<div class="block">Catherine McCord, founder of Weelicious, joined beWell to talk about food options and preparation. McCord also has a few hacks that could cut down on the amount of time you spend in the kitchen.</div>

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Be Well: Kitchen Hacks and Meal Prep

Well, if you're like us figuring out what to feed your family every single day can be a challenge, especially if you're trying to stay healthy and on budget. I know really. That's why cookbook, author TV, host and meal prep. Maven mccord, the founder of Licious is here with creative ideas to streamline this meal time. So we've got advanced prep, all different types of things to cover. Thanks so much for being with us. I am thrilled to be here. We have got it all today and especially lots of hacks because we're trying to save time and money in the kitchen. Um So I'm always utilizing every last bit cutting corners wherever we can. I love it. Ok. So this one is such a funny recipe. Um Actually, it was created by my daughter. Um She, we have an to draw peanut butter one day and she's like, wait a minute, I gotta turn this into something. So you can melt chocolate chips as I've done here or you can add your favorite protein powder, collagen, whatever I'm gonna add in a little bit of milk. You can use plant based milk or regular milk. I'm gonna let you actually do this because this isn't a spill. Right. Right. Right. So, I'm the smoothie machine. Is that, this is chocolate peanut butter milk. So, we're just using like what we've got, we're not wasting that, that last bit of sun butter, almond butter, butter. I know. I know. It's a work out, but look how pretty it is. I mean, this one, yeah. You know what I mean? Creamy, frothy. I mean, I can get down with that, especially if you add the protein to it. And it's like, that's what I'm saying. So it's all about utilizing what we already have. The same thing goes for. If you've got Dijon Mustard, add some oil and vinegar, make a salad dressing or my favorite hack is taking pickles after your kids have eaten all those pickles. Don't throw away that grine, add your favorite carrots, cucumbers, radishes and re pickle some more vegetables that might go bad in the refrigerator. I love not wasting, I don't know about the pickles, but I love not wasting. That's a great idea. I'm all about taking all the pickles to the left. Now, what is this? This is a great smoothie. And I just tell you so. So my, my, my third cookbook, uh, with the smoothie project, we make a lot of smoothies in our house. But you know what, when my kids, like, don't drink the last bit because they've got to run out the door to school whatever it is, don't throw it away. Take a popsicle mold and pour in that last bit of smoothies. So when they come home, it's still hot even in the fall. Now, you have a beautiful popsicle and you can do it, you know, for days and then they can just have smoothie popsicles and that's so good because, you know, you put the good things in there already. But this is, this is an immune boosting smoothie. This is just like gonna keep you healthy, good strawberries and all the things in there. All the fruit collagen peptide to keep you. He's gonna be right now. What is this in here? OK. So I can't stand it when we have leftover pasta or rice. So these are our spaghetti cakes. So get your kids involved in this, make the spaghetti. You don't throw away the end of that package, take scissors to cut it up and then we're just gonna mix it with a little eggs, mozzarella, um olives capers and then you can dip them. Yeah. Dip them in marinara ketchup. Yeah. And would you with the, you can totally air fry. I love that. You brought that up. I'm an air fryer. That's me. So the recipe for this. Yeah. Actually I thought it would have been NASA because it, but this is really good and there's Yeah, and it gets you that protein, that carb and kids especially like, you know, everything tastes better when it's in the, like a cake, a man on a stick. So, just really fun way to reuse pasta, grab and go grab and go. Now I, I'm like, every afternoon there's sports, there's practices, there's classes and I come home and I'm like, what the heck is for dinner. So I, my kids love spaghetti and meatballs. So, what I like to do is keep on, like, on Sundays, I'll make a lot of this, um mixture. It's just, you know, meatball mixture and I'll make balls and I'll freeze these. So that all I have to do is heat up some marinara sauce. Toss these in, you could even pan serum if you want, you could bake them if you want. Uh and then you just freeze them, pop them, you know, eat them up, add the marinara, the spaghetti, whatever you want and just buy everything using an ice cream scooper. And the same thing goes for cookies when you make a whole batch of cookies, don't feel like you have to eat them all immediately. You freeze those balls, bake them off as you want. So any time like meat loaf, any kind of mixture like that ice cream scooper is your best friend. A lot of times it's just the prep work that goes into it. You don't feel like doing and now it's done. Yeah, and just like freezing you. This is, is this breakfast? Well, I mean, in my, in my family like this could be breakfast, this could be lunch. This could be a snack. It's dessert. This is creamy chia seed pudding. And what I love about this high in protein. You can make it vegan, you can make it vegetarian. Any kind of milk you wanna use. So what's in it? So this is just chia seeds. You can use honey or Agave or maple syrup. Um, I've got plant based milk here but you could use cow's milk and it's just like I'm talking a pro ball. I got you, I got you. You just go for it overnight. You could add peanut butter, you could add cocoa powder, you could add protein powder, top it with your favorite berries. And what I really love about it is that you just put on, here's one like grab and go grab and go for the office with you on the way to work. Yeah. And it's easy. I even feel healthy. I mean, I could use a little bit more of the honey in this one, but I feel like I'm eating and affordable tip. So I feel like I'm gonna be able to eat healthier. Exactly. And for the whole family. So, thank you for that. Absolutely.