Monday Meal Planning: Week 3

This week might be the easiest so far in this meal planning endeavor I've taken on. Last week I talked about a post I found that had recipes for twenty make ahead crock pot meals - all of which we made last Sunday.

That means this Sunday all I have to do is decide which meals to have which nights. No grocery shopping, no preparing, no stress. Of the twenty meals we made, it is actually ten different meals, each split in to two gallon sized  bags, which is more ideal for cooking for two. My tentative plan is to have one of each before restarting. That being said, here's what's on deck this week:

Monday:
Meatball Vegetable Soup

Tuesday:
Shredded Beef and Carrots

Wednesday:
Minstrone

Thursday:
Beef Chili

Friday:
Beef and Barley Stew

Of the other meals we've tried from this set, I've enjoyed most of them, but there are definitely a couple that I will be adding to my favorites (and some I could do without making again). After we make it all the way through each at least once, I'll post a short review of how each one turned out and what I might do differently.

Do y'all have any go to recipes for an easy weeknight dinner? Please share!

Have a Great Day, Y'all! 

xoxo 

linking up with:

Monday Mingle | Merry Monday |The Creative Corner

TGIF: Spring is almost here!

TGIF is no understatement. This has been a long week. That's how we all seem to feel on Fridays, right? This is our first weekend back in town as a MARRIED COUPLE! And I am so so so happy to not have anything really planned. I'm sure there will be a good deal of unpacking presents, and cleaning, but there will also be so much lounging and I cannot wait! Do y'all have any big weekend plans?

Meal Planning

If you saw my post on Monday, you'd know I was trying out meal planning for the first time. It has been really nice to have a brand new dinners and recipes to try out every night. But, I think I will try a different approach next week. This week we had a few crock pot meals, but they all only took 4 hours, so we ended up starting them when we got home - which kind of defeats the purpose. We also had a few meals that just took an hour or less to prepare. While none of that is super time consuming, it is still just another task to have to complete every night. Another meal to prepare, and another kitchen to clean up. I know, life.
I think for this upcoming week I'm going to get the plans together at least by Saturday so that we can go to the grocery on Sunday morning and pre-prepare a lot of items during the day Sunday, even if it is just chopping onions or crushing garlic, that's still one less thing to do during the week. I think it is definitely a trial and error game, but I have been pleased so far! Do any of y'all meal plan? I am still seeking any and all advice on what you think works and what doesn't - please share!

The Bachelor

I'd like to say that this is my only guilty pleasure on TV, but I think the truth is that all reality TV is my guilty pleasure. Oops.
Anyways, this week's episode of the Bachelor was the famous "Fantasy Suite" episode, of which all of the girls took advantage. At the risk of approaching a touchy subject, I honestly don't know what I would do in that situation, as either the contestant or the Bachelorette. I think the bigger news on the episode this week however, was that Ben said "I love you" to TWO girls. That's right. TWO. I'd always assumed it was an unwritten, or actually written, rule that they were not allowed to say it back to the contestants because if it was clear to the fans and audience who was favored, then there was less incentive to continue watching. Well, I guess you get around that by saying it to BOTH of them. I mean JoJo was genuinely shocked, she's watched the show enough to know that normally they just dance around it. I can kind of see where he's coming from, but I feel so bad for both of the girls because the fact that he said it back, right now they both think that they'll get the final rose, and obviously that is not going to be the case. I'll be very interested to see "After the Final Rose" that airs after the finale and how the runner-up really felt about it all.
Unfortunately we have to wait two weeks - this upcoming week will be the "Tell All" episode, which is always full of drama. Y'all, I can't help it. It's like a train wreck that I can't look away from. Please tell me I'm not the only one.

DietBet (again)

Do you know what happens when you go to an all inclusive resort for 6 days? Let me tell you. You will gain at least five to eight pounds. Like a solid gain of five pounds, not just, "Oh, I think I gained five pounds at Thanksgiving dinner." Legit. So I am back on the DietBet train, well actually, I've been on it in a maintainer which requires that I stay within 2% of my starting weight - which I am currently over. For now I've also joined a Kickstarter which requires you to lose 4% of your current weight within 4 weeks. I have completed three of these before, and won two of them. I think my chances are pretty good on this one (knock on wood) because I am going from an almost stationary lifestyle of work and wedding planning to 5 days a week at the gym. Fingers crossed!
To find out a little more about DietBet and my first experience with it, check out this post.

Post Wedding Blues

I have officially been married for thirteen days and it has been more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. We went on a honeymoon the Monday immediately following the wedding, so I am finishing up my first week back at work. I came across a lot of articles while I was planning the wedding that said after the wedding you will have "Post Wedding Blues" because it will all be over and you won't have any planning to do. Well, at least for now, that couldn't be further from the truth. I enjoyed planning my wedding, but it was A LOT of work, and took up A LOT of time. I am so happy to have more time to spend at home with my husband (!), and it's time that we can just hang out and eat dinner and watch TV instead of going to Michaels and Home Depot and making seating charts and painting candle holders and assembling signs and monogramming napkins. You get the picture. I'm sure I will feel a little sadness that it's all over, but it's only over because our marriage is starting, and isn't that what it's all about?

Orange is the New Black

Maybe I watched all three seasons within a week and a half, maybe I didn't. Spoiler: I totally did. And since there are only three seasons, I am desperately waiting until the summer for the new one to air. As with most shows like that, I'll probably forget about it, and rediscover it after it about a month after it's released. Have any of y'all watched it? What did you think? I am super interested in trying to find out how realistic some of the things that happen are, but I haven't had much luck on that research. Only a handful of articles with interviews by the producer and previous inmates.

Hope you've had a great week so far, let's get this weekend started!

Happy Friday!

xoxo 

linking up with:

Oh Hey Friday | Five on Friday |  Casual I Friday | xoxo Rebecca | High Five for Friday | Friday Favorites 
Wednesday Showcase

Monday Meal Planning: Week 1

I am finally a married woman! All of the wedding stress is gone, and now I can really, truly get my life together a little bit more, even if its ever so slightly. One of the main things I've been aiming to do for months is to try out/start meal planning. We moved in to a new house right before Christmas, and between trips to my parents house and his, we always had plenty of food coming home with us. But now that all of the holidays and wedding festivities have come to an end, we are home more often and have finally run out of leftovers.

I wasn't really sure where to start on the meal planning because a "simple" google or pinterest of the subject is actually quite overwhelming. Meal planning on a budget. Meal planning for clean eating. Meal planning for a family of five. Meal planning for 14 days. You get the picture. So after an hour or so of browsing all of these "plans," I decided maybe I was perhaps capable myself of making a meal plan for me and my new husband.

We both are on a plan to lose weight - I know, the wedding is over - but we are doing our best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That's when I turned to skinnytaste. We have used recipes from this website dozens of times and have rarely been disappointed with the results. If you've never checked it out, I would strongly encourage you to do so. They recipes are divided up into many, many categories so you can choose what you think you'll enjoy, or look for a "skinny" version of a recipe you already know and love. Plus, each recipe includes all of the nutritional information, as well as Weight Watchers points - which my husband and I have both used off and on for a few years - he is currently still using it.

For this week, my meal selection was relatively basic. I knew (assumed) that the best way to go about it would be to look for similar recipes, so that grocery shopping for the same ingredients would be more efficient and cost effective. Plus, my husband is Catholic, which meant I'd need a meatless meal for Friday. [Or fish, but I don't like fish - so we'll be eating vegetables! Haha!] With those specifications in mind, I chose the following meals for us to test out this week:

Monday:
Grilled Chicken with Spinach and Melted Mozzarella

Tuesday:
Crock Pot Italian Sloppy Joe

Wednesday:
Crock Pot Sesame Honey Chicken

Thursday:
Skinny Chicken Enchiladas 

Friday:
Cheesy Zucchini Enchiladas 

Most of the recipes say they will make between 6 and 8 servings. I am planning to cut almost all of them in half. Since we are planning to cook every night - a lofty goal, I know - we don't want to be left with too many leftovers that won't get eaten.

When I initially searched for meal plans before deciding on creating our own, one of the other problems I ran into is that I can be a picky eater. I honestly don't think I'm that picky, I think I just tend to dislike some very common food items - most notably mushrooms and fish, which pop up in dishes far more often than you might realize. I know of course that it is possible in some cases to leave certain ingredients out, or to substitute a fish or seafood meal with something else, but then the grocery list wouldn't match up quite right, so why not start from scratch and know that the meals will be tailored for me and my husband from the beginning. Well. That's the plan at least, we'll see how well it all turns out.

We did a big shopping trip yesterday to get everything we needed, which I think helps dramatically to know that we already have all of the ingredients at the house for the whole week. And not wanting to let the fresh items to go waste will also help keep me motivated and on track with the plan.

Do any of y'all meal plan regularly? Do you have any tips or tricks?

Happy Monday, y'all! Have a great day!

xoxo

linking up with:
Monday Mingle | Merry Monday | The Wednesday Showcase