Donny & I were gone for an entire week on vacation in Oregon (read about the trip here)! I enjoy eating out, but a week of eating at restaurants is too much for me. I needed to get back into the kitchen to actually cook! Plus, I was in need of some clean eating vegetables. We’d had vegetables at some of our meals, but deep fried Brussels sprouts are not exactly healthy!
Grocery Shopping & Meal Prep posts are intended to help guide you in the grocery store to find healthy, clean eating friendly foods. Then I like to talk about how I prepare my food for the week so that you can get some ideas for simple meals that are healthy!
If you have any questions then feel free to comment below, email me or send me a Facebook message.
We got back to Denver on Thursday so we could go to the Broncos game that night. We stayed the night in Denver and went grocery shopping at Sprouts the next day. Donny also had to pick some meat up at Restaurant Depot (a restaurant superstore) so we grabbed one item for us there too. Since we were out of town I didn’t want to buy too much dairy, so I went to Safeway Saturday for the remainder of the items we needed.
Grocery Shopping:
Sprouts:
- Shredded Kale (this actually came from Restaurant Depot in Denver)
- Broccoli, zucchini, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, okra, heirloom carrots, bell peppers, red beets, white onion
- bananas, lemons, pineapple
- cilantro, parsley, garlic, and coriander
- fingerling potatoes
- Elli Quark – two vanilla bean and two blueberry
- fresh ground cashew butter
Safeway:
- Unsweetened almond milk, 2% Greek yogurt, Greek yogurt cream cheese
- eggs
- Peppered pork tenderloin
- avocado
Meal Prep:
I started meal prep by making kale salad. The kale was already shredded and mixed with some carrots, so I made a dressing to go on top. I don’t actually like raw kale, but if you put a dressing on it with a little acid in it then it makes the kale less bitter.
For the dressing I whisked together 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 2 Tbsp coarse ground mustard, 1 Tbsp champagne wine vinegar, 1 tsp honey, the juice of half a lemon and a pinch of salt. It turned out great! Super simple to make.
I divided the kale up among five food containers and added garbanzo beans, cherry tomatoes and sunflower seeds. Donny was smoking chicken for our neighborhood party and he was making extra for us. It wasn’t done until later Sunday night, so I didn’t get pictures. I ended up putting the chicken in baggies to take each day, rather than in the food containers.
After the salads were made, I baked some sweet potatoes in order to make sweet potato yogurt bowls. First off, I wrapped them in foil and baked them at 425° for one hour. Next, I let them cool in the foil. Lastly, I pulled the peels back, scooped the inside part of the potato out and mashed it in a bowl. I usually eat the potato peel, but didn’t want to this week.
While the potatoes were still baking I mixed Greek yogurt with protein powder, cinnamon and some pumpkin pie spice. I measured out pepitas and shredded coconut (unsweetened) and put that in individual snack-sized baggies to sprinkle on just before eating the sweet potato yogurt bowls.
Donny grilled everything else for me including cod and pork tenderloin.
He also grilled zucchini, broccoli, bell peppers, carrots (heirloom and regular) and beets. First of all, I forgot to take a picture, but he grilled the beets with the skin on, then after they cooled I peeled the skin off and cut them up. Second of all, these beets were gigantic so they took a while to cook.
Nothing too fancy this week, but the kale salad should be a nice change from romaine and arugula. I had extra salad leftover so I ate a little for dinner and it was really good! The dressing definitely helped make the kale less bitter.
Again, if you have questions please let me know! Tomorrow I’ll post Day in the Life: Mel’s Meals so you can see how I use these meals for a day full of clean eating!
What foods did you prepare this week?
