Meals for Week of August 2, 2010

A Journey

Stepping out on your own, no matter what the circumstance, can be a scary leap of faith.  For me, taking an idea such as meal planning and trying to make it into a business was a big leap of faith. Not only for myself but for my family who I depend on to support me in this endeavor.  It’s been just over a year.  I’ve enjoyed it, I still feel passionate about what I do, but I have a long way to go in meeting the goals I set for myself.

Along the way, I started to realize I was on another parallel journey of self discovery and self improvement.  I wasn’t just reading and researching all things related to food and spewing out information in my newsletters.  I was beginning to form my own opinions, gravitating towards resources and attitudes about food and wanting to share that information.  Except, that I wasn’t always LIVING it.  How can I pass along great information or impart my own ideas if I’m not following my own advice?  I discovered that I had a disconnect between what I believed in and what I was actually doing.

So over the past year I’ve been trying to change my household to have healthier eating habits.  I have always cooked and baked, so cooking from scratch is no problem.  Cooking from scratch with whole foods is healthy.  But the next step to that is cooking with healthier ingredients, eating the treats in moderation and being aware of the ingredients in the products you eat and making better choices for your health and the planet.  I try to strike a balance of implementing changes where I can and not radically shake everything up to the point where it’s met with resistance.  So I’m buying organic produce, checking ingredient labels, trying to reduce processed foods, doing most of it gradually.  Trying alternatives to overly processed favorites and looking at healthier recipes for meals.

And then there’s the whole matter of being accountable.  That’s the next step for me.  This week I started a 12 week training program through Mama Boot Camp.  It’s a once a week group training class that has me doing additional workouts as homework and tracking my food.  Clean eating, planning my meals and snacks isn’t so much the challenge, but pushing myself to workout hard and keep accountable requires a coach.  It’s the same story you so often here, the mother who is always taking care of everyone else but herself. That’s me.  And sometimes I’m not even really doing a good job of taking care of others because I’m not in top shape to do it. 

I decided to change from the subscription newsletter service to the blog because it was much more important to me to share the information than to make it only available to those who pay for it.  And because I’m on my own journey to eating better, learning more about food and being healthy, I want to share that journey with you and  I hope the blog platform will inspire you to share your own ideas, challenges and journey with me.

If you have not seen my previous newsletters, each week I will share a list of meals with the link to the recipe.  I highly recommend signing up for ziplist.com and use that free tool to create your shopping list.  In addition, I share links to interesting articles, cooking tips and other food related information that I think is relevant.  And from time to time I’ll share with you how things are going in my own house.  I hope you will sign up to receive the blog via email or in your RSS feed.

Meals for the Week of August 2, 2010

Meals are listed below with links to the recipe on another website or a down loadable document for you to open and save.  Choose however many meals you need for the upcoming week. Visit Ziplist.com and use their free tool to create your shopping list.

Changes?

So for the past 3 weeks I have done some personal chef-type cooking.  I use that term loosely because I am not a professional chef, I am a home cook.  But I have slightly changed my In-Home service where I cook once a month with a client to help them get organized and stock up on some meals for the month, to come in and cook once a week an almost full set of breakfast, lunch and dinner.  These people wanted to reduce their eating out and their habit of running to the store to pick up a meal.  Plus lose weight and stick to a certain food plan.  I'm not a dietitian or nutritionist, I don't pretend to be.  I just read the material and then laid it out for them.  They don't have to think as much about what to eat or to eat the right thing because all their choices are good.  Each week I go to their house and cook.  I make breakfast items, prep salad, cook vegetables and then make several entrees that last them for multiple dinners and lunches.  If I were to attempt to cook in advance for a full week in my house, I don't know if the fridge has the space.  But in their household of 2, they typically have leftovers of every meal, so they can pack some for lunch as well as eat it again for dinner another night.  This picture below is what their fridge looks like when I'm all done.  I actually posted this a couple weeks ago.

It's about 2 rows deep of containers.  That week you can see salmon that I prepped but didn't cook so that they could fix that fresh.    Sometime in the next few weeks I'll post some more about this with comments from them about how it's going.

Menu Plan Monday (on Tuesday)

I didn't post last week.  We basically ate leftovers from the holiday; bbq chicken, corn on the cob with a few other odds and ends thrown in.  Then I traveled out of town with my oldest for a girls' weekend.  We had a lot of fun.  Returning late on Sunday night, I had a list running through my head of what I should make this week.  I've got some changes coming that I have to prepare for and will post more on that later.  So this will be short and sweet for now.

Monday- I grilled shrimp that I seasoned with this delicious Thai coconut rub from Two Spicy Ladies which is local to me.  I found it at my farmer's market.  I also grilled two pieces of Ahi Tuna, which I get frozen at Costco.  It comes in a bag with individually wrapped pieces.  It's pretty good when marinated (I did garlic, tamari and a little teriyaki) but I don't usually sear it to stay rare in the middle like I would with a nice fresh piece, it was cooked all the way through.  I also grilled some asparagus and boiled some edemmame.

Tuesday- Grilled Chicken tacos.  No recipe, I just season the chicken with taco seasoning (I happen to use Pampered Chef Southwestern Seasoning) grill them and then we'll have the usual taco fixings.

Wednesday- Turkey lettuce wraps- Butter lettuce is scheduled for my produce box, so I'm going to stir fry some ground turkey with vegetables and serve it with lettuce leaves and some sweet chili sauce.  Very healthy, very little fat.

Thursday- Grilled Pork Tenderloin, but I'm using method 1 from my Grilled Pork Chops recipes.  Plus some grilled zucchini and I might just actually make a salad.

Friday- Grilled Chicken with Balsamic Glaze and Vegetable Stir Fry.

Saturday- I'm going use leftover grilled chicken to eat it with salad.

Sunday- Company coming so I plan to grill steaks along with zucchini, onions and make a caprese salad.