Lazy Healthy Meal Prep

I'm a lazy cook who aims to eat very healthy to best fuel my running.  With a bit of meal prep on Sundays after our weekly trip to the grocery store, I put meals together for the week without much effort.  After waking up between 4:45-5:00 a.m., working 8-10 hours, sometimes running a second run in the evenings, Mom duties, and maintaining a home, I don't have much time or energy to deal with cooking on week days.

On Sundays, I:

• Make a meal in the crock pot that I then divide up into containers for my lunches each day
• Cook a big batch of a healthy grain (quinoa, red quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat cous cous)
• Roast a ton of veggies (whatever is on sale and whatever is ripe in our garden)
• Cook salmon, tilapia, and/or chicken
• Hard boil a dozen eggs
• Often also make protein bars or granola bars, make trail mix, and cut up raw fruits and veggies
• Ensure I have the following on hand:  fresh and frozen fruit, fresh and frozen veggies, yogurt, cottage cheese, string cheese, several varieties of nuts, peanut butter, whole wheat bread, protein powder, tuna, almond milk, potatoes and sweet potatoes, oatmeal, pretzels, popcorn, tea, coffee

During the week, I nearly always end up cooking more veggies and fish/chicken, but those are as simple as throwing them on a baking dish with seasonings and olive oil, so only take a moment (the key is remembering to put them in 45 minutes before you want to eat...do not wait until finishing that 4 mile shake-out run!).

Here is an example of how a few items can combine for different dinners each evening.  My healthy grain for this week was a huge pot of whole wheat spaghetti (3 standard packages).  My child complains about whole wheat spaghetti but she will eat it!

Night 1:  Whole wheat spaghetti topped with marinara (also homemade and homegrown, but not by me), roasted eggplant, roasted tomatoes, olives, and Italian seasoning

Night 2:  Whole wheat spaghetti with roasted tomatoes, steam-in-the bag asparagus, light olive oil/lemon sauce, and Italian seasonings

Night 3:  Whole wheat spaghetti with roasted tomatoes, olives, steam-in-bag asparagus, and cottage cheese

Night 4:  Whole wheat spaghetti with roasted zucchini squash and yellow squash, garlic, and lemon/garlic roasted salmon

Night 5:  Plain whole wheat spaghetti...the option when you're super exhausted after a 4:45 a.m. alarm, a day in Joplin for work, and a second run.  After eating part of this I found the energy to add some Parmesan.

Meal examples with baked salmon and roasted asparagus (just add a potato!):

I was going to use the title "What I ate for lunch every day for a week" and then include this picture 5 times, but I thought that be annoying.  Usually, I eat the same thing for lunch at work five days in a row.  I make different recipes each week, but during the week it makes it pretty brainless to just take a container full of it each day.  The pictured dish is a pumpkin curry prepared in the slow cooker - white beans, veggies, pumpkin puree, coconut milk, cumin, curry powder (I also put plain gelatin in every slow cooker meal I make to promote tendon strength; it is tasteless).  This curry can be served over rice, quinoa, or cous cous, or by itself.

I am pretty organized/routine about food-prep, so it usually goes off without a hitch and doesn't take very long at all.  The only time I struggle is if we are out of town all weekend!  Even then, omelets, baked potatoes with cottage cheese, tuna sandwiches, canned beans/soups, etc. are always super easy.  Peanut butter banana sandwiches are also always winners!