Happy Sunday! We’re having a great weekend over here and I’ll fill you in on life lately in my next post but today is all about food! Sharing what I’m prepping today to have on hand next week along with the meals that I’ve been eating the last week or two.

SUNDAY FOOD PREP

• I’m going to bake a loaf of this peanut butter chocolate chip banana bread because I’ve been craving it and have some very ripe bananas on hand! It’s great for snacking and I also like to freeze individual slices.
• Wash and massage curly kale for salads.
• Cook a batch of farro for salads and bowls.
• Roast sweet potatoes for salads and bowls.
• Hard boil eggs.
• Cook a batch of some kind of soup – I’m thinking lentil. I want to shop my pantry and make a soup from whatever I have on hand.

BREAKFAST

Nine times out of ten I have a protein smoothie for breakfast. It’s just what I wake up craving in the morning.

But I have been on a yogurt bowl kick with Florida strawberries being in season. My favorite combo is plain FAGE 5%, a generous squeeze of honey, Purely Elizabeth Berry Granola, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, dried cranberries and peanut butter. I’ll often add in blueberries or swap them for the raspberries.

LUNCH

The most notable thing is that you won’t see any salads in this lunch round up. Just haven’t been feeling them lately and have had more sandwiches than anything. I’m feeling a little over sandwiches for the upcoming week so that’s why I’m prepping the kale salads.

Tuna melt with pepper jack cheese on honey wheat bread. I made the tuna salad with a can of Blue Harbor tuna, mashed avocado, plain greek yogurt, a little mayo, chopped sweet pickles and salt/pepper.

PBJ! Bonne Maman Four Fruits Preserves is my favorite jam for peanut butter and jelly. I like it paired with a salted creamy natural peanut butter.

Turkey and ham sandwich on a Schmidt Old Time potato roll. Mayo, avocado, turkey, ham, pepper jack, sweet pickles and spicy mustard. I’ve been putting my sandwiches in the Ninja FoodiOven on air broil so they’re toasty/warm.

Leftover turkey sandwiches from the Super Bowl reheated for lunch.

Homemade kitchari with toasted buttered naan and a sumo mandarin.

Another one of Finn’s “deconstructed” sandwiches. I sent bread slices with a little tub of peanut butter because he prefers to eat his peanut butter with a spoon. He likes the Jif natural creamy and calls it, “Jeff.” Kills me.

One more very basic packed lunch. I struggle so much with proteins at lunch because he doesn’t like a lot of things cold.

DINNER

Ground turkey stroganoff with roasted broccoli. I had been craving stroganoff (a childhood fave) and this was my first time making it with turkey instead of beef and it was good! I love a creamy mushroom pasta dish! Very loosely based on this recipe.

A delicious red curry salmon bowl. I baked salmon with Trader Joe’s soyaki sauce and then served it over steamed basmati rice with Trader Joe’s red curry sauce and sautéed veggies. The veggie mix was sugar snap peas, yellow and orange peppers and zucchini. Cilantro on top.

This was a pre-marinated chicken breast from Reid’s (their Spiedie marinade for local readers) that I baked and served with roasted brussel sprouts, Trader Joe’s harvest grain blend and a bag of frozen ready-to-roast root veggies with sweet potatoes, carrots, beets and red onions. I prepped this and ate it for dinner three times with various shredded cheeses, sauces, etc.

Roasted salmon seasoned with Dizzy Pig Shakin’ The Tree and lemon slices and served over rice with tzatziki and sautéed zucchini and cherry tomatoes.

This salad was SO GOOD! Mixed green with tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, feta, pepitas, avocado and sautéed shrimp that I seasoned with the same Dizzy Pig Shakin’ The Tree. The toasted sesame dressing from Trader Joe’s is what really made it and pulled all the flavors together.

Shrimp is such an easy protein to pull out of the freezer and I need to use it more often! I had this frozen shrimp defrosted and cooked in under 15 minutes. And easy, fresh and delicious dinner!

One more salmon dinner. Salmon sides were on big sale at Aldi so I ended up with 2.5 pounds of salmon recently. I should have frozen half of it but instead I just ate a lot of salmon for a few days. This was Trader Joe’s sorrentina gnocchi with the frozen European greens blend from Whole Foods and some leftover roast salmon with parmesan cheese.

You probably won’t see any salmon dinners in my next eats recap, haha.

ETC

I tried Perfect Bar Layers for the first time and YUM!!! I had the crispy peanut butter and chocolate flavor and here’s a pro tip – put it in the microwave for 10 seconds. These bars are stored in the fridge so a quick trip to the microwave takes the chill off, softens them and slightly melts the chocolate. Will definitely be buying these on the regular. It was a great afternoon treat with a cup of tea.

These are the various sauces and dressings from Trader Joe’s that I referenced in this post. Thought it might be helpful to show you! I also love their bottled goddess dressing and the yellow version of the curry.

QUESTIONS 

Are you doing any food prep today? 

Favorite sauce/dressing/dip from Trader Joe’s? 

What’s been your go-to lunch this season/time of the year?