Amanda: Meal Preparation

Preparing meals in advance is by far the hardest yet most rewarding thing that I can do when it comes to my health and fitness goals. Having meals prepared, in the fridge, ready to go when I roll out of bed grumpy as hell can change my whole day.

If I wake up half-dead and grab some egg white muffins with feta, spinach and mushrooms I can inhale those as I stumble into my sneakers and take my vitamins. Then I can throw my lunch & snacks into my lunchbox, feed the dogs and get in the car before I know what the hell I'm doing. Really weird to go to the gym in pajamas though...

However, if I have to cook breakfast that morning that means I have to dirty up some dishes and then throw together lunch and snacks (that means more dirty dishes which I need to wash) and less time to get ready for the day. Inevitably I wind up glancing at the clock with just enough time to skip the gym and get to work bitchy and on time. The amount of bitchy that I am has a direct correlation to whether or not I will be forced into grabbing something crappy and over-priced from the cafeteria at work.

Sometimes I'll try to forego packing a lunch completely, if I don't have food prepared I have been known to run out of the house with a couple of apples, and have attempted to sustain myself on black coffee and fructose alone. Not smart, I know!

So here are the basics of how I prepare breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for myself for an entire week. It might not be the best system but hey, it works for me, and I'd love to hear suggestions on what works for you!

Meal planning for me revolves primarily around the fresh fruit and vegetables that I get from Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op. That shit has an expiration date, so I start there. I make a list of all of the produce that I have to use and then I just... look at it. I start putting things together that sound good and crossing them off of the list. Sometimes I'll search for something on Pinterest or one of my go-to food blogs for inspiration, and that is so helpful! Eventually I’ll have a list of dishes that use up all of my fresh produce. I also try my hardest to only include grains, beans, nuts or protein sources that I already have in the house.

Makes perfect sense to everyone right?

This week I made a menu consisting of the following.

• Mostly egg white breakfast sandwich
• Roasted Vegetables w\ quinoa and Boca's Original Vegan patties ( I prefer these because of the higher protein & fiber content, but hey.. whatever!)
• Fruit Salad (take some fruit, chop it up) I usually put this together with unsweetened Greek yogurt, and almonds. Sorry, no pics.. this is pretty self explanatory.
• Cottage cheese with avocado, green onions and sriracha. NEED I SAY MORE.
• Salad: made with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted corn, green onions and ranch dressing I made with Greek yogurt. So good, If I had a recipe, I would post it. But sorry, I that's not how I roll.

I also planned on making a cabbage soup and pre-packaging a ton of cut up melon so it is easier to grab and go. But waking up to a clean kitchen took precedence on this particular night.

Once I know what I'm cooking, it's time to start chopping! I've been lucky enough that I can recruit my husband to help me with this, we try to set aside one day to prepare all of our meals for the week. So while this might have taken me 2-3 hours, keep in mind we prepared breakfast, lunch/dinner, salad and snacks for both of us for the next 6 days.

First things first, I started cleaning and chopping all of the vegetables so I could roast them in the oven. I have a crazy spice cabinet so I usually just throw some salt free seasonings on there until I think it tastes good. Today, I would like to note for the record that garam masala was a mistake. I might wind up covering this in Tapatio and calling it a day.

Hello sweetie...

I usually roast my vegetables at a high heat (425 - 450) or until they're a little caramelized but not too soft. NEVER too soft, that's what she said.

Husbandly labor... there's nothing better.

While I work on the vegetables and quinoa for the lunches/dinners, Bryant works on chopping all the vegetables for the salads.

 Contrary to what I always tell myself, this is always much more work than I imagine it will be. So I accept all the help he's willing to provide graciously. Besides, he wouldn't eat otherwise! (loooove you!)

I move on to preparing our snacks, in this case the avocado and cottage cheese dish. I dice all my avocados and give them a rinse in lime juice so they don't brown.

'Hallelujah' was written about avocados. Little known fact.

Then I measure out 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, I take some green onions out of the freezer (don't judge me!) sprinkle half an avocado on each serving and drizzle a totally unmoderate amount of sriracha.

Sweet baby Jesus, have you ever seen anything more beautiful? I think not.

Now I start putting together lunches & dinners. I put my Boca burgers in the tupperware frozen (don't judge me)

Then I pile on the quinoa that I prepared (sorry, no pictures. I was losing daylight here). A pretty easy recipe that consisted of cooking quinoa in a spicy tomato sauce. I put some spicy pickled carrots in there because I'm a weirdo.

The husband, being extra special that he is, got an extra serving of black beans and jalapenos. Since I'm watching my calories I measure out all of my carbs, which makes me sound like a total douche I know.
Just so you know, beans are tasty!!!

Remember those vegetables we set to roast, I know I do!

I pile those seasoned vegetables on top of the quinoa and I'm almost ready to call it a day!

Ovum: it's what's for breakfast.

On to breakfast! This week I'm scrambling 4 egg whites with 1 egg yolk for a breakfast sandwich. I use the Oroweat Sandwich Thins mostly because that is what I have in the freezer. I definitely like the thinner bun concept, in my opinion, there is always "too much fuckin' bread on this sandwich", but these taste a little too sweet for me. But hey, beggars can't be choosers!

I think we all know how to scramble eggs. If you don't, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry.

Here's the finished product! In the morning I heat these up on my weird thin buns (that's what she said) and chow down.

Voila!

Holy crap! look we're already done! Here's some salads packed using the salad in a jar method, as well as all of our lunch/dinner meals, breakfasts and snacks.

I'm sure all of your kitchens are perfectly spotless now! Just like mine....

-Amanda