My Kind of Sunday Funday

It's Sunday, kiddos! You know what that means! 

MEAL PREP YAYYYY!!

But first, let's discuss last week a little bit.

I had my first major temptation test! Sometimes at work, the office gets so busy that the guys (I use that term in a non-gender-specific way. The guys = everyone) have to order in. On Wednesday, the decision was made that office lunch would be Dairy Queen. So everyone was ordering their chicken strips and Blizzards, and I felt happy to be able to say, "None for me, thanks!" and sip my lemon water and eat a Lara bar. Happy yay success!

BUT It didn't end there. (Dun dun DUNNNNN) After all the orders were placed, it appeared that I was the only one not in the middle of something super important, so I got elected to go along to pick everything up. So, temptation is one thing when you're just envisioning the food. It's something all together different when you're sitting in the passenger seat of a car, holding two drink carriers full of Blizzards, with a huge bag of fried food at your feet, the delicious smell wafting up to you, and you think, "well f**k this."

But, I stayed strong. I did not sneak one french fry, I didn't eat one cheese curd, I didn't taste one Blizzard. I ate a string cheese instead and pretended it was chocolate. Not quite the same thing, but I was so, SO proud of myself!!

Then I took a gratuitous selfie cus I was feelin' good.

damn, girl! curlin that hair like whoa

Thursday night I prepped one of Delilah's original recipes, Creamy Chicken Pesto Bake. Find the recipe here: http://www.mycleanrecipes.blogspot.com/2013/09/creamy-pesto-chicken-bake.html

I made everything and had a blast doing it.

Everything's better with a Ninja.

Those are sun-dried tomatoes from a jar on top.
Next time: don't be scared of how creepy they look. Add more!!!!!

I put it in the fridge instead of baking it, because my plan was to go to Lincoln on Friday night and make it at Emily's house. Plans changed, and I ended up just making it at home on Friday instead. And it was DELICIOUS!

So delicious, I forgot to take a picture before I started eating. WHAT?!

Moving on! It's SUNDAYYYYYYYY!

This week is kind of odd for me. I'll be heading to Des Moines on Wednesday night for an early morning Thursday meeting, so I wanted to make sure I had something I could take on Wednesday to work for dinner, as well as lunch. Thursday lunch is going to be up in the air, depending on if I go to lunch with my boss or if we're done in Des Moines by then and I can find somewhere on my own. But I'll keep you posted!

So today for breakfast, I made myself some scrambled eggs with mozzarella cheese. For some reason I cannot figure out how to NOT get the eggs to burn to the bottom of the pan. "Burn" isn't really the right word I suppose, but they cook on there real good. I used a lot of coconut oil today to prevent that, but it just ended up making my eggs taste like coconut (fine by me!!)

Help me, I'm clingy.

I attempted making bacon again, still wary from the Great Guacamole Disaster of '13. This time instead of cooking it in the oven, I made it in a skillet, flipping every so often. I thought it looked way under-cooked for SO LONG then all of a sudden, bacon shrinkage happened again and I was all "OH NO DON'T TASTE LIKE ASHES AND SADNESS AGAIN!"

This is what it feels like to win at breakfast.

It did not taste very sad. It wasn't exactly the most delicious bacon I've ever had, but then again, I'm not obsessed with bacon in the way that most of America seems to be lately. So instead of eating it as a side, I cut it up and mixed it with my eggs. Yummy! 

I never used to drink coffee at home either, but Delilah suggested this all-natural creamer. I gave it a go, and yep! Very tasty.

Drink of me and be happy

Then it was time to prepare my meal plan for the week! I still have a decent amount of leftovers from the tail end of last week, so I didn't need to prep for every single day. But I wanted to try some new things! So I happened upon a great website with lots of delicious-sounding recipes: www.paleotable.com. Check it out!!  

So here's my tentative plan for the week, with breakfast as usual being a smoothie or Egg Bake:

Today:

Dinner: Melt In Your Mouth Chicken (a recipe my mom found online and sent to me) & Zucchini noodles

Monday: 

Lunch: Leftover MIYM Chicken & noodles 

Dinner: Leftover whatever (I still have some Spaghetti Squash Bake from when I had Austin and Brittany over, and I also still have some Creamy Chicken Pesto Bake left, too)

Tuesday: 

Lunch: Leftover whatever

Dinner: Zucchini Brucshetta (another one from mom) & sweet potato fries

Prep: make Chicken Salad for tomorrow

Wednesday:
Lunch: Leftovers or a GoPicnic
Dinner: Chicken Salad with Grapes (recipe from paleotable.com, found here: http://paleotable.com/2013/03/chicken-salad-with-grapes/ although I will be substituting paleo mayo for cottage cheese, per Delilah's suggestion, since I don't have a "real" food processor)

Thursday (in Des Moines):
Breakfast will be a Lara Bar for sure, and I think the hotel has some kind of breakfast. Otherwise I'll stop somewhere and try to find something clean-ish
Lunch: ????
Dinner: Udi's Margherita Pizza (This is a gluten-free frozen pizza found in the HyVee Health Market. I like to keep one or two on hand for days when I'm feeling lazy. I imagine Thursday I will be tired from traveling and the early morning so I don't want to over-do it).
Prep: set alarm to get up early to prepare pot roast!

Friday:
Lunch: Leftover Chicken Salad
Dinner: Crock Pot Balsalmic Roast with Sweet Onions, also from paleotable.com. (recipe here: http://paleotable.com/2011/02/crock-pot-balsamic-roast-with-sweet-onions/)

Here's what I did for prep!
1. Made Sweet Potato fries. They're frozen, but I just bagged them and tossed them in the fridge so I can just pop them in the microwave for quick enjoyment later.

2. Made the spice mix for the Crock Pot Roast. Not much else can be done for that ahead of time, but that'll save me like 10-15 minutes (I'm a slow, hesitant spice measurer) so it works for me.
3. Made "ranch" dip and cut up veggies for easy on-the-go snacks
4. Cooked the chicken for the Chicken Salad w/ Grapes - just cut up 1 1/2 lbs of chicken breast and cooked it in a skillet over olive oil, then put it in a tupperware in the fridge. Super easy.
5. Made smoothie bags! This is a weekly Sunday routine no matter what. I always have leftover bags from the week before but who cares? What if I'm feeling extra lazy and just want a smoothie for dinner? What if I want a 2nd smoothie after a workout? SMOOTHIES ARE GREAT.

Speaking of smoothies, fruit is informational, and hilarious.
Informational? Here, let me show you how I cut a pineapple.
Pineapples are scary, spiky, dangerous creatures. Fear not! With big-ass knife, you will be Pineapple King and then the pineapple will show you it's true sweet tastiness.

Hello Pineapple friend. You are prickly.

Lie down with the enemy.

Bye leaves!

Cut off the outsides. 

Leaning tower of Pina. (PISA? GETI T?! *slaps knee*)

Want to make rings? Slice a little sliceroo.

Get a smaller knife. Cut out the hard core. HARDCORE, MAN.

Sometimes this doesn't always go as planned.

Don't give a what about rings? Cut around the core like this, yo.
The end.

You're welcome.
And fruits are Hilarious? Yes. I have fun with strawberries.

THIS IS A HUGE STRAWBERRY. MULTIBERRY.

OMG ATTACK OF THE GIANT STRAWBERRIES!!!

HAHA JK LOL JUST FUN WITH PERSPECTIVE LOLOLOLOL

But seriously, what about this guy? This is like 19 strawberries in one. Or at least 6.

Happy Strawberry is Happy. And loves you.

Okay enough of that.... weirdo.........

DINNER RECIPE FOR TONIGHT SUPER EASY!!!
Melt In Your Mouth Chicken 
I am not sure where my mom found this recipe, but I'll give credit once I find out!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup Greek yogurt, plain
1 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Spread mixture over chicken breasts (I used 4), bake at 375 degrees for 45 mins.

Yep, that easy!!

Now, I buy this shaved parmesan cheese, and its flakes are pretty big.

So, I improvised. My mom bought me one of these nifty tools a few years back - its meant for crushing up nuts mostly, but in our household it's most commonly used to crunch up pretzels for a famous family dessert that now I can only dream of enjoying... (Psh, get real, Peter Pan, I'll save up all my cheat days to enjoy Strawberry Pretzel Jello on Christmas). Anyway, it worked great to break down the parmesan to a spreadable size.

I win at smartness. And English.

I mixed all the dry ingredients together first then stirred it into the yogurt.

Seriously, I'm anal about proper measurements sometimes.

This doesn't look that good. But it smelled delightful.

It looks weird before it's cooked.

Uh, gross.

It looks (and smells) much better after it's cooked!

There we go.

I made Zucchini Noodles as a side, and it was a great dinner!! Maybe next time I'll think about cutting the breasts long-ways (not all the way through, though - think like what we did for Pesto Chicken) and put some of the mixture inside the chicken along with on top for an all-over yumminess.

BAM. DINNER IS SERVED, AND IT IS AWESOME.

That about does it for today, everyone. Thanks for sticking around for another long post!