Welcome to 2016! I think it’s only fitting that my first post for the new year is my favorite weekly staple! Meal prepping really transformed my life last year and it’s not a habit I plan on stopping anytime soon. This week is pretty small, what with the holidays and all.

Not pictured are my usual Sweet Potato Banana Bites, which were made but somehow didn’t make it into the picture. As for our Cookie Dough Protein Bites, we had a bunch left over (too many holiday sweet eaten instead!), so I decided to finish those up this week instead of making more.

Both of this week’s main dishes are new and from Ali over at Gimme Some Oven. If you haven’t checked out her site yet, you should! She has so many wonderful dishes on there!

The Cashew Curry Chicken was so tasty! I’ve never actually cooked with cashews before, but I love trying out new ingredients and this one was a hit. In her recipe Ali talks about blending the sauce or leaving it as is with some chunks. We left it as is and loved it!

As for this Tortellini Soup….If you haven’t noticed yet, I have a serious love of both soup and pasta! This recipe is delicious and combines my two favorite things! This recipe is wonderful and it will definitely be made again! I did make a few adjustments, based on what we had available. I used:

• dried oregano instead of fresh basil (sad, I know, but sometimes you have to make due),
• 1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes and 1/2 can plain crushed tomatoes instead of the 28 oz can fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
• 4 c homemade vegetable stock and 2 c chicken stock. I didn’t thaw the correct amount of vegetable stock beforehand. On the upside, this was the first recipe I used my homemade stock in!
• red onion instead of white
• And a little more sausage than the recipe calls for, but not by much

And that’s it for this week! I hope you all are having a wonderful start to 2016! What are you cooking up this week? Any new recipes? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please comment below!

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!