HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON! My head is spinning with excitement and activity. There is so much to do! Put up the tree and DIY the mantel, buy and wrap gifts, bake cookies for cookie exchange, finish major pain-in-the-behind renovation before inviting everyone you know to your house! Lately I feel like I can not keep up with myself. One day that feeling is a welcome rush! The next day that feeling is daunting and overwhelming. So that brings me to admitting that my biweekly-workout-routine-update is quickly becoming a New Years Resolution. I am ashamed to say it- but I can find no other way to complete my to-do list. With parties to attend and our 2nd annual NYE party to plan we are forced to spend week night evenings finishing our foyer renovation.
Outside of activity (and luckily bad puppy Ella has made it out of another week alive, which means I a least still have our daily walks) the other way to maintain your weight – holiday season or not- is meal prep. This is actually a part of the week I look forward to. We try the best we can to eat well during the week, this way we can splurge more over the weekend and at all the fun filled parties with delicious snacks and cocktails.
Sunday morning is for breakfast and rest, followed by chores, and hopefully only a few errands. We get to the things we have been putting off all week: cleaning the yard, and the dog, hanging the wreath, and hanging the laundry. This week we painted our soon to be hung molding and began prepping the stair case for stain. As our work starts slowing, along with our energy I will transition to the kitchen. Starting with dinner on Sunday, here is what a week of meals can look like in our home (and another recipe to add to your shopping list for next week)!
Sunday:
Mornings in our home are slow to start. We like to share a big breakfast and this is Michael’ s area of expertise. We often default to eggs, bacon, and home fries nearly every week. More often than not if there is a second meal it will be a quick take-out option; for instance this week we hit up pita pit for a veggie packed recharge lunch. When it is time for dinner we go one of two ways. Either fresh fish that we picked up from the market that day or the day before. We have to shop about every other week, so we like to get the sale fish and have it before freezing. If it is not a shopping week we may do something like this:
Throw a full chicken in the roaster. We will cube potatoes and chop onions and put them in the pan under the seasoned chicken so they can soak up the flavor. Then we will steam a veg to eat along with the roasted chicken (likely broccoli, carrots, or green beans). After our belly’s are full we will pull the meat from the bones, boil the bones for another home-made stock, and combine the stock, meat, and veggies for soup for the week. Chicken soup was last week, my favorite Potato&Leek soup this week! Now we have 4-5 days of lunches for the both of us. Pack up a leafy green side salad (cut and washed on Sunday and stored in a gallon zip lock) or a banana and apple for extra substance and mid-day healthy sugar pick me up.
Then I make an egg bake for our breakfast. We bake whatever ingredients we have around in a couple of pie dishes and cut it into wedges. There is 3-4 morning breakfasts ready to go for each of us. Here is my favorite:
- Slice a delicatessen squash and remove the innards (this squash is fantastic because the edible skin leaves minimal prep), brush with a mixture of even parts: melted butter, honey, and Sriracha hot sauce. Bake for 40 minutes on 400.
- Slice pre-made/pre-cooked chicken maple sausage.
- Saute one chopped medium yellow onion, two cloves garlic, and a bunch of cleaned and prepped kale. Again I use the ninja for the onions and garlic.
- Throw the ingredients in a pie dish (likely two) and pour over previously whisked scrambled eggs (dash of milk, salt, and pepper).
- Toss in some Parmesan cheese. Bake until brown.
Now we are armed with a healthy (full of protein and iron) and tasty breakfast and lunch to last us all week long.
The rest of the week we pull a frozen protein from the freezer every night. Here is what last week looked like:
Monday: pan seared perch (which often sells for $8 a #!), steamed carrots, brown rice.
Tuesday: Seasoned beef roast, baked sweet pots, and some of that pre washed salad made on Sunday.
Wednesday: Ground Turkey mixed with fennel, sage, white onion, garlic, and an apple- stuffed and baked in an acorn squash. This is my favorite fall meal!
Thursday: Blackened and grilled chicken breast, again atop the salad already made.
Friday: Take out time! Hummus and shwarma while we decorate our first Christmas tree together 🙂 If you are short on soup by Friday, there are often left-over’s in the fridge by this time.
Saturday: A full day full of errands and a friends birthday dinner left us eating out all day! Otherwise Saturday is a good left-overs day.
So easy, yummy, and kind of healthy! Thats a week in the eating life of an unmotivated/pretend/wanna-be healthy girl! I hope this meal inspires your week of good eats for tiny seats! Enjoy the holidays- and GOOD LUCK!
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