Please tell me how it’s possible that school starts for us in 1 week! 1 week!! I think this might be the fastest summer on record for us. Truly, it seems like yesterday we were celebrating the end of school and now we are up to our eyeballs in folders, binders, and gluesticks.
Admittedly, a part of me is looking forward to getting back on schedule. I love having my kids home but it’s really hard to run a full-time blog and take care of them at the same time. Don’t get me wrong I’m grateful I get to work from home and enjoy the lazy days of summer in between blog posts. But I do look forward to getting back into a traditional work schedule. Plus, my kids are ready for school too. I can tell they’re getting bored and want to be with their friends. So all of us are savoring this last week of summer while also welcoming the new school year.
One of the things I do every year is stock my freezer for back to school. Typically, I have this done by now but this year I’m a little behind. Hmmm, probably not a good start to the year?! I’m not worried because I have Saturday and Sunday blocked to do some serious freezer cooking. I know most people are at barbecues and parties for Labor day but I plan to organize and cook instead. This doesn’t bother me one bit because I would rather go into the first week of school with all my ducks in a row instead of like a chicken with her head cut off. Trust me, it’s better this way.
Alright, let’s get to my weekly meal plan. Today I prepped a bunch of meals to get me through the week. I’m trying very hard to keep my portions under control so I using a lot of containers to create individual servings of recipes. As you can see in the picture I have smoothies, mason jar salads, overnight oats, hard-boiled eggs, and I portioned out the tortellini into individual containers. In my experience, this is the best way to prevent overeating. This takes all the thinking out of food during the week. Everything is portioned out and ready to eat. The clam sauce (red sauce in rectangle container) still needs to be portioned out but I will do that tomorrow after I make the pasta.
Last week, a couple people asked me to talk about the reasons I eat the same thing all week. I wrote about that in this post a while back but I will sum it up for you. I like to keep things easy. For example, all the food you see in the above picture took exactly 1 1/2 hours to prep. That includes cooking and clean up. I will make the fajitas and breakfast burritos tomorrow which will take another hour. So all in all this entire meal plan would take about 2 1/2 hours to prep. If I planned to eat a different recipe for each meal it would be impossible for me to prep my meal plan ahead of time. So that’s the main reason I eat the same recipe for different meals. Again, it’s all about doing what works for you.
Breakfast
Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Burrito
Make-ahead tips
- Overnight oats were made today
- Breakfast burritos will be made tomorrow.
Lunch
Kale and Chicken Ceasar Mason Jar Salad – I did a variation of this recipe with the ingredients I had on hand in the fridge.
Make-ahead tips
- mason jar salad and tuna salad were made today.
- Egg salad will be made on Friday. I made the hard-boiled eggs today.
Snacks
Mango Berry Smoothie – I made a variation of this with the ingredients I had on hand.
Hard-boiled eggs
almonds
Make-ahead tips
- Hard-boiled eggs were made today.
- Smoothies were made today and I all store them in the refrigerator.
Dinner
Tortellini with Broccoli and Chicken Sausage
Chicken Fajita Salad
Leftovers.
Make-ahead instructions
- Tortellini and clam sauce was made today. I portioned out the tortellini and plan to do the same with the clam sauce later in the week.
Here’s everything in my refrigerator.
