Meal Prep:: Week of 2/23

Hi Beauties!!!

As promised I am back with another week of meal prepping! Did you meal prep this week? I have some minor differences from last week's meals.

Mid Morning Snack:

This week I used the Sweet Basil Pesto Smoked Chicken & Turkey Sausage from Trader Joe's. Similar to last week, I cubed up to sausages (instead of 4), and added to a pan of sauteed garlic and two strips of chopped applewood bacon (I normally detest bacon).

 For a slight change I added some sliced tomato. Then some sliced red onion, sweet onion, and red/orange/yellow peppers at the end and took off the heat after about a minute so they would still have some crunch.

 

I also made some egg white muffins again this week to go along with the chicken sausage. Same as last week.

8 Egg whites with added ingredients prior to pouring in tins.

Afternoon Snack:

Trader Joe's Chickenless Chicken Tenders, prepared the same as last week.

And saw these "Boom Chicka Pop" Sea Salt Popcorn snack packs (12 count) at Ross this weekend ($3.99), decided to try for a healthy crunchy item. Sometimes I crave crunch! I think I remember seeing this company on Shark Tank.



Dinner:

For dinner this week I made some baked fish (Perch and don't remember the other kind) and some roasted broccoli.

I cleaned and seasoned the fish then placed in the fridge for a few hours to marinate until I was ready to put in the oven.




Prior to the oven:

After the oven

For the broccoli, I just threw some frozen broccoli florets in a baking dish with a little garlic powder and sweet ginger seasoning and threw in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

All together now:

Portioned meals and snacks

Do you prep your meals? What did you meal prep this week?? Show us your food! Use the hashtag #sundayprepdayfff (no matter what day you prep) and we will share your posts. Don't forget to comment on the blog post and share with a friend!

Meal Prep Part 2: Grocery Shopping

Meal Prep Part 2: Grocery Lists and Shopping

As mentioned in part 1, an important step in successful meal prep is making a grocery list and then grocery shopping.  Below I will give an example of how I do my grocery lists and what I bought in my last grocery shopping adventure.

When I make my grocery lists I first decide the following: 2 breakfast and lunch meals, 3 dinner meals, and 3 snack options.  After I decide on what I’m going to eat, I then write down all the ingredients I need that are missing from my pantry.

For example, this is my meal plan for this week.

Breakfast

Oatmeal or Chia Squeeze

Lunch

Tunafish

Marinated salmon w/ quinoa

Dinner

Jerk Chicken w/ Black Rice and Peas, plantains and sautéed kale

Turkey Meatloaf w/ quinoa and broccoli  

Singapore noodles w/ chicken and shrimp

snacks

Fresh fruit

Dried cranberries and nut mix

Chia Squeeze

I have some of these items already so I didn’t need to buy the staples just some add ons.

Also, I plan to try vegan for 21 days (starting May 1) so I tried to focus on picking up new vegan friendly products to add to my meals.

How do you guys do your grocery shopping for meal prep?

p.s. I will also do a grocery shopping post for my 21 days of vegan.

Graze Box Review

How the Graze box is packaged

So last week I got a text from friend (Hey Mo!) about these healthy snack boxes that you can get sent to you every week at work or home (so really, no excuses) to 'graze' on (haha, get it?).

My Trial Box

Trial Box Contents:

Honeycomb Crunch-- (almonds, dark chocolate, raisins)--SO Yummy!
Chili & Lime Pistachios--Pretty darn good as well.
Brooklyn Bites--(poppy seed pretzels, cheese cashews, and roasted pumpkin seeds)--Trying today, sounds good though.
Healthy Popping Corn-- Haven't tried yet--but excited

First Box

How it works: 

• Choose the snacks you want: "nut and seed mixes, juicy dried fruits, tasty crackers, dips and dippers, and natural treats."
• Choose where you want your box delivered (work or home)
• They deliver your box-- $6 per box, including shipping, what a steal!
• You snack guilt-free
• Then you review the items you had. 'like,' 'love,' 'trash,' or 'try' and your future boxes will be built around your preferences.
• You can specify dietary reuirements: gluten free, non vegan, and dairy

Review:

• My "free" box took like two weeks to arrive. In fact it arrived the same time as my first official box which was more than a tad frustrating.
• The box is actually much smaller than it appears on the pictures on their site. The snack sizes are appropriate/fair, its just one of those things where you're expecting something else. I didn't measure but if I had to guess I'd say the box is a bit smaller than a piece of printer paper.
• Each snack comes in a convenient little tray that is very handy to take around. Only slight draw back is that they aren't resealable.

One Individual Snack Container

• They provide a card in each box with the nutrition facts of that box's contents. Very handy for those of us watching intake (caloric, sodium, sugar, protein, etc)

Nutrition Facts

• So low maintenance. No visits to the store--Shipped right to your house or job. No buying a whole package of something to try only to be wasted if you don't like it. No prepping. No portioning. NO EXCUSES.

All in all I definitely think graze box is a great option for guilt free and low maintenance snacking. Aside from the prolonged shipping (for my trial box) and lack of resealability, I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

In fact, for anyone interested in giving grazebox a try, enter the exclusive invite code: JUSTIA4JB or JUSTIA4JP to get your FIRST and FIFTH box FREE. Thats right. FREE. As in no money needed. Not even for shipping.

Have you tried Graze box?? What did you think? If not, would you try it? Comment below and tag us on twitter, Instagram, or Facebook!