What I’m eating…

Welcome to my first week of sharing my meal plan. My hope is to share the recipes I love to make meal planning and food prep a little bit easier for everybody else!

A few simple tricks for how I put meals plans together

  1. Start with what’s leftover in the fridge-this is an easy way to eliminate food waste and forces you to be creative! If I have an ingredient, like chicken breasts, that I can’t think of a recipe for, I usually type it in to google and pick one that looks yummy.

  2. Pick recipes based on what SOUNDS good.

  3. You don’t need a lot-I usually plan for 4- 5 dinners and 1-2 breakfast items. Lunch is leftover dinner.

  4. Busy month coming up? Prioritize meals that freeze well like soups and stews. Whenever I make soup I usually eat half and freeze half for a rainy day.

  5. Minimize your filler foods. I limit dishes with rice, potatoes, or pasta to one night per week to focus on foundational food-a wide variety of vegetables and protein

  6. Mix protein! If you’re a meat eater- limit pork and beef to once/week and focus on vegetarian protein sources and chicken and fish for the other nights.

  7. Fruit for flavor-I usually pick 2-3 fruits for the week to eat after dinner. I prioritize what’s fresh and seasonal, or what looks good at my local co-op.

  8. Pick SIMPLE-when I’m looking for new weeknight dinners I almost always use under 30 minute, sheet pan, one pot, slow cooker, or other easy recipe types.

So here it is! My first week of sharing what we ate, last week! Hope you enjoy the recipes

Portobello and caramelized onion burgers

  • For this recipe I added beef patties. This recipe was so easy and yummy. I cooked them extra thin and doubled up them up-topping with the mushroom, carmelized onion, and burger sauce

  • You only need about half the sauce from the recipe tin eats recipe

  • I used our favorite gluten free buns

Kale salad to eat along side

  1. Bon Apetit has a pay wall so make sure to print the recipe when you look at it, so you can go back multiple times

  2. I used about 1/3 of the maple syrup the recipe called for because I don’t like sweet but adjust to taste

  3. Once you make the dressing, massage it into the greens. If you’re only eating part of it save the dressing and the greens separately

Carnitas tacos

  • Combine all the carnitas in a slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours or until the meat easily falls apart

  • Shred pork on a sheet pan with half the liquid from the slow cooker. Broil on low for 5 minutes, turn pork to keep it from burning, cook for another 5 minutes, turn again and cook for 5, take out or repeat until the meat has absorbed all the juices and is a little brown

  • Salt to taste AFTER you broil, as the process with concentrate the salt from the juices

Serve with tortillas, diced white onion, sliced radishes, cilantro, and my favorite jalapeño taco truck sauce

Salad to eat alongside if you want some veggies with your meal

Gumbo

  • Double the cajun seasoning

  • Add 1/2 tsp-1 tsp cayenne if you like spicier

  • Serve over my favorite coconut rice with lots of sliced green onion and chopped parsley

Veggie Bibimbap

  • I sub spinach for kale, adding a whole large container (sprinkled with salt and toasted sesame oil) to a separate sheet pan the last few minutes of cooking the veggies

  • You might want to add the mushrooms 10 minutes in so they don’t get over cooked. I LOVE oyster mushrooms and want to preserve the flavor

Quiche (my recipe)

  • Frozen quiche crust

  • 1/2 cup heavy cream or half and half

  • 5 eggs

  • 1/4 tsp salt

  • 1/8 tsp pepper

  • 1/2 cup chopped roasted bell pepper (from jar with oil/water)

  • 1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese

  • Mixed salad greens to eat along side

  • EVOO

  • Red wine vinegar

  • Dijon mustard

  • 1 small garlic clove

Allow frozen quiche to get to room temp then pierce with a fork. Put in a preheated oven at 400 for 10 minutes, or until just set but not brown. Take out to cool and turn oven down to 350. Then mix eggs and cream with salt and pepper in a bowl and pour into quiche crust. Add roasted pepper and cheese. Bake until the middle of the quiche no longer wiggles, but no longer. Should be anywhere from 35-45 minutes. Serve alongside mixed greens lightly dressed with this dressing. Save extra salad dressing in a jar for the rest of the week.

Please enjoy!