taste 10 times better. I am so happy about this
really simple breakfast bowl because these berries are incredible. Cheers! Even Max who pretends
he doesn’t like fruit, could not resist the
farmers market berries. I enjoyed the rest of the bowl
while reading another novel from my favorite contemporary
author, Jesmyn Ward, and you would be right to assume
that when I’m not working, I am reading novels. So drop your recommendations
in the comments. For lunch today, I wanted
to try a new recipe since I have a little
more time on the weekends, and I decided to go with kanji, which is a Chinese rice porridge. And this version that I’m making today is from my friend, Wil Yeung’s cookbook. I’m sure you’re familiar with his channel. If you’re not, I’ll link it
in the description box below as well as his book. And I am very excited. I haven’t had kanji in years, so I’m sure it’s gonna be delicious. Even though I love being
a recipe developer, I have to say it is really nice to just follow someone
else’s recipe for once and not have to pause every
few minutes during cooking to take notes about how
long something took to cook or what the texture should be like. The only part I was nervous
about this dish was the radish, because it calls for daikon radish, which if I am being honest,
I do not like at all. Like really, I don’t at all. (chuckles) So instead, I use the regular radishes I picked up from the market. I wasn’t sure if they
would turn the congee like a weird light pink
color, so I peeled them first. I sweated down the radishes
alongside a finely chopped onion and five garlic cloves. And while that was happening on the stove, I rinsed one cup of long grain white rice. (rice rattling)
(gentle upbeat music) (water sloshing) I toasted the rice and the
aromatics for a few minutes and then poured in two cups of water and two tablespoons of miso paste. I love to see a recipe
with that much miso. If you’ve never made
congee before by the way, it’s kind of like cooking risotto. You add liquid to the rice, stir until the liquid is mostly absorbed, then rinse and repeat until the rice is transformed
from these crunchy grains into something smooth and velvety. This recipe calls for a
total of nine cups of water, which sounds like a lot, but
it ends up working perfectly. Wil’s recipe calls for Shimeji mushrooms, also known as beach mushrooms, which are very, very cute and
have a nutty buttery flavor. Once the congee was looking good, I covered the pot to keep it warm and got to work on the toppings, starting with some sliced
scallions and ginger mate sticks. And then my favorite ingredient, tofu, I mashed about eight ounces of
extra firm tofu with a fork, toasted some peanuts as well as sesame seeds
for a couple minutes until they were both nicely golden brown. And then I used the same
pan to pan fry the tofu. You might be wondering if it’s possible to cook tofu in a stainless
steel pan with it sticking, and luckily, the answer is yes, but only if you preheat the pan properly. So you’re gonna heat
it for a couple minutes over medium or medium high, then add a drop of water.
(water sizzles) If it beads up and rolls
across the surface, the pan is ready for the oil and you can now adjust the heat as needed. After a few minutes, I added a tablespoon each
of Chinese light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. The latter adds this really great color and kind of makes this look like meat. (gentle upbeat music) A big ladle or three of kanji, some fresh ginger and scallions, that savory tofu crumble, the toasted peanuts and sesame seeds, and one of my favorite ever toppings, the homemade Chinese chili
crisp from my cookbook. (gentle upbeat music) This congee is so perfectly
creamy and comforting. And this tofu topping, let me tell you, so delicious, savory, really easy to bake, so definitely gonna add
that to the rotation. Thank you to Wil for allowing
me to share this recipe. I have a delicious lunch to eat now, but I’ll see you when
it’s time for dinner. Okay, that was a lie. I
will see you before then. I mean, I am seeing you
now or you’re seeing me? Either way, my sweet
tooth came out of hiding as it is want to do around 3:00 PM. Luckily for me, I had one last chocolate
chip cookie dough ball in the freezer, so I baked that off. This is definitely the best
cookie recipe I’ve ever made, so check out my video on how to make them. I’ll link it here. This was the perfect treat to
pair with my weekly review, which is when I spend a
few hours every Sunday reviewing the week and
planning for the next. (gentle upbeat music) That evening, I realized I had not had much in the way of cruciferous vegetables, and decided to remedy that by making my latest favorite
salad, a Napa cabbage salad. There’s nothing like a crunchy salad to make you feel both
healthy and morally superior. I sliced a small Napa cabbage in half, then thinly sliced it crosswise and gave it a rinse in the
good old salad spinner. I thinly sliced four scallions and soaked them in some ice water just to tame their pungency a little bit since the whole scallion is
going into the salad raw. I grabbed some of these cute
Persian cukes from the market and sliced those thinly on a bias. And for more nutrients and color, I sliced a red bell pepper
and grated two carrots. (gentle upbeat music)
(knife thudding) (carrots rustling) (gentle upbeat music) Oh, one last thing to chop, some roasted salted peanuts for that delicious nutty crunch. I want this to be a full meal salad, so I go pretty heavy, a whole cup. Now the thing that makes
the salad very special and allows you to eat
five different vegetables without even thinking about it, is the sesame garlic dressing. To make it, add two tablespoons
of white sesame seeds and a half teaspoon of Sichuan
chili flakes to a small bowl, then grate in a half-inch of ginger and three cloves of garlic. This is a sizzled oil dressing, so heat up three tablespoons
of any neutral oil in a small sauce pan for
about three minutes or so. If you have a thermometer, you’re looking for about
350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 Celsius, maybe a little less. Pour that right into the
garlic ginger mixture. The hot oil will slightly
cook the ingredients, and the ingredients in
turn will infuse the oil with their delicious flavors. To finish the dressing, add in a tablespoon each of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and agave, followed by a teaspoon
of toasted sesame oil. Seriously, you could pour
this over a tree bark and it would probably taste good. To finish off the salad, I added a bit of salt and
gave everything a mix. Then some shelled edamame to bulk it up, followed by the sesame garlic dressing. And finally, the peanuts. (gentle upbeat music) I am biased of course, but this is one of the
most beautiful salads and really fits the “Eat the
rainbow” ethos quite well. (gentle upbeat music) To get all of today’s
recipes in a free PDF guide, just click the link in
the description box below or scan this QR code. Thank you to Made In for
sponsoring today’s video, and I’ll see you in the next one. Bye.