I feel like a broken record in saying this... but life is busy and unpredictable right now. And honestly, it's too darn hot to cook... Over the past month I've been using a food service called Pure Foods Fresh Start to deliver gluten free meals to my house once a week and it's been awesome. I'll share more thoughts on this food service in a later post... but I missed a few weeks weeks in ordering so I've had to *gasp* actually cook the past few days.
And honestly... I'm a bit spoiled... I'm rather enjoying this whole NOT cooking thing... :-) But since I forgot to order, we had to do something for meals this week. I knew if I left it up to cooking once I got home every night it would probably not happen. Since we're trying to watch our budget and not go out to eat right now, I decided to simply cook all of our meals today. In 100 degree weather. I'm sure I'll appreciate the effort the rest of this week when all I have to do is heat our meals up in the microwave... but dang it was hot today...
I didn't use the oven. I cooked part of our meals in 2 slow cookers, part of them in the microwave, and I scrambled eggs for our breakfasts on the stove. I didn't do any shopping for these meals, I relied solely on what we had in the freezer, pantry, and fridge from weeks past.
I focused on cooking breakfasts that we could heat up at work and then making 4 meals. Three of the meals had 4 servings each. 1 meal had 2 servings. After cooking the meals I portioned them into correct serving sizes in plastic containers. We'll heat them on plates throughout the week and have meals we can take to work, or even use if we need to travel. All we'll need is a microwave to have hot, healthy, correctly portioned meals. I used very simple seasoning and very simply prepared foods.
Because I used the slow cookers the prep time for all these meals was about 7 hours. That doesn't include washing all the dishes afterwards... but overall, I know it will save a lot of time for the rest of this week.
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| If I have time, I might make a blueberry cobbler this week! Yum!! |
This Week's Menu:
Monday:
- Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 gluten free waffles, 2 links gf sausage, diced apple, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links of gf sausage
- Lunch: Remaining frozen meals we have from last week
- Dinner: 3 oz. BBQ Beef Short Ribs, 1/2 c. fresh sweet corn, 1 c. steamed broccoli
Tuesday:
- Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 gluten free waffles, 2 links sausage, diced apple, Michael's - a frozen breakfast sandwich
- Lunch: 3 oz. Slow Cooked Turkey, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. green beans
- Dinner: 3 oz. Spiral Ham slices, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. steamed broccoli
Wednesday:
- Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 scrambled eggs, 2 links sausage, diced apple, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links gf sausage
- Lunch: 3 oz. Spiral Ham slices, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. steamed broccoli
- Dinner: 3 oz. Rotisserie Chicken, 1/2 c. fresh sweet corn, 1/2 c. peas & carrots
Thursday:
- Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 gluten free waffles, 2 links gf sausage, diced apple, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links of gf sausage
- Lunch: 3 oz. Rotisserie Chicken, 1/2 c. fresh sweet corn, 1/2 c. peas & carrots
- Dinner: Slow Cooked Turkey, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. green beans
- Delivery Day -- I'll receive 5 days worth of gluten free healthy meals for the next week from Pure Foods, Fresh Start today! Woohoo!!!
Friday:
- Breakfast: Carrie's - 1 c. cooked GF rolled oats with 2 tsp. brown sugar, 1/4 c. dried cranberries, 2 tbsp. sliced almonds, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links of gf sausage
- Lunch: Michael will have lunch at home, Carrie's - prepared meal from Pure Foods/ Fresh Start
- Dinner: Traveling to visit my Dad for the weekend, so dinner on the road...
Update on My Daddy:
I cannot thank you all enough for your thoughts and prayers about my Dad. Right now he is still in very critical condition. He is very slowly making small improvements and I'm thankful that my Daddy is a fighter. I know he wants to live. Right now he is still in a medically induced coma due to all of the equipment he is connected too, and because his body is so weak and needs to heal. He is currently still on a ventilator, continuous dialysis, and a left ventricle assist device (basically a machine that acts as the left ventricle for his heart.) He has a very long road ahead and I would truly appreciate your continued prayers and thoughts. (((((((hugs)))))))))) -- Carrie
