Make Your Life Easier

Each week I find myself running around between my job, commute, workouts, and class.  Fortunately or not, my husband has the same exact schedule as I do and this makes for two very busy adults.  I rely on food prep a LOT and have posted about it several times.  We each eat breakfast at home and bring lunch to work at least 4 out of 5 days of the week.  We also bring dinner once or twice a week depending on school schedules.  Are you tired yet?  Me too!

Since it's the start of the school year for many and we are getting back into the regular grind, I wanted to share some of my tips for food prep.  I made all of this on Sunday and it took me 90 minutes.

1. Start with breakfast- the most important meal of the day.  I like to make waffles on Sunday and either refrigerate or freeze them.

You can also make overnight oats ahead of time, prep some smoothie ingredients, or make sure you have everything in your fridge for toast and almond butter (my favorite).

2. Have your grains prepped ahead of time. For lunch, I make some grains to use throughout the week.  I used this multi-grain mix from Trader Joe's for one option:

Another easy option is to cut up and roast some potatoes- instant options when you open your fridge to build some meals.

Once you have a few grains, you can mix and match them with proteins or use them with salads.
Here is an example of Hubby's lunch tomorrow using the multi-grain mix and roasted chipotle honey chicken and carrots:

4. Make a few complete one-dish meals- sometimes we just need to grab and go.  I make at least one complete meal on Sundays to serve as a back-up.  You can always freeze it or keep it in a container to heat up on the extra busy nights.  I make 2-4 servings of the selected dish.  This week I made a pad thai concoction with lots of veggies and chicken.

Here is one stack of my containers for this week.

5. Prep some easy protein- If you live with a boy or are just a protein-loving chic and need to fuel your big guns, you need to have something to go with your carbs.  The easiest thing to do is to make some hardboiled eggs.  They work for salads, snacks, sandwiches, or even breakfast.

6. Be flexible- sometimes you don't feel like eating what you made.  In fact, I usually don't.  I like to keep a lot of staples on hand to make something quick.  A few favorites are listed below:

• Spinach/herb mix for salads
• Sandwich ingredients: bread, cheese, condiments
• Fresh chopped veggies or fruits
• Frozen fruit for smoothies
• Hummus with multi-grain chips/crackers, salsa, guacamole

If none of those work, then stop for frozen yogurt- because you can and life is too short to plan everything out!

Psst....Have you entered my giveaway yet?  DO it!

PSA: Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds

Before I get to the real purpose of this post (life changing!) I thought I would run you through the madness that usually takes place a few nights a week when I try to prepare for the next day.  On Tuesday night I had class and got home at 10:00 PM, so I moved quickly.  I like to prep the hubby's dinner, my breakfast and/or lunch, and get my stuff together as much as possible so I can get dragged out of bed at the latest moment possible.

First up is lunch prep:

I don't feed my hubby anything that I wouldn't theoretically feed myself.  Tomorrow's lunch is organic chicken, sweet potatoes (pre-roasted in my weekend prep), zucchini and green beans sauteed in garam masala and other random spices for an Indian-inspired stirfry.

Next I made my superfood breakfast cookie:

Superfood Breakfast Cookie:
-1/2 cup oats, 1 tbsp hemp protein powder, frozen pomegranate arils, chia seeds, and Odwalla Superfood juice all mixed up and refrigerated overnight for my morning chowing pleasure.

Gina is a genius!

Finally, I danced around the kitchen with my new love:

Um, yes.  I'm delightfully awkward both in pictures and in real life!  And I still have no shame.
What I'm holding is this stuff:

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds
I'm warning you that once you get them and try them, your life will change.  I am also pretending that I don't remember where I hid these guys until next time!

Question for you: What food has changed your life lately? 
The product above, chia seeds, and always almond butter!

A Manly Lunch

I'm sitting at the San Francisco airport, waiting for my delayed flight to Dallas to arrive.  Since you won't get a play-by-play of my meals, I decided to share the husband's lunch for today.  I took pictures last night so that I wouldn't leave ya hanging!

I love cooking and I love cooking balanced meals for others to enjoy.  Right now, my audience includes my husband and I've been able to use him as a guinea pig for my cooking.  I have had some BAD flops (green cookies, anyone?) and some good meals.

I have a problem in improvising and not following recipies, so it's always interesting.

Today for lunch, the husband is eating Pesto-Cranberry Chicken with French Green Beans and Roasted Baby Potatoes.  This was a quick meal- and an attempt to use the rest of the pesto I bought from Trader Joes. There is really no recipe for the french beans- I just roasted them in the oven with a little olive oil, garlic salt and pepper.

Pesto Chicken:

• Take 4 chicken breasts or thighs and rub in pesto sauce on a baking sheet.
• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
• Bake covered for 20-25 minutes, then uncover and add dried cranberries and bake for another 10 minutes
• *Important step- stab with a fork to make sure it's ready- salmonella poisoining is not hot!

Roasted Baby Potatoes

• Boil potatoes for about 20 minutes, or until almost cooked
• Heat 1 tbsp olive oil and crushed garlic in a pan and add potatoes
• Brown potatoes until golden and slightly crispy

I'm trying to convince the hubby to do a guest post and he's almost convinced!  I did it for him this time and I'm at least hoping for a comment! 

I hope you have a great day and I hope I finally get on my plane!  See ya'll from Dallas!

Espresso Lesson

Today we woke up ready to start our Funday Sunday.  It's actually full of errands to run, but they include retail locations, so I'm down!

I started by making my husband some eggs, because I'm nice like that:

This is my version of healthy man food:

• 2 organic eggs
• chicken sausage
• peppers
• salt, pepper, a dash of cayenne pepper
• avocado and tabasco
  

I served it up all fancy for him:

Of course this was all a ploy to get him to give me an espresso lesson.  I am worse than a man when it comes to reading directions and there was no way I was going to learn to use that beauty myself.  So here is my latte lesson:

First you have to wash the cup because somebody didn't do it yesterday:

Next you scoop out some espresso grounds.  We used the Whole Foods brand:

Make sure to pack a tight, leveled amount of espresso grounds into the filter- pressure is really important in the process:

Next you pour some milk- Trader Joe's Organic Fat Free is our joint:

Then you steam the milk:

Brew the espresso, and enjoy!

We enjoyed our latte and now we are off!  Hope you are having a great Sunday!

Using Leftovers

Tonight I was all about getting food out of the way so that I could get to bed! I skipped the gym in lieu of a nice 40 minute walk with my husband and got straight to work when we got back.

Ladies first:


I took the sweet potato fries I made last night, heated them up, and added some ketchup and light cucumber ranch dressing on the side. There is also tabasco mixed up into that ketchup.






On the side, I had about 2 cups of mixed greens with some more dressing and a little taco sauce as well- strange combination, but tasted great and gave me some vitamins!







For the gentleman:


I used an extra piece of chicken I had prepared the other day and turned it into a pesto salad sandwich with the help of this:





I love how the Italian foods are called Trader Giottos!



I also used this bread for the first time from Nature's Pride and hope to have a full review for you from the husband.






Here is the mostly finished product:





I also added some cheese, mixed greens, laughing cow cheese, dried cranberries, and avocado. I hope he likes it!

I'm excited to see some new readers and my faithful reader (Namaste) following along! I took a break for 2 months, but it's great to be back and I really have a passion for sharing health with others!

A Manly Salad

In our house, I am the master of all nutritional decisions. Yes, we have some situations in which the future Mr. eats ridiculously unhealthy foods, but everything is in moderation. In the most un-Betty Croker way, I enjoy making lunches and since I am packing mine, why not pack both? Plus I love knowing that my guy is getting something healthy.

Since Mike works out hard 3-4 times a week and he outweighs me by over 60 pounds, we have very different nutritional needs. I present to you "The Man Salad". This salad packs a big protein punch and is filling enough to keep a growing boy fed during the day.








Here are the ingredients:
*3 cups organic mixed greens
*chopped cucumber
*cilantro
*1/4 cup shredded cheese
*hardboiled egg
*5-6 oz roasted chicken
*avocado slices
*sliced almonds

I am going to have Mike try this peanut sauce as dressing. I usually add the dressing in the morning since I don't like the concept of mushy salad at all, and Mike can handle about 4 hours of dressing mush no problem.

There are no special ingredients, but I would say that if you are trying to get your guy to eat healthy, use recognizable, wholesome, familiar ingredients in a way that make it a little healthier and don't skimp on the healthy fats and proteins.

I'm hoping for a guest post and review from my taste tester soon!

Hope you have a wonderful Monday!