I don’t know about you, but meal prepping is really helping with the craziness the week can bring and also keeps us on track of eating healthy during the week. I’m really enjoying the variety of these meals, making enough for the week and again also realizing how much meat we eat; opps! Thinking back, I use to make 4 different meals a week, pretty much Monday-Thursday there was something different every night, but this was pre-kid obviously! But there was a time when I made salmon at least once a week. I love salmon but my husband not so much, so I try to eat it when we go out to dinners. This week, shrimp were added to a Gumbo, so I’m trying 🙂
So this weeks menu: Egg muffins and green smoothies for the mornings, tuna salad with avocado, Spicy Stuffed Plantains from Paleomg and Roux-Less Gumbo (no idea what that means!) from Jennifer Robins for dinners, and Paleo Brownies from Nesting with Grace for dessert! This all took less then two hours and made a ton which I love!
Breakfast/Lunch
-Egg muffins I kept pretty much the same as last week, minus the sausage. Tri-colored peppers, half a red onion and mushrooms all chopped and whisked with 12 eggs and some pepper. Added into silicon muffin tins (these are the best for any type of muffins). Baked on 350 degrees for 25 minutes. This made 24 muffins so we’ll each have 2-3 a day.
-Green Smoothies include coconut water, kale, spinach, a mini cucumber, banana, frozen blueberries and strawberries and flax and chia seeds.
-We both like tunafish, but aren’t fans of mayo (no white condiments for that matter), so I tried something I’ve wanted to do for a white. Used four cans of tuna, 3 ripe avocados, little lime juice and black pepper. Gave my husband some Siete Paleo Wraps and sent him on his way. I even added it to my salad yesterday and it was delicious! Next week might add cilantro! Left the pit in there so the avocado doesn’t go bad.
Spicy Stuffed Plantains
Again we like spicy, but haven’t tried these yet. They are tonight’s dinner, and I cannot wait! I think that’s what I like about meal prep, it gets you excited for meals, or I might just be excited for food in general! Also in the picture, all the meat is stuffed in the plantains, looks nice but might not work, so might be a side of plantains! Anyway, plantains are delicious and I bought extra as a snack!
4 brown Plantains
3 tbsp ghee or coconut oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 red pepper diced
1/4 red onion diced
1 pound ground beef
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
pinch of black pepper
1/4 cup chopped cilantro and extra for garnish
3 tbsp tomato paste
chopped avocado for garnish
1. Skin the plantains, cut off the end, slice down the middle, brush with 1 tbsp of ghee or coconut oil for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. I like coconut oil better.
2. In a large sauté pan melt 2 tbsp of coconut oil, add the garlic then pepper and onion until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the ground beef and all the spices, cilantro and tomato paste to the pan and mix well for about ten minutes until meat is brown.
4. Place the meat into the boats and then bake for another 10 minutes then garnish with cilantro and avocado.
5. Any extra plantains cut in slices and sauté with coconut oil. Put on a plate with paper towel and add a little sea salt!
This makes 4 which I think you will only need one a night! If the meat doesn’t hold up in the “boat” slice up the plantains and have all together. Enjoy!
Roux-Less Gumbo in the Instapot
We had this last night and it was delicious! It also made enough that we could really eat this for the rest of the week!
1/4 cup olive oil or avocado oil
2 lb of sausage, I used 3 hot 3 sweet
1 bag of frozen okra
1 onion diced
1/2 green pepper chopped
1 lb raw frozen shrimp
4 cups chicken broth
2/3 cup tomato sauce
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp garlic powder
Cauliflower rice for serving (I used two bags since this made so much)
To keep this not as spicy, you can use sweet sausage and do not add the cayenne pepper.
1. Sauté the oil, sausage, okra, onion and bell pepper for 8 minutes in the instapot
2. Add in the remaining ingredients except the rice, press the keep warm button for 8 minutes.
3. After that is done I took off the tails of the shrimp (they were frozen when I added them) and crushed up the sausage. The recipe calls for sliced sausage but I took the cassing off the sausage and sauteed that way. Then after cooking used this tool to chop it up to be more ground sausage.
4. Put back on warm, I left on for an hour so it would thicken up a bit
5. Take the frozen cauliflower and add to a pan, no oil or water needed, just stir so doesn’t burn. Add this to the bottom of the bowl before adding the gumbo and enjoy!
Paleo Brownies
Took this recipe from my friend Nesting with Grace, if you don’t follow, her you should, and if you have a sweet tooth like me, you need to make these immediately. These were so easy and we added a little scoop of coconut whipped cream to the top instead of ice cream! She made them as mini muffins and added star cookies, I just put in an 8×8 pyrex dish so we can have a little square each night!
Hope you enjoyed this weeks meals and if you have any recipes we should try please share below!