I’m a girl with Haitian roots so I like my food well seasoned and packed with flavor. That’s partly why I’ve struggled with consistently doing meal prep and eating right. To me, eating healthy usually means boring food without much flavor.
I also generally dread having to cook because let’s face it, life is busy and nobody has time to be standing over a hot stove all day. It always feels like a total time suck. But in this next decade I am turning over a new leaf by committing to my self care and getting stronger and healthier through cooking meals at home a lot more. And besides, my Seamless account could definitely use a break.
So you can imagine my excitement when my big sis put me onto a bunch of tried and true YouTube channels with some great Caribbean and other flavorful recipes. She’s been on her fitness for a while so she was happy to share some recipes she had been trying and send them my way.
I decided to tune in and make Garlic Herb Cornish Hens (yeah I know, its not exactly a Caribbean dish, but remember what we’re going for – flavor). And baby, they turned out amazing (like legit looked so professional) and I even learned a few things that make cooking seem far less daunting which I will get into later, but first, let’s get to this bird.
INGREDIENTS
- Butter
- 1.5 tsp of onion & garlic powder
- 1 tbsp garlic and herb salt free seasoning (Mrs Dash)
- 1 tsp of adobo
- 1 tsp chicken seasoning
- 1 tsp of meat & poultry seasoning
- 1 tsp of paprika
- 4 garlic cloves chopped
- 1 tsp of oil (olive) to drizzle on top
- I remixed the recipe and added in some cut up red potatoes and carrots
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make sure the hens are completely dry and add them to a roasting pan. Rub butter onto each ensuring to cover both sides and all the limbs. Season with the above seasonings and rub them into the hens ensuring to distribute. evenly. Place the seasoned hens in the oven to cook for 1.5 hours on 375 degrees covered with foil, then for 30 minutes on 400 degrees uncovered while basting every 5-7 minutes!
Here is a full link to video with the recipe that I followed.
***Please note that this recipe is not my own and I have no problem giving credit where credit is due. ***
What I Learned:
- Add Music to the Mix – Meal prep/cooking with some good Afro-beats music on is my new jam (currently grooving to Rotimi).
- Make Your Menu – Creating your menu in advance and having all your YouTube recipes organized and ready to go is a time saver and helps to quickly put your shopping list together.
- Split up tasks – Splitting up when you do your grocery shopping, cleaning/seasoning food and the actual cooking into separate days makes the processes less stressful especially if your weekends are generally jammed packed and you can’t afford to spend a whole day in the kitchen. I work from home on Fridays and go shopping on lunch to get it out the way and depending on how busy my day is, I can usually clean & season meat in between work to maximize time.
- Cooking is for the soul – Meal prep and cooking is actually quite relaxing and therapeutic when you have a plan. What was once daunting doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Do you meal prep? Sound off in the comments and let me know.
