I think I officially found my new favorite go to, bring with me appetizer, just in time for the busiest time of year. And good news: its so easy!!

Last weekend my cousin surprised us all and got married to her boyfriend of basicccallly, our whole lives. As a family, we all got together at my moms to hide from the snow, and celebrate their nuptials. I found this amazing recipe on Family Fresh Meals and was literally itching to make it.

What I loved most was I was able to throw it together the night before, and….. no baking! Which worked out perfect since the morning of the party my apartment complex lost power, and my car battery died. Talk about not having time to whip something up. I grabbed the rolls, that I threw together the night before, out of the fridge and brought it over to my moms, leaving it in her fridge until it was time to cut and serve.

I’ve now gotten requests to make it for my family Christmas party, but leave it in a bowl so we can eat straight from the bowl. I don’t know about that but I will definitely be making it again. The only thing I did differently than Family Fresh Meals was I used a ciabatta loaf rather than a baguette. It definitely was easier to stuff since the opening was able to be wider, and the bread was a little softer than the baguettes my grocery store had available.

Try it out for yourself.

Living alone and meal planning can be a little tricky. I try to do my big grocery shopping day for the week on Sundays. I take into account what are the staples that I am running out of, and what do I have in my fridge that I need to have cooked early in the week. I also try to plan out all my meals, including snacks, for Monday through Friday. I have found that if I don’t have healthy snacks on hand, that’s when I go for the chips, brownies and cookies.

I like to eat healthy and fresh. I use a lot of fresh vegetables and meats when I cook but, to make sure I am not being wasteful with my fresh ingredients, it can be pretty easy to cook large portions just to use the veggies, or whatever, up. Nevertheless, no one wants to eat the same thing over and over again. I’ve become pretty good at making a plan for the week that makes different meals, reusing the same veggies, meats, and carbs.

This week I grabbed two small heads of broccoli, a squash, a pound of russet potatoes (which was way too much) and a small container of baby bella mushrooms. I had ground turkey in the freezer and picked up a package of six thinly sliced chicken breast. I grabbed a half a pound of salmon from the fish guy and pretty much had all of my meals covered for the week.

For breakfast and snacks I try to keep them pretty whole 30 approved, that way I don’t feel so bad if I have pasta for dinner or throw some cheese on my fajita.

For breakfast I always, always have eggs in the fridge. If I have the day off I will make a veggie filled scramble and throw in some goat cheese to cheat a little. Otherwise, hardboiled eggs are a great breakfast or snack to keep me full. For snacks, berries have been my go to these past few weeks. They’re so easy to have on hand and throw in over night oats, yogurt or just as a quick pick me up midday.  Apples with almond or peanut butter are always a quick and easy snack I can have at work or at home or of course my favorites: a LaraBar or a RXBar.

For lunch and dinner I made a meal plan below. The main ingredients for each meal come from the groceries I picked up on Sunday.

I hope this helps for you ladies or gents who live alone. You really don’t have to eat the same meal you made on Monday all week long. Try to be creative!

Happy Friday morning! I am three weeks out of my January Whole30 reset and I may have fallen off the wagon a little more than I would have liked to. After January was over I went straight onto vacation and I never knew how much southern comfort food Florida had. When I say one morning, I had the largest biscuits and gravy meal I had ever seen, I’m not lying.

But now that I am back, home for a little more than a week, I decided to make sure this week was off to a good start. I made one of my favorite go-to’s and it’s perfect for meal prep earlier in the week. This huge chopped salad is a whole head of lettuce, a can of garbanzo beans, grape tomatoes halved, diced cucumbers, a can of olives halved topped with a little bit of feta. (A girl can’t be away from her cheese for too long.)

Making this salad on a Sunday or Monday allows me to have a quick lunch of dinner whenever I need it throughout the week and to change it up throughout the week, I change the protein I put on top. One day I had grilled sirloin, and one night I had scallops. Grilled shrimp and chicken are always easy to have ready to cook and throw on top also. And of course, to keep it as Whole30 friendly as possible, and because it’s one of the best store bought dressing I’ve ever had: Primal Kitchen’s Dreamy Italian dressing. I mean…. worth every penny.

Happy hump day friends! It’s that time of year again. Resolutions, new goals, diets. For the past few years I have been doing Whole30 every January. In 2018 I didn’t do such a great job (I think I only lasted two weeks) and I didn’t even try to do it again in September like I normally do. Well now I am 15 days in (I always do it January 2-31) and I am feeling great.

Okay, well maybe great isn’t exactly the right terminology, but it is definitely doing its job. This weekend I cheated a little bit on my weekend trip to Philadelphia and man did I feel the pain of that cheese steak. I mean you can’t go to Philly and not try a cheese steak but damn, definitely not worth it.

What I like about Whole30 is that it isn’t a normal diet. It’s not here to make you loose weight. You are eating clean so you get rid of your bad eating habits and feel better. So, when I had my greasy steak and cheese, my body freaked out and didn’t know what to do anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in a cheat day, but maybe I should have had half of the sandwich instead of the whole thing.

This time around I have created a pretty good eating schedule which has helped a lot.           

   7am – Breakfast
2 cups of black coffee, hard boiled egg or Whole30 frittata
11am – Snack
Larabar or RXBar for a snack to hold me over for a few hours
    2pm – Lunch
rolled lunch meat and veggie sticks, protein and roasted root veggies, salad with protein
  6:30pm – Dinner
spaghetti squash with shrimp, Asian stir fry with cauliflower rice, protein and veggies

This week I meal prepped hard of Sunday. I made a Whole30 meatloaf to head up for lunches or dinners throughout the week, a veggie frittata to have for breakfasts and The Defined Dish’s Whole30 Tom Yum soup. The amount of ingredients intimidated me a little. I am a pretty decent cook but I like to stick to 5 ingredients or less, but wow! It was so easy! I would definitely recommend it.

In the evenings, I usually end up snacking on something, but for the past two weeks I’ve been sticking to hot water with lemon, decaffeinated tea, avocado and tomatoes with TJ’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning, or dried mango or plantain chips from Trader Joe’s.

15 more days!