Category food-prep

Hi friends!

Just popping in with a very special announcement. My new ebook – Freezer Magic is now available to purchase! I’ve been working hard on this ebook over the past 3 months – writing the content, choosing the recipes, testing and photographing the recipes and just overall working to make it the best resource it can be for you guys.

Freezer meals are one of the most requested topics from you guys and with baby 3 on the way, it seemed like the perfect time for me to gather all my thoughts and share my favorite tips, tricks and recipes. Here’s what you’ll find inside:

There are over 50 recipes in the book, including 20 that aren’t on the blog- everything from breakfasts to snacks to dinners to help you stock your freezer. I even put together 7 power prep sessions that give you a list of meals to prep, along with a grocery list, suggested plan of attack and recipe cards so you can knock out a bunch of meals or snacks all at once!

 

This week only, Freezer Magic is on sale for $12.99. On Friday, the price will increase to $14.99. OR if you haven’t checked out my first ebook – The Ultimate Guide to Food Prep, you can snag both for $19.99 this week only!

To purchase, click the buttons below!

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Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

 LEARN HOW FOOD AFFECTS YOUR BODY.

Get my free Table Talk email series where I share bite-sized nutrition information about carbs, protein, and fat, plus bonus information about snacks and sugar!

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An example from a Registered Dietitian showing you How To Food Prep – Step By Step. I share what I prepped in 2 hours for a healthy week and what order I did things in so that I could utilize my time most efficiently.

Hi friends!

A lot of you seem to like to watch me food prep over on Instagram Stories so I’ve been trying to be more intentional about showing you my step by step process so that  you can see exactly what order I do things, and how I utilize my time to make the most of my food prep sessions. Here’s an example of a prep session I did a few weeks ago.

If this post is helpful to you, you’ll love my Mastering Food Prep course. I teach you the five steps to food prep, plus I talk about meal prep beyond dinner, give you tips for adding variety, talk about flexible meal prep and food safety and cover some of the most common roadblocks to food prep.  I also have an ebook called Ultimate Guide to Food Prep.

So, typically we go to the grocery store on Saturday but on this particular weekend, we didn’t go until Sunday afternoon. I had some time in the morning so I used what I had on hand to get some prep out of the way before we even went to the store.

Sunday morning is the perfect time for me to bake with the kiddos. We started the day by making some Coconut Oil Banana Muffins. Once those were in the oven, I sent the kids off to play and I started some farro on the stovetop and chopped carrots, sweet potatoes and potatoes so they’d be ready to roast in the oven once the muffins were done. It only takes 5 min or so to chop them up and then it’s just a matter of sticking them in the oven and stirring once or twice. Very hands off.

After we made it to the grocery store, I started my second round of food prep. I roasted some green beans and broccoli first.

Earlier in the morning I ended up roasting the white potatoes and carrots in the oven together but ran out of time for the sweet potatoes so I just saved those for the afternoon session. While the broccoli and beans were roasting, I chopped some delicata squash and tomatillos to roast next, along with the sweet potatoes. I also chopped up our snacking veggies.

After the next round of veggies were in the oven, I put some rice in the Instant Pot to cook, prepped my kale, and made a batch of Pumpkin Yogurt Bars so they’d be ready to go in the oven.

After I put the bars into the oven, I put some chicken breasts in the instant pot, made a marinade for my pork tenderloin and used the tomatillos I roasted to make a Spicy Green Sauce.

So to recap, this is what I prepped during my morning session: roasted carrots and potatoes, Coconut Oil Banana Muffins and farro.

And then I spent about an hour and 15 minutes after grocery shopping making all of this: roasted sweet potatoes, green beans, squash and broccoli, snacking veggies, kale, spicy green sauce, rice, pumpkin yogurt bars, pork marinade and shredded chicken.

The last thing I did was make a batch of Carrot Oat Bars with the carrots I roasted in the morning, since they’re my daughter’s favorite snack.

Then I like to give a breakdown of what I prepped in different groups and share how I cook everything. I do my rice in the Instant pot and store in a stasher bag. I do my farro on the stove and my potatoes in the oven. These are all quick and easy carb sources that my Type 1 diabetic husband can measure easily for his meals.

I always roast a lot of veggies to make them easy to reheat in the microwave and add to the kids’ plates and ours, plus raw veggies for snacking and kale that my hubby uses for salads.

I love putting my Spicy Green Sauce on chicken and veggie bowls throughout the week and I use the shredded chicken to make all sorts of stuff for the kids. My hubby grills the pork tenderloin, or I pan sear it and roast in the oven. We usually do that on Monday or Tuesday night.

And finally, I always like to have baked goods on hands for snacks and breakfasts for the kids (and for mama!). I made my Coconut Oil Banana Muffins with avocado oil and added some hemp seeds.

I made the Carrot Oat Bars for my little one. I make them dairy-free with Bolthouse Farms pea milk and I always add hemp seeds.

And for the Pumpkin Yogurt Bars, I added hemp and flax and chocolate chips this time.

Here it is all together:

View this post on Instagram

Today’s #foodprep – watch my stories (also saved in my highlights) to see how I did this in a little over 2 hours- split into an AM & PM session, plus links and cooking directions! I made: Coconut Oil Banana Muffins, Spicy Green Sauce, GF Pumpkin Yogurt Bars, roasted potatoes, farro, instant pot shredded chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted green beans & broccoli, cinnamon & sugar delicata squash, kale, Carrot Oat Bars, pork tenderloin marinade, snacking veggies & rice.

A post shared by Lindsay L, RD (@theleangreenbean) on Sep 23, 2018 at 2:42pm PDT

So there you go! Hope that was helpful!! If you’re looking for more info about how we use the food I prep during the week, check out this post: 

A Week of Component Food Prep {and How To Use It} where I share my food prep and then exactly how we used it for meals during the week and how much we had leftover at the end of the week!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

LEARN HOW FOOD AFFECTS YOUR BODY.

Get my free Table Talk email series where I share bite-sized nutrition information about carbs, protein, and fat, plus bonus information about snacks and sugar!

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Here’s a week of component food prep from a Registered Dietitian and how to use it to make quick, healthy meals during the week!

Hi friends!

I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a while now and I finally got my act together. You guys know I love food prep. You may also know that I don’t typically prep full meals…instead, I prep components and then throw them together, as well as cook some new things, to make meals during the week. Last week I documented what I prepped and then all of our meals so I could show you how I use what I prep throughout the week.

If you’re not already, be sure to follow me on Instagram, where I share my food prep sessions on Sundays, plus meals during the week.

So here’s what I prepped on Sunday:

I made:

• Sweet Potato Muffins
• Carrot Oat Bars
• snacking veggies
• massaged kale
• roasted broccoli & sweet potatoes
• Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Pancakes
• Thai Chili Salmon
• roasted potatoes
• Farro
• roasted green beans
• rice
• Sweet Potato Banana Bites
• Salsa Verde Chicken
• Not pictured: BBQ mushroom chicken that was in the crockpot

On my Instagram stories, I shared exactly how I prepped everything. In case you don’t follow me there, I grabbed screenshots of the process so here’s what I did:

One of my favorite food prep tips is to think about what you can do ahead of time what takes minimal effort. On Saturday evening I had about an hour before we were headed to a dinner party. I turned on the oven, dumped a bag of baby carrots on one pan and put 5 sweet potatoes on another pan and stuck them both in the oven at 400 degrees. Literally took 1 minute of effort and by the time we were ready to leave, they were both done and in the fridge, ready for me to use in the morning. I also pulled one of my freezer crockpot dump meals out of the freezer and stuck it in the fridge.

So, when I woke up Sunday morning, I turned on the oven first thing and dumped the crockpot meal into the crockpot. While my kids were eating breakfast, I spent 5 minutes chopping the sweet potatoes and regular potatoes and stuck them in the oven to roast.

While those veggies were roasting, I got out the carrots I’d roasted the night before and whipped up a batch of Carrot Oat Bars. As soon as the veggies were done, I stuck the carrot bars in the oven, rinsed the food processor and used one of the sweet potatoes I’d cooked the night before to make the batter for my Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Pancakes. I cooked those on the griddle while the bars were in the oven.

I had about 5 minutes left before the bars were done so I chopped up a head of broccoli and snipped the ends off green beans to get them ready to go in the oven. I also dumped some rice in the Instant Pot (I do 1 cup white rice to 1.5 cups water for 7 minutes, quick release) and started some farro on the stove. I put the farro and water in a pot, cover, bring to a boil, crack the lid, reduce heat and simmer for 12 minutes, then drain the water.

After I took the bars out and put the veggies in (I spray with avocado oil, and roast at 400 for 12-15 minutes), Little Miss and I made some Cinnamon Raisin Sweet Potato Muffins. I subbed chocolate chips for raisins. We had them ready to go into the oven as soon as the veggies were done.

While the muffins were baking, I did some dishes, started transferring stuff to my Pyrex containers. I can’t find my exact set but this is a similar set of Pyrex containers (aff link)  and made a batch of my Sweet Potato Banana Bites. We were out of chocolate chips so I added frozen wild blueberries and chocolate covered chia seeds from Salba Chia.

Once I put the sweet potato bites in, I threw some chicken into the Instant Pot with a package of Frontera enchilada sauce that my mom bought sometime while visiting. The chicken breasts were thick so I cooked them for 16 minutes and then shredded.

I also put some salmon on a pan, added a little sweet thai chili sauce and had it ready to go in the oven when the sweet potato bites were done.

The last thing I did was chop some veggies for snacking and prep the kale. I remove the stems, chop it up, wash it and spin it dry, then put it in a ziploc, drizzle a little avocado oil on it and massage it until it starts to soften.

Once everything was done, here’s what it looked like. Plus the bbq chicken and mushrooms that was still in the crockpot. (Recipe will be in my freezer ebook) Since most of these are components, I wanted to show you guys how we used the food I prepped throughout the week to make quick meals.

The baked goods are often eaten for breakfast and snacks. Both my kids eat Dole peaches in 100% juice and yogurt almost every morning. Then we change things up with either a fried egg and toast, pb&J toast, oatmeal etc. My youngest usually eats a muffin. She also eats 2 carrot oat bars when she wakes up from her afternoon nap every single day. I usually eat a fried egg on toast with avocado and a muffin for breakfast every day. My husband doesn’t eat breakfast.

Everything in red in the meals below is from my food prep session.

On Monday, for lunch, the kids at some of the shredded chicken, with cheese in a taco. They each had a clementine and Squish had sweet potato bites while Little Miss had a carrot bar. I made a bowl with farro, shredded chicken and roasted sweet potatoes. I topped it with avocado, salsa and chips. My husband had to run out to get lunch between work meetings. He usually comes home for lunch since his office is close to home.

For dinner, I made a package of cheese ravioli from the freezer and the kids both ate that, plus a sweet potato cottage cheese pancake, banana with peanut butter and some leftover Braciole (stuffed flank steak) that we brought home from dinner at my in-laws on Saturday. I have the recipe for Braciole on the blog. I made quick soup using some shredded chicken and roasted carrots, plus some Lotus Foods ramen and chicken broth but only ended up eating about half of it (thanks pregnancy). My husband had leftover braciole, some roasted broccoli, farro and snacking veggies, plus fruit.

On Tuesday, for lunch the kids had naan pizza. I usually have mini naan bread in the freezer so I just pulled a couple pieces out, microwaved to thaw, topped with hummus, some shredded chicken and cheese. Squish had his with carrots and ranch and apple slices with peanut butter. Lyssie had hers with roasted sweet potatoes and strawberries. I had a couple sweet potato pancakes, plus a few omelet spirals that I made that morning to shoot for the blog. My husband had shredded bbq chicken and mushrooms, rice and broccoli plus fruit.

For dinner, my hubby grilled a few burgers and a package of chicken we bought over the weekend. The kids each had half a cheeseburger, avocado toast and sweet potato bites for dinner (plus Little Miss had some roasted potatoes. I had another bowl with farro, shredded chicken, roasted sweet potatoes and roasted green beans topped with salsa, avocado and chips. My hubby had a burger, roasted potatoes and snacking veggies and strawberries.

On Wednesday, we went to the bakery after swimming. For lunch the kids had pb&j on farmhouse white bread from the bakery (they typically eat Dave’s Killer Bread), veggie straws, clementines and sweet potato bites. I had some of the bbq chicken and mushrooms on a bun+ snacking veggies. Hubby had a burger, plus green beans, rice, kale and snacking veggies and some strawberries.

For dinner, I made a box of mac and cheese. I added some of the roasted broccoli and leftover grilled chicken to it. Plus they had roasted sweet potatoes and strawberries. I had mac and cheese with some of the shredded chicken and roasted sweet potatoes plus a few sweet potato pancakes and leftover omelet spirals. Hubby had leftover grilled chicken, plus farro, roasted potatoes and green beans.

On Thursday, for lunch turkey and hummus sandwiches, leftover ravioli, some sweet potato chips I’d tested for the blog that morning, a green bean and leftover omelet spiral. I had a bowl with farro, green beans and shredded chicken and hubby had leftover grilled chicken with bbq sauce plus rice and broccoli.

For dinner, Squish had a date with pb, cottage cheese, hb egg and bbq chicken and mushrooms on a bun. Little Miss had an egg, roasted potatoes, shredded chicken and sweet potato bites. I had two eggs on avocado toast and hubby had 3 eggs, avocado toast and some roasted potatoes and kale.

Here’s what was left from my food prep session after dinner on Thursday night:

• some kale
• about 1 cup rice
• 2 muffins
• a few sweet potato bites
• about a cup of potatoes
• some shredded bbq chicken and mushrooms
• a few broccoli stalks
• some chicken (which wasn’t cooked until Tuesday and not part of my Sunday prep).

On Friday for lunch, Little Miss had a muffin and roasted potatoes, plus turkey and leftover tortellini. Squish had apples with pb, Love Grown sea stars cereal, tortellini, turkey and sweet potato bites. I had an egg on toast with pumpkin energy balls. Hubby had chicken, rice and potatoes, kale, hummus and veggies and strawberries.

We always go out to dinner Friday night….so after lunch on Friday, here’s all that was left:

• 1 muffin
• 5 sweet potato bites
• 1 cup kale
• 1 cup bbq chicken and mushrooms
• 1/2 cup rice
• (plus some grilled chicken).

Here’s a side by side of what we prepped and what we ended with:

A few notes:

• We obviously don’t mind repeating the same meals a few times during the week, but the beauty of component food prep is that you can do that, or put it together in different ways and flavor differently using sauces etc.
• No, our family does not all eat the exact same meal every night. I realize this isn’t the norm but it works for us. Because of the component food prep I do, it’s easy for me to quickly throw together different combinations as shown above in the same amount of time as it would take for me to make one dish for all of us to eat.
• No I don’t prep every single thing we eat all week. You can see that I cooked a few things during the week. I use food prep to help me but don’t think you need to prep every morsel of food for the week in order for it to be successful.
• We do a pretty good job of not wasting food, but it does take a little practice to understand your family’s needs. I always suggest under prepping as you learn what works for you and then slowly increase the amount you prep until you find what works best.
• Most weeks, the majority of the food I prep Sunday nights is gone by Thursday. Most leftovers are good in the fridge for 3-4 days. We typically stretch it to 5 days but it’s certainly up to you and your food safety comfort level when it comes to food prep. If you like to err on the safer side, you can prep enough to get you through Wednesday as well as a freezer meal that you could thaw overnight and cook to eat on Thursday. It’s all about finding what works for you and your family!
• If you want to see how much of the meals my kids actually eat, be sure to follow me on Instagram. I share before and afters of their plates for most lunches and dinners.

 

Hope this helped!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

LEARN HOW FOOD AFFECTS YOUR BODY.

Get my free Table Talk email series where I share bite-sized nutrition information about carbs, protein, and fat, plus bonus information about snacks and sugar!

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This Spicy Green Sauce is made with roasted tomatillos, avocado and just a few other ingredients. Combine them all in the blender for a simple, flavorful sauce that’s good on everything from chicken to vegetables!

Hi friends!

Meet my newest obsession – spicy green sauce. If you follow me on Instagram or checked out my recent post with Easy Lunch Bowls, you know that I’ve been putting this on literally everything.

It’s SO easy to make and adds a delicious spice and flavor to anything you put it on. Plus it keeps well in the fridge so you can make a batch over the weekend and use it all week long.

Spicy Green Sauce

This sauce came about a few weeks ago when I bought some tomatillos to make homemade salsa verde…and then realized I didn’t have any cilantro for that. So I threw in an avocado instead, along with some onions, garlic and a serrano pepper and boom! This sauce was born.

This recipe is very forgiving. Exact measurements aren’t required. You could also add a splash of lime juice if you wanted. I love this for breakfast on scrambled eggs, for lunch on bowls full of roasted veggies and for dinner over things like chicken, meatballs and more!

You could even use it to make things like enchiladas or tuna salad.

Here’s how you make it:

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Spicy Green Sauce

Print Recipe

★★★★★

5 from 1 review

This Spicy Green Sauce is made with roasted tomatillos, avocado and just a few other ingredients. Combine them all in the blender for a simple, flavorful sauce that’s good on everything from chicken to vegetables!

• Author: Lindsay
• Prep Time: 5 min
• Cook Time: 20 min
• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: Makes 2 cups 1x

Ingredients

Scale1x2x3x

• 1 pound tomatillos
• 1 avocado (small to medium size)
• 1 small onion (about 2/3 cup roughly chopped)
• 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 serrano pepper

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Line a baking sheet with foil. Peel the papery skin off the tomatillos and cut into quarters. 

Roast at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes. 

Let cool for about 10 minutes. 

Pour roasted tomatillos (and the liquid on the pan) into a blender. 

Add onion, garlic, avocado and pepper. 

Blend until well mixed. Makes about 2 cups

Store in the fridge for up to a week.

Notes

So easy right? If you’ve never bought tomatillos, I get them at my regular grocery store in the same aisle as the bell peppers, jalapenos, serrano peppers etc.

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”Try this Spicy Green Sauce, made with roasted tomatillos and avocado, on everything from chicken to roasted vegetables!” quote=”Try this Spicy Green Sauce, made with roasted tomatillos and avocado, on everything from chicken to roasted vegetables!”]

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

LEARN HOW FOOD AFFECTS YOUR BODY.

Get my free Table Talk email series where I share bite-sized nutrition information about carbs, protein, and fat, plus bonus information about snacks and sugar!

EmailEnter your email here …Yes, I Want This!

I challenged myself to 6 months of food prep. That means every weekend for six months straight, I spent at least some time prepping food for the week ahead. Here’s what I learned and why I recommend it.

Hi friends!

Can you believe we’re already halfway through 2017? I thought I would pop in today to tell you about a little goal I set for myself way back in January. You guys know I’ve been a huge fan of food prep forever right? I think that it’s something almost everyone can benefit from and it’s my number one tip when it comes to healthy eating.

When Little Miss was born in November of last year, I (not surprisingly) had several weeks where I didn’t do any food prep. I had stocked the freezer in preparation, my parents were in town, my husband was off work, etc so it wasn’t really a huge deal. However, as the new year approached, I knew I would need to get back on track at some point. I’m not a huge goal setter, but I challenged myself to do at least a little food prep every weekend for the first 6 months of the year to help make life a little easier.

In January, we had a 7-week old baby and a 2-year-old toddler. My husband and I were both working full-time, I was watching the kids full-time and we also owned a CrossFit gym. There’s no question we were busy but there’s also no doubt that food prep was a huge help.

Here’s what so many weeks in a row taught me:

• It really does become a habit. Sure there were weeks when I didn’t want to do it, but for the most part, after a few weeks I just automatically started thinking of it as part of my Sunday schedule and making time to fit it into my day.
• You just have to start. Some weeks were easy, some weeks were hard. There were weeks when I prepped food with a screaming baby in the Ergo and a screaming toddler at my feet. There were weeks when I had to prep on Monday morning because we were too busy or the kids skipped their naps. There were weeks when I was so tired that standing around in the kitchen was the absolute last thing wanted to do. But I did some. Every week. And most weeks I found that if I just committed to half an hour, it wasn’t so bad and I usually got into a groove and ended up doing more. And I never regretted it.
• We struggle without it. There are a lot of different ways to food prep. You can prep whole meals, meal components, just one meal or snack, etc. I tend to focus a lot on snacks, breakfasts for Squish and dinner components. When I don’t do food prep, there are a lot more toddler meltdowns because I can’t get his meals and snacks ready as quickly. I find myself doing more mindless eating and grazing because I don’t have healthy snacks easily accessible to keep me full. And we often end up eating out much more frequently because I’m too tired or too busy or too lazy to put together dinner if I don’t have a food prep head start.

So, the bottom line is…anyone CAN do food prep. Even if you’re busy or tired…you just have to make it a priority. But I promise it’ll pay off.

Just to be clear, no I don’t think you need to do it EVERY single weekend to be successful. Take a weekend off here or there if you need to, but I do encourage you to make it part of your regular routine! If you want more food prep tips, check out my ebook: The Ultimate Guide To Food Prep or any of the other food prep posts I’ve written. I also have a Freezer Magic ebook full of freezer-friendly recipes.

I rounded up all 26 of my food prep photos in case you want a closer look at what I typically prep or need some ideas! I also linked to the blog post I wrote for each week. Some have further details about our week including pictures of what I ended up making for meals with the food I prepped so feel free to check them out!

Week 1

• Tuna Salad
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Instant Pot Almond Butter Chicken (was just ok. never ended up perfecting the recipe.
• Instant Pot Pulled Pork Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
• Squash Yogurt Dip
• Carrots & Greek Hummus Topping for snacking
• Salsa Verde – Just cut about 10 tomatillos in half and roasted them at 400 for 20 min, drained the liquid and put them in the blender with some chopped onion, garlic, jalapeno and cilantro.
• Enchiladas – I mixed homemade salsa verde with pulled pork, black beans, red peppers, onions and cheese and used it as the filling for my enchiladas. Just portion it into a few tortillas, put some enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan, add the rolled up tortillas, top with more sauce and cheese and bake covered with foil at 350 for about 25 min.

Week 2

• Carrots
• Asian chicken noodle soup. (Another recipe that’s still on my list to perfect enough to share – basically chicken noodle soup except with extra veggies, ginger, some soy sauce and rice noodles)
• Zoodles for this Chicken Sausage Skillet
• Lettuce for salads
• Sweet potatoes – just slice a few slits and microwave 2 at a time for 6-7 minutes
• Double batch of these Paleo Turkey Sweet Potato Meatballs – stuffed w/ mozzarella cheese
• PB Banana Oat Muffins – in a mini muffin tin
• Whole Wheat Yogurt Waffles – prepped for the freezer

Week 3

• A double batch of Sweet Potato Protein Cookies (small ones for Squish to eat for snacks, big ones for me to eat for early breakfast when baby wakes up)
• Egg wraps
• Guacamole
• Chicken Avocado Burgers (except I used turkey)
• Veggie burger and egg bake (just chopped up 2 veggie burgers, mixed and poured 6 eggs over and topped with cheese. Baked at 375 for 20 min).
• Greek hummus topping and carrots
• Instant Pot Beef Stew

Week 4

• Lentil Veggie Curry
• Carrots for snacking
• Banana pb sandwiches – freeze for a quick snack
• Shrimp sauteed with garlic and thai chili sauce
• Greek Hummus Topping
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Waffle french toast – just dip bread in a mixture of eggs and milk and cook on a waffle iron.
• Tuna mixed with hummus & avocado and stuffed in mini bell peppers
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Roasted potatoes

Week 5

• Chicken Orzotto (chicken, peppers, onions and peas with some orzo cooked right in the skillet)
• Dairy-Free Lactation cookies
• Lettuce
• Garlic shrimp (just sauteed with some garlic and paprika)
• Meatballs (just baked them in the oven instead of crockpot)
• Leftover Sausage and Wild Rice Stuffing from Thanksgiving (thawed from the freezer)
• Instant Pot Shredded Chicken (chicken + broth for about 10 min)
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Carrots
• Egg Wraps
• Greek Hummus Topping

Week 6

• Roasted squash
• Cheese stuffed meatballs – just basic meatballs with chunks of cut up string cheese in each one
• Sweet Potatoes
• Hummus topping
• Roasted green beans – tossed in Italian dressing and roasted at 425 for 10 minutes or so
• Homemade guac
• Carrots for snacking
• Popcorn Snack Mix

Week 7

• Bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin
• Instant pot shredded chicken
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Carrots
• Lettuce for salad
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins
• Asian Chicken Noodle Soup

Week 8

• Thai Chicken Meatballs
• Dairy-Free Lactation Cookies
• Carrots & Sweet Potatoes
• Asian Chicken Noodle Soup
• Egg wraps
• PB Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal for Squish
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins 

Week 9

• Instant Pot Hummus Chicken
• Cottage cheese bisquick pancakes- just replaced 3/4 cup of the milk with cottage cheese to make Bisquick pancakes as directed
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Tuna salad
• Egg Wraps
• Hummus topping
• Meatloaf- random recipe my sister chose to make while she was here
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Chopped veggies and lettuce

Week 10

• Carrots, peppers & hummus topping for snacking
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Pulled pork in the Instant Pot
• Roasted sweet potatoes & green beans
• Chicken stuffed with fresh spinach & mozzarella cheese
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Egg wraps
• Lettuce
• Guacamole

Week 11

• Instant Pot Asian Chicken
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins
• Lettuce, Peppers, Carrots & Hummus Topping
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Lemon Energy Balls
• No Bake Protein Bars
• PB Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
• Thai Chicken Meatballs
• Guacamole
• Roasted sweet potatoes and regular potatoes

Week 12

• Instant Pot Beef Stew
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Salsa Verde Chicken Casserole
• Lemon Energy Balls
• Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken Thighs (to drop off for a friend with a new baby. I also made her some Freezer Chicken Tenders for her toddler and some Lactation Cookies)
• Hummus Topping
• Waffle French Toast (just french toast made on a waffle maker
• Oven Baked Bacon (400 degrees for about 12 minutes)
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Cucumbers & Lettuce

Week 13

• Instant Pot Asian Chicken
• Bacon
• Hummus Topping
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Asian Shrimp Noodle Soup (no recipe)
• Veggies
• Pulled Pork (to go in that empty container. It was still cooking)’

Week 14

• GF Pumpkin  Yogurt Bars
• GF Sweet Potato Brownies
• Hummus Topping
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Carrots
• Egg Wraps
• Oatmeal

Week 15

• Egg Wraps
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins
• Veggies
• Guac
• Instant Pot Hummus Chicken
• Sweet Potato Bites

Week 16

• Sweet Potato Bites
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Instant Pot Shredded Chicken
• Carrots and Cucumbers cut into fun shapes for Squish
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Hummus Topping
• French Toast Waffles
• Baked Fish – to use for fish tacos
• Blueberry Cauliflower Freezer Smoothie Packs
• Veggies
• Bisquick Banana Pancakes – mixed mashed bananas, some yogurt, some bisquick and a splash of milk

Week 17

• Green beans
• Mediterranean Turkey for Salad
• Green Smoothie Snack Bars
• Greek Shrimp & Farro
• Carrots
• Lemon Energy Balls
• Sweet & Spicy Popcorn Snack Mix
• Hummus Topping
• Lettuce

Week 18

• Instant Pot Asian Chicken
• Dairy-Free Lactation Cookies
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• French Toast Waffles
• 5 Min Breakfast Hash
• Carrots
• Sweet Potato Bites

Week 19

• 5 Minute Breakfast Hash
• Carrots
• Turkey Tenderloins in this marinade
• Lettuce
• BBQ Chicken for lettuce wraps – just baked chicken, peppers, onions, corn and black beans mixed with bbq sauce.
• Hummus topping
• Ground beef & mushrooms for tacos
• Corn on the cob and sweet potatoes for sides

Week 20

• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Carrots
• Lettuce
• Baked Chicken
• Roasted veggies for the babe
• Baked bacon
• Strawberry oatmeal for Squish
• Asian flank steak marinade
• Dairy-Free Lactation Cookies– this is actually the second half of a batch I made and frozen so I just pulled out the dough balls and baked them!
• 5 Minute Breakfast Hash
• Hummus Topping

Week 21

• Ground Beef
• Chopped veggies
• Lettuce
• Farro
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Hummus Topping
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Instant Pot Hummus Chicken
• Egg Wraps
• Roasted Potatoes
• Oatmeal

Week 22

• Hummus topper
• Chicken Avocado Burgers
• French Toast Waffles
• Nut-Free Toddler Traill Mix
• 5 Min Breakfast Hash
• Lettuce, Watermelon, Roasted Green Beans and Carrots
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins
• Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Farro
• Tuna with Hummus

Week 23

• Homemade Oat Cereal for the baby
• Chicken and Lentil Curry (similar to this except with chicken added
• Bacon
• Zucchini Carrot Apple Muffins
• Watermelon
• Hummus Topper
• 5 Minute Breakfast Hash
• Pesto Chicken Caprese Pasta (recipe coming soon!)
• Carrots

Week 24

• Carrots
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Lettuce
• Raspberry Cinnamon Oatmeal for baby
• Turkey Avocado Sliders
• Hummus Topping
• Pesto Chicken Caprese Pasta
• Sweet Potato Bites

Week 25

• Carrots and cucumbers for snacking
• Green beans with tomatoes and Italian dressing
• Lettuce for salads
• Baby bok choy sauteed with bacon, peppers and corn
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Hummus topping
• Grapes
• Microwaved sweet potato
• Roasted potatoes
• Extra bell peppers chopped and ready to be frozen for later

Week 26

• Hummus topping
• BBQ Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
• Whole Wheat Yogurt Waffles
• Extra smoothie frozen into cubes
• Roasted Carrots
• Tortellini
• Bacon
• Cauliflower Rice with butter, garlic and peas
• Enchiladas
• Sweet Potato Bites

 

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A Beginner’s Guide To Food Prep. Follow these 5 simple steps to learn how to food prep. They will help you get organized and prepared so that your time prepping food is more productive and less stressful. Plus a step-by-step example!

Hi friends!

Just popping in today to share a few quick tips for planning a food prep session, especially for all you beginners out there. A couple weeks ago I taught you guys how to really zone in and figure out what time of day you struggle with the most with eating healthy and I’m hoping some of you did that and are now ready to try food prep! If you’re still feeling a bit overwhelmed, follow these five steps to plan a food prep session that will run smoothly and be productive and organized!

A Beginner’s Guide To Food Prep

Are you ready? Here we go:

1. Narrow your focus. If you missed it, start by reading my post on how to find your food prep focus area). This is especially important for your first few food prep sessions. The number one reason people give up on food prep is that they try it once, get overwhelmed, spend way too long and get frustrated. And then they never do it again.
2. Plan it out. Do your research and pick a few recipes you want to make. Be sure to choose recipes that fit your focus area, whether it’s dinner, breakfast, snack time etc. Don’t forget to think about foods that aren’t really recipes but fit into your focus area like chopped veggies, hard boiled eggs etc.
3. Stock up. Make a list and grocery shop to get everything you need
4. Get organized. Divide your list into different sections: a) oven b)slow cooker/instant pot etc c) stovetop d) counter. Put everything on your recipe list into a section. Then make a plan about the order you want to do things in (see additional tips below). Be sure to prioritize in order of importance to you.
5. Get to work. Set a timer to see how long it takes you. If you’ve prioritized your list in order of importance, you can get the most important things done and then stop if it starts taking too long.

A few tips:

• Don’t go overboard. Most things will probably take you a little longer than you plan for, so don’t be too overzealous.
• Always focus on the oven first. Start by prepping something so it’s ready to go in as soon as the oven is preheated. As soon as you put something in, prep the next thing while it cooks so it’s ready to go in when the first thing is done. After you’re done prepping things for the oven, move on to things you can start working on the stovetop or in the crockpot or Instant Pot. And finally, fill in any extra time with things you can do on the counter like chopping veggies.
• Once you start to get the hang of it, you can expand your food prep. Either prep more stuff, or expand from your focus area and try making things for both breakfast AND dinner or lunch AND snack time.

Want an example? Here’s a hypothetical food prep session using these steps!

Step 1: You’ve done your homework and figured out that snack time is your problem area. You decide to do a food prep session to help you prepare some healthy snacks to have on hand for a busy week.

Step 2: After doing some online searching, you decide to prep the following:

• Lemon Energy Balls
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Egg Wraps
• Green Smoothie Snack Bars
• Nut-Free Toddler Trail Mix
• Hummus Topping

Step 3: You make a grocery list which might look something like:

• Dates
• Lemon
• Almonds
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Chia Seeds
• Eggs
• Peanut Butter
• Banana
• Sweet Potatoes
• Spinach
• Plain Yogurt
• Rolled Oats
• Maple Syrup
• Cereal
• Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds
• Red peppers
• Tomato
• Cucumber
• Onion
• Feta Cheese
• Hummus

Step 4: You divide your list into areas of the kitchen:

• Oven – Sweet Potato Bites, Green Smoothie Snack Bars
• Stove – Egg Wraps
• Counter – Lemon Energy Balls, Trail Mix, Hummus Topping

And then you plan things out, deciding that the sweet potato bites, snack bars, hummus topping and egg wraps are most important:

1. Preheat oven, prepare the batter for sweet potato bites. Chop some vegetables for the hummus topping if you have time before the oven is preheated.
2. Bake Sweet Potato Bites and prep Green Smoothie Bars. Finish chopping vegetables with the remaining time.
3. Remove Sweet Potato Bites and bake Green Smoothie Bars.
4. Make Egg Wraps.
5. Make Lemon Energy Balls
6. Make Trail Mix if time.

Step 5: Follow your plan! You should have time to make the sweet potato bites, hummus topping, green smoothie bars and egg wraps in an hour. If you have more time, keep going and make the energy balls and then you may or may not decide to skip the trail mix depending on how long you’ve been at it.

Make sense? Good! Now hop on the food prep train and go give it a try!

[clickToTweet tweet=”Follow these 5 simple steps to learn how to plan a successful food prep session!” quote=”Follow these 5 simple steps to learn how to plan a successful food prep session!”]

For more tips check out my How To Food Prep – 5 Tips For Beginners post or buy my Ultimate Guide To Food Prep ebook!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

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Here’s a food prep session breakdown – An in-depth look at what I prepped, the order I did things in and how I got it all done in one hour! Plus a look at the meals we ate during the week.

 

Hi friends!

One of the most frequent questions I get is how I can possibly get so much food prep done every Sunday. Let me start by saying that I’ve had a lot of practice. You shouldn’t look at one of my food prep sessions and think you’ll be able to do as much as I do on your first few tries. Just like anything else, it takes practice. Be sure to check out last week’s post about How To Find Your Food Prep Focus Area and this post with food prep tips for beginners if you’re just getting started.

Anyways, I thought it might be helpful to show you one of my prep sessions and then give you a by-the-minute- breakdown to show you the order I did things in and how long it took me.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Just how much food can you prep in an hour? Here’s a by-the-minute breakdown to show you!” quote=”Just how much food can you prep in an hour? Here’s a by-the-minute breakdown to show you!”]

So, a couple Sundays ago, I turned my camera on and started a timer to show you just how much you can get done in a one hour food prep session, even with toddler interruptions and a fussy baby. Here’s a timelapse of my hour of prep:

As you can see, you can get a lot done in an hour with a little practice! Here’s what I prepped:

• Ground Beef
• Chopped veggies
• Lettuce
• Farro
• Sweet Potato Bites
• Hummus Topping
• Sweet Potato Protein Cookies
• Instant Pot Hummus Chicken
• Egg Wraps
• Roasted Potatoes
• Oatmeal

And here’s the breakdown of how I did things:

Min 1-5: Preheat the oven, microwave sweet potatoes (I slice some slits in mine with a knife and microwave 2 of them at a time for 6 minutes, start the Instant Pot Hummus Chicken (just throw chicken, hummus, garlic and broth into the Instant Pot and start it), start farro on the stove.

Min 5-15: Peel and chop carrots & chop peppers for snacking. Start cooking ground beef in a cast iron skillet on the stove.

Min 15-20: Use one of the sweet potatoes you microwave to make the batter for the Sweet Potato Bites and spoon into mini muffin tins.  Drain the beef, finish cooking it and transfer to storage container. By now your oven should be preheated.

Min 20-30: Bake the sweet potato bites, deal with a fussy baby by putting her in the Ergo, chop veggies for Greek Hummus topping and shred the chicken when it finishes cooking.Min 30-40: Use the other sweet potato you microwaved to make the batter for the Sweet Potato Protein Cookies and scoop onto a cookie sheet.Min 40-50: Take the sweet potato bites out and put the sweet potato cookies into the oven, chop the lettuce, wash it and spin it dry and store it in a Ziploc bag. Make the oatmeal by combining oats, milk, chopped apples, cinnamon and peanut butter in a glass container and microwaving for about 3 minutes. Chop potatoes into small pieces, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt.Min 50-60: Take sweet potato cookies out, turn oven to 425 and stick potatoes in to roast. Make egg wraps while potatoes are roasting.

So there you go! Like I’ve mentioned before, I don’t prep every single thing we eat. I still cook during the week and we go out to eat a few times. But, to give you an idea of how we use the prep I do, I tried to take pictures of most of our meals for the following week. I missed a few…but this should give you a pretty good idea of how I use my prep to make life easier!

Monday:
Breakfast: Most weeks lately I’ve been making 5 Minute Breakfast Hash for hubby and I but I didn’t make any this week so we ate a few different things. This day we ate peanut butter toast (Crazy Richard’s Peanut Butter on Dave’s Killer Bread) and fruit, plus coffee (unpictured). Squish eats the oatmeal and eggs  I prep ahead of time cold so all I had to do was scoop some oatmeal onto his plate and add an egg and clementine.

Lunch: Hubby comes home for lunch since he works close by, but we all usually eat different things. I made Squish a quick quesadilla in the microwave with some of the ground beef I prepped and paired it with a lemon energy ball from the freezer (that I made in last week’s prep) and a sweet potato bite I prepped this week.  Hubby made a taco with some of the ground beef and added some of the hummus topping I prepped to the prepped lettuce for a quick salad. I ate some of the hummus chicken, the hummus topping and some Garden of Eatin’ tortilla chips.

Dinner: For dinner, I made a quick batch of Thai Chicken Meatballs after we got home from the gym. They take about 5 minutes to mix up and 20 minutes to bake. I paired it with some Steamfresh cauliflower rice for hubby and some of the farro I prepped for me….plus some roasted green beans that I threw in the oven on another baking sheet while the meatballs were cooking.  Squish got a meatball with some cauliflower rice, a sweet potato bite and some strawberries.

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Squish had a repeat of oatmeal, egg wrap and fruit. Hubby and I had avocado toast topped with a fried egg and fruit, plus one of my prepped sweet potato cookies for me!

Lunch: Hubby had some of the prepped hummus chicken and potatoes topped with avocado and some fruit. Chase had a leftover meatball with ketchup, clementine, Siggis 4% plain  yogurt and carrots with humms.  I had a repeat of Monday’s lunch – chicken, hummus topping and chips and turned them into Mediterranean chicken nachos.

Dinner: For dinner I used some of the thin-sliced chicken we bought, added some pesto, cheese and some bacon leftover from our breakfast for dinner on Sunday night to make Cheesy Pesto Chicken Rollups. Another easy dinner – 5 min to make, 20 min to bake. I paired with a side salad using the prepped lettuce and some cherry tomatoes and some prepped farro. Squish has some chicken, plus pears and a sweet potato that I microwaved while the chicken was cooking.

Wednesday:
Breakfast: All the egg wraps were gone so I changed things up and made him a warm fried egg. My friends at Dave’s Killer Bread started making bagels and they sent me some to try so I also gave him half a cinnmaon raisin bagel with peanut butter and some pears. I ate the other half of his pb bagel, plus an egg for myself and some coffee. Hubby got avocado toast with an egg.

Lunch: For lunch, Squish had the rest of his oatmeal, plus Plainville Farms turkey and applesauce. Hubby ate leftover pesto chicken and cauliflower rice and I ate leftover meatballs and green beans.

Dinner: We often go out to dinner on Thursday nights bc we don’t have to be at the gym but there were schedule changes this week so we decided to go out Wednesday night. I forgot to take pictures but Squish had half a ham and cheese sandwich with mandarin oranges and carrot sticks with ranch. I had a southwest chicken salad and hubby had a Korean hangar steak. Baby girl enjoyed sampling my arugula.

Thursday:
Breakfast: Squish had pears, pb&j toast and Love Grown Foods polar puffs. It was a crazy morning so all I had were 2 prepped sweet potato protein cookies and extra coffee. I quickly made some pb toast for hubby.

Lunch: Squish had the leftover half of his ham and cheese sandwich with strawberries and carrots. Hubby made a taco with the prepped beef and potatoes and a quick salad with the prepped lettuce and hummus topping. I used some of the prepped chicken and hummus topper to make a quesadilla and an apple. Later we shared a Blueberry Cauliflower Smoothie for a snack (I prep and portion these and put them in bags in the freezer so we just have to grab, dump in the blender, add liquid and blend.

Dinner: I tried out a new recipe – sheet pan honey lime shrimp – 2 min to prep and 10 to bake. It was ok but needs some work before sharing. Shrimp is not Squish’s favorite so he got hummus chicken with pickle, carrots and yogurt.

Friday:
Breakfast: Squish ate the last of his oatmeal with yogurt and fruit. Hubby and I had avocado toast with eggs.

Lunch: I have no clue. Hubby was off work and I can’t remember what we ate!

Dinner: We went to Buffalo Wild Wings after the gym. I got chicken tacos, Squish got naked chicken fingers with fruit and carrots and hubby got wings and cheesy potatoes.

Saturday:
We went out for a post-workout brunch at First Watch. I got avo toast with fried eggs, Squish got a scrambled egg with bacon and fruit and wheat toast and hubby got a bacon avocado omelet with potatoes.

That afternoon we went to a cookout with family and had burgers and brats.

As you can see, I still cook during the week but the prep helps meals come together more quickly and with less effort. Please also remember this isn’t all we eat. Snacks aren’t pictured and I eat a lot of them!

I hope this inspires you to try doing some food prep. I think sometimes it gets a bad rap because people feel like they have to prep every single thing they’re going to eat all week. Not true! Prepping full meals is great, but prepping components and various parts like I do can be just as helpful! When you get ready to prep, remember to keep multi-tasking in mind. You can have things going on the stove, oven and counter all at once!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

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Learn how to find your food prep focus area. Are you ready to try meal prep but feel overwhelmed? Use these tips to figure out how to focus your first few food prep sessions.

Hi Friends!

By now you guys probably know that I’m a food prep fanatic. I love sharing my weekly prep sessions with you guys but I get a lot of questions from people who have heard about food prep and want to try it, but feel very overwhelmed and aren’t sure where to start.

That’s what today’s post is all about. I want to teach you guys how to really zone in and get ready for a successful food prep session as a beginner.

Let me preface this by saying that I never prep every single thing we’re going to eat for the entire week. I don’t think it’s necessary. I also don’t always use this “focus area” method anymore. I’ve had a lot of practice and it’s not hard for me to prep a wide variety of stuff in a short amount of time. I do keep a few things in mind though: I prefer small meals + snacks vs big meals. I have a toddler that often needs to eat ASAP to avoid a meltdown. There are weeks when we’re at the gym until 7pm multiple nights. So, depending on our schedule, some weeks I focus more on dinner than others and most weeks I always make breakfasts and snacks a priority.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Want to try food prep but feel overwhelmed? Learn how to find your focus area to make it easier!” quote=”Want to try food prep but feel overwhelmed? Learn how to find your focus area to make it easier!”]

{A dinner-focused food prep of mine where I made a Maple Mustard Chicken Skillet, Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas, Guacamole, Roasted Squash with yogurt and BBQ Pork Stuffed Sweet Potatoes to reheat for dinners and Sweet Potato Bites, Hummus Topping & Carrots to snack on while getting dinner ready or to pack for snacking if we weren’t getting home until late to eat dinner.}

So here’s my challenge for you:

For the next few days, grab a notebook or your phone and make a note every time you find yourself eating something but wishing you had another option.

For example:

• You find yourself eating a bag of chips from the vending machine for a snack but you wish you had a protein bar, a hardboiled egg or some trail mix on hand.
• You’re eating dinner but don’t have any vegetables on your plate and wish you had a side salad.
• You need dinner in 20 minutes so you swing through the drive thru but wish you were eating at home.
• You eat a protein bar for breakfast but really wish you had a warm egg breakfast.
• You go out to lunch because you couldn’t find anything to pack the night before but you wish you had a healthy chicken wrap, some fruit, etc.

After a few days, go back and review the list.

Whatever meal/time of day has the most mentions is probably your biggest problem area and the one that you should choose to focus on in your first few food prep sessions.

Some common focus areas that I’ve helped people hone in on in the past include:

• Produce
• Meat
• Breakfast
• Snacks
• Packable Lunches
• Dinner

{A snack-focused prep of mine where I made Sweet Potato Brownies, Hummus Topping, Oatmeal, Egg Wraps, Carrots, Sweet Potato Protein Cookies & GF Pumpkin Yogurt Bars.}

Once you’ve found your focus area, make a plan for your food prep session that revolves just around that one area. The goal is to help you feel lazer-focused while prepping and not overwhelmed…and get enough prepped so that you notice how helpful it is during the week and are motivated to try again the next weekend.  Here are a couple hypothetical situations.

Situation #1

If you’ve realized that you really struggle with healthy snacks. You’re either making multiple trips to the vending machine each week, grabbing candy from the dish to snack on, or going hungry until dinner and then over-eating. So, make snacks your food prep focus area and do some research to find a few snack recipes to try. For example, you could plan to set aside an hour to do the following:

• Hard boil a dozen eggs.
• Peel and chop some carrots to eat with hummus.
• Make a batch of trail mix.
• Make a batch of sweet potato bites.
• Make a batch of lemon energy balls.

When it comes time to food prep, turn the oven on. Start the eggs on the stove. Make the batter for the sweet potato bites. Peel and chop the carrots. Stick the bites in the oven. While they’re cooking mix up your trail mix and portion it into baggies and make a batch of lemon energy balls in the food processor.

That’s it! It’s your first food prep session so don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do too much! For the upcoming week, you’ll now have a variety of snacks to choose from when you get hungry late morning or mid-afternoon. Take note of how you feel throughout the week having them on hand! It should inspire you to make time for food prep again next weekend!

{A lunch-focused food prep session of mine where I made beans, carrots and hummus topping, lemon energy balls, popcorn snack mix, lettuce, shrimp with farro, marinated turkey tenderloins and green smoothie snack bars. I cooked the turkey tenderloin early in the week and ate it over lettuce for salads, mixed the shrimp and farro with the hummus topping, ate slices of turkey tenderloin paired with beans and a snack bar or a couple energy balls, etc.}

Situation #2

You’re pretty good about eating breakfast and packing snacks. You have a few work engagements that require dinner out during the week so you really want to make sure you have healthy lunch options available. You could set aside an hour to prep the following:

• A batch of Instant Pot Hummus Chicken
• Some Chicken Avocado Burgers
• A few salad in a jars
• Some Pesto Corn Salad

When you’re ready to prep, turn the oven on. Start a batch of hummus chicken. Prep the burgers. Stick them in the oven. While they’re baking, prep a few salads and make the pesto corn salad. Shred the chicken once it’s finished cooking.

Now you have several quick lunch options to pack at night including a wrap made with the hummus chicken, a burger with a side salad and some corn, a salad in a jar.

If you find that it didn’t take you a full hour or you have extra time the next weekend, you can prep stuff for lunches and then move on to adding a dinner or a breakfast option like waffles as a way to change things up in the morning. Also note that if you don’t have an instant pot you can make pulled chicken or pork in the crockpot or oven. It takes longer but doesn’t require any extra active work on your part.

So there you have it! I hope some of you guys give this a try! Let me know if focusing in on one specific area to start is helpful for you! Look for a post next week with more details about how to plan your first food prep session once you’ve identified your focus area!

If you want more help right away, be sure to check out my Ultimate Guide To Food Prep ebook or check out my resources page for more food prep related posts!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

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Hi friend!

I almost forgot to share my food prep from last week!

I made:

• Thai Chicken Meatballs
• Dairy-Free Lactation Cookies
• Carrots & Sweet Potatoes
• Asian Chicken Noodle Soup
• Egg wraps
• PB Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal for Squish
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Coconut Oil Banana Muffins 

Once again I didn’t do the best at tracking our meals but here’s a few of the things we ate:

• Meatball + mac and cheese + baked beans + clementine
• Asian chicken noodle soup
• Sweet potato + egg wrap + chicken
• sweet potato + egg wrap + pumpkin yogurt bar
• oatmeal + yogurt + clementine
• pulled pork taco + clementine
• chicken, bacon and peppers + chips + avocado & salsa
• Chicken enchiladas from my mother-in-law
• instant pot pasta with meat sauce (recipe coming this week!)

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

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The Dinner Made Easy Ebook gives you one month of healthy meals, grocery shopping lists, meal prep tips and more, all in one place to make your life easier!

Hi friends!

I’m so excited to announce the launch of my most recent ebook. As I’ve mentioned a few times over the past couple of weeks, I teamed up with a few of my blogger friends – Julie at Peanut Butter Fingers, Brittany at Eating Bird Food and Gina at The Fitnessista – to create this Dinner Made Easy Ebook for all of you! We’re so excited that it’s finally ready to share!

Here’s a little more info about the ebook:

Are you struggling to balance your family’s hectic schedules with finding time to cook and eat healthy meals together during the week? 

We know the feeling! We have jobs and families and we know how hard it can be to get a healthy meal on the table when life gets crazy. That’s why we’re such huge fans of meal planning!

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just remember that simply taking the time to write down what meals you want to make for the week is a great first step! It can save you time and stress during the week and for many people, meal planning and food prep are a huge part of eating healthy during the week.

Not sure where to start?

That’s where we come in! Our goal is to make healthy eating as easy as possible for you, so we created a 4-week meal plan filled with 20 healthy dinner options. The recipes are a mix of favorite blog recipes, old blog recipes that have been revamped and a few new recipes as well!

Plus, we made you a grocery list for each week of meals, and gave you a few bonus food prep tips to help you see what you could do ahead of time to make busy nights even easier!

It’s kind of like hiring the four of us to come prep and plan your food for the week! Whether you’re hitting the drive-thru line a few too many times per week, ordering take-out often or spending too many nights eating cold cereal for dinner, this ebook is for you!

Sound like something you need? Just click the button below to purchase your copy for our introductory price of $9.99. 

But don’t delay! This sale price is only good through Sunday, October 9, 2016. After that the price increases to $12.99!

[clickToTweet tweet=”Let 4 healthy living bloggers plan dinner for you. Grab a copy of the Dinner Made Easy ebook!” quote=”Let 4 healthy living bloggers plan dinner for you. Grab a copy of the DInner Made Easy ebook!”]

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

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Get my free Table Talk email series where I share bite-sized nutrition information about carbs, protein, and fat, plus bonus information about snacks and sugar!

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