Meal Prep and A Few Favorites

Sunday has become the standard house chore day around here.  We've settled into quite a nice routine.  He takes care of the lawns I take care of the grocery shopping and meal prep.  Somewhere in between laundry gets done (he does most of it, I won't like) and I do light cleaning.

This whole meal prep thing has been quite awesome for us during the busy week, we have late nights and it makes it super simple.  We've found a couple of really good staples that hold up well and today I shared them on my Facebook page, but I thought I should do something a little more detailed, so that's what this blog post has turned into.

French Onion Chicken
(2) Chicken Breasts (boneless, skinless)
(1) packet dry french onion soup mix
(1) teaspoon melted coconut oil

In a large Ziploc bag, place the chicken and melted coconut oil, I like to give the breast a little massage to work in the oil (hey, you...get you head out of the gutter).  Then sprinkle the entire packet of dry onion soup mix into the bag.  Leave some air, seal and shake, shake, shake.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes (depending on the thickness of your chicken)

Serve with brown rice and it's almost as good as mom's Chicken & Rice Casserole from my childhood.

Ranch Chicken
Same as French Onion except replace the soup mix with a packet of dry Hidden Valley Ranch mix.

Italian Bread Crumb Chicken
Same as the other two, but with about 1/4 - 1/3 cup dry Italian bread crumbs, salt and pepper.

Fake Chipotle Bowl (Real Fake)
(1) package 93/7 ground beef
(1) can whole black beans
(3) tablespoons Trader Joe's Cowboy Caviar
(1/2) cup medium salsa
(2) tablespoons jalapeno juice (I just took it straight out of the jar of jalapenos)
(1) packet taco seasoning

Brown beef, then add everything else until hot.  Use this filling for burritos, tacos, alone or bowls.  I like to add a little brown rice, avocado, sour cream and shredded lettuce to this mix.

Fake Mashed Potatoes (aka Cauliflower Mash)
3/4 of larger head of cauliflower
(2) tablespoons light sour cream
(2) tablespoons land o'lakes light butter with canola oil
salt
garlic powder (or fresh garlic)
pepper

Cook the cauliflower as normal, pat dry, the mix/pulverize in a Ninja (or other similar device...BUT...be warned a regular run of the mill blender will NOT work) with all of the rest of the ingredients.  This is slight thinner than mashed potatoes, but tastes delish!  1/2 of this recipe is only 150 calories!!

Another thing I've been making ahead is a large fruit salad.  Watermelon, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, grapes and pineapple.  I use a large bowl and keep a measuring cup in it.  Makes it super easy to scoop out into a bowl, baggie, Tupperware, etc.

Other prep ahead items:

• Hard boiled eggs
• Carrot sticks (yes, I buy whole carrots and cut them - it's cheaper and tastes better) - I cut each carrot and bag it in a snack bag
• Snap pea, celery, cucumber - any grab an go veggie gets bagged into single serving snack bags
• Oatmeal - single serve baggies (oatmeal, cinnamon, brown sugar) 

This makes it easy so we can just grab and go in the morning.

For dinners I'm relying on bagged salad mixes, steamer veggies and brown rice bags (the ones that you get from Trader Joe's and you just cut the corner and microwave for 3 minutes)  So it has started to make dinner less of a hectic "I don't know what do you want..." moment and just a quick, easy, and mostly healthy meal.