Today I was out of the house by 8:30 and on my way to Wal-Mart to get groceries. I had written out my list Saturday night (going off of my meal calendar).
Today was a somewhat easy meal plan/prep day. I only made one thing in my Instant Pot. The other dinners for the week weren't really the type that could be made ahead.
I made potato soup out of a new cookbook I found at Costco:
We had it for dinner tonight and it was really, really good.
That was the only dinner prep I did. The rest of the week we are having hamburgers, chicken marsala, a chicken pasta freezer meal that I made a few weeks ago, and leftovers. I almost made the chicken marsala, but I thought it would be best to be made fresh as chicken tends to dry out when you reheat it.
As you can see from my messy menu calendar....I make a lot of changes. The highlighted stuff is what I actually made.
It's messy. But it works. I spilled some water on it today too, but that's okay. It still works. So today I bought groceries for the current week, and wrote out the menu for next week. Again...I'm sure there will be changes.
Then I did breakfast and lunch prep. Since we did salads last week, this week I made freezer sandwiches. I follow a handful of 'frugal' instagrammers, and they all do this. So then I Googled, and apparently it's a thing. You can do it with PB & J, and also meat sandwiches. I made turkey and cheese sandwiches. The trick is to put the condiments in the middle of the cheese and meat so that the bread doesn't get soggy (from the condiments). In the morning, (according to the online folks) you just pull one out, stick it in your lunch bag and it's thawed by the time you eat lunch. So I made 10 sandwiches, 5 for him, 5 for me. They're different though of course, so they are in separate bags. Hopefully they work out! Because, boy was it easy.
I also bought a bag of Cara Cara oranges and peeled them. If I pack an orange in my lunch bag unpeeled there is NO WAY I will eat it at work. I don't have time to peel an orange. Well, I DO have time, but I don't want the mess and the sticky fingers. But if they are pre-peeled? It will definitely get eaten.
The last thing I did was prepare our eggs for breakfast. Did you know eggs can be scrambled in the microwave? I've been doing this for a while. I crack two eggs each into little glass jars. I add cheese, salt and pepper. In the morning, I take my jar and stick it in my lunch bag. I don't eat breakfast until I'm at work.
Hubby eats breakfast at home though. He can just take the jar, dump it in a bowl (NEVER microwave it in the jar...it will overflow) and microwave it for about 90 seconds or so. Stir it up and you have nice, cheesy scrambled eggs with no mess.
Again, ours are different because I use different cheese (stinking' Weight Watchers!).
All of this took maybe 2 hours after I got home? I kind of lost track of time. I was playing my music from my Iceland playlist in the kitchen (we have a bluetooth speaker in there). I discovered a new Iceland artist that I LOVE....Ólafur Arnalds.
Laundry got done, sheets got changed, hockey got watched.....and now it's 7:38 and I am going to shower and go to bed so I can read.
Sundays are busy in the morning/early afternoon, but I have such peace of mind knowing that we're ready for the week. :)
