As my title suggests, last week was not my most creative in the kitchen. I am one of those people who doesn’t mind eating the same thing over and over and some weeks that’s all I have the energy to do. This past week was ten or so days into Paige not sleeping for more than two hour stretches at night. I didn’t really care what I ate as long as it was healthy and available. I made a few big meals over the weekend that lasted me all week and called it good.

For most of the week I ate salmon cakes for breakfast. I know it sounds weird, but they can be made ahead and are really filling and delicious. They taste great warm or cold and are portable, so a very easy on-the-go breakfast. And by 9am you’ll have had your fill of Omega 3s. I add a little bit of homemade mayo to the top of each one and I’m full for hours.

I don’t seem to have a picture of this spicy peanut (or almond) chicken, but it’s a recipe I used to make all the time when I was big into calorie counting (the dark days). I was excited to try a new chicken casserole recipe, but apparently spaghetti squash has gone mainstream as they were out of it at two different stores. I remembered this recipe when I needed to come up with an alternative way to use the chicken I had already purchased. I used almond butter that I had on hand instead of peanut butter and it still tasted delicious. With 2.5 lbs of chicken, be prepared for a lot of leftovers or to freeze half. After we had it for dinner Sunday I was able to eat it for lunch most of the week.

I made this crockpot beef and green chile stew as well last week. The flavors were great. It was  nice and spicy. The meat was a little less tender than I would have liked, but as I read back through the recipe I see that she cooked it on high for a bit then on low, which I didn’t do. Maybe that would have helped? I skipped the searing part so I didn’t use an alternative flour to all-purpose, but I probably would have just skipped flour had I bothered with the sear.

That’s all I’ve got to share this week. It really was a boring week in food around here, but sometimes that’s just the easiest way to tackle getting in 3+ meals a day.

Still loving the new menu plan. I simplified and prepped more food for this past week, but other than that the plan is working well. For weekend prep I made (clockwise from top left): roasted beets, side salads and dressing, casserole (ready to be baked), hard boiled eggs, soup. Having all this food on hand made it really easy to stick to my menu plan and eat three (or four) meals each day without relying on a drive-thru or take out.

New Find

It’s been a while since I’ve shopped at Trader Joe’s, but maternity leave means one salary. My weekly trip to Whole Foods, during which I didn’t pay attention to prices, seems irresponsible now, so I’m trying to find better deals rather than go for convenience. I came across these Chile Lime Chicken Burgers in the frozen section. They are delicious, Whole30 approved, and can be cooked from frozen in less than 10 minutes. I think they will be great to keep in the freezer for quick, unplanned meals.

What We Ate

In working on simplicity, there were only three recipes this week. All other dishes were just roasted or quickly sautéed meats and veggies. I also made use of all the leftovers this week, which was a big win and something I’m not always great at doing.

Sweet Potato Soup with Bacon A long standing Well Fed 2 favorite and breakfast staple of mine (eggs + soup for breakfast is delicious)
Pizza Spaghetti (Squash) Pie New recipe that I’ve been meaning to try forever; delicious with spicy Italian sausage)
Mustard Glazed Chicken Thighs New recipe; hard to go wrong with butter + spicy mustard (the recipe I used is in Practical Paleo; here’s a similar one but it includes honey and omits sage)

I issued myself a little challenge last week to get back to healthy foods. For the last month or so my focus has been on getting enough food to increase my milk supply. My lactation consultant had me start eating six meals a day, which made me feel much better and helped my supply. I guess in the early baby weeks I was forgetting to eat too often.

I’m down to four meals a day, but they have not been the healthiest. I was overwhelmed by not only a baby, but a baby who wasn’t getting enough food.  Whatever I could manage to eat, I ate. My sugar cravings were insane, which is impressive for someone who would much rather eat salty food than sweet. As life with a baby is starting to feel more manageable, I decided to make some changes. I first though about doing a Whole 30, but right now that is just too much.

Instead, I decided to commit to just one week of healthy eating. Mentally is seemed totally doable, and I totally did it. I feel so much better. We’re still getting very little sleep (on week 2 of terrible night time sleep), but I’m no longer surviving off sugar and thinking about my next ‘fix’ at all times. It’s crazy the difference a few days makes. I also feel much less bloated. I’m under my pregnancy weight but I’ve actually gained weight since my two week post-partum visit (thank you six meals a day!). I think by focusing on healthy foods I’ll be able to eat enough to keep my supply going strong and maybe start loosing some baby weight.

To hold myself accountable, I used my future business Instagram account and posted each meal. You can see from the pictures below (what I ate Monday through Friday) that the week was all about repetition and really simple veggie side dishes. Posting my pictures (and interacting with people when I’m home with a dog and baby all day) worked so well I’ve decided to do it again this week.

New Challenge

I know I’m starting to feel like my old self again when I go about my day constantly issuing challenges in my head. For the coming week, I’m going to continue eating well but I’d also like to get away from eating a bar in middle of the night every night. I need to eat something, but my bar habit is getting expensive (these and these are my favorites) and makes me extra thirsty. They were incredibly convenient for the first two months of middle of the night nursing sessions (and I’m thankful my friend Amanda bought me some and gave me the idea to eat them then), but now it’s time to move on to something else and save bars for traveling.

Overall, I’m going to call my new menu planning plan a success. There’s room to improve, but I’m sticking with it for a second week which means success.

The Good

• We ate home cooked meals for dinner five nights this past week. We haven’t managed to eat at home that often in months. This alone made thinking through the new plan worth it.
• The plan allowed for flexibility. We ate six of the seven planned meals, but not ncessarily on the originally scheduled night. I like that it was easy to move meals around based on what had been prepped, number of baby melt downs, what we felt like eating that night, etc.
• Planning was simple. I made notes on a piece of paper to get down meals and what needed to be defrosted and prepped over the weekend. It took maybe two hours to do the planning and grocery shopping.

What Can Be Improved

• I planned a few meals that required too much prep. One meal had recipes to follow for a main course, a dipping sauce, and two vegetable side dishes. My only real prep time is while Paige takes her morning nap; I need to make sure to take all the preparation for a meal into account when combining mains and sides.
• I didn’t do enough prep for breakfasts and lunches during the week and ended up eating some junk here and there. My weekday day time meals are going to need to be fully prepped and ready to go to ensure that I eat them. I’m working on that this weekend and hoping to see an improvement in the coming week.

What We Ate

I made everything I had planned for dinner with the exception of the spicy tuna cakes as we had unplanned take out one night. On Monday night my best friend was in town and we ended up picking up dinner from our favorite Mexican place rather than cooking (witching hour was going STRONG that night). I winged it for breakfasts and lunches, which doesn’t work so well with the baby. I don’t think I made a single dish listed under breakfast and lunch above.

I found a few recipes to use veggies I had in the fridge from our winter CSA. The leek and lemon soup was really good and simple to make. I almost always end up composting fennel but was determined to use it this time. I made this kale and fennel salad, adding hard boiled egg and bacon to make it heartier for lunch.

Smothered pork chops sound a little more Southern than I’m used to cooking, but these were delicious. The recipe was really simple but tasted like something that was more time consuming to put together. I swapped in tapioca flour for the all purpose flour.

We had crockpot chicken enchilada soup that was pretty good. It wasn’t amazing, but it was ridiculously easy and good enough tasting, so it’s gets an overall “pretty good”. Easy as in I threw it together in five minutes before driving to the airport because I had forgotten about it earlier in the day. It also could be a freezer crockpot meal. Finding grain free freezer crockpot meals is not easy, so while this wasn’t amazing, I’m sure I’ll be making it again. (I don’t drink coffee for dinner, but I do eat soup leftovers for breakfast quite often.)

One of my all time favorite recipes is Nom Nom Paleo’s Kalua Pork. Recently she came out with a pressure cooker version that is ready in less than two hours (with less then 5 minutes of hands on time). I am happy to report it tastes just like the original. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, the original is made in a crockpot for 16 hours. Well worth every hour you spend smelling the goodness, waiting to taste it.

I guess I didn’t manage a picture of dinner on Wednesday. We had lamb burgers (just okay) and beet salad (a great way to use up the bags upon bags of beets we’ve received this winter).

Phew… my first post-baby Menu Monday. Sadly it feels like a crazy big accomplishment!

I’m just getting back into meal planning and cooking after a break for most of the third trimester and the first few weeks with a newborn. Occasionally over the past months I spent a little time in the kitchen and have a few tasty meal ideas to share.

Beef Chili Colorado A few months before Paige was born I bought an InstantPot, assuming it would come in handy for quick meals with a baby. My assumption was correct and I love it much more than my original stove top pressure cooker (that broke after just a few months of use). It can also function as a slow cooker, maximizing utility in one appliance. But back to the chili – instead of a full day of simmering, it was ready in less than an hour. We ate it over roasted sweet potatoes and with a side of kale. As a bonus, there are plenty of leftovers.Chicken Saag Don’t let this unappetizing picture fool you. The meal is delicious, it’s my photography skills that are lacking. I love Indian food but have trouble eating it in restaurants as everything has dairy. I’d like to learn to cook more of it at home, but the recipes tend to be on the labor intensive side. For now this super easy crock pot recipe is satisfying my cravings. It makes a lot; I would recommend freezing half if you don’t want to eat the same thing for multiple meals several days in a row. I served it over cauliflower “rice” (lately I’ve been using this oven-roasted method). 

Taco Salad  My go-to dinner when I don’t feel like cooking is to quickly defrost ground beef and use whatever I have on hand for taco salad. Over the years I’ve collected a few favorites to make the perfect taco salad. I love this Mexican Salad Dressing. It almost tastes creamy even though there is no dairy. Instead of buying taco mix at the store I quickly throw together my own. This recipe is cheap, yummy, and doesn’t contain any strange ingredients. And lastly, not pictured but usually topping my salad, is Alton Brown’s guacamole recipe. There are a lot of good guac recipes out there, but this is my favorite.

Brazilian Fish Stew Another simple meal that can easily be done start to finish on a week night.  I loved the flavors and you could easily swap out the veggies with what you have on hand. The one problem is that it’s not terribly filling. I added a scoop of rice to our bowls when we had it for dinner. I’d probably do that again and top it off with avocado as well.

I’m excited to slowly be getting back into the kitchen. So far this week we’ve had dinner at home four out of four nights – I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened since last October. I’m hoping to stay motivated by sharing our food again on the blog.