Tag: sunday meal prep

The Importance of Meal Prep: The Week I Skipped…And Why I Won’t Be Doing That Again

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized2 Comments

Ok, so I didn’t entirely skip meal prep. But compared to what I normally cook every week, I did. If you saw this post, you know I was on vacation from work for most of this week. Well, a staycation. So I figured, why not?! I will be home for most of the week, I will have plenty of time. How about I don’t do meal prepping this week?!

Bad. Idea.

Thankfully, none of the meals I planned went bad or anything. But I did delay cooking the casserole I had planned by 2 days, which did make me a little worried for our ingredients initially.

But mostly, it was the stress and lack of options. When time should I make dinner for? What is Draz taking for lunch today? (He only had 3 days off to my 5)

Some of you might think this is a little crazy. It was only a couple of days, right? It shouldn’t make that big of a difference!

It did. Some of it might just be the routine. We’ve been meal prepping for over a year now and we are used to how that works. This was out of routine, so it was a little disorienting. But some of it was that, for us, it truly is easier to have all the food for the week made in advance.

So, all in all, I don’t think I will be skipping any more meal preps anytime soon! While it may not make that big of a difference to some, it makes a huge difference to us.

But wait! I did say I didn’t entirely skip prepping, didn’t I? Well, that’s true, so here is what I made!

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Mason Jar Salads, Snacks and Treats

 

I don’t want to even imagine how much more stressful things would have been if I had skipped making our salads and snacks along with everything else!  At least I thought ahead well enough to know that would be a bad idea, right?

Have you ever skipped a meal prep? Did it make things harder the following week, or was it not too noticeable? Or do you think I’m just crazy? 😛 I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Sara (1)

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!

Weekly food prep

Sunday Meal Prep: February 21, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized5 Comments

Hey everyone! This week’s meal prep is all about keepin’ things simple 🙂 I was still not feeling all that great when I was planning for this prep (prep posts are staggered by one week, so this was last week) so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to spend much time in the kitchen. I would say it was a success!

This prep took around 3 – 3.5 hrs of active cooking, so not too bad at all 🙂

Meal Prep

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Our main meals
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Snacks and treats

 

Two main dishes for this week, other than more Pulled Pork for Draz: Slow Simmered Curried Chicken and Skillet Sausage and Veggies. Both of these turned out delicious!

The Curried Chicken is from the Easy Asian Recipes cookbook. I love this book! (Not an affiliate link)

The Skillet Sausage and Veggies is from the Taste of Home Everyday Slow Cooker & One Dish Recipes 2008 cookbook, another cookbook I really love! (Again, not an affiliate link) However, the recipe below is based on the recipe I used this week. Enjoy!

SausagePepperCabbage

I did also spend a little bit of time this week playing around with styling for food photography. What do you think?

Cookie Dough Protein Bites
Sweet Potato Banana Bites

That’s it for this week! What did you prep this week? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Sara (1)

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!

Weekly Food Prep

Sunday Meal Prep: February 14, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized1 Comment

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I am super excited to share this week’s meal prep with you!

You ever have those weeks where you are trying to plan out your prep and it just isn’t coming to you? That was me planning out this week. But in the end it all fell together! It didn’t take me as long to cook as some weeks, but that definitely doesn’t mean it was lacking in taste!

Enjoy!

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As you can see, we have more Island Pulled Pork for this week. Draz seems to be on a new kick! 😛 Along with that, we have one old favorite, one that we’ve had once and a new recipe as well!

I am always happy when we add Jambalaya on to the menu. It’s been one of my favorites for over 10 years! The repeat recipe was Slowcooker Beef and Broccoli and I love how this one turned out 🙂 I do think I used a different cut of beef than last time though. It didn’t fall apart in quite the same way that it did the first time I made it. But that doesn’t really matter, because either way it was really tasty!

This Tortellini Chicken Noodle Soup was delicious! The one thing that I will say is that I wish I would have increased the broth some…It ended up a little thicker than I would prefer for soup. But it was still wonderful and I love the addition of the tortellini!

Not pictured: my grapes and cheese snacks and one batch of our breakfast burritos.

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A little peak behind the scenes…my photography “helper”!

Jambalaya

How was your prep this week? Do you ever have difficulty picking meals when planning out your prep? What do you do if/when you do? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Also, don’t forget that the Jewelry Giveaway ends on Tuesday! So if you haven’t entered yet, head over and let me know which one you want!

Giveaway

Sara (1)

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!

Weekly Food Prep

Sunday Meal Prep: February 7, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized3 Comments

(Note: Sorry for the delay. I had some technical difficulties. Hopefully we have gotten them solved.)

Hey everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend! Things are going pretty well here, except for my body seeming to turn on me 😦 My back is doing quite a bit better (yay!!) but now I’m fighting a rather nasty sore throat. So since I’m not feeling all that great, today’s post is going to get right to the point.

Enjoy!

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Spicy Chicken in Tomatoes 

Red Curry Lentils 

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork: Island Style

Skinny Chicken Enchiladas

Sunflower and Oat Energy Balls

Sorry for the short (and late) post today! But keep an eye out for a post later this week…I have something exciting for you guys!

Did you do meal prep today? What did you cook? I would love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment below!

Sara (1)

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!

 

weekly food prep

Sunday Meal Prep: January 31, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized1 Comment

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You ever have a week where nothing really sounds good? Where you try to plan it out, going through all your recipes and just can’t find anything that fits? That was definitely me this week! This hits me more in the winter months, and this week was especially hard.

Until I found these two soup recipes! These fit my mood perfectly. After I found those, all the rest of the menu just fell into place 🙂

Of course, I also whipped up another batch of Skinny Chicken Enchiladas, Breakfast Burritos and our regular Mason Jar Salads. Along with that, we bought some extra chicken this week and I made extra of both Buffalo and Southwestern Shredded Chicken to freeze for later weeks!

On to the three new recipes!

Tuscan Tortellini Soup – This soup was creamy, rich and oh-so-delicious! Definitely a good choice and I will be making it again. I did make one small change and used evaporated milk instead of heavy cream.

Sausage, Potato and Spinach Soup – A bit lighter than the other soup but no less tasty. It kinda reminded me of a little spicier version of Zuppa Tuscana. I made the same change to this one, using evaporated milk instead of heavy cream.

Slow Cooker Cashew Chicken – I love this recipe…I think I’m finding that I really like recipes with cashews in them!

You know when you think you picked up everything at the store, only to realize later that you didn’t? Well…that is what happened this week! I ended up going to the store to pick up cashews and tortellini about halfway through my cooking session. The tortellini was totally my fault, but I’m blaming Draz for the cashews 😛 I thought we had some left from the last time I used them in a recipe…turns out he enjoyed them as a snack instead!

So when I realized later that I didn’t buy enough eggs to make my normal double batch of burritos, there was no way I was going to the store for a second time! So this week was a bit smaller on the burritos, but still plenty for Draz and I to enjoy 🙂

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BreakfastBurritos

That’s it for this week! What did you cook this week? Any new recipes? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Sara (1)

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!

Sunday Meal Prep: January 24, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized8 Comments

Hey everyone! I am super excited to bring you this week’s meal prep! This week I am highlighting recipes from Eat Yourself Skinny. Kelly creates wonderful dishes that are not only healthy and filling, but full of flavor too! If you haven’t checked out her blog yet, you definitely should!

You’ve seen recipes from her a few times, particularly the Skinny Chicken Enchiladas that have been making an appearance the past few weeks. That one has quickly become one of Draz’s favorites, so don’t expect to see it going away anytime soon. Each week it’s “What would you like on the menu for next week?” and his response has been “Enchiladas!?” each time!

Now, on to this week’s meal prep!

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Along with our Mason Jar Salads, Sweet Potato Banana Bites, my grapes and cheese and the Skinny Chicken Enchiladas, I made three new recipes this week!

Sausage and Veggie Stir-fry: Her recipe calls for spicy chicken sausage, which I sadly couldn’t find. I did use the Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage of the same brand and it turned out wonderful! Hopefully I can find somewhere that sells the spicy version, because I would love to try it 🙂

Slow Cooker Turkey Chili: Kelly is not exaggerating when she says it is the best turkey chili you will ever taste! If there is another, better recipe out there, I haven’t tried it. Quick to prep, easy, tasty, and healthy?! I think this will be our new stand-by for chili from now on!

Crock Pot Salsa Chicken: I like the versatility of this shredded chicken. So far I’ve used it in a couple wraps with some cheese and it was really good! I want to try it with some taco fillings…I think it will be even better!

That’s it for this week! Expect to see many more recipes from Kelly’s blog in the future. Her recipes are just too tasty!

What are you making this week? Any new recipes? I would love to hear your thoughts, so leave me a comment below!

Sara (1)

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!