Hey Reader!

In the 51st issue of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

• Recipes for 1/2lb Double Cheeseburgers and my Cosmic Brownie Uncrustable Protein Pop Tarts!
• The (not-so-strong) start of the grocery cart...
• 3 ways to add a ton of flavor to one of the most underrated breakfast items...
• A food glow-up that is rich in volume...

Preheat your ovens…

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Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

1/2lb Double Cheeseburgers Did you know that you can make a massive double cheeseburger for only 425 calories with 57g protein!? And it’s juicy and delicious!? I got you 🤝🏻 Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​​​½ lb Double Cheeseburgers.pdf​

Cosmic Brownie Uncrustable Protein Pop Tarts Today we have a nostalgic collab of cosmic brownies, uncrustables, and pop tarts to make the perfect snack for only 226 calories and 20g protein! ​​Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​​​Cosmic Brownie Uncrustable Protein Pop Tarts.pdf​

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Recipe Recreations Of The Week 🤌

425 Cal 1/2lb Double Cheeseburgers 🍔

Macros for each WHOLE Double Cheeseburger:​
425 Cals, 20g Carbs, 13g Fat, 57g Protein

Here's the recipe:​
👉 ​​½ lb Double Cheeseburgers.pdf​

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Zach's Beats 🎧

TIS THE SEASON 🎄🎅🏻 ​Electronic Christmas - Spotify​

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Weird Food Fact 🤓

If you've been following me for a while, you know I am a grocery cart narc lol.

If you haven't watched this guy's videos, please do. It's hilarious 😭

But the point is, you are not too busy or important to not put your cart away.

Successful people put their grocery carts away.

There are very few things that I will never change my mind on.

This is it. I’m sorry. There is zero excuse 🤷🏻‍♂️.

Haha enough of my rant and onto something I had never thought of before.

I feel like a hypocrite!

Why?

I have such a strong opinion about grocery carts but up until writing this, I had zero idea the history of the grocery cart!

Let’s hop in our DeLoreon Back To The Future grocery cart and travel all the way back to the early 1930s when the first grocery cart was created.

Picture this. You are now at the grocery store in the 1930s shopping for dinner.

Your hands are full of canned beans, a loaf of bread, and are awkwardly balancing eggs on top. Suddenly, someone offers you a cart to carry it all. Do you use it?

The you from the future would be like, “why thank you!”

But everyone else in the place would’ve looked at you crazy for accepting the cart.

The grocery cart was controversial.

Here’s how it all went down...

Back in 1937, a guy named Sylvan Goldman, who owned a chain of grocery stores in Oklahoma, had a big problem.

His customers were buying only what they could physically carry. If their arms got too full, they’d stop shopping.

Less shopping = less money.

Sylvan’s solution? Attach wheels to a folding chair, slap on a basket, and voilà!

The first grocery cart was born.

He called it the “folding basket carrier,” and it was supposed to revolutionize shopping.

But here’s the kicker: no one wanted to use it.

Why?

• Men thought it made them look weak (like they couldn’t carry their groceries).
• Women, who had just transitioned away from old-fashioned baby carriages, weren’t sold on pushing something else around.
• And older folks? They thought it was just plain unnecessary.

Frustrated but determined, Sylvan hired fake shoppers to wheel carts around the store like they were the coolest invention ever.

You’ve probably heard of influencers (Sylvan's team might’ve been the first ones).

The strategy worked. People saw others using carts, and soon they wanted to try them too.

By the 1950s, grocery carts were an absolute must-have in every store.

Fast forward to today, and we’ve got carts with cupholders, baby seats, and even built-in phone chargers lol.

And thus leading to us buying WAYYY tooo much at the grocery store 🫣

Oh, and here’s a fun stat to blow your mind: The average grocery cart can hold about 240 pounds of food. That’s 160 packs of Oreos or 960 bananas!

Hope you found this fascinating and learning something new!

So that leaves me with my question… do you put your grocery cart away? 🛒

P.S. I thought this was hilarious because those checkout cameras be doing us dirty 😭

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One FAQ ❓

Answer: My name is Zach and I love oatmeal.

Why?

It checks out so many of the boxes I love for my meals.

1. Volume ✅
2. Taste ✅
3. Texture ✅
4. Satiety ✅
5. Easy to make ✅
6. Versatility ✅

But here's the thing.

It only checks off these boxes when done right.

So I am going to show you how to do it right.

The Basics of Oats for Cooking

• Steel-Cut Oats: Thicker cuts of oats that take the longest to cook. They are annoying to work with and I don’t have the patience haha.
• Rolled Oats: The ones I use the most which take a moderate out of time to cook but yield a happy medium of texture.
• Instant Oats: These are made to be the fastest to cook but that’s their downfall. The smaller oats lead to a more mushier texture. Not my favorite but you might like it.

So how do I use oatmeal the most?

3 main ways:

1. The classic bowl of Protein Oatmeal
2. Protein Overnight Oats (but way better than the boring/weird overnight oat recipes)
3. Overnight Oats Protein Cookie Dough

Let’s walk through each one of these:

First, how to not have your bowl of oatmeal overflow...

LITERALLY the worst 😭

So how does this never EVER happen again?

Get a bowl like this:

Due to the open-face edges of the bowl, the air is able to escape while cooking thus leading to it never overflowing over the edges!

Pretty damn cool. I tested my theory and microwaved my oats like a psychopath for 10 minutes…

And they still didn't overflow!

So what's the perfect Protein Oatmeal Recipe that is filling is delicious?

This is how I do it:

• Step 1: 60g of rolled oats with about an inch of water above the oats.
• Step 2: Add to microwave for 3 minutes.
• Step 3: MOST IMPORTANT part to be honest. If your mix in ingredients suck then none of this matters. Your oatmeal will taste like boring porridge lol.

Add your dry powdered ingredients. I go with:

• 30g FLEX Brands Whey/Casein Blend Protein Powder. This is the only protein powder made for recipes on the market (aka it will thrive not just survive when heated up).
• 15g of any flavor Protein Cookie Butter Powder. This will help really thicken up the oatmeal and give it a boost of flavor customization and protein.
• 8g Sugar-Free/Fat-Free Pudding Mix. This will give another boost of taste and texture with very few extra calories.
• 5g Zero Cal Sweetener. This will sweeten the oatmeal with zero calories added to the recipe.
• Pinch of Sea Salt. This will help enhance the flavor of the protein oatmeal!

Mix up and then add any extra toppings you like!

Now here are a few other quick ways to maximize your oats!

Protein Overnight Oats:

Think about this whole process I just outlined above for the normal protein oatmeal BUT let it sit in the fridge overnight to really thicken up!

Most overnight oat recipes are uncooked which is thus missing out on a huge benefit!

By cooking the oats, you are actually adding 30%-50% more volume to the recipe due to the oats being more absorbent when cooked.

And not only that, but by cooling them in the fridge overnight, you are also making them even more absorbent!

So by cooking and then cooling your overnight oats, you are getting more bites for the same amount of calories!

And as we know, more bites = more happiness 🙂

Lastly, Protein Overnight Oats Cookie Dough.

So here is a little bit of a contradiction 😅

Don't cook your oats for this one haha.

Just blend them into an oat flour.

Oats are super absorbent so using them as a flour substitute for cookie dough is a pro move.

Just follow this recipe and you'll see what I mean!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you want the full oatmeal guide and also, if you have any more questions!

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Serving Surprise 😮

I wanted to keep with the oatmeal theme here and show how little 60g of oats can look like but what it can turn into.

Here is what 60g of rolled oats looks like:

And through the cooking process which you saw three examples above of, it can turn into A LOT more volume.

Absorbency is a big-time overlooked aspect of macro-friendly cooking.

Ingredients that are absorbent are incredible at adding volume to meals.

This is a topic I want to cover in a lot more detail in the future because it is such a great concept to master.

And to know the ingredients that are high on the absorbency scale to utilize in recipes.

So we can turn a little bit into a lotta bit 😎

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About 6 months ago, I set out on a journey to create the first-ever macro-tracking app for recipes.

I asked you guys for feedback when I started.

The google doc is over 158 pages!

I’ve obsessed over these responses.

Flown around the country consulting with the biggest brains to make this happen.

Yes, you can track recipes in other apps.

It’s clunky, boring, unnecessarily hard, zero customization, and I could go on and on.

But most importantly, recipes are maybe 1% of their priority.

I’m making it a priority.

All the things you love about your current favorite macro tracking app.

Along with all the things you wish were there.

I have an update coming very soon.

Really appreciate your support.

Your friend,​
Zach

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