meal prep

Weekend and Thoughts on Meal Prep

September 11, 2017 by Alicia 2 Comments

Hey there. Happy Monday. This particular Monday is 9/11 and I still can’t believe it has been 16 years. This is definitely a date I will never forget.

This weekend though, I was thinking of my friends and my grandma in Florida as Hurricane Irma approached. It’s crazy to think about the 5-15 ft storm surges happening and all the flooding. I know my friends are safe and my grandma was taking shelter. I just wonder about the state of people’s homes but won’t know more about that for a couple days likely. Continuous prayers for Florida and everyone affected. Also prayers for the West coast. I have a friend in Oregon and the fires are getting bad. I wish we could send them some rain.

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Now back to what I did this weekend, Friday evening I went to yoga straight from work. This class is seriously my favorite that I have found in my new area. We worked on half moon as our peak pose and it has certainly been a while since I practiced that pose. My balance was a little off. I did like how our teacher set up the class though. We started in savasana while she read a bit about Ganesha, a god worshiped in Hinduism, who is an elephant and commonly referred to as the remover of obstacles. Ganesha was one god that stuck with me in my yoga training and when I get a future yoga room in my future home, I picture finding a Ganesha statue or painting him on the wall. I loved that our class opened with this.

Throughout class we did a lot of side bending and balancing to prep for half moon. A few moves really got into my hips too and my hips really need it. 75 minutes of pure bliss in this class. A perfect way to kick off the weekend.

When I came home, I had a snack and then showered and hung out with Brian for a bit before heading to bed.

I managed to sleep like a rock Friday night. I don’t even know why or how, but I got nearly 9 hours of sleep and according to my fitbit, only rolled a handful of times. I felt quite rested by 7am. I got up and made a smoothie for breakfast. I honestly am getting a little tired of oatmeal. I mean I have only eaten it for breakfast for like 4 years…I just don’t know what else to make, but a smoothie was good to use up some spinach I had in the fridge and put together something filling.

Shortly after 8, Brian had to head back to work and I headed out to the gym. I did another squat session and actually felt better, getting back to the weights I was doing a month ago. My hip is still a bit off, which is why I am incorporating many more hip and glute strengthening but it seems to be improving.

I came home to take a quick shower and then headed to get a massage. After a massage I always feel so blissed out for a bit. My masseuse again told me my legs and shoulders are very tight. I will have to work on more stretching and foam rolling. I think vinyasa yoga for a bit everyday will help as well. I am doing @yoga_girl ‘s Instagram challenge of getting on my mat daily. Though I started 3 days late, I was consistent this past week. I still only practice about 10-20 minutes on my own at home. I just can’t seem to find the motivation for a full hour, but I feel like at least getting on my mat and doing some warm ups and stretching help. Hopefully, in time, I can increase the amount of time as I get inspiration from my Friday yoga class. [Side note: I realized later in the day that I could touch my toes in a seated forward fold, that’s how open my hips were after a massage!!]

This week, pumpkins were out at Wegmans, as I headed to the grocery store.

I then headed home to do some meal prep and laundry. I know…so exciting…

Personally I really enjoy doing meal prep. I think I only spent about 1.5 hours in the kitchen. During that time, I played a couple podcast episodes while baking some tahini bars, cooking chicken and broccoli, making hamburger patties, steaming extra broccoli and cleaning up as I went.

I like to prep a snack and dinner for the week. For lunch, I make salads and just throw them together the night before. For breakfast, I usually have oatmeal and bacon which is quick to make. This week, I bought some pumpkin spice cheerios because I couldn’t stop thinking about them since seeing them in the store last week. Plus it’s a good switch for breakfast for now.

I know some people don’t like to spend their weekend in the kitchen, but for me, it’s therapeutic. It also makes my week go a lot smoother. I get home from work, quickly heat up leftovers and eat. I don’t like waiting to cook something or spending time trying to decide on what to make, especially when I may have a yoga class to attend shortly after getting home. There is definitely a difference with meal prepping for one though, versus two or a family. It doesn’t take me long to meal prep because usually one recipe I make has at least 4 servings. I also should mention, I don’t portion my big batch meals into separate containers (partially due to lack of fridge space), but just having the meal ready so I can scoop it into a bowl or onto a plate, helps. I like to leave 1 day of the week open for random leftovers or if someone else makes something or if Brian comes home and we decide to go out to dinner. I also will usually have a smoothie for dinner if I am heading to yoga as it is quick to drink and doesn’t leave me stuffed so I can move through yoga comfortably.

So there you have my thoughts on meal prepping. I do have the same thing for dinner most nights, but that works best when planning for just yourself. I try to find new recipes to try to switch up my dinners weekly. This week, I was inspired by Alyssia over at Mind Over Munch on Youtube. I loved the Keto video and since I try to keep my carbs to a minimum, this had great recipes for me to try.

On Sunday I went to Animal Adventure and I will recap that in another post since this one is getting long.

Do you like to meal prep on the weekend?

Hello Fresh Review

October 5, 2016 by Alicia Leave a Comment

I mentioned in a post a couple weeks ago that I was trying out Hello Fresh. My friend gave me a coupon for my first meals free and then I purchased one box myself.

I thought I would do a review in case you were looking for a meal service. This is the first meal service I have tried. Since it is just me at home and all meal services seem to have a minimum of 3 meals for 2 people that is actually 6 meals for me. I knew I had a couple 4 day work weeks due to travel so I thought it would be perfect to try out during those weeks as the meals could serve as my lunches and dinners for 3 days.

hello-fresh-2 — **adobo chicken tacos and mango slaw**

What I liked About Hello Fresh:

Variety of meals
- Getting a variety of meals when you cook for 1 can be difficult. I tend to cook things in big batches and have to eat something for 2-4 meals depending on serving sizes so it was really nice to get a variety of meals during the week and switch up my daily lunch salads.
Meal ideas
- In addition to cooking the 3 meals, you also get the recipes for all their other meals that week. If you find you like a recipe, that makes it easy to go out and buy the ingredients yourself. They also publish their recipes online and you can access them before you even sign up. Great place to get meal ideas.
Save time from going to the store
- With a meal service, you can limit your grocery shopping needs. I mainly just needed to get some food for breakfast and then used up freezer food the other days of the week to try to reduce my grocery bill.
Easy to follow instructions
- Each recipe has a level of difficulty, with level 1 being the easiest and level 3 being more time consuming and difficult. For the most part, the instructions were easy to follow but I did need to look up what butterflying a chicken breast meant.

hello-fresh1 — Dukkah crusted pork chops

What didn’t work for me:

Price
- It’s $69 for 3 meals for 2 people, so $69 for 6 meals for me. Truth: I don’t really budget my groceries but my grocery average is about $80 a week and I don’t go out to eat often, so that’s 21 meals and snacks for around $80 which is much better in my opinion.
Serving size
- Personally, I love to eat a lighter dinner most nights and some of these meals, even when split into 2 were too big. A couple meals I got 3 servings (the potstickers made a lot and the chicken tacos were 3 servings for me). Other meals, like the salad I had the first week, I was wishing was bigger. I added more of my own greens.
Cooking time
- I love to cook, but I do most of my cooking on the weekends. Certain meals, like the pork pot stickers, were a 45 min to an hour worth of time. I prepared that one on a Sunday knowing it took a while and it was a level 3 recipe. Most meals were closer to 30 minutes from prep to table which works for most people, but I have been working late so I usually bring dinner with me or come home and grab something out of the fridge to heat up.
  pork potstickers and cabbage salad
Dairy
- I try to avoid dairy. Dairy was pretty much in every meal, whether it was cheese, sour cream or yogurt. I am ok with some cheese, but do not like sour cream or yogurt. It was easy to leave the ingredients out, but then it was also a bit wasteful. Obviously this is a personal preference, but it would be nice to see more dairy free options.

Overall, I liked Hello Fresh, but with the cost and the amount of cooking time, it is easier for me to grocery shop and stick to a lower budget even if that means less variety.

I loved how the meals were each packed with its ingredients in boxes, minus the meat which was kept surrounded by ice packs in the bottom of the package. There was very little waste of food, which is nice with things being prepackaged. I also loved having a Saturday delivery as I prep my food on the weekend (I have heard about other services that may only offer a weekday delivery based on where you live). Shipping is always free and the box is delivered by FedEx.

I found the service convenient for my short work weeks and may use again in the future if I know I don’t have a long time at home and want something planned for me. If you are interested, you can check out their page www.hellofresh.com.

Have you used a meal service before?

Meals on the Go WIAW #22

August 24, 2016 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Happy Wednesday. It has been a few months since I shared a WIAW post, so I thought I would share my eats from Monday this week.

If you have been following my blog, you may recall that back in April I decided to try low carb high fat for my eats. While I may not strictly follow that way of eating all the time (I don’t turn down cupcakes and cookies), I have found that it has really helped my digestion to eat this way. I think what helps the most is that it forces me to stay away from that tempting junk food. I now think more carefully about my choices and think about what I am eating and how it will make me feel later. Junk food and more processed food does not make me feel my best and I strive to feel my best.

Monday morning I headed to the gym about 5am so I had a banana before heading out the door.

I came home and it was time for breakfast. Breakfast can still be a challenge because I really like my breakfast carbs, but here are my recent eats. I buy my favorite Bob Evan’s sausage and make patties and cook all of them on Sunday. That way it is easy to warm them up on a weekday morning and it helps me to get equivalent sizes by making all of them at once. The patties come out to be just over 3oz a piece before being cooked.

I then pair a sausage patty with some roasted sweet potatos and this week some Brussel spouts and a few blueberries left over. I like representing as many colors as I can. Sometimes I will have broccoli or zucchini. I never thought I’d be eating green veggies for breakfast but it does work. If I am extra hungry after the gym, I will make a slice of bacon. Yes give me all the fats!! My breakfast with the banana comes out to be almost 500 calories. I really like big breakfasts and lighter meals and snacks throughout the day. It works for me.

I noticed when I changed my breakfast up, I didn’t need my apple and peanut butter snack mid morning. Actually it seems eating an apple sometimes made me MORE hungry.

Now, I usually just have almonds or cashews and a few peanut butter pretzels (my co worker keeps a giant container and they are hard to resist, but protein and fat from the peanut butter and carbs are only 13g for a serving).

Monday I had salted roasted cashews and some of those pretzels as I was on a conference call. Good thing I had the mute button on with all that crunching.

Finally I had a break between meetings and got my salad from the fridge. I had a spinach base, half an orange bell pepper, half a tomato, a few carrots and some honey turkey meat.

For my something sweet, I had half of a Cookies and Cream Quest bar. Still addicted to this flavor, seriously my favorite and my next box should be arriving any day!!

Our receptionist keeps a bowl of mints and skittles up front. Thankfully I am not a skittles person, but the mints are delicious even though I know there is some sugar in them. I have a few of those through the afternoon. I usually only grab one when I walk by it.

I stayed an hour late on Monday and I brought my “just in case” dinner or really just an appetizer, but it ended up being my dinner, a bowl of bean salad. Forgot to take a photo until I gobbled half of it down.

After eating and sending a couple last emails, I headed to the train. I got home and had some things to get done so that distracted me and then it was past 7pm so I decided to skip eating chicken and go for the Arctic Zero ice cream to end the night and a handful of cashews as I packed my lunch for the next day.

My protein was a little low, carbs were not too bad for a workout day (always high with eating a banana) and I was surprised that I wasn’t more hungry, but maybe I was just too distracted working on things. Throughout the day my estimated totals came to 1,500 calories with 150g Carbs, 76g Fat, 76g Protein. I don’t track my macros everyday, but was curious in the last week to see what they have been.

Meal planning has been essential for me lately with staying late at work a few nights a week. Even if only an hour, it cuts into my eating time because I like to be eating dinner at 6 ideally. If I eat too much too close to bed, I don’t sleep well and I’m pretty much a grandma and go to bed at 9:30 most nights. That is what you do to wake up at 4:45 to get to the gym. At least for now it is still light outside when I get home and with it cooling down, (please summer don’t go) I can open my patio door and get some fresh air through my apartment which is definitely a plus and saves me from running the AC.

Do you meal plan?

Do you like big breakfasts?

Bridal Shower and Meal Prep: MIMM#72

May 23, 2016 by Alicia 6 Comments

Welcome back to Monday. I really can’t believe that May is almost over already and memorial day is next weekend. I am looking forward to a 3 day weekend, though I don’t really have any plans yet.

Back to this weekend, though, I was busy traveling and checking up with friends so there wasn’t much down time, but I enjoyed it. Friday I worked at home until 3, which was a treat in itself. I am definitely more productive at home.

I then headed out to Binghamton for a quick overnight trip. It was 80 degrees on Friday!! I treated myself to a Starbucks iced tea at a rest stop.

I arrived at 7pm just as Brian finished cooking steaks and brussel sprouts for dinner. It was delicious!! I was definitely hungry.

me and Brian — hey look we got a picture together

We then headed to his family friends house along with his brother and girlfriend. We hung out by the fire outside for a bit and then I helped with some cutting up of fruit for the bridal shower saturday. I was having such a fun time that 11pm came quickly and I wasn’t even that tired. I think we got home around midnight but Brian and I were up talking until about 1am. That is the latest I have probably stayed up since New Years lol. Luckily we were able to sleep in until about 9am, the latest I have slept in, in a while too, but a good 8 hours of sleep.

I had breakfast and got ready for the bridal shower. The decorations at the shower were amazing. The theme was Kentucky Derby. Her sister put the shower together well, from the food display to the decorations. I LOVED that cupcake and cookie display (can you tell I am cupcake obsessed?!). I also love the mason jar glasses and writing our names with chalk. We also got to keep our glasses.

We had one game and mostly just enjoyed chatting and watching the bride-to-be and groom-to-be open presents. I had my friend (Courtney’s Kustom Creations on Facebook) make some Mr and Mrs glasses .

After the shower, I picked up my things in Binghamton (the shower was about 30 min from Binghamton) and then headed on the road around 3 Saturday. It was a quick trip but a wonderful time.

I made good time to get to Wegmans where I ate some dinner and then did my grocery shopping. Once I arrived home and unpacked, my sister wanted to Skype and while I wanted a quick call because I was tired, we ended up chatting until 11 or so. Even Skittles joined the call.

I was so ready for bed afterwards and slept until about 8am Sunday.

As soon as I got up on Sunday, it was time for meal prep, laundry and some down time before heading out to teach yoga. I made bacon wrapped chicken (thanks Lee), shredded chicken for salads in the crockpot, sweet potato fries and broccoli salad.

After yoga, I headed out to meet some of my fellow yoga teachers from my training and we had an early dinner. One of my friends just had a baby 2 months ago so it was great to finally meet him. He was very good at dinner. We wrapped up pretty quickly as the baby was getting tired towards the end and I took a walk down the block to a cupcake place I saw on the map. I actually decided on the smore’s cookie sandwich since I was craving smores the other night when we had a fire going. I waited until I got home to eat it and only planned to eat half, but then ended up eating the whole thing. Funny story though I decided to heat up the first half and after only 20 seconds in the microwave it was a melty mess but delicious. I ate the other half as it was and I have to say I liked the melty marshmellow better even if it was messy and required a fork to eat it.

chicken pesto pizza for dinner, ate half

Finally I was home for the evening, chilling out on the couch and catching the new Food Network Star season.

Whew, what a busy weekend, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I wasn’t bored once and I felt like it was a great 2 days. It almost felt longer than 2 days with all the travels. I needed some friend time for sure. Now I am refreshed for the work week.

How did you spend your weekend?

Do you crave smores when you sit by a fire?

What I liked About Hello Fresh:

Variety of meals

Meal ideas

Save time from going to the store

Easy to follow instructions

What didn’t work for me:

Price

Serving size

Cooking time

Dairy