How can I watch Movies on an MBPro on an iPad Air?

I have about a zillion cooking shows on a huge external hard drive on my MacBook Pro in my office. I bought an iPad Air so that I could watch one or two cooking shows at a time in my kitchen. My kitchen and office are in Bluetooth range and both have strong Wi-Fi signals.

I bought it, now I want to use it, but I can't decide where to start. Shall I use iTunes? Build a website? AirPlay? Would BlueTooth file transfer work? I'm a bit overwhelmed with the possibilities. What's a good direction to start out in?

--Gil