Hey Reader!

In the 113th issue of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

• Recipes for my Crispy Mozzarella Sticks and OREO Cereal Milk Protein Ice Cream!
• Crispy chicken tenders that all ages will love...
• The origin story of America's favorite frozen food...
• Throwing away a lot of food? Here's what I do to make sure I don't waste at all...
• KFC or homemade chicken? Let's compare...

Preheat your ovens…

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Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

Crispy Mozzarella Sticks These Crispy Mozzarella Sticks are INSANE and only 111 cals 🙌🏻 You can also just freeze them after coating for meal prep (aka ready to just pop in the air fryer whenever!). Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​​​Crispy Mozzarella Sticks.pdf​

OREO Cereal Milk Protein Ice Cream A WHOLE Pint of OREO Cereal Milk Protein Ice Cream for 301 Calories with 38g Protein! ​​Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself:​ ​​​OREO Cereal Milk Protein Ice Cream.pdf​

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Recipe Recreations Of The Week 🤌

🥯 Low Cal Everything Bagels

Macros for Each Bagel: ​
98 cals, 8g Carbs, 4g Fat, 7.5g Protein

👉 Here's the recipe and video​

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This Week’s Flavor 🎥

KFC Chicken Tenders w/KFC Sauce! Getting these at KFC would run you into a LOT more calories and a LOT more carbs. Luckily, you can make mine for a fraction of both those 😎 Macros for each Chicken Tender:​ 67 Cals, 2g Carbs, 2g Fat, 10.5g Protein ​Here's the video and recipe.​

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Zach's Beats 🎧

My focus playlist lately is straight nostalgia: ​Disney Instrumentals for Studying​

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One FAQ ❓

Answer: I felt this one in my soul lol.

There's nothing worse than opening the fridge and seeing that bag of spinach you swore you were going to use... now turned into green soup 😅

So I want to share a few things that made a BIG difference for me.

Now I don't waste nearly as much stuff as I used to.

Let's dive in...
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1) Prep your ingredients the day you get home from the grocery store.

This is a big one.

Some people can prep all their veggies and protein for every meal right then and there.

Me? I can do maybe like half that most days haha.

I tend to wash and chop up my veggies right away.

Then (when I actually need them) it's really easy to just grab the container from out of the fridge.

My protein I usually just make on the spot.

But you can prep that as well!

Season it, chop it up, and cook it up.

Then you're set for the week.

Once the work is done, cooking becomes the easy part.

It's the prep that kills us.

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2) Plan your meals for the week. Even loosely.

You don't need some color-coded spreadsheet every week.

Just a rough idea!

"Monday I'll make tacos. Tuesday is ramen. Wednesday, I'll use up the rest of that ground turkey."

When you know what you're making, you buy what you need.

No more random ingredients sitting in the fridge waiting to die.
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3) Have 3-4 go-to recipes you can always fall back on.

These are your "I don't know what to make but I know I can make THIS" meals.

For me, it's things like chalupas, the FDL pizza, and my random plate of deliciousness.

I always have the ingredients for these on hand because I make them all the time.

When you have go-to's, you waste less.

Because even if your 'fancy' meal plan falls apart (life happens), you've got a backup that you know you'll actually make.
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Do those three things and I promise you'll stop throwing away so much food!

Your fridge AND your wallet will thank you.

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Weird Food Fact 🤓

Chicken tenders as we know them didn't exist until 1974 😱

And they were invented completely by accident.

Here's the story...

A Greek immigrant family named Pappas had been running a candy and ice cream shop in Manchester, New Hampshire since 1917.

In 1974, the next generation decided to add a restaurant to the back of the building and called it The Puritan Backroom.

Their poultry supplier sold them boneless chicken breasts.

But every day, they'd trim down the breasts and have these leftover strips of chicken they didn't know what to do with.

So Charlie Pappas (instead of throwing them away) decided to marinate them in pineapple juice, bread them, fry them up, and see if anyone would buy them.

They called them "chicken tenders."

People went crazy for them!

They weren't even on the original menu, but by the end of the first year, they became the most popular item in the restaurant.

And 50 years later? They still are.

In 2023, the mayor of Manchester officially declared the city the "Chicken Tender Capital of the World."

Oh, and Charlie's son? He's now a U.S. Congressman.

But he started out bussing tables at that same restaurant when he was 14.

All because his dad didn't want to throw away some leftover chicken scraps.

Pretty wild when you think about it!

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Serving Surprise 😮

Look, I get it. Sometimes you just want some crispy fried chicken.

But let's talk about what's actually in that bucket...

KFC Original Recipe Chicken Breast (1 piece):
390 calories, 11g carbs, 21g fat, 39g protein

That's ONE piece of chicken. Just one.

Now for mine...

My Chicken Tenders (1 tender):
67 calories, 2g carbs, 2g fat, 10.5g protein

So let's do some quick math...

For the SAME 530 calories as that single KFC chicken breast, you could eat almost 8 of my chicken tenders.

Mine are a little smaller so you'd probably need two to equal the weight of the KFC chicken... but still!

8 tenders vs. 1 piece of chicken.

And those 8 tenders would give you 84g of protein compared to KFC's 35g.

More than DOUBLE the protein, a fraction of the fat, and you're actually full because you ate 8 whole tenders instead of one piece of chicken.

Oh, and that KFC breast has 1,150mg of sodium. That's almost half your daily limit in ONE piece 😳

Once again, I'm not saying never eat KFC.

I just want you to know that you can make crispy, flavorful chicken tenders at home for a fraction of the calories and way more protein.

That's all!

​Here's my chicken tender recipe if you want it.​

I need to stop doing so many fast food comparisons (it's not fair to them 😅).

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If you take one thing from this newsletter, let it be this:

No food is the enemy.

Any craving you have can be turned into a fat loss cheat code when you make it the right way.

Taking a few minutes to find a macro friendly alternative and suddenly, you're eating 'healthy' instead of indulging in something that puts you over your calories.

Just something to keep in mind!

Now go make some good food 😋

Much love and happy cooking,​
Zach