OUR WEEKLY MEALS

Now this may be more information than you want to know about what we eat, but I've been getting questions about how we do our meals during the week and so here it is in sort of a nutshell. This is how we have been eating for the past two months now. It's not too much of a change, but the biggest difference is that 1) ken has cut down on rice, pasta and breads and eating a whole lot more vegetables and 2) ken started preparing our meals for the entire week on Sunday. Since he has been focused on getting healthier/leaner/stronger, eating well has become a priority and I couldn't be happier about this turn of events. Especially since that means he is totally on board with preparing and cooking meals. It looks kind of funny all laid out like that, but I wanted to take a picture one Sunday evening of our labor and there it is. It's not everything, but I've numbered what is on there and have included the recipes below. We plan for dinners and then pack leftovers for the next day.

Most of these meals Sloane can eat, but I also prepare separate meals for her, especially in order to pack her a lunch that she can eat on her own without too much of a mess. Also, if you were wondering about the technicalities, ken and I eat paleo about 80% of the time, but Sloane eats everything in moderation, including brown rice and whole wheat breads.  

1. Breakfast sausages: We get ground pork from Whole Foods and make our own breakfast sausage so we can avoid all the extra sugar and preservatives that usually go into breakfast sausages. The cherries give it the sweet flavor; sometimes we use raisins or craisins.
2. Egg muffins: Since we make pork sausages, we don't put meat in this like the recipe calls for. Instead, we load it up with tons of vegetables like spinach, red peppers and whatever else we have on hand. We eat the egg muffins and sausages for breakfast every morning. 
3. Baked meatballs for Sloane: These are really simple to make, good for packed lunches, and great for high amounts of protein.
4. Pulled pork: This is one of those recipes that make us so thankful to have a slow cooker. It is minimum work for a really delicious and flavorful meal.
5. Raw vegetables: We get a ton of vegetables, mostly from Costco. Avocados are a great source of fat and I love eating it with everything.
6. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash: We usually try to roast or sautée these in bulk and eat them with whatever protein we are eating that day. 
7. Spinach and other greens: This giant 2 lb bag of Costco is like $4 and we throw it in just about everything and anything, or eat it on its own, sautéed on the pan. Luckily, sloane also likes spinach.
8. Grilled chicken: ken found this great recipe for grilled chicken and we haven't gotten tired of it yet!
9. Steak: We usually also get some steak if it's on sale or the price is good and grill it up with the chicken.
10. Sauteed vegetables: This here is sautéed red, orange and yellow peppers, with mushrooms. A delicious side dish.
11. Taco Lettuce Cups: The meat is packed with flavor and we have gone to simply eating the meat with guacamole and pico de gallo, without the lettuce (because we always have leftover lettuce that ends up going to waste.)
12. Plantain lasagna: This is a great recipe that you can make several meals out of. Sloane loves this! 

Some other things: 

- Butternut squash soup: ken made this a few times and it is so good. 

- we sometimes get the wild caught Alaskan salmon from Costco (in their frozen section); it's a great price and really good and simple to prepare for a meal (it can go straight from freezer to oven) if we don't have anything prepared for that day.

- we always get fruit for snacks; these days it has been apples, bananas and oranges. 

- we also get nuts to eat as snacks; although, ken is realizing he might have some sort of allergy to them.

- for sweets, ken has been getting super dark and intense with the high cacao dark chocolate and eating a couple of pieces when he wants a sweet kick

- we also get a ton of eggs from Costco to have on hand, which we love; oh the versatility of an egg!

- for extra energy and protein especially before and after workouts, we have been making smoothies out of bananas, almond milk and protein powder or almond butter.