Free Inquiry Post 5 – Meal Prep #5 and Final Reflection

Hi everyone! We are sadly at the end of the meal prep journey for the semester! I want to end it off by showing you my last meal prep and then reflecting on the semester. This week for dinner, I went super simple with an easy burrito meal prep! I made the meat mixture with lean ground beef, red peppers, onion, garlic, black beans, and corn. This was extremely easy, all I had to do was sauté the onion and garlic, then add the ground beef and cook it until it is done, then I added the beans, corn, and peppers. I added a bunch of taco seasoning plus some extra salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, chili powder, and cayenne. I cooked this for a bit longer to allow all the seasoning to blend with the mixture and for the peppers to soften a little bit. Then I just placed it in a big container to dish out every nigh and construct a burrito. Doing it this way ensures that everything stays separate until the day of and nothing gets soggy. I just made some simple roasted broccoli to go on the side of this dinner. It is a bit of a random mix but I wanted to make sure I had a good vegetable to go with my burrito! I would give this meal a 10/10 for efficiency because it is so simple and a 10/10 for taste because I just love burritos.

The second thing I made this week was something totally new, which was a one pot rib biryani. I wanted something different this week and felt like experimenting. It did not work out quite as well as I had hoped because I think I had too much rice for the amount of meat I had so the ratio ended up being a bit off. It was definitely harder for me than the lunch meal prep was but overall it still did not take too long. I think next time I do this, I would create some sort of sauce to go with it just because it dries out a little bit throughout the week. Overall, I would give it a 7/10 for taste because I think it needs something added to it. I would give it another 7/10 for efficiency but this is also because it was my first time attempting it. That is it for this week’s meal prep!

Now it is time to reflect on the semester! I thoroughly enjoyed my free inquiry topic, it helped me keep a solid schedule for my meals and held me accountable to actually cook them. I actually think I enjoyed this project way more than I thought I would. I ended up taking a lot of pride in my final dishes and the photos I took to display them. I really enjoyed how many new recipes I found throughout the semester that I can use again later. Even when we had some free inquiry posts that were omitted I still ended doing a meal prep just for myself anyways. If I could give any advice to other 336 students as they consider their inquiry topics, I would say that they should choose something they love and are passionate about! It is a semester long project that is meant to help us learn and grow so definitely make sure it is something you are actually interested in. I think the thing I enjoyed most about my inquiry project was the confidence I built in the kitchen and the time management skills I built throughout the semester. I started getting much faster at prepping vegetables and doing each part of a meal in the most efficient way possible. Overall, this project helped me learn a lot about cooking and increased my confidence in meal prepping greatly. I had so much fun!