I have to say, last weeks meal planning and preparing went great! We ate all the food prepared, even into the weekend, so that stopped us from going out to eat, which we tend to do Friday to Sunday. We always try to not do it, but by Friday we always want something different and to want get out. We even cooked breakfast at home both days and I used up the rest of the kale and brussels mix in my omelets.
Last week, what helped the most was food shopping one day and preparing the next! This week, I left it both for Sunday morning, which only gave me time to prepare half the week so I’ll throw the other meal in later today since it doesn’t take too long. Part of my planning is going through a cookbook of exactly what I need before going to the store, so I have a list. This also helps me to only go to the store once a week. This week’s menu I took from another cookbook; Affordable Paleo Cooking with Your Instapot by Jennifer Robins. Southwest Spicy & Sweet Chili and Asian Inspired Beef and Broccoli are on the menu for this week. I figure adding cauliflower rice to the beef and broccoli will give us more and the chili will last a few days! Seems this week is a heavy meat week, so you can definitely do chicken in the chili if you are trying to limit meat!
Breakfast/Lunch
– Started with a dozen eggs for hard boiled eggs. These are for my husband to bring to work and then I make a smoothie for all of us.
– Every smoothie is different depending on what we have, but they do always end up green. Most of the time they are Coconut Water, handfuls of Kale, Spinach, a mini cucumber, a banana, frozen or fresh berries, chai seeds and flax seeds. This is enough for 2 pint cups for my husband and I, and my daughters I put in a disposable pooch found here. She has been having one of these since she was able to hold them to her mouth and do it herself. Some kids might not like the green color so try banana, almond butter, kale and almond milk and that should’t be green! I think since she’s been having them forever she doesn’t know the difference, so I don’t want to try another color for her!
– Brought some deli meat and low carb high fiber wraps from Trader Joes for my husbands lunch or leftovers and I’ll continue with salads with chicken I shredded in the instapot.
Southwest Spicy and Sweet Chili
1 lb Ground Beef
1 lb ground sausage
2 Jalapeños
1 large sweet potato
I large onion, diced (I used a red one)
26 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
1tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp minced garlic
3 tbsp coconut aminos
fresh cilantro and avocado as a topping
1. Press sauté on the instapot with the beef, sausage, jalapeños, sweet potato and onion for 8 minutes
2. Add in all the seasoning and tomatoes. Make sure all beef is chopped up with this.
3. Press the keep warm button for 30 minutes then done! I added some avocado and cilantro to the top!
Note: This is a little spicy, I like spicy so used two hot sausage and two sweet (they didn’t have ground sausage when I went food shopping so I just took the casing off). Try all sweet and eliminate the jalapeños if giving to the kids!
Asian Inspired Beef and Broccoli
A Chinese restaurant favorite minus the gluten, grain and refined sugar!
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp oil or avocado oil
1 Onion diced (I used a red onion)
2 tbsp minced garlic
1-2 pounds of flank steak cut into bite size pieces
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/3 of beef broth
2/3 cup of coconut aminos
2 bags of broccoli (one is probably fine but I wanted extra!)
1. Saute the oils, onion, garlic and flank steak (I cut them into small pieces with a kitchen scissor) for 8 minutes in the Instapot.
2. Add in all the seasoning, broth, coconut aminos. Put the broccoli into the steamer basket which the Instapot comes with, and press keep warm for another ten minutes which will make the broccoli nice and soft!
3. Cooking up some cauliflower rice so I can add this to the meal and also sesame seeds to the top like in a restaurant.
This cookbook didn’t have the links to the recipe online so next week I will find recipes that do! Also, I’ll try to find some that aren’t as spicy for the non spicy food lovers! Hope you enjoy and hope you like leftovers!