Week 1: Sunday planning

Somehow I turned needing a new dishwasher into a total kitchen remodel, yay! Unfortunately, it is taking Dan much longer to do each task than anticipated, boo!! I need my kitchen back!!!!!!!

He put in the new dishwasher and re-did the sink and garbage disposal but I’ve asked him to take a short break ripping up the bad 70s tiles that currently cover our countertops so I can get in there. For those that know me, you know how hard it is for me to live in a state of mess. These past few days have been extremely hard, to the point that I hand washed a full dishwasher’s worth of dishes and then some just because I couldn’t stand to see a dirty dish in the sink for one more moment. He kicked me out of the house yesterday to go shopping, and I’m sure the same will happen again today. For most women, you would probably enjoy a day of meandering around various stores, but to me it’s a fate worse than death. I am not one that can putter about window shopping, I go in, get what I want and leave. Yesterday was rough. I only have a short while to get my prep done before I get kicked out of the house again, so here are all the recipes that I promised yesterday.

I’m first going to make my soup and set that to simmer all day: Lentil and Tomato Chicken Soup
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
2/3 cup lentils (make sure you rinse these in cold water first, sometimes they are dirty depending on where you buy them, if you get them at a farmer’s market, they’re probably still dirty)
1 tsp dried basil
4 cups chopped fresh kale (I skip this bc I don’t like it, but I’m told it’s yummy, if you can't find kale, broccoli is good in this soup too)
2 cups cooked chicken, cut into pieces
1 can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
Black pepper

In a dutch oven or stock pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, celery and garlic; cover and cook for 5-7 min until veggies are tender, stirring when needed.

Add the chicken broth, lentils, and basil; bring to a boil and reduce heat to low simmer. Cover and simmer for 10 min. Stir in kale and pepper, return to boiling then reduce and simmer another 10min.

Stir in the chicken and tomatoes, cover and simmer at least 20min … but I’m going to let mine simmer all day.

Once the soup is simmering on the stove, I’m going to make my muffins: Applesauce Bran Muffins (courtesy Lynne)
1 ½ c dry oatmeal
1 ¼ c bran flake cereal, crushed
¾ t cinnamon
¾ t baking soda
3 T vegetable oil
1 egg white
1 t baking powder
1 c unsweetened applesauce
½ c skim milk
½ c brown sugar

Preheat oven to 400. Combine all ingredients. Line muffin tins with paper cups. Divide batter equally (12 muffins). Bake for 20 minutes or until tested done.

Once the muffins are out of the oven, I’ll set them to cool and head out for the day. Planning on taking the dogs to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee then over to the dog park then hitting up Michael’s and The Container Store. Hopefully, I’ll be able to waste more time than yesterday.

When I get back, I’m going to start my last supper, my last indulgence, then make my healthified carrot cake and get prepped for my Monday.

Healthified Carrot Cake (courtesy eatbetteramerica.com):
¾ cup all purpose flour
¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup sugar
1 ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice (or just mix cinnamon, nutmeg and all-spice)
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup finely shredded carrots (I use my cheese grater for this, it works wonders)
¾ cup chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted (toast nuts for 6-7 min at 350)
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup cooking oil
¼ cup skim milk or non-fat buttermilk
Frosting: 1/3 cup fat-free cool-whip, ¼ cup non-fat light vanilla yogurt & fat/free or Neufchatel cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9x9x2 baking pan with foil, extending foil over the edges of the pan. Lightly coat foil with cooking spray and set aside.

Combine all-purpose flour, wheat flour, sugar, spice, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add carrots, ½ cup of the nuts, egg, oil and milk. Stir until just combined then spread evenly into the pan.

Bake 15-18 min or until done. Cool on a wire rack.

In separate bowl, mix together the frosting ingredients and beat until fluffy.

Using the edges of the foil, lift the cake out of the pan. Frost the cake w/ prepared frosting and sprinkle w/ remaining nuts. Cut into 20 bars, these are freezer friendly if you wrap in saran wrap.

My prep for Monday will include taking chicken out of the freezer and placing on a paper towel in the fridge to defrost overnight. Then I’ll pack my muffin, yogurt and soup in my lunch bag so I don’t have to worry about getting that ready in the morning.

RECIPE FOR MONDAY: Chicken & Zucchini with Garlic
1 large onion
1 lb skinless boneless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 zucchini
2 cloves garlic, minced
Parsley for garnish

Cut onion into thin wedges, set aside. Halve zucchini lengthwise and cut into ¼ inch slices. Season chicken with salt and pepper.

In a large skillet, heat oil, add chicken and cook for 2-3 min, turn chicken, add onion and garlic; cook for 8-10 min longer until chicken is cooked through; stir onions often and turn chicken as needed to brown evenly.

Transfer chicken and onion to a pan or plate, keep warm. Add zucchini to skillet, cook and stir 3-5 min until crisp tender. Add to the plate with chicken and garnish with parsley.

Ok that’s it for now, must head into the kitchen and get cracking before Dan takes back over. I’ll be back online later to talk about my last supper, final fatty, carb-laden meal before my 90 day challenge.

the challenge, if you choose to accept it

I truly believe that no matter how busy you are and how many kids you have; everyone can have healthy, yummy, home cooked meals during the week. As my coworker Lynne and I begin our 90 day challenge to ourselves to eat right and exercise regularly, I invite everyone else to do the same. I’m going to give you my biggest secret for being able to cook every night without pulling out your hair: plan ahead. With proper planning, anyone can be a weeknight gourmet!

The first step is to sit down and plan your week. Review what activities you have going on that week and try to match the level of difficulty against how busy a day is. If you have a particularly busy day, plan an easy/quick meal for that night. On the evenings that you have more time, you can plan a dinner that may take a little longer to prepare and cook-ahead for the next day. My friend Shannon has a whiteboard on her fridge which she uses to plan what she is making every night, which gave me the inspiration to start doing the same. I use this little calendar specifically designed to plan your weekly menus (that I found at Michael’s for $1!). Whatever your method is, take some time on Saturday or Sunday to sit down and plan your week. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, and you can switch your nights around depending on what you’re in the mood for, it’s just important to pick 5-7 meals and write them down, creating the plan is half the battle. Executing the plan is the other half.

I just went through my cookbooks (handwritten and purchased) and reviewed a few websites. Since my goal is to cut carbs, calories and fat, I spent a lot of time on www.eatbetteramerica.com. If you’ve never seen their website, you must check it out!! One of the things I pride myself on is my ability to take the traditional foods that I grew up with and substitute a few ingredients to make them healthier. Eat Better America does all that for you in their “healthified” section, it’s fabulous.

Here is my plan for the week. First, I lay out what I want to have for breakfast, lunches and snacks all week:
•Breakfast – healthy muffin
•Morning snack – nonfat light yogurt
•Lunch – lentil and tomato chicken soup or leftovers from the night before
•Afternoon snack – whole wheat pretzels w/ reduced fat peanut butter or reduced fat cheez-its
•Evening snack - healthified carrot cake

Then, I plan my dinners ... WEEK 1: no red meat, boooo :(

•Monday Dinner – chicken and zucchini w/ garlic
•Tuesday Dinner – spicy black bean tostadas (I’m going to be extremely busy on Tuesday so I chose a dinner that I could make in 20min or less)
•Wednesday Dinner – chicken marsala
•Thursday Dinner – turkey burgers and whole wheat mac & cheese w/ broccoli
•Friday Dinner – chicken pesto pizza on homemade whole wheat crust

Once I have decided what to have all week, I go through my freezer, fridge and pantry then sit down to create my grocery list. Lynne gave me a great recipe for apple bran muffins, all you need is bran flake cereal, rolled oats, unsweetened applesauce and things you typically have in your house already (cinnamon, baking soda, vegetable oil, egg, baking powder, skim milk and brown sugar). If you’re a coupon clipper, definitely visit www.bettycrocker.com for coupons on the new Yoplait non-fat light yogurts that taste like dessert and Progresso soups if you’re not going to make a vat of homemade.

Here is the list of everything you could possibly need to pick up at the store to make homemade muffins, homemade soup and all 5 dinners listed above. I’ll post the muffin recipe, soup recipe, carrot cake recipe and Monday dinner recipe tomorrow, along with my Sunday evening tips for getting ready for your week.

Grocery list:
All purpose flour
Whole wheat flour
Baking powder
Baking soda
Sugar
Brown sugar
Pumpkin pie spice
Cinnamon
Basil
Parsley
Salt
Black pepper
Walnuts or pecans
Vegetable oil
Olive oil
Rolled oats / dry oatmeal
Bran flake cereal
Whole wheat pretzels
Reduced fat Cheez-its
Lentils
Unsweetened applesauce
Reduced fat peanut butter
Light cool-whip
Non-fat vanilla yogurt
5 non-fat light yogurts
Non-fat or Neufchatel cream cheese
Bag of Carrots
Bag of Onions
Kale
2 Zucchini
Head of garlic
Tomato
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Yellow bell pepper
Eggs
Skim milk
Monterrey Jack, cheddar and mozzarella cheese – reduced fat or made w/ 2% milk
Reduced fat grated parmesan cheee
Reduced-sodium chicken broth (4 cans)
No-salt added diced tomatoes
Reduced-fat pesto
Pizza sauce
Black beans
Corn tortillas
Whole wheat elbow macaroni
Chicken, chicken and more chicken
Frozen turkey burgers

I do hope you'll follow along and at least enjoy some of these healthy recipes!