Sunday Dinner with Coach Dan

Happy Sunday, everybody. Welcome to Cadre Live. I give everyone a minute to hop on. I'm Dan Cunningham. I'm a coach here at Cadre, and I'm the resident organizer and chef. Welcome in. Hey, everybody, welcome. Happy Sunday. If you're just signing on, I'm Dan Cunningham, Cadre coach, organizer, home cook, slash chef. I like to call myself the chef junk food junkie. Hey, how are you? Welcome, welcome, welcome. Say hello if you're here. Hi, Luke. Great to see you in. Happy Sunday. The sun is out in Michigan, which is really rare, so I am smiling.

It looks so beautiful outside today, and it's making me think about the week ahead and what I want to manifest and what I want to accomplish. And, you know, sometimes that's just a nap, but not this next week. All right, so I wanted to welcome you all in. Don't forget to say hello in the comments if you're here. Today, I thought about something really simple to cook, but something that can also be extravagant depending on what you fill it with. And that is an omelet. An omelet is something I'm sure we're all familiar with.

If you haven't had an omelette, watch closely, and you'll be able to make one of your own. Omelets are real simple, a breakfast, lunch, or dinner meal that anyone can make. It's really easy. In a meeting last week, one of my colleagues here on Cadre during the meeting, said that he wished he knew how to cook. And it's popped in my head since the meeting. A bunch of times a day, I could just hear Chris saying, I wish I knew how to cook. And I thought, man, tell me. Tell me what you want to learn to cook, and I'll teach you a way.

And anybody can cook. It's just following the directions, and, you know, you gather the ingredients, you follow the directions, and then you make it happen. And it's kind of like life in general, right? When you think about accomplishing anything, you have to. If you want to learn how to ski, you have to get skis, right? You have to gather the equipment. Then you have to listen to somebody teach you how or watch somebody or, you know, gain the knowledge, and then you put it into action. So, you know, huh.

Just kind of blew my own mind there. So cooking is like life, right? All right, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make an omelet, and I'm gonna teach you my way of doing that. How I like to make an omelet. And then I'm gonna teach you how to make a sauce, a mushroom sauce to fill the omelette with. So we're gonna do a different little, a little take on the omelet, savory omelet. It's not, you know, your normal breakfast omelet today. So this would be one more for brunch or dinner. But remember, once you learn how to make the omelet, and you can fill it with just about anything.

Seafood, vegetables, just anything. And then after we cook and fill the omelet, I just want to really quick run down a couple tips and suggestions for the week and actually offer a challenge for the week ahead for putting the week together. Sunday is a great way to sink in and focus on the week ahead and think about what you want to accomplish, what you want to gain, and make a plan. Once you have a plan, then you're much more apt to be successful in anything we do. All right, so here's my plan.

I'm going to make an omelet, and I'm going to show you how. All right, we're going to turn on the fire and, well, actually, first, I'm not making the omelet first. I'm making the sauce. I forgot my plan never written down. All right, so I'm gonna put. We're still starting with the fire. Now, this sauce is, I'm starting with a roux. So. And this is the first thing we learn in cooking school with sauces. And actually, one of the first things we learned at all, and that was years and years ago, but I still remember it.

I make it all the time. When you're making a roux, it's butter and flour cooked together with the liquid added. The flour thickens the liquid, and the butter gives it lots of flavor. You can also thicken sauces with cornstarch and water equal parts. That's called a slurry. Or you can make flour and water, a flour and water slurry as well. I think I talked about that last week. I'm having a deja vu. But anyway, you can never talk about sauces enough. When you like to cook. Sauces are a great way to change up what you're cooking.

If you know how to grill a steak right, you grill a really good steak. If you learn four or five different base sauces, oh, my gosh, you're golden. You can cook so many different things. So sauces are really, really important. And in some really fine dining restaurants, there sauciers or chefs that only deal with sauces, that's how important they are, you melt your butter like that. That's two tablespoons of butter. And I've measured out two tablespoons of flour that's going in the pan, too. And I've got my whisk here.

I like to use a whisk to incorporate all of that. And what you see there is just like a paste. Right. I'm giving my camera guy the day off today and trying it by myself. We'll see how we do. All right, so what you want to do here? You want the heat on just a medium high, medium heat, and just let this, let this Roux cook off a little bit. And you just want to cook out the route with a raw taste of the flour. I think I did a whole thing on this last week. I'm starting to. It's all coming back to me.

It's all coming back. All right. And now we want to add two cups of milk. And we'll do this just gradually at first, so you give everything a chance to get used to the liquid. That's one cup. And I just stirred it in real gradually at first. Welcome in. Welcome in. Anybody else here? Say hi. Don't forget to hit the follow button. If you want more content, always leave a comment. I love to hear the comments. Read the comments. That gives me a chance to know what people are thinking. Questions are great, too, if you have any questions.

Okay, now I'm going to add one more cup of the milk, and I'm gonna let this come back up to temperature. And as that milk heats up, the sauce is gonna thicken. So that right there is how you do macaroni and cheese. I'm gonna make a mushroom sauce. You can make pot pie with this. Make a pot pie gravy. You'd be adding chicken, a bouillon, or chicken broth as the liquid. So as you see these three things, the butter, the flour, and the milk together, it's called like, the mother sauce. With this sauce, you can make so many other things.

So there you go. You add a little grated cheese and some nutmeg. You've got a really good cheese sauce. So tons of different options here. I'm going to let this come to temperature and warm up a Little Bit. And while it does, I'm going to pop these in the microwave. I'm going to sweat down some mushrooms, and sweating down the mushrooms is going to. I love to do this in the microwave. You can do it on the stove, too. But sweating down the mushrooms, there's so much liquid naturally in mushrooms.

So when you heat them up in a pyrex, a glass pyrex measuring cup, that's what I use. You can use a bowl or whatever. It will bring all the liquid out of the mushrooms. You'll have a bunch of really nice mushroom liquid, and, and then your cooked mushrooms on top. You can finish those off in a pan, or you can use them just right out of the, right out of the microwave. So we're almost done. I mean, this is it. Those, those mushrooms are gonna, are gonna come out and they'll be all sweated. I'll have my liquid.

This is thickening up nicely. It is turning into our sauce. Oh, yes. And just, you know, this method right here, this whole sauce, steel, it only takes a minute. You don't want to walk away from the stove because it'll thicken up really quick. Look at it. Yes. I gotta get something better to show you within the whisk. So, yeah, it thickens up just nice and thick. Look at this. And there you have it. Now, this has no flavor. I haven't added any salt. I haven't added any pepper. But it's going to be a really simple, simple sauce.

I'm cutting the heat down now because I don't want to get it any more thick. And a lot of times, you'll see cooks, chefs, kitchen folk, test a sauce like that. And if you can drag your finger across a spoon and it doesn't go anywhere and it leaves you a stripe, then you know it's good to go. All right, so I'm gonna add a little salt and a little pepper, and that's all. And then once the mushroom liquid comes out, we'll turn this into a mushroom sauce that will go inside of our omelet. All right.

Omelet, pan. A little bit of butter. You do not have to use butter when you're making an omelet. If you have a good pan, a good nonstick pan, you can use a little spray. There are options, so don't let all this butter fool you. Also, vegan butter is a good option when you're making, when you're making a sauce. Vegan butter is available all over. Look for it. If you're vegan, you're not into the milk. Don't let any of those dietary restrictions scare you away there. So we're going to, this is going to be a three egg omelet.

And I've never made an omelet in this pan. It's a brand new pan. So I'm kind of excited. I'm getting the heat on there. All right, so omelet, right? It's just scrambled eggs. And some people put in milk. Some people put in. I just do the egg, scramble it up. You want to watch closely. And I will. Let me get the camera down and over a little bit so you guys can see it. There's the pan. You guys can see the pan? Yep. Boy, I can see your comments better, too. Yes. Whole foods does have the vegan butter.

That is correct. I got that, I believe, at Trader Joe's. I'm not sure Meyer even started carrying it. So I like to get the butter all over the pan. The three egg omelet here, and we're pouring it in. So this is the deal with the egg. You get it on a medium high heat. Sorry about that. It looks like the battery was going out. And take a rubber spatula and scrape down the bottom of the pan here or the sides of the pan, and then continue to twirl the pan around. Scrape it down. You can see this isn't going to take long at all.

These cook, also cook very, very quickly. And I love this pan. Love, love. So that's it. Now you're going to let this set up. And while it does that, I usually do a little cleanup so the Kitchen's not a catastrophe. Clean as you go. That's kind of like another kitchen life. Oops, look at that. Sorry. Kitchen slash life tip. Clean as you go. As you start letting your life get a little bit out of control and you don't make it a point to do something about it, things pile up. Clean as you go. All right, let's check the mushrooms.

So this is the liquid I was talking about there. And this is the mushroom stuff. So I'm just going to pour all this liquid in. Oh, yum. And stir it around and incorporate it. The sauce was thick enough that this mushroom liquid is going to bring it right to the point where I want it. This one is so good. What do you think? All right, let me taste. It's good. Needs a little salt. Season as you go. The things need a little bit more of this, a little bit more of that. One spice. Here's a little tip for you.

One spice that goes really well with mushroom is nutmeg. And a lot of mushroom soup recipes, there'd be just a tiny bit of nutmeg here. Just a tiny bit, not a lot. Nutmeg is a strong spice. You can buy nutmeg whole, right like this. And then you can grate that down. You can use a fine cheese grater. The microplane. All right. We've got our mushroom sauce. We've got our omelet done. I got a little surprise for you. Just a little surprise. So. So the other night I made with some leftover pork. Pork and rice.

Very, very simple. And I thought today it would be a really cool thing to put inside this, this delicious, this saffron rice and pork. I'm gonna add a little bit of the mushroom sauce and then I'm gonna line it with some mushrooms as well. Who doesn't like a little surprise? Ooh, those are hot. All right. And now as the fold, this goes well, and sometimes it doesn't kind of like life, really realizing that cooking and life have a lot of things in common. Alright, now I'm gonna go. The safe method, which you can always do, is just pop your omelet on your plate and flip the pan over if you're worried about having it fall apart.

This is an omelet and it's really easy to make. It's really good for you. You can cut out the fat if you want. You don't have to do the sauce. You could fill it with veggies. You can make it with egg white. A lot of us are going to start focusing more on our health goals, me included. So you just top it with a little of your mushroom cream sauce. And then when I cook, I always like to let people know what it is, this mushroom, just so they know. All right, you guys, so I'm gonna leave that to the side, but I wanted to talk really quick about looking at the week ahead.

Okay, so it's Sunday. A lot of people start their, their day on Monday or their week on Monday. And maybe you don't. Right. But whatever, whatever time of the week you can carve out or identify as your start or a real refuel day. Whatever way you can do that. Pick a day. Right. For me, it's gotten to be Sunday. It always wasn't like that. My schedule has been erratic. I've done a bunch of different jobs. Being a coach, we schedule clients on the weekends a lot. But just recently I've settled into this Sunday start of the work week.

And so here are some things to think about when you're going forward. Right. Structure is something that is really, really valuable. It's something that I'm struggling with in my life right now, is creating structures and habits. A lot of times those go by the wayside. Things get crazy, we get scrambled, and before we know it, we're off to the races and we have no direction, because we've lost structure and we've lost our ability to maintain our habits. So there's a couple things to do. One is identify when you're in that space.

The other thing you can do is to start structuring your week. Build structure. It's up to you. Nobody's going to create structure. Well, sometimes they do. If you have a job, they're going to create structure for you if you have a nine to five. But you know what I'm saying, create structure in your life. Start small. I wanted to talk to you about habit stacking. So habit stacking is a way to to develop habits in your life by attaching the habit to something else you already do. Brushing your teeth is a really good example.

We all brush our teeth, right? I mean, hopefully everybody is brushing their teeth at least once a day when you're brushing your teeth, if you decide that every time I brush my teeth, I'm gonna pick up what's on the bathroom floor afterward, or the other way around. Attach a habit to something you're already doing. Stack habits. Do it often. Start small, then keep building, and you'll be amazed at how much it makes a difference in your life. Creating good habits by stacking is such an easy way to remember it.

A lot of times, you know, within a couple weeks, the habits out the window because they're hard to get back into the groove. If you attach it to something you're already doing, it'll make it a lot easier. So here's a couple five things that we want to talk about. Plan your outfits for the week. If you plan what you're going to wear, that's that. A lot of people have a uniform. You come home and you get in your sweats. You don't have to worry about it. If you're out and about, you're presenting yourself either on camera or out in the world.

Pick what you're going to wear, at least generally have it thought out, and it'll be one thing off your list that you don't have to worry about scrambling to pick out clothes in the morning. If you check the weather, you'll get some tips on what to wear throughout the week. Plan your with the outfits. I think about Risa, our resident stylist here at Cadre. And oh my gosh, if you haven't checked out her content, check it out. It's amazing. But if you need some help with styling, you can get that right here.

Check out Risa. So plan your. What does my note say? I can't even read my own writing. Oh, meals. Plan your meals. Wait, that's my department. Plan your meals. I keep touching my stove here. Plan your meals. If you're eating out twice in a week, you know, plan three and then plan leftovers. I like to eat leftovers at lunch, and I like to plan dinners if we're out. I know I don't have to do that many. If I'm filming and I'm making something, I know I don't have to add any more. So look at your week.

Identify how many meals you want to make. Pick out something quick and easy if you'd like. If you love cooking, challenge yourself and pick out a recipe you haven't made before. Follow me here because there'll be tons of info about good, quick recipes that I'm going to be sharing with people like Chris that wish they knew how to cook so easy. You just learned how to make an oven. Don't forget self care throughout the week. Take some breaks. Take care of yourself. You know, when budgeting, when you're looking at finances, they always say, pay yourself first.

It's counterintuitive, really, to me, but it makes sense. You pay yourself first, and then you take care of business. So pay yourself first emotionally, and pay yourself first energetically. Make sure that you're taking care of yourself. It's so rare that anybody else can. They don't know what you need all the time. Make sure you're eating well. Make sure you're getting rest. Make sure you're getting enough sleep. Make sure you're hydrating yourself. So make sure you're focusing on self care and taking some breaks.

And then finally, at the end of today or the end of your end of the week, like Sunday, I guess, is actually the end of my week. Monday kind of revs up, so I focus Sunday on what's coming ahead. Take time to rev down tonight or whenever your week is coming to an end. Take a little bit of time after you've, after you've planned to rev down and just kind of re refuel and recenter. So here's the challenge. I talked about a challenge, so I'm going to do it. I am going to pick out my outfits or give it some thought, and I'm actually going to make notes about what lives I'm doing, when, what I need to wear.

I'm not gonna be coming out here without any clothes on. So I plan what I'm gonna wear. I'm gonna plan my meals. I'm gonna write it out, and I'm gonna make sure that I take some time this week for self care and that I take breaks throughout the weekend and make sure that I'm centered and grounded just for a little bit at the end of the day on Sunday. I challenge you, if you accept it, to put these made any difference in your week. If you feel any better, if you have any recommendations and things that you do to make your week less stressful and more enjoyable, then please leave them here in the comments.

And if you make an omelet, let me know how it turned out. I'm going to chow on this. So, you guys, thanks for, thanks for signing in. I'm on again Wednesday, so look for me on Wednesday. There's two of them scheduled. We're going to take care of that. I made a mistake, but I will be on again live on Wednesday at 03:00 in the afternoon. Think maybe it's noon? Oh, it's noon on Wednesday. Anyway, look at the schedule. Check back here on Cadre for all sorts of health and wellness and everything else to make your life better and more enjoyable and healthier and happier.

Thanks again, you guys. I appreciate you being here, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye. Don't forget to follow me for more of my content and everybody else.