4 Hours of Work= 1 Week of Deliciousness

LA couple of weeks I was inspired by my friend and gym buddy Jen to "kick things up a notch" and follow her example of spending one day a week making food for the upcoming week.  She has been doing this for a little while now and told me how much it helps her out during the week... plus, she has lost some weight by doing so, and I thought.. why shouldn't I give it a try as well.... so I did.  The last two Sundays I spent about 3-4 hours fixing meals for the week...all my meals for the week, including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.. impressive right?  Yeah, sometimes I even impress myself with the stuff I can do when I put my mind to it LOL.  I will admit, the first week it took a lot, and I mean a lot of planning and prep work, first you have to make a menu, then put together a shopping list, go shopping, then come home and prepare everything.. and then there is the worst part of it... the clean up... but I can honestly tell you that it has been so worth it!  It has been so wonderful to come home every night and already have something delicious ready to eat, with little or no prep... and very, very, little clean up!  What has been even more exciting is preparing my lunch for the next day.. it takes like 2 minutes because again, everything has already been prepared, I just have to throw it into my lunch box and I am ready to go.  It was such a success last week that I decided to do it again this Sunday...whew.. so yesterday I did all my shopping and today, all the cooking.. and now look at my fridge... I feel like it could be pinterest worthy it's so organized.. LOL

   
I will post some of the recipes of the things I made... everything turned out delicious.. and healthy, but until then, here are a few pictures of my creations....

Roasted Corn and Tomato Soup

Chicken Skewers with Garlic Roasted Green Beans

Mini Egg Cups with Ham

Other things I made were berry cups, Charred Corn, Brown Rice & Black Bean salad, and chicken salad sandwiches.  There are a couple of tricks I have learned from doing this two weeks in a row...

1.  Go to the farmers market... so much fresh delicious produce at really reasonable prices (I go ever Saturday during the summer... it's like a tradition for me) and plan your menu around what's in season

2.  Buy stackable (if you don't have it already), reusable Tupperware so it will easily fit in the fridge and you don't have a bunch of random sized containers that you try and shove in there

3.  Cut up vegetables and bag them in individual servings so you can just "grab and go"

4.  Costco is your friend... even if you are only cooking for one... seriously, they have a lot of yummy "pre-cooked" meats that will save you a ton of time, like pre cooked bacon and chicken

5.  Line your baking sheets with tin-foil when roasting anything... saves sooo much time on the clean-up

6.  Be creative.. who would have thought to cook scrambled eggs in muffin tins... not me, luckily there is Pinterest...

Well ... I think that is all for now folks... thanks again for following.  I would love to hear from you all on any ideas that you have for plan ahead meals... and/or your tips and tricks!