the little stone

So I’ve been experimenting with ways to make meal prepping easy, and I think I finally found a sustainable solution! In general, I’ve been eating foods that require little to no cooking for breakfast and lunch, and then soups for dinner. This means all I have to do during the week is cut and pack my food, and heat up the soup I already made ahead over the weekend. So basically, I save the weekend for actual cooking. I’ve included some meal ideas below if you’re interested!

Breakfast
For breakfast, I drink a protein smoothie. I either make this Sunday night or Monday morning, and I make 4 servings at one time. Each serving contains 2 cups of raw spinach, 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup of soy milk, 3/4 cup of frozen and fresh fruit, 1 serving of whey protein, and a spoonful of chia seeds sprinkled on top. I’ll sometimes eat a fried egg with the smoothie.

Lunch
For lunch, I’ve been trying to incorporate a lot of fresh veggies with some sort of protein. I’m able to pack all the veggies and protein in one container, then I’ll pack two pieces of bread or one pita separately.

This week, I’ve been putting smoked salmon on pumpernickel with mashed avocado, two slices of heirloom tomato, basil, and shallots.

Last week, I put the following on a piece of pita: hummus and avocado mix, basil, sprouts, grilled chicken, cucumber, red onion, and feta cheese. I ate slices of heirloom tomato on the side.

Dinner
For dinner, I make a batch of soup either Sunday or Monday night that usually amounts to 3-4 servings. I’m a huge fan of the ready-to-make soups sold at Korean supermarkets. I sometimes make soondubu jjigae using a packaged stock base (just add water), soft tofu, enoki mushrooms, and two eggs.

The following amounts to 3 servings: one package of the stock base + 1.5 cups of water (added half a cup every time I reheated since the liquid is quickly absorbed), two packages of soft tofu, one pack of enoki mushrooms, and two eggs.

I’ve also made spicy turkey chili, which was super easy and delicious. I sautéed a few ingredients and then threw them into the crock pot with two cans of whole tomatoes.

I sautéed 1lb of ground turkey and one white onion with cayenne, salt, and pepper. I then placed the turkey, onion, two 8 oz. canned tomatoes, two 4 oz. cans of diced green chili, and two 12 oz. cans of red kidney beans to the crockpot. I added cayenne, salt, and pepper to taste and let the chili cook on low heat for 8 hours. It was so freaking good and spicy.

Each night, for one week, I ate a cup of chili with some melted parmesan on top and piece of sourdough on the side. There was wayyyy too much, though, and I ended up giving away about 3-4 servings. This chili lasted me for 1.5 weeks, even after I shared some with my neighbor!

I’ve been following this routine for almost three weeks now, and I feel pretty good about it! It encourages me to discover new ingredients and meals I want to try for the week, it keeps the grocery bill under control, and it keeps the meal prep time short! I hope this post inspires you to discover new foods and take some time to prepare delicious meals for yourself! Feel free to drop some meal prep ideas below in the comments 🙂

Thanks for reading, and as always, I’ll leave you with a song.

I got rice cooking in the microwave
I got a three day beard I don’t plan to shave
It’s a goofy thing but I just gotta say, hey,
I’m doing alright

Yeah I think I’ll make me some home-made soup
I’m feeling pretty good and that’s the truth
It’s neither drink nor drug induced, no,
I’m just doing alright