Food Prep for the week

would like to start doing this myself, at least for my work days anyway.

AM: Designer Whey Protein smoothie using unsweetened almond milk and frozen berries
Mid-AM: Two Hard Boiled eggs, chilled, finely chopped onion, celery, green peppers, 1 TB mayo, salt and pepper
Noon: 6oz fresh grilled protein (usually left over from last night's dinner), big salad or cut up vegetables, fresh made dip
Mid-PM: 2 TB peanut butter with Celery sticks
Dinner: 6oz fresh grilled protein (changes every night), two vegetable sides (a dark green item, zucchini or summer squash for the starch)

Tons of spices, herbs, fresh made dressings for salads. Often, Ill bring in soup for one of the mid-am/mid-pm snacks - another all natural and fresh made. Im not afraid to use butter like some people tend to be, on top of my vegetables with dinner.

Tons of water throughout the day too!

OOPS... forgot to add:
Today, I just cooked up a 20# whole turkey, four split chicken breasts, made a batch of some of my seasoning rubs, already pulled out the steaks tonight to thaw for tomorrow's dinner.

Im about to get back to the kitchen and prep five-days worth of vegetables for salads and snacking.

Will prep my beets, zucchini and summer squash using my spiral slicer

I prep ahead my garlic, onions, cucumbers and shallots.

I have fresh herbs that I just bought: dill and cilantro. I need to make a double batch of homemade salsa: one batch for the obvious, the other batch to make a nice refreshing mexican-inspired vegetable soup with pulled pork made from my smoker.

The dill will go for my husband's roasted potatoes, some of my homemade marinades, and Im planning on making homemade Tzaziki to go with some of the chicken I cooked this afternoon also. I love Chicken Gyros made with Josephs' Low carb pita pockets..

I have three extremely large beets that I plan on making into 'noodles' for munching into a different type of salad.

If you want some ideas and a new friend on here.....feel free to add me!

I posted this in another thread, but I will repost here, as it applies...

Grocery wise, we do our big shopping at the beginning of the month. We buy large packs of chicken breasts, lean ground turkey, lunch meat, bread, cheese, and other staples for our diet, we get those home, and break them down to enough for a dinner and refreeze them...... We also know where we can get great priced whole turkey breasts, and other cuts of meat.....

Costco: Sliced ham lunch meat, sliced turkey lunch meat, string cheese, hummus, pop chips in individual servings, freeze dried fruit.

Snacks I always have on hand: Cucumbers, ind. Peanut butter servings, freeze dried fruit, string cheese. I also try to have a protein shake every day. I have the string cheese in my personal fridge in my classroom office.....it's my go to snack if I need something quick!

My husband and I always sit down on each Saturday and plan our our meals for the following week....It is usually determined by what protein we have in our freezer...We try to use our crock pot two or three times on the weekend, once for a weekend meal and the other times to cook ahead a protein to eat later on in the week, such as chicken, a whole turkey breast (yes, in the crockpot, oh so tender), chili, right now he even has some ribs going, yes in the crock pot! Then on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning we go to the grocery store and get any fresh veggies or fruit we need for the week. We cook ahead or prep anything we can, takes an hour out of our time on the weekend, but makes the week run so smoothly.

As for freezing, like the other said, I always have cooked ground turkey/onion, cooked shredded chicken, chili, in my freezer in portioned bags enough for my husband and myself for dinners.

I eat the same thing every morning for breakfast, so that doesn't take a lot of prepping, I just buy enough of what I need for the month and then it or put it in our extra fridge....Basically every morning I eat sandwich thins with sargento ultra thin provolone slices melted on top with a little spinach/artichoke hummus and an ounce to two ounces of some type of meat (turkey breast or ham) on top. I also have egg quiche "cupcakes" in my freezer for another quick breakfast if I need it. My husband likes to eat those.

For example, this week we are having a light chicken and pea risotto, Pasilla chiles stuffed with chicken and rice, Spaghetti with turkey meatballs and vegetable pasta, grilled tilapia over salad. Right now the chicken is marinating in the fridge, my husband will grill it in a bit, then I will divide it in half...half will be for the risotto, the other half will be chopped up fine to be part of the stuffing for the chiles.... my husband will premake those and have them in the fridge so all we have to do is warm them up the day we need them. Turkey meatballs are already in my freezer( made them for another meal a couple weeks ago), so all we have to do that day add to the sauce and cook......We will cook the noodles the night before..... And as for the tilapia, all we have to do is defrost the fish the night before.....

I am very lucky to have a husband that doesn't mind cooking. In fact he is the cook a majority of the time in our home. We try to plan the meals so both of us help out with it, so it doesn't get put on just one person, as we both have full time jobs....

I hope this helps!

I cook on either Saturday or Sunday and then again sometime midweek like Wed. I found when I tried to do 7 days, what I made on Sunday was not what I really wanted by the time I got to Friday.

Breakfast: I really like omelets or breakfast scrambles so I usually prechop veggies to go in that and put in little baggies or containers so all I have to do is throw it in the pan. I've made muesli in the past as well (mix of milk, oatmeal, apple or whatever fruit, raisins, vanilla if desired, cinnamon, optional: yogurt or protein powder). You can find lots of recipes online for many variations of this. On lazy mornings I just do a protein shake.

Snacks: I really like having those precut fruit bowls but they get expensive so on my prep days I will create my own. It's much cheaper to buy the whole fruits and then make your own. I try to avoid added sugar but if necessary I will put a tiny amount of agave. I also have fresh mint in my garden so I add that. I take the fruit bowls plus those laughing cow cheeses, yogurt, or a hard boiled egg (done on prep day).

Lunches or Dinners: Again try to prechop anything for whatever you plan on making. Pastas, soups, and chilis are easy items to prep ahead that reheat well. My latest favorite that a friend found on pinterest is the salad in a jar. If you good "salad in a jar" or salad in a mason jar you will finds lots of variations. They also have ideas for pasta salads and other things.

Hope this helps.

Bump