Aeden & Kim Pillai · 4 oven bases · marinate & freeze raw → cook fresh daily · USDA macros
| Day | Lunch | Dinner |
|---|
Weekly rhythm — marinate / freeze / cook fresh
Aeden's Monbento packing guide
185 × 94 × 100mm. Flat in any work bag. Fully leakproof. Elastic band keeps both tiers together. Microwave-safe (lids off).
Thaw → cook → carry: the night before, move tomorrow's marinated bag freezer → fridge. That evening, thawed protein → tray → oven 15–20 min. Pack the second portion into the tiffin/glass container, fridge overnight. At the office: lids off, bottom tier microwave 90 sec, top tier 45 sec. Fish in its own sealed container. Base D (cold soba): eat cold, no reheat.
Home dinners — both
800ml–1L glass meal prep containers, microwave-safe. One per person per meal. Assemble bowl-style — rice base, protein on top, fresh veg alongside. Fish always in its own sealed glass container to avoid smell transfer.
Fish rotation note
Salmon is back — and split. Base C runs as one tray, two halves: salmon for Kim (omega-3, richer) and miso barramundi for Aeden (leanest, highest protein-per-cal). Same glaze, same oven. Satisfies both the high-protein goal and the salmon rotation at once.
Per serving target — lean gains
Protein 160–180g cooked · Brown rice ~130g cooked · Veg 150–200g · Sauce max 2 tbsp
Kit for the new model — not urgent
Freezer bags + a marker — for portioning and labelling the marinated raw protein on Sunday (`protein · which night`). A second baking tray helps when a cook roasts protein + veg together. Both cheap, grab whenever.
Macros per serving, per person. Sourced from USDA FoodData Central. Accounts for ~25% cooking weight loss on chicken and salmon.
Breakfast adds 2 hard-boiled eggs each daily: +156 cal · +12.6g protein · +10.6g fat. Source: USDA FoodData Central (fdc.nal.usda.gov).
Snacks — cheap, no junk
Built to keep packaged junk out and cost down — all staples you already have or that are a couple of dollars. Grab one of these instead of buying a snack.
Two kinds of cooking now. Sunday prep (~45 min) — marinate proteins raw, bag, freeze; soy-marinate the eggs; cook a pot of rice. No real cooking. Then a 15–20 min oven cook each evening (Sun–Thu) — one tray, makes that night's dinner + tomorrow's lunch. Tap any phase to expand.
Storage logic. Raw marinated protein, frozen: weeks. Cooked protein is never re-frozen — it's eaten within ~24h (tonight's dinner → tomorrow's lunch). Veg stays fresh, added at cook time so it never goes soggy. Ajitama eggs: 4–5 days in the fridge. Cooked rice: 4–5 days. Soba: boil fresh on the night.
One order a week. The single weekly order — placed with lead time for delivery, sized around what's already in your kitchen so you don't over-buy. Order items are at the top; what you already have is at the bottom (greyed "✓ in kitchen" — no need to order). The sticky bar up top keeps a running count + estimated cost as you scroll. This week eats down a lot of stock (proteins, soba, eggs, miso), so the order is small: a bag of rice + fresh veg, fruit, and snacks.
Each item shows deal badges for both stores: FP = FairPrice (green), RM = RedMart (blue) — compare and tap through to either.
Mark items Store for in-person pickup (hides online links). Have = already in the kitchen — the whole top section is pre-flagged as this. Sub = substitutes with price/macro deltas.
Week 2 changes how we cook, not just what. Here's the gist for both of you — Kim, this is the part worth reading before you give feedback.
We're dropping the Sunday cook-everything-and-freeze approach. Aeden's call, for good reasons: minced chicken felt greasy reheated, frozen cooked food loses texture, and we don't want the apartment smelling of fried food. New model below.
What Sunday looks like now
~45 min, and no actual cooking: marinate the proteins raw, bag them, freeze. Soy-marinate a batch of eggs (ajitama). Cook one pot of rice. Done.
What each evening looks like
One 15–20 min oven cook, Sun–Thu. Pull the thawed protein, onto a tray with fresh veg, into the oven. Roast a double portion — half is dinner that night, half is packed for the next day's lunch. So every weekday lunch is the previous night's dinner, microwaved at the office.
One habit holds it together: every night, move tomorrow's protein from freezer to fridge.
Why it's better
The four bases (all oven, except the cold one)
Full detail + macros are on the Recipes tab. Quick version:
Kim — the asks for you: (1) does the salmon-for-you / barramundi-for-Aeden split work, or do you want the same fish? (2) Does cooking a quick oven tray most evenings fit your week, or is that too much on some nights? (3) Anything in the four bases you'd swap. Drop it in the Feedback tab.
Aggregate view of past weeks' feedback + deals + costs. Loads from feedback/*.json on tab open.