I Must Love Me Too

If you have neglected yourself,
make a sincere apology to thee.
Gather the "love-me-not-petals" of your life
and start counting "I-must-love-me-too".
In no time at all you have
a beautiful flower blossom within you. ~ Dodinsky Writings

Friday, April 24, 2009

Bulk Cooking Tips For Healthy Eating

Bulk Cooking Tips

On Sundays, I prepare as much food as possible for the upcoming
week, including breakfast & lunches for work.

Breakfast is usually white chocolate or vanilla pudding yogurt and
fresh fruit. Or I'll package up a bowl of milk and make hot cereal
at work and add unsweetened applesauce to it. Or I'll have the milk
with one of my prepackaged cold cereal packets already at work and
add a banana.

Lunch includes a big chopped veggie salad (celery, carrots,
broccoli, radishes, cabbage, etc.) or a big regular salad and an
entree. Cowboy beans over barley, dinner leftovers, chili over
brown rice, etc. I also bring fruit for an afternoon snack, so I'm
not ravenous when I get home and may grab anything just to quell the
munchies.

I package most meals up on Sunday in individual containers. The
entrees are packaged up during the week if I'm using dinner
leftovers. For instance, tonight's dinner will be Wednesday's
lunch - Grilled chicken thighs, green beans, and a chopped salad.

Other things I cook on Sundays - as many side dishes as possible.
I'll cook brown rice, barley, couscous or other grains, sauteed or
roasted veggies, make up some sliced pickled beets (add several "no
salt added" cans to a container and add some s & p and vinegar), a
cold salsa or bean mixture, a big fruit salad, etc. The
possibilities are endless. I'm a big fan of beans so I cook a lot
of them.

I'll also prepare a soup, maybe a spaghetti sauce, grill up some
chicken or pork tenderloin for a multitude of uses during the week
(if I'm not planning to use right away, I'll cut it up and freeze
it). I'll also take meat or fish out of the freezer to defrost for
Monday and Tuesday night's dinner.

I make up two 32 oz containers of yogurt pudding - one is usually
chocolate for dessert during the week. The other is for breakfast
with fruit or my husband will have fruit and yogurt with his lunch.

It makes the week so much easier if you plan ahead! It also stops
temptations when you just don't know what you want or don't feel
like cooking, and end up making bad choices.