By: ranchnbusiness
Health, ,

Meal Plan – Week of 7/13

Hi friends,

Over the past couple of years, I have fallen in love with cooking. This is coming from the girl who used to burn her Spaghetti-o-s. My friends are reading this and rolling their eyes and chuckling because my cooking (if you can call it that) used to be the butt of many jokes.

See my friends’ actual reactions to my cooking above ^.

After college and as I entered this real world of adulthood, I started to “cook” out of necessity. Following many years of major failures (I am talking things the dog wouldn’t clean up), something clicked. I like to say it’s because of all the hours of cooking channel content that I let my brain absorb (does anyone else find the cooking channel really therapeutic?). In reality, I think it goes back to that saying that practice makes perfect, or at least practice makes progress.

Real image of my early cooking report cards.

Growing up in the Midwest with parents from both German and southern Kentucky roots, my childhood eating habits were not exactly what one would call healthy, or even balanced. Bring on the butter and the fried foods! If you’ve been on this blog, you might already know that I am also passionate about living a healthy lifestyle and balanced nutrition is a major part of that. After all, we are what we eat! So I set out to learn how to cook healthy and balanced meals. After much Pinterest recipe experimentation (and many Pinterest fails), I have started to find not only my go-to recipes, but also how to use recipes to merely inspire something that I might try myself.

Now, I meal plan every single week (no really, every week) with a combination of new recipes to try from my favorite sources or some go-to dishes that I have started to keep around.

Occasionally, I will post photos or snippets of these meals that I am cooking on the Gram and you all seem to love it. So after many requests for me to share more, I thought the best way to do so is to publish my weekly meal plan.

Check the calendar below for how I structure my daily eating, some recipes that I am trying (or re-making) this week, and my plans for healthy snacks. And if you want more about my meal planning tips, check out my Meal Planning 101 post.

*Spoiler Alert* : My favorite go-to recipe resource right now is SkinnyTaste. Love me some Gina recipes.

BreakfastLunchDinnerSnacks
MondayBlackberry
Cobbler
Protein Shake		Strawberry
Banana
Recovery Shake		Shrimp Stir Fry
with Quinoa
and Edamame		Homemade
Hummus
& Garden
Veggies
Tuesday
Protein
Shake		Leftovers or
Protein Shake		Pork Tacos
with Black Beans
and Grilled Peppers		Apples
Wednesday
Protein
Shake		Leftovers or
Protein Shake		Jamaican Beef Patties
with Collard Greens
and Grilled Pineapple		Homemade
Trail Mix
Thursday
Protein Shake		Leftovers or
Protein Shake		Coconut Curry Salmon
with Parsley Lime Rice
and Asian Cucumber Salad
Friday
Protein
Shake		Leftovers or
Protein Shake		Grilled Chicken Kabobs
with Farro Cucumber
and Sundried Tomato Salad
Saturday
Protein
Shake		Leftovers or
Protein Shake		Burgers with Corn on
the Cob and Salad
SundayProtein
Shake		Leftovers or
Protein Shake		“Everything but the Kitchen
Sink” leftovers
Meal Plan for week of 7/13

You might be noticing a breakfast theme here – protein shakes! I work from home (as many of us do right now), and in the hot summer days my favorite go-to breakfast meal is a cold protein smoothie. I change it up all week depending on what I have, but right now I am loving the following combinations – courtesy of yours truly (not that they are exactly the next Iron Chef plate or anything).

Blackberry Cobbler Protein Shake Recipe

  • 1 C unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1/4 C frozen blackberries
  • two scoops of vanilla protein* powder
  • 1 T walnuts
  • 1 t butter extract
  • ice

*I prefer a non-dairy based protein powder

Strawberry Banana Recovery Shake Recipe

  • 1 C unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1/4 C frozen strawberries
  • 1/2 frozen banana
  • two scoops of vanilla protein* powder
  • 1 T sun butter (or almond butter)
  • ice

*I prefer a non-dairy based protein powder

Another habit that I try and stick to each week is to prep healthy snacks. Above, I linked my favorite homemade hummus recipe and right now we have yummy cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden. I also make a batch of homemade trail mix – here’s how you can, too.

Homemade Healthy Trail Mix

  • 1 C unsweetened dried cranberries
  • 1 C plain almonds*
  • 1/4 C cacao nibs
  • 1/4 C unsweetened coconut flakes
  • Serving Size: 1/4 – 1/3 C

*I prefer to buy slivered almonds for this

One last thing before you go and try some of these delicious recipes yourself. You may come across some strange ingredients along the way and it might scare you. Trust me (remember small-town Midwest girl here), they scared me, too. Moving to Extra Virgin Olive Oil from butter was a BIG DEAL for me when I started cooking. BUT, you will find that a quick Google search can show you easy pantry staple subs that still give you nice flavor in the recipe. For example, I don’t have mirin, have never heard of mirin, and I am fairly certain that my local CashSaver hasn’t either. But a quick Google search and I see that I can use a little dry white wine or rice vinegar in it’s place. I now keep things like rice vinegar (again, was foreign to me at one time) around in the pantry at all times because we LOVE every Asian-inspired recipe we have ever made.

So there you have it, the first of (hopefully) many meal plans I will share with you. Tell me if you try any and if so, what were your favorites? Drop in the comments below.

Happy trails,

Diana

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