Lunch on the Go
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Lunch on the Go

Discover lunch ideas that are quick and easy to prep and pack on the go while still being delicious and interesting! Use bento box style lunches for your back to school routine!

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25+ Meals to Eat Up Your Leftover Rotisserie Chicken
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

25+ Meals to Eat Up Your Leftover Rotisserie Chicken

When you are looking for quick, convenient meals, rotisserie chicken always seems to be there.  But what if you’re tired of make the same few meals out of your pre-cooked chicken?  It’s time to mix it up and add a few new rotisserie chicken recipes to your weekly meal plan.  In today’s video, Chef Nakia shares over 25 lunch, dinner, and snack recipes to use up rotisserie chicken. These meals were crafted to make sure you can get a delicious, easy dinner on the table in no time!

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Easy Habits to Add to Your Meal Plan To Reduce Food Waste
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Easy Habits to Add to Your Meal Plan To Reduce Food Waste

Happy Earth Month! Incorporate some of these strategies into your food prep routines and reduce your at home food waste. The average American throws away between 30 - 40% of the food that they purchase. There are many ways to prevent food waste at home AND a lot of them are easy and convenient, too! Food connects us with our land and with each other. Respecting our food and protecting where it comes from leads to true nourishment. To show that respect, we strive to be intentional with the food we bring into our homes. It will help the environment and our wallets to eat up as much food as we can and avoid food waste!

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5 Essential Meals to Add to Your Weekly Rotation
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

5 Essential Meals to Add to Your Weekly Rotation

Let’s be real; sometimes ‘joyful food’ means ‘I want to get dinner on the table with minimal effort’. For those days when a quick, nutritious, and convenient dinner is necessary grab one of these quick meals! With these recipes, you can reclaim your weeknight dinnertimes without all the stress and overwhelm. Nourish your family and cook with confidence!

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How to Cook Rice
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

How to Cook Rice

Rice is a staple dish that can be made so many different ways throughout the world. Chef Nakia shares her favorite ways to cook 5 popular types of rice. We help you troubleshoot the 3 main mistakes people make when cooking rice and learn when to rinse your rice. After we talk about rice to water ratios and adjustments needed for cooking rice at high altitude, then we talk about reheating rice. And lastly we share some of our favorite meals to use up leftover rice.

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Cook at Home Even with your Busy Schedule
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Cook at Home Even with your Busy Schedule

So you'd really love to be able to cook at home more often, but you just don't have the time and energy for home cooked meals? With an insanely busy schedule it can sometimes feel impossible to actually enjoy your opportunities to cook at home. With this video, I'm sharing my favorite tips and tricks to making meal planning and cooking at home feel attainable.

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What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Chef
Chatter and Dish, Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chatter and Dish, Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Chef

Not all professional kitchens are the same. Your experiences will be different than mine AND you’ll continue learning and discovering new things while you are working in the culinary industry. These are six things that I wish I would’ve understood better before entering the culinary field. Note: These definitely wouldn’t have stopped me from becoming a Chef. I’m so glad that I took the career path that I did. I would’ve never realized how much I can help people become better cooks at home (and how rewarding it is) unless I had the experiences I had. In this video I also share four things to think about if you are considering going to culinary school. And we end the video with my top 5 most important things I’ve learned in professional kitchens that I use in my kitchen at home every day.

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13 Ways to Eat Crockpot Pulled Pork
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

13 Ways to Eat Crockpot Pulled Pork

One of the best ways to set yourself up for a stress-free week of meals is to cook your protein once and then reheat it in different meals. This is one of my favorite meal prep hacks.  Toss a pork shoulder in the crockpot with a beer and some spices to cook while you’re at work.  Come home to quick, easy, and delicious meals for the rest of the week!

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Meal Planning for a New Semester
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Meal Planning for a New Semester

Leave the exhausting and stressful mealtime routine in 2023.  This year conquer meal planning and meal prepping to truly fit into your routine.  Create habit sandwiches to relieve the mental load of constantly answering “What’s for dinner?” and bring more ease into your kitchen.

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Meal Prep for Holiday Feasts
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Meal Prep for Holiday Feasts

Is it your first time hosting the holiday dinner?  You want to make as much from scratch as possible, but you definitely want to have all the food ready when guests arrive AND still have some energy to enjoy the party. Hosting a holiday feast is an occasion of joy, celebration, festivities, and unfortunately, heightened stress. It’s lovely to host family and friends for a holiday meal, but sometimes the preparation can feel overwhelming. In this video, we’ll share some strategies for hosting a holiday party with as little stress as possible.

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Post Vacation Meal Planning
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Post Vacation Meal Planning

Feeling too tired to cook after a long trip? This is your ultimate guide to hassle-free meal planning and prep before your next vacation. Learn how to avoid going grocery shopping in the week after your vacation. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or planning your first family getaway, these tips will ensure you have stress-free cooking when you step back home.

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Turn Your Dinner into a Work of Art
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Turn Your Dinner into a Work of Art

“You eat with your eyes first.” In this video, I share my top tips and tricks for turning your dinner into a work of art. The basic design principles and food styling guidelines I share are just a starting point because this, as with all art, involves a lot of personal preference and creativity. Because at the end of the day, your plate design won’t matter much if you don’t actually enjoy the food you’re eating!

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5 Spice Blends Everyone Needs to Keep on Hand
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

5 Spice Blends Everyone Needs to Keep on Hand

Keep your pantry stocked with these 5 spice blends to make throwing dinner together a simple, flavorful task. Of course there’s dozens of great herbs, spices, and spice blends. And some of you may have the space and desire to stock lots of spices and use the individually to create the flavor profile you want. For some people that sounds overwhelming. So these 5 spice blends will ensure that no matter what protein you’re cooking, you have a complimentary and dynamic spice blend to go along with it.

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Crockpot Meals
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Crockpot Meals

Are you looking for easy, flavorful dinners that you can get on the dining room table with very little evening effort? Crockpot meals are great dishes to add into your weekly meal plan. But sometimes we can feel stuck in making the same crockpot dinners over and over again. Get inspired to cook something new in the crockpot this week! Chef Nakia guides you through all the do’s and don’ts of crockpot cooking and shares ideas for how to make your very own convenience meals.

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How to Create a Prep List & Timeline
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

How to Create a Prep List & Timeline

Here’s the cold, hard truth: Most of the time, our dinner parties are host to a bit more stress and chaos than we had hoped. Why? Because a lot of us skip the step of creating a detailed prep list and timeline for preparing for the dinner party. A timeline doesn’t have to be a strict schedule that ruins your fun. It’s actually a great tool to keep you on track so that you CAN relax and enjoy the party as it’s happening. Trust us, a detailed prep list with a timeline will make your dinner party way less stressful and provide you with the time and energy to enjoy the company you’ve worked so hard to curate.

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Host the Dinner Party of Your Dreams
Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher Chef's Tips Nakia Laubscher

Host the Dinner Party of Your Dreams

So, you love hosting dinner parties, but could do without the stress and time management challenges involved? Every time you invite people over, do you find yourself answering the door and then rushing back to the kitchen to finish one more thing? Do you want to be more strategic with your time? Follow our recommendations to make your next dinner party stress-free with impeccable timing!

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