Planning ahead

When I’m busy at work, I try and do whatever I can to simplify my daily routine.  Oftentimes, this involves cooking meals in “batch” so that I don’t succumb to eating fast food to compensate for not having time to cook.

This past tax season, I was really hardcore about precooking meals.  Every Sunday I would set aside a couple hours and cook ALL of my meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for the workweek ahead of time.  This took a lot of planning and creativity on my part.  Since FerventFoodie.com didn’t come about until after tax season, I don’t have any documentation of my meal plans.  Guess we’ll have to wait til next tax season for that 😉

Breakfast #1

Last night, I decided to pre-cook a few things for the week.  I threw 3 chicken breasts and 3 Jennie O’s turkey sausages on the George Foreman grill to cook up.  I don’t have a plan in mind for the meat at this point — just hoping to simplify what I expect to be a very busy workweek!

I decided to use one of the turkey sausage links in an egg scramble.  I whisked up 11 egg whites and 1 whole egg with a splash of water.   Once in the pan, I seasoned with S&P and some Red Pepper Flakes.

When the eggs were about 1/2 way done scrambling, I added 1 chopped up turkey sausage link and a few splashes of Frank’s Red Hot.

I also roasted up 3 cups of broccoli.  When I roast veggies, I typically spray a heavy coat of cooking spray on a cookie sheet, toss the veggies around on it, then add S&P (and sometimes garlic powder, onion powder, or red pepper flakes).  Then, I cook in a 415 degree oven for 15 minutes. 

This mix made 3 lovely portion-controlled breakfasts:

One of which I enjoyed at work this morning with a dollop o’ ketchup:

I’m glad roasted veggies taste just as good when heated up in the microwave 😀

Stats on Scramble, Broccoli, & Ketchup:  180 calories, 10g carbs, 5g fat, 24g protein, 2g fiber

Breakfast #2

Chobani strawberry greek yogurt + 1/2 cup blueberries =

I <3 Greek Yogurt

Stats on B#2:  181 calories, 31g carbs, 0g fat, 15g protein, 3g fiber

Lunch

Last month, the BF and I made some zucchini turkey burgers.  Jarrod liked them so much, that he replaced the daily burger on his meal plan with a turkey burger.  When I was cooking all my foods up last night, I decided to help Jarrod out and make up his turkey burgers for the week… for the low LOW fee of one burger of course 😉

Here’s what went into the turkey burgers this time:

• 1 package Nature’s Vally 99% Fat Free Ground Turkey Breast (about 20 ounces)
• 1 small zucchini, grated
• 1/3 cup red onion, grated
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• Salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes

This mix made four burgers, one of which I brought with me for lunch today.  I heated the burger up, then sandwiched it with a Pepperidge Farm 7 Grain Deli Flat, ketchup, mustard, tomato, and onion:

Side shot:

I also had a crap ton 2 cups of roasted cauliflower on the side:

I wish my lunches ALWAYS made me this happy!

Stats on just the turkey burger (no bun/toppings):  163 calories, 3g carbs, 2g fat, 33g protein, 0g fiber

Stats on whole lunch: 363 calories, 45g carbs, 3g fat, 44g protein, 12g fiber

Side note of the deli flats — I compared the backs of various brands and varieties of the “deli flat” style buns in the grocery store the other day.  Both Pepperidge Farm and the Arnold varieties were comparable — though the Pepperidge Farm deli flats have 2 less grams of carbs and 1 more gram of protein.  Not necessarily something to write home about, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless 🙂

(Screen shot taken from myfitnesspal.com)

Speaking of planning ahead, some things to look forward to in the coming months:

• Healthy Living Summit in Chicago in August (shout out to my roommate Haya!)
• Wedding in Columbus in September (I love weddings!)
• Pittsburgh with mom/sister/brother in September
• New Orleans in October
• My Annual Halloween Spooktacular 😀
• And the holidays….

I have a feeling the rest of this year is going to FLY.  Plus, I’m hoping we can squeeze in another trip to Charlotte before year-end….