Queen of Food Prep

Happy Hump Day!

I've had a lot of requests through instagram, Facebook, and the blog, the past few days regarding food prep. Amanda and I are basically the Queens of Food Prep. I'm not trying to boost our egos, or sound like we're full of ourselves but food prep is something that we do really well. Every Sunday, we know that we need to go grocery shopping, in the morning and spend an hour or two: cutting, cooking, bbqing, baking, and prepping food.

I'm not going to lie, there are days where neither of us want to cook but we force each other to do it and crank it out as quickly as possible. We know our duties and we know what we each do well and we stick to it. We have a routine of sorts, and this helps us to move quickly and crank out meals for the entire week in the shortest amount of time as possible.


We are both firm believers that if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.

If I don't spend an hour of two getting everything ready on Sunday, I will eat like crap all week and my weight-loss and my bank account will suffer because of it. I know myself, and I know that if I don't have my lunches ready for the week, then I won't eat healthy. I'll buy lunch everyday and it won't be good.
Obviously everyone is different, and if you're able to make your lunch fresh every morning, I admire you. I simply cannot.

I never get sick of omelet's. They are hands-down my GO-TO meal.

We switch up our meals every week - but we have a few 'staple' items that we always have prepped and ready to go in the fridge:

• Lean ground turkey
This is a must have in our fridge. We go through about 2lbs of turkey per week in our house. Seriously. I can't get enough of this stuff.
Amanda and I use it for omelets, salads, stir-fry, or just eating it on it's own as delicious lean protein.
For prepping it, I keep it pretty basic. I cook it on the stove top, in a frying pan, with coconut oil. After the turkey is almost cooked all the way through - still a bit pink - I drain it in the sink (with a cullender), and get rid of any excess fat and liquid that's cooking with the turkey. I throw it back in the frying pan and finish cooking it. This is when I add all of my favorite spices. Add whatever you like and then store it in a sealed container. Should be good for up to 5 days - if it lasts that long in your house.


• Turkey Bacon
I think we buy Lilydale - I don't remember. It's low in sodium, and low in calories. Read the label before you buy turkey bacon - they're not all healthy. Always be aware of how many calories, grams of fat, and mg of sodium you're consuming in 1 or 2 pieces of turkey bacon.


• Sliced Bell Peppers
I could eat bell peppers everyday (literally) and never get sick of them. I always have a container or two of sliced bell peppers washed and ready to go at all times.

Apart from the 'regulars' listed above, we prep quite a bit of other foods. We wash, cut, and package fruits. Wash, cut, and prep any other raw veggies we're having that week. Amanda usually bakes squash, and we prepare salads for the first day or two of the week.

Most weeks we BBQ chicken breasts to have available in the fridge (for the same purpose as the ground turkey). We will use it in a stir-fry, eat it on it's own, put it in a salad, or eat it with veggies. This week I'm eating my chicken with spaghetti squash. Speaking of spaghetti squash, I'm pretty sure that deserves an entire post of it's own.. but I'll leave that for another day.

Here is a list of what we cooked/prepped this past Sunday and what is currently in our fridge for lunches and dinners this week:

Spaghetti Squash
Veggie Spaghetti Sauce
Lean Ground Beef Meatballs (baked with cilantro, green onion, and spices)
BBQ Chicken Breasts
Spicy Baked Cauliflower & Sweet Potato
Turkey Bacon
Sliced Peppers
Lean Ground Turkey
Kale, Broccoli, Walnut, and Apple Salad
Hard Boiled Eggs

As you can tell, we're big on protein...
Some other meat that we eat often: fish (tilapia, salmon), pork, and lamb.




Fish tacos from last week: tilapia, salsa, avocado, hummus, peppers, lettuce (instead of tortilla).

In addition to the food that requires food prep, here are the other foods in our fridge that don't require any prep work:

Eggs
Spinach
Goat Cheese
Almond Milk
Hummus
Salsa
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blueberries
Watermelon
Avocados
Bananas

This is basically all that I can think of. I will try and do some recipe posts for some of our favorite Go-To healthy meals.

Top (Left - Right)
one. typical breakfast - Ryvita crackers with natural peanut butter and some kind of fruit - blueberries, bananas, raspberries, or strawberries.
two. a huge bowl of spaghetti squash, chicken, sauce, and avocado on top - with a ryvita cracker on the side to dip in the sauce.
three. a whole bell pepper, ryvita crackers with goat chesse, and BBQ'd tilapia on top.

Bottom (Left - Right)
four. whole bell pepper, grilled lean pork, hummus, and banana for dessert.
five. bell pepper, onion, zucchini, spinach, and green onion stir fry - topped with avocado and a piece of BBQ'd tilapia.
six. omelet (spinach, goat cheese, turkey, and turkey bacon), topped with avocado, bell peppers, hummus, cracked pepper, and sriracha.

FYI - Everything that we cook is completely made up by us. We do not follow recipes, and we are often creating new dishes. I will do my best to answer questions about cooking or food prep but I am not a chef. With that being said, please feel free to ask me anything that you want to know about the types of food I'm eating every week, what my lunches look like, what my dinners look like, etc.



Finally...
A HUUUUGE Happy Birthday to the Princess of Shenanigans.
Sami, I'm so happy to be able to call you a friend! If i wasn't on this whole 'clean eating' kick, I'd have a drink (or five) and a big piece of cake for you... but since I can't have it for you, I really really hope that you will allow yourself to indulge today. I hope you have the most amazing birthday, and I hope that 24 is amazing to you - you deserve every bit of it. Love you!