Meal Planning 101: Week 25

The title of this post is slightly misleading. I don't have a meal plan for you this week. However, I am going to give you resources for meal planning! And I do have a good excuse (for not having a meal plan AND for missing posting it on Monday). I'm not a student, in fact, I get grumpy when people think I am sometimes, but I do work at a university. My boss let us have off for Spring Break with the students! So I drove to Georgia to visit my BFF, who happens to be one of my biggest fans and most loyal blog readers, and her beautiful baby Alice. Alice can now say my name! Or a version of it at least, KK. So I'm dining with them this week and get a week off of cooking and meal planning in exchange for baby hugs and helping my BFF settle into her new house.

So resources! You know how obsessed I am with meal planning. I could, and have, gone on and on about the benefits of it! It's healthier and way more budget friendly! If me constantly advocating for it isn't enough, allow me to share with you the many other blogs I've found that post weekly meal plan! I use these fellow meal planners for inspiration in creating my meal plans often. It's easy! Copy us!

Blogs that post weekly meal plans: 

• This Week For Dinner (My fav and the reason I started posting meal plans!)
• Six Sisters' Stuff
• Real Mom Kitchen
• Life as a Lofthouse
• Modern Alternative Kitchen
• Organization Junkie
• Lawfully Wedded Wife
• Gospel Homemaking
• Stock Piling Moms
• My Scraps

There is even a Meal Plan Monday Facebook! I liked this the instant I found it. She posts tons of great tips, ideas, and resources.

Lunch Ideas:

Next week won't have lunch ideas since I'm not working this week and therefore not taking my lunch, but I did last week! Sad news... I microwaved one of my lunch containers a little too much! It got a hole. I WILL be buying more of these Ziplock containers though. In case you can't tell, I'm obsessed!

top left: asian chopped salad + leftover baked breaded chicken tenders + peanut dressing + celery + homemade peanut butter 

top right: leftover beef stew + crackers + a cutie

bottom left: fancy sandwiches + yellow cherry tomatoes + leftover corn grits + coconut crack bar 

bottom right: caesar salad + yogurt caesar dressing + leftover broccoli cheese twice baked potatoes 

Real Life: Influence

Influence is defined as, "the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something."

Influence is powerful! I had the opportunity to teach at an event for women this weekend with Total Woman U (one of my passions!). One of my fellow teammates during her session said, "We teach with out lives. We're constantly influencing others whether we mean to or not." I can't even fully grasp how true this is! 

I'm passionate about transparency. Where there is transparency - real, raw, Biblical community happens. Transparency in community is nothing but influence! In and out influence. In this beautiful, messy kind of community we're constantly influenced by others and influencing others. It's magnificent. 

I don't know about you, but I want that! If you ever get to experience it, you want it more and more! I'm in the more and more craving stage now and NOT mad about it at all. First God gave me an amazing accountability partner, almost a year and going strong - messy, difficult and all. In the last month God lead me to a new small group. Just after meeting with them three times, I've been beyond blessed! I reconnected this week with an old college roommate, nothing but transparent, raw, real conversations - beautiful! Enough you say? NO! :)

Today I joined The Influence Network. It's an online community full of beautiful believers living out their lives transparently in their day to day on goings and on the internet! Bloggers! Bloggers committed to using their words to influence others. 

My friend, fellow blogger, fellow church member, fellow instragramer, fellow teen drama show lover, and fellow nail polish addict Jessica, of Meet the Magnolias, told me about this network. I'm brand spanking new, but I want to jump in and get involved.

The Influence Network is having a link-up meet-up! And so, this is me participating. 

1 photo that you love of yourself:

First professional photo shoot! It was with my aunt and girl cousin. At first I felt weird about the individual shots, but I've never loved a picture of myself so much!

3 things about yourself:

1. As I mentioned above, I am highly passionate about transparency! I grew up in the great state of Mississippi. Mississippi has given me some things I'm proud of - my hospitality, my cooking roots, my accent, my good hair, my ability to make great sweet tea. But Mississippi, the southern culture, and particularly the southern church women culture, taught me some things that ended up not being good for me that took me years to overcome, Southern women and southern church women are not taught to be transparent AT ALL! They learn to save face at all cost and that the most important thing, other than "cleanliness being next to Godliness" is that at all times you must appear to have it all together. LIES! Oh how much I love everything I've learned and become that is opposite of this! It's not Biblical, it's not healthy, it's not normal. Get thee away from me shame! So much power in transparent, raw, ugly, hard, accountability  There is FREEDOM! Told you I was highly passionate about it, I'll shush about that one for now.

2. I love cooking and baking. You might be saying duh, but I can't introduce myself without saying that! Allow me to somewhat briefly expound on that. I LOVE IT! Not only do I have a blog dedicated to it, I'm for real obsessed ya'll. I recently realized that all but one of the things I collect has to do with cooking. I collect cookie cutters, days of the week notepads (used for writing down meal plans), aprons, cookbooks, kitchen towels, cloth napkins, unique silverware, mason jars, cool dishes and owls. And truth be told, many of my owls are kitchen item owls! I am also in the beginning (VERY BEGINNING) stages of planning/dreaming about opening a bakery.

3. I'm almost 30, single, and beyond ready to mingle. I thought it would be funny to say that, and yes, it is true, but a big part of who I am and where I am right now this year is being fervently committed to prayer for my future husband, that God will allow him to find me, and that my purity will be protected. There have been years where I lost hope, years where I tried to take things into my own hands, and other unfortunate years. But what there hasn't been is years where I drew close to God in this area and allowed Him to do whatever He wanted with this desire. The closer I get to Jesus, and at times the more I beg Him to take away the desire to be a wife, it only get stronger. Know any single Godly guys? JUST KIDDING! Kinda...

1 thing you've learned on the Network:

Being a blogger, wanting to blog, wanting to talk about Jesus on your food blog, wanting to connect with other bloggers, it's not weird! I'm not as dorky as I thought I was, okay maybe I am, but not for those reasons! I'm not alone. I'm not the only one struggling with grief. I'm not the only one who wants to be proud of the gifts and talents she's been given (writing, cooking, baking, blogging) but sometimes feels weird about it. And most importantly, I'm not the only one who feels passionate about transparently living out her life.

Meal Planning 101: Week 24

I love prep work. LOVE. I know I'm a bit OCD, so do you by now, and prep work feeds that, but I want you to love it too! Why should you love it? It makes cooking faster, easier, and more enjoyable! I posted this prep work picture earlier in the week when I was making the baked breaded chicken tenders that were to be dipped in all those filled dishes. One of my fellow foodie friends, Jenny @ JennyBakes, commented on the picture and said, "First rule of a cook - Mise en place!" I didn't know what it meant, so I googled it. I would like to suggest to you, that it's true! Mise en place is a french cooking term that means everything in place, as in all set up. Professional kitchens use it. Though I'm not a professional, and you might not be either, we are professionals in our own kitchen! We can love cooking just as much as any professional chef by taking steps to make it less stressful! Do prep work the day before. If you get home from work early, do some prep work then so when it's time to cook dinner mise en place! I got all my dredging bowls ready and cut up my potatoes for roasting before boot camp. When I came home all I had to do was dredge a little and pop things in the oven! 

You know what else takes the stress out of cooking? MEAL PLANNING! So on to this week's plan. 

Monday:

Leftover Sunday Dinner Stew

Tuesday:

Twice Baked Broccoli Cheese Potatoes & Caesar Salad (Never got to it last week due to a bonding dinner with some of my staff. Life happens and sometimes it's good!)

Wednesday: 

Leftover Potatoes

Thursday:

Lazy Chiles Rellenos, Tortillas & Guacamole Salad (Never actually made this meal 2 weeks ago, forgot ingredients!)

Friday:

Leftover Rellenos

Saturday:

Buffalo Chicken Salad Sandwich, Hummus & Veggies

Sunday:

Crock Pot Pork Chops, Brown Rice & Brussel Sprouts

Extras:

• Smoothies: Strawberry, Blueberry, Pineapple Mango, Peach, and Vanilla (Flax seed + almonds + milk + greek yogurt + frozen bananas + assorted frozen fruit)
• Some healthy version of baked doughnuts, haven't gotten to use my pan yet! 

Lunch Ideas (The DOs and DON'Ts): 

DO - leftover veggie pizza in moderation (1 slice) + hummus + veggies + a cutie

DO - asian chopped salad & peanut dressing + leftover baked breaded chicken tender + celery & peanut butter + fruit

DO - if you must eat out for lunch meetings, veggies + grilled chicken isn't bad
DON'T - eat all that rice (I didn't, but I did eat too much!)

DO - say yes to your brother paying for your lunch + a grilled chicken sandwich
DON'T - order fried homemade chips like I did

Philly Cheesesteak Crock Pot Stuff Peppers

Another Pinterest recipe find! I already loved meal planning, but Pinterest makes it so much easier guys. I altered the original recipe by making it a crock pot recipe. The original recipe didn't call for blanching the peppers, which I know from stuffed pepper experience that you must do if you are just oven baking them. So if you want to use the original recipe and skip the crock pot, be sure to blanch (bring whole peppers with tops cut off and seeds removed to a boil in water so they will be soft and easy to cut when eating). Slow cooking them in the crock pot means no blanching, the slow cooking method makes the peppers perfectly tender.

Recipe slightly adapted from Peace, Love & Low Carb.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 large green bell peppers
• 12 slices of deli roast beef
• 12 slices of provolone cheese
• 1 onion sliced
• 8 oz sliced button mushrooms (I got the pre-sliced ones from Sam's!)
• 2 tablespoons low fat butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 teaspoons minced garlic
• salt and pepper

Directions:

Slice onions and mushrooms (if not pre-sliced). Cut the tops off of the 3 peppers you'll be stuffing. Dice the other 1/2 pepper and the pepper tops. Heat olive oil and butter in a skillet over medium heat. Saute sliced onions, mushrooms, garlic, and diced peppers over medium heat until onions start to caramelize  Salt and pepper to taste. 

Slice roast beef and add to the mushroom/pepper/onion mixture. Slide the 3 remaining bell peppers in half length wise, removing seeds and ribs. Line peppers halves in the bottom of crock pot. Push one slice of cheese into each. 

Spoon beef/onion/pepper/mushroom mixture into each pepper half. Fill to the top and then over fill with the remaining yummy mixture because it's sooo good and you don't want to waste it! Cover and cook in crock pot for 3 hours on high or 5 hours on low. 20 - 30 minutes before serving cover each pepper with the other slice of cheese. Allow it to get melty and perfect. 

If you want a prettier presentation, you can carefully transfer them to a cast iron skillet with tongs and put them in the oven on broil for a few minutes to brown the cheese. They are perfectly fine without that step, I'm just currently obsessed with my cast iron skillet and serving anything and everything in it. 

These are so tender, yummy, and a perfect Philly Cheesesteak fix! I couldn't eat a whole pepper, I ate one half and half of another. But with good sides you could really just eat one half! So this recipe with great sides would feed 6. For boys or super hungry people it would feed 4-5.

Five Things Friday: Healthy Things

Some of the blogs I love (Cashmere & Cupcakes, Slender Kitchen, This Healthy Endeavor) do some version of Five Things Friday. I'm not committing to it, just trying it out this week and I had some relevant content! This week I give you the healthy things I'm loving! 

1. Bolthouse Farms Creamy Yogurt Salad Dressings -  I love salads, but salad dressings can be a calorie killer for something that should be healthy. Most brands do well with low-cal vinaigrette style dressings, but the creamy ones are normally mayo based and loaded with calories. These aren't! So far I've tried the Chunky Blue Cheese and the Caesar Parmesan and they are super yummy! New staple.

2. Avon Therapeutic Cracked Heel Relief Cream - Your eyes aren't deceiving you, those are my fingers and not my toes or feet and yes, this product is for feet. HOWEVER, if you ever find your fingers covered in as many hangnails as mine were this week, this stuff works! It's also good for your heels, but it is the only product that helped my damaged cuticles at all! I tried every hand cream, even an online suggestion of chap stick and this product healed it! (If you would like to buy this, or any Avon product and don't have someone you buy from, you can order from my Aunt's Avon page! It ships to you, not her. AND it's actually on sale right now!)

3. Williamette Valley Granola Company Granola Chips - These caught my eye in the grocery store and I had to try them. I was also hungry, and it's hard for me to say no to things that catch my eye while hungry in the grocery store. One day I'll learn that rule, you know the don't go to the grocery store when hungry rule. BUT, this is one impulse hunger grocery store buy I didn't regret! They are full of healthy things: oats, barely, quinoa, and more. I tried the Vanilla Bean flavor and they're great just by themselves or dipped in peanut butter! 

4. Calendar Journaling - This still fits my healthy theme! My whole life I've heard that journaling is healthy, helpful, a good thing to do, etc. I've tried a million times and failed a million times, never having consistency. I'm OCD, so I like the daily thing, but sometimes I lack words so I'd miss a day, then two, then a week, then a month and never finish. I happened upon this idea of calendar journaling on Pinterest. It intrigued me, so I made a New Years Resolution to try it out. I have successfully filled out every day of January and February (and the 1st day of March)! I missed some days here and there, but it was easy to go back and fill in the space. It's just a small box so the pressure is off to write huge paragraphs or pages. I hit highlights and have a symbol system. It has helped me SO much! I've been able to notice so many negative patterns and figure out the source of many struggles by doing this. This one act has been healthier for me than the six weeks of boot camp I've had so far! And guess what else? Doing this gave me a desire to write my prayers in a journal too. My times with Jesus have been completely transformed! If you've ever struggled with journaling, DO THIS! It helps track grief patterns and sin patterns. It reveals right before your eyes that the good days far out weight the bad, and that does tremendous work for my life and attitude just by itself. I can't talk this up enough. DO IT! Next year I'm going to go with one of the calendars that has lines for each day and not just boxes. Genius idea Pinterest! 

5. Manager's Special Labels - Kroger has these. I'm sure other grocery stores do as well, but for sure Kroger does. I've become obsessed with finding these, it's like a treasure hunt! When things are still on the shelf and about to expire, sometimes they'll mark them down at least to half price with these little labels. This week I got fresh rosemary for 99 cents! I also got this Asian Chopped Salad that is normally $3.50 for less then $2! I was able to eat the salad twice for lunches and I'm still finding ways to use up the rosemary! Also a little plug for fresh rosemary, IT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN DRY! Dry rosemary, though tasty and fragrant, feels like pieces of pine straw in your mouth. Fresh rosemary is just so perfect and tender! Someone teach me to grow an herb garden?? 

What are you most excited about for this weekend? 

Meal Planning 101: Week 23

I went to the grocery store for a quick trip and came back with the healthiest things ever! Unsweetened coconut, agave nectar, white grapefruit, cuties, bananas, flax seed, coconut oil, frozen mangos, frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, Greek yogurt... So good right! And then...

Those pesky Girl Scouts! Right there, right outside the grocery store! I was compelled. I had to. I promise not to eat them all this week. So far I've only eaten one of each! See? I can have self control. 

Monday:

Leftover Sunny Skillet Breakfast and Fruit Salad

Tuesday:

Ultimate Chicken Tenders, Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, and Steamed Broccoli

Wednesday:

Leftover Chicken Tenders

Thursday:

Broccoli Cheese Twice Baked Potatoes and Caesar Salad

Friday:

Traveling (Hopefully eating with friends.)

Saturday:

Traveling

Sunday:

Sunday Dinner Stew and Rice

Extras: 

• Smoothies for breakfast, all week.
• Coconut Crack Bars for snacks.

Lunch Ideas:

leftover chicken florentine pasta + leftover roasted green beans + strawberries

free lunch! chicken pesto sandwich + apple + unhealthy chips (hey, it was free!)

salad + tuna (used a lettuce leaf "cup" to protect the salad from wilting from the tuna!) + veggies + yogurt blue cheese

more leftovers + cantaloupe

Eclair Cake

It's Sunday! I love Sundays. I love sunny Sundays. I love naps on sunny Sundays, preferably outside, preferably in a hammock. I love grocery stores on Sundays with all the people in their church clothes buying fried chicken. I love church on Sundays and the people at church on Sundays and the sense of hope at church on Sundays. I love spring sunny Sundays because there is no Sunday football. I love the intentional efforts of most people to rest on the last few moments of the weekend before work week on Sundays. Sundays are simple and cozy. I like them a lot.

In my later years of life, I've felt drawn to [theologically sound] church plant type churches, newer churches that are a bit more contemporary. I love contemporary worship music, small groups, the sense of Biblical community, and many of the things that contemporary churches do well. However in my earlier years, I grew up in a traditional small country church. Know what I miss about churches like that? Dinner on the Ground! If you didn't grow up in small country church world, Dinner on the Ground isn't actually on the ground at all. In my church, and most, it took place the fifth Sunday of every month, four in a year, one every quarter, and was usually followed by "5th Sundee Singin."

Dinner on the Ground is a church wide potluck on the church grounds, usually the fellowship hall. Everyone brings a dish and everyone eats. When I was growing up, there was always grocery store fried chicken, at least three different plates and versions of deviled eggs, gallons and gallons of sweet tea, too many casseroles to name, several pound cakes, and way too many other options to fill your styrofoam plate. This recipe reminds me of Dinner on the Ground. I never had it at Dinner on the Ground, but many offerings found on the dessert table are made in 9x13 casserole dishes. I can think of at least three my grandmother makes often to take to these church gatherings (Banana Split Cake, Chocolate Sin, Pineapple Delight). This recipe is simple, yummy, not a calorie killer, and totally Dinner on the Ground/potluck worthy! It's also made the night before, stress-free! 

For further funny explanation about the Southern tradition of Dinner on the Ground check out this post on the Stuff Southern People Like Blog. It's hilarious (and true)! 

Recipe slightly adapted from Chef in Training.

Ingredients:

• 2 small packages of sugar free french vanilla pudding
• 1 small package of sugar free cheese cake pudding
• 3 1/2 cups skim milk
• 12 oz (1 and 1/2 of 8 ounce packages) of fat free cool whip
• 2 packages of graham crackers

Frosting: 

• 6 tablespoons butter
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 6 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Directions: 

Blend milk and dry pudding mix for about 2 minutes. Fold in whipped topping. In a 9x13 glass pan, layer graham crackers to cover the bottom of the dish. You can break them to fit into odd spaces. Pour half of the pudding/whipped topping mixture on top and smooth out. Put another complete layer of graham crackers on top. Spread the remaining pudding over the crackers. Put the final layer of graham crackers on top with the bumpy side down (to ensure the frosting goes on smoothly). 

For the frosting, microwave the butter and milk just enough so that the butter is melted into the milk, it doesn't need to boil. Add cocoa powder and powdered sugar, stir together until smooth. This frosting will be somewhere between a frosting and a glaze, not thick but not completely liquid. Pour the frosting over the top of the graham crackers and smooth out with a rubber spatula or frosting spreader. Refrigerate overnight and serve! 

The graham crackers end up having the texture of thin layers of cake! It's totally no-bake, easy, and delish! Kid and adult friendly.