Plan & Prep | April 17th - 23rd

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This past week's meal plan and prep was pretty simple. I've been focusing on using up a few miscellaneous or overstocked pantry items, along with consuming as many green beans as humanly possible it seems. This week I also tried to keep the containers from meal prep as minimal as possible, as my fridge was stuffed with sale veggies and bacon (more on that in my WWS & WWA post to follow). I love my Pyrex and Corning small casserole dishes for this, as they have flat plastic covers that snap on securely, making it easy to stack them in the fridge.

Meal Plan & Prep

Meal Plan (Monday - Friday)

Last week I shared with you my meal planning mind map - a compilation of fresh and pantry items that need to be used, and then making a list of dishes that I could use those items in. This week's list wasn't very legible handwriting-wise, but here is the gist:

    Perishable Items: carrots, celery, zucchini, pizza sauce, mozzarella, blueberries, yogurt cups, old             bread/frozen breadcrumbs.
    Pantry Items: artichokes, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, green enchilada sauce, cereal.

And here is what I came up with for meals....

Breakfasts for the Week

  • Cereal w/ Milk
  • Yogurt Cups
  • Toast w/ Peanut Butter
Lunches for the Week



Dinners for the Week 
  • Monday - Dinner at Applebee's [this was very last minute!]
  • Tuesday - 2 Step Chicken Bake w/ Egg Noodles & Green Beans

  • Wednesday - Instant Pot Spaghetti w/ Green Beans & Crescent Rolls
    • My Dad also brought over some steak tips for me to cook, and I kept a few of those for lunches
  • Thursday - Instant Pot Spaghetti Leftovers
  • Friday - Grilled Chicken, Green Beans, and Rice
Snacks for the Week
  • Cheese, Cracker, Almond, and Grape "lunchables"
  • Yogurt Cups w/ "Quick Jam"
  • Cumber Slices, Grapes, Goldfish, Cocoa Almonds
  • Also Available: carrots, popcorn, cheese sticks, nuts, pretzels, etc

Meal Prep for Breakfasts

Breakfast was no prep this week. We've got a bunch of cereal that I accumulated from sale/coupon combinations, so Ben focused on eating up some of that. I had oatmeal bread with peanut butter.

Meal Prep for Lunches

Lunches this week were mostly leftovers from dinner or our impromptu trip to Portland Pie on Sunday, and Applebee's on Monday! I did make the chicken stuffing casserole for Ben's lunches, it was my first time making this recipe, and he thought it was great. I don't typically purchase "cream of" soups, but I had accumulated a few from the clearance rack, if I make this again I'll probably make the cream soup portion from scratch. This recipe also helped to make a dent in the carrots and celery that were on my use-up list.
Chicken Stuffing Casserole & Roasted Zucchini

Ingredient Prep for Dinners
For dinners this week I did take the time to trim a lot of the green beans in advance, everything else was minimal work. I ended up only cooking on Tuesday and Wednesday, and leftovers carried us through to Friday.

Snack Prep
For snacks this week, Ben took yogurt cups, some with "quick jam" that I made with the blueberries that were starting to get soft. Yogurt lasts for a long time in the fridge, well past the package date, but these ones have been around for about eight weeks now, so it's time to get them moving along! I also took "lunchable" style snacks this week, with cheese, crackers, almonds, and either grapes or cucumbers. Since fridge space was at a premium this week, I assembled them the morning of.

I hope you like the new format! What's on your menu for the week?

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