This week, I tried something new. I've watched Sunday Food Prep float around the blogosphere quite a bit lately. Sunday Food Prep is preparation and portioning of all meals on the Sunday before the work week begins. SUCH a smart idea! Not only does it make mornings much smoother (and time saving) but it also eliminates the opportunity to eat poorly (grab-n-go snacks). Something I've noticed personally, is that if I do not plan meals, I tend to just grab whatever sounds good at the time (which usually isn't the healthiest choice.)
So why have I not tried this sooner? Well, basically because I thought it would be way too time consuming to even attempt! But I have to tell you, it really wasn't. So this week I only prepped my lunches, and decided to give this idea a try!
Sweet Organic Carrots
Lightly drizzled with olive oil and baked at 375 for 35 minutes (or until tender) Cut into bite sided pieces, season with salt and herb de provence (so YUM)
Sweet Potatoes
Baked at 375 for 35-45 minutes (until you can easily slide a fork in and out of them when poked), halved when portioned
Chicken Breast
Cooked at 375, 45 minutes, drizzled with olive oil and topped with pepper, salt, garlic & basil--halved when portioned
Broccoli
Bought a large bag of frozen, organic broccoli, heated in boiled water for a few moments, drained and portioned.
Trader Joes Frozen Rice Medley
Heated and portioned.
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| Carrots & Sweet Potatoes |
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| Garlic and Basil Chicken |
Easy, right?
Here are 5 quick tips that I wanted to share.
1. Buy frozen veggies, they last longer in the sense that you can grab a portion to heat up, bag the rest and toss it back in the freezer until next time. (*Plus, a lot of the time, it's much cheaper!)
2. I cut everything in half so that my money and the food itself would stretch a bit more. So every day, I have had half of a sweet potato, half of a chicken breast, and a handful of broccoli florets/carrots.
3. Trader Joe's frozen rice packages rock my socks. (They also have quinoa but it's a smidge more expensive) Throw that bad boy in the microwave for 3 minutes, DONE! This is perfect for quick meal prep--it has been my staple this week. You can use this in stir fry, make rice bowls or add it to a taco salad!
4. Make every meal COLORFUL! Color=vitamins. Color=healthy. Make each meal as colorful as you can.
5. Prep your meals while you are cleaning around the house. You can multitask! I made sweet potatoes while I started the laundry and vacuumed the stairs. It was great!
I really love this idea and am now planning to jump on the Sunday Meal Prep train with my fellow bloggers! Yahoo! Who's on board with me?!
Do you prep your meals ahead of time?
Do you have any time-saving tricks?
I try to do this every couple weeks. Nothing's worse than coming home @ 5:45, everyone's starving & dinner still has to be made. That's when bad food choices are made! Si I try to put together a couple casseroles & have all the ingredients for a couple crock pot dinners. The casseroles i only like to keep in the frig for a few days so we usually eat those first. One good thing from doing this is I usually have leftovers I can then take to work so I don't make bad food choices. And I know exactly what's in the food I'm feeding my family.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great tip. I haven't tried making a lot of things for several meals, but every weekend, I cut up several sweet potatoes and toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper and cook on high heat until caramelized. They are healthy, yummy little bite-sized nuggets of nutrition. I like these hot, cold and luke warm and take them with me to work. They fill me up and keep my blood sugar at a constant. Love you blog, Ashley!
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