Hey Reader!

In the 117th issue of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

• Recipes for my The PizzaDilla and White Chocolate Raspberry Protein Breakfast Cookie!
• Not a good cook? Here's what i suggest for my recipes...
• This popular food was ILLEGAL for 24 years in France...
• 100 calories of olive oil is... surprising...

Preheat your ovens…

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Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

The PizzaDilla This is becoming one of my most recreated recipes of all time! The tortilla hack you'll learn is crazy customizable and adds a TON of protein. Each Whole Pizza Quesadilla (4 slices) is only 509 calories with 51g of protein. Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​​​The PizzaDilla.pdf​

White Chocolate Raspberry Protein Breakfast Cookie If you already have oats for breakfast, turn it into an XL protein breakfast cookie! Only 360 calories with 25g protein for a massive cookie! ​​Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself:​ ​​​White Chocolate Raspberry XL Protein Breakfast Cookie.pdf​

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Recipe Recreations Of The Week 🤌

🍗 🍔The Thicc McChicken

Macros for each McChicken:​
316 Cals, 30g Carbs, 4g Fat, 40g Protein

Here's the link for the recipe:​
👉 https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co5KKOQLVUz/?igsh=dzVtcnlxdzBlamFu​

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This Week’s Flavor 🎥

97g Protein Large Elote Pizza My newest pizza recipe! Lots of layers, lots of crunch, all with that classic elotes taste. Highly recommend trying this one out. ​Here's the video and recipe.​

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Zach's Beats 🎧

Vibes are immaculate. ​Lost in the Simulation - Bazzi​

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One FAQ ❓

Answer: Ok I need to reframe something real quick because I hear this ALL the time.

You don't need to be a good cook!

You need to be a good direction-follower.

That's it.

Think about it like this...

If someone handed you a set of IKEA instructions and said "put this bookshelf together," you wouldn't say "I'm not a carpenter, I can't do this."

You'd just follow the steps. Tab A into Slot B. Done.

Cooking is the same thing!

Step 1: grab these ingredients.
Step 2: mix them together.
Step 3: put it in the oven for 20 minutes.

That's literally most of my recipes.

I'm not asking you to julienne anything (I barely know what that is lol).

I'm not asking you to deglaze a pan or make a roux or whatever they do on Gordon Ramsay's shows.

You're mixing stuff in a bowl and putting it in the oven.

Or throwing things in an air fryer for 15 minutes.

The people who think they "can't cook" are usually just people who've never had recipes that were written for them.

Most recipes online are written by people who already know how to cook (so they skip steps, assume you know things, and leave you standing in your kitchen Googling "what does 'fold' mean.")

I write my recipes like you've never made anything before.

Because when I started, I hadn't either.

So if you can read and set a timer, you're qualified.

I promise.

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Weird Food Fact 🤓

It's 1751 and you're tending to the potatoes in your garden.

All of a sudden, the police storm your property.

They grab you, place you under arrest, and don't say why.

When you get to the jail you demand the reason this is happening and they tell you:

"You were growing potatoes on your land. This has been illegal for three years and you're going to pay the price..."

What?!

Yes, you heard that right.

In France from 1748 to 1772, you could be arrested for growing potatoes.

I'm not making this up lol.

Here's what happened.

When potatoes first showed up in Europe from South America, the French wanted NOTHING to do with them.

They thought they were ugly, weird, and grew underground like something suspicious.

They fed them to pigs.

And then (because apparently people were just guessing back then) some doctors noticed that potatoes looked kind of like the hands of people with leprosy and went "yep, those definitely cause leprosy."

And the French Parliament said, "cool, banned." 🤣

For 24 years, it was illegal to grow or eat potatoes in France.

Then a French army pharmacist named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier got captured by the Prussians during a war and was fed almost nothing but potatoes in prison for three years.

And he didn't get leprosy.

He actually felt... fine? Even kind of liked them?

So when he got back to France, he went on a full PR campaign.

Hosted potato dinners for Benjamin Franklin.

Gave potato flowers to the queen.

And (this is my favorite) he planted a potato field outside Paris and hired armed guards to watch it during the day so people would think potatoes were valuable.

Then he pulled the guards at night so locals would sneak in and steal them.

It worked!

The ban was lifted in 1772.

By 1840, France was producing over 117 million hectoliters of potatoes a year.

And today, french fries are one of the most consumed foods on the planet.

All because one guy ate prison potatoes and didn't get leprosy LOL.

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Serving Surprise 😮

Most people have NO idea how calorie-dense olive oil actually is.

One tablespoon of olive oil:
​~120 calories and 14g of fat.

That's it. One tablespoon. That tiny little pour you don't even think about.

I want to make it known I'm not anti-olive oil.

Olive oil is great. Fats are necessary in everyone's diet!

But it's good to know this because when you eat out, restaurants are not thinking about your macros.

They're thinking about FLAVOR.

And the easiest way to make something taste amazing? Cook it in a ton of oil.

A drizzle on the pan, another drizzle on the plate, maybe some in the dressing too.

You can easily be looking at 2-3 tablespoons of oil in a single dish without even realizing it.

That's 240-360 calories that are basically invisible.

This is one of the biggest reasons people say "I eat healthy and I still can't lose weight."

The food IS healthy. The oil it's swimming in is just adding up fast.

I found that getting my own spray bottle of avocado oil was a better alternative.

I love avocado oil due to its high smoke point (aka it doesn’t denature/oxidize at high temperatures).

And the spray bottle allows me to use less oil but cover more area!

I used to use the store-brand canisters but found that they were such a waste.

Here's the bottle I use on Amazon:​
​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088D23YJQ​

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That's it for this week!

Much love and happy cooking,​
Zach