Happy Easter! We are headed to the Rangers game tonight and I’m studying my face off doing homework until then because I have a huge test tomorrow!
I’m super excited about the game. We’re having roughly 30 people, all friends of Matt’s from his MBA program, coming to tailgate! I’ll try to snap some pics and show y’all all the food and festivities later this week.
One special treat Matt made last night for the tailgate? Jello Shots in Easter Eggs
True Story!
I came up with this idea in college and we did at least one year, if not more (I really can’t remember at this point). It’s really genius, but you have to be careful to find eggs without the little holes in the top or bottom.
I mentioned this to Matt (jokingly) last week and he was in awe of my creativity (because really, it’s a great idea) and decided we’d do it for the tailgate. The only eggs without holes we could find were these mini ones at Hobby Lobby, but it worked!
Meal/planning eating
ANYWAY, let’s move on. Lately my meal planning has been like this:
- Wake up stressed out Sunday to make a meal plan
- Shop for groceries, photograph and post my meal plan
- Make nothing from my meal plan during the week and make other random meals
Yeah, so I decided we should switch up how these posts go so y’all can see what I’m really eating, instead of what I thought I wanted to eat on Sunday.
I totally took this idea from Elefantitis Alegres, whose blog I’ve been reading for years and love. She seemingly had the same problem I was having, so she posts the meals she made every Sunday, rather than what she wants to make.
groceries
So here are the groceries I bought last week on Tuesday. At the time, I was not happy about how big this shopping trip was – but it made this week’s trip much easier and I barely bought anything this week! Plus I ate at home every meal this week from Tuesday on, save for lunch yesterday!
F&V: Baby carrots, pre-cut kale greens (not a fan), bananas, onions, tomatoes, grapes, cauliflower, applesauce, garlic, apples (his and hers), jalapeno, lemons, avocado, bell peppers (2 green, 1 orange) and snap peas.
Pantry: Salsa, peanut butter, tomato soup, olive oil spray, grilling spray, refried beans, chick peas, spicy mustard, dry black beans and green chilies
Dairy/Meat: swiss cheese slices, skim milk, wild orange roughy fillets (currently obsessed), kefir (also obsessed), hummus, string cheese, deli buffalo chicken, frozen yogurt popsicles (eh, these are okay)
Carbs: whole wheat bread, whole wheat mini pitas (on wicked sale, so I froze half), two whole wheat english muffins (BOGO, froze one), whole wheat tortillas, 100 calorie packs of pretzels
And honestly, looking back at these pictures – I ate almost all this food during the week, which is success for me! I froze several things for later eating. And what I didn’t eat, I’ll be able to eat in the next few days before I go out of town on Thursday (another reason for the small trip this week).
meals
NOW – these are just a handful of the dinners/lunches I made this week. Really, they were the meals I remembered to take pictures of. I think you can tell that what I actually eat vs. what I plan to eat is much different. I plan to eat different stuff, but I end up eating the same foods in different combinations. And you know what, this week it worked PERFECTLY for me (more on that later!) so I’m just going to keep rolling with this plan and style.
fish
I tried to eat more fish this week, which I was very successful doing with three meals containing fish!
Left: Pre-Grocery store: Broiled sockeye salmon with brown mustard, Alexa fries, roasted cauliflower, applesauce
Right: Broiled Orange Roughy with a vegetable-potato hash (olive oil, potatoes, green pepper, onion, garlic, sugar snap peas, bbq sauce, herbs)
Beans/Grains
I made Robin’s crockpot black bean soup this week and froze half. The rest I ate throughout the week and it was SO GOOD. The soup has dried black beans, onions, salsa, garlic, jalapeno and chilies in it. It’s exactly like my beloved Central Market soup and I’m SO HAPPY I know how to make it now, and that it cooks in my crockpot.
Left: Post-Grocery Store shopping: Whole wheat grilled cheese with tomato soup
Right: Black Bean soup with avocado and cheddar cheese, hard boiled egg, applesauce
Below: Black bean soup with avocado, whole wheat quesadilla with cheddar cheese, applesauce
Meats
Left: Egg, onion and canadian bacon scramble. Potato and Veggie hash (same as above)
Right: Chicken, Swiss Cheese and hummus on baby pitas (mini sandwiches), hard boiled egg, raw cauliflower and applesauce
I’ve been seriously slacking on my fruit lately, so I included an applesauce with every lunch this week and had fruit for dessert after dinner each night (either broiled grapefruit or frozen grapes) and it worked perfectly!
So there you go, there are my groceries and a few of the meals I ate this week. What do you think? Do you like this method better? I really do! It helps me stay accountable for eating at home and eating healthy, since I know I’ll be showing y’all some of my meals.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Everything looks awesome! I will have to try and make that black bean soup for lunches sometime.. My b/f does not like beans(unless refried ha ha), so he would never touch that if I made it for a dinner. =(
I am in a breakfast/lunch rut, so both sucked this week. Breakfasts were either a protein shake or toast w/ TJ’s Cookie Butter(ahhhh HOOKED) + a nanner.
Lunches I ate out a lot this week b/c of my said lunch rut. Chipotle, Jimmy Johns, blahblah. I gotta think of some better lunch ideas for this week.
Dinners this week- I made nachos(yummm!), a slow cooker Italian Creamy Chicken from SP, and a recipe for meatballs I found on Pinterest that I turned into meatball sandwiches complete with toasted french bread, Giada’s marinara that I am obsessed with, and a little bit of mozzarella. Yummy. Dinner is hands down my favorite meal of the day.
This is awesome! I like seeing how it all gets put together. Maybe a “planned meals” update early in the week and then a “what I actually ate” update at the end of the week?
Rooting for you for your crazy test today! Love the jello shot idea. I miss jello shots – they were so effective.
Two posts a week? That sounds like so much work! haha
I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe this summer.
Our meals got thrown off last week since I did less grocery/meal planning since I knew I’d be out of town Thurs – Mon. I’m excited to do some serious meal planning for next week now that I’m back in town!