Workweek Breakfast And Lunch Planning

Well, it’s back to work for me! I’ve been back to teaching for a few weeks now. I told my husband that the theme of this school year is convenience. However, there is one thing that I am never willing to compromise when feeding us and that is our health. As I’m sure many of you know, it can be very challenging on limited time and energy to “whip up” healthy things for us to eat 7 days a week. Recently, I’ve figured out a few tricks that seem to be making things a little easier in this department and I do not feel that we are sacrificing our health or lacking flavor. I must preface this with the fact that neither of us really mind eating the same thing over and over. I am also only cooking for two adults at this point. During the workweek, our meals are not creative at all. The focus is getting decent food in our bellies quickly. Don’t get me wrong, we love to cook and eat and we live in a city where good food is abundant. During the workweek though, the goal is simplicity. Today, I’m sharing the how-to’s of our Monday through Friday eats with you.

On Sunday, I do a lot of prep work. It really pays off though!

Here’s the breakdown:

Every Sunday

In a 350 degree oven, I place 10 whole eggs. This is a method of making hard boiled eggs that works fabulously. In my opinion, it’s easier than actually boiling them. They cook for 22 minutes. Then, they are placed in an ice bath. My husband eats 2 of these everyday as part of his breakfast. Next, I scramble 5 eggs for myself, as part of my breakfast. I put in the fridge and I portion them out and eat 1 egg every morning. Yes, they last all five days and stay quite fresh actually.

The next thing I work on is roasting almonds. We each take about 4oz of these daily as snacks. I roast them on top of the stove usually with whatever I can find in the house. Some things I throw in  are butter, olive oil, bar b q sauce, sriracha, spices such as cumin, salt, cinnamon. You get the idea! Just be creative. This takes about 15 minutes, using 4c of almonds.

 Every Night

I pack breakfast and lunch for my husband and I every night. We each work long hours and have to have everything ready to go. There’s no time to do this in the morning. I’ll start with breakfast. I explained part of our breakfast above (the eggs). We also have smoothies in the morning. At night, I put 2C almond milk, 2 bananas, protein powder, cocoa powder, 2 tbs peanut butter and a handful of kale into the blender. This stays in the fridge overnight and my husband blends it for us before work in the morning. It’s as fresh as ever! I have to have my egg and smoothie to start my day or else I just feel “off.”

Now onto lunches…

I make a salad for each of us consisting of lettuce, tomato, avocado, seeds of some sort, cheese, and salmon for him, chicken for me (if I cooked it on Sunday). We each take a piece of fruit to go with lunch. Sometimes, we take plain yogurts as well (dressed up with maple syrup, cinnamon, and any other yummies I may have on hand!)

As I’m sure you can tell, this is quite an operation I have going and it has taken me four years to get it to this point. I feel like I have it down to a science (for our family), with little room for improvement. It works well for me. Who knows…I’m sure someone out there has a more organized way of doing this. if you do, please share!

I hope this gets you motivated to start meal planning as the new school year starts. I’ll be back soon with a post about how I do dinners during the workweek.

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