Sunday Food Prep – what went down in my kitchen (11)

Hello!

Can you believe it’s December 15th already?!

Only 10 more days until Christmas and 2 weeks until it’s 2015.

I can hardly believe it.

Man, this year has FLOWN by!

Of course, just because time flies and I’d like to grab onto it and slow it down doesn’t mean that I can shirk my chores and responsibilities.

Seriously, why isn’t there a loophole?

So, we got out in the yard and raked. So. Many. Leaves.

But, we built a big pile for mulching for my garden in the spring (yay!) and we hauled in another few pounds of pecans.

Did you know that the average pecan tree can yield 40 to 50 POUNDS of pecans?!

I should seriously set up a pecan stand. 🙂

In addition to all the raking, I also got some good food prep going.

I roasted a chicken in my crockpot and then made some homemade chicken stock.

I should have ended up with 8 1-cup portions but I made a mess (oops!) and ended up with 7 1/2 cups. So, I distributed the remaining half among the 7 jars.

I also have some homemade beef stock going. We went to an evening farmer’s and craft market on Friday and I nabbed some marrow bones. On Saturday night, those bones, a T-Bone steak bone, and the leftover bones from a chuck roast all went into a crockpot and have been cooking ever since.

Thank goodness for 2 6-quart crockpots!

I made some quinoa, Lindsay’s Quinoa Breakfast Bars (YUM!!!), and roasted some sweet potatoes.

Seriously, if you have not yet made those breakfast bars, you are totally missing out. I’m kinda addicted to them.

They’re so easy and so delicious! I like to put a little almond butter on mine and have it with a piece of fruit.  🙂

Finally, I chopped up some carrots and red bell peppers for the week next two days. 😉

I was wiped from doing the leaves but by the time 7pm came around, I was pretty pooped.

Ginny helped me feel better by being all warm and snuggly and cute on my lap.

Talk to me: Have you had to rake a lot of leaves this Fall? Do you bag them, burn them, or reuse them as mulch? Any recipe ideas (not Pecan Pie) for all my pecans? 🙂

– jennifer

Thanksgiving recap and some food prep

Hi there!

How was your Thanksgiving?

Ours was pretty good! I took a little bit of time off of everything – blogging, working out, showering…..

Hey, if I wasn’t sweaty, why would I need to shower?

Okay, seriously, I’m kidding. Sheesh! I showered. I promise.

We headed up to my folks’ house for Thanksgiving.

Halfway there, I realized I left the butternut squash at home. #sidedishfail

But, it worked out okay because 1. less butternut squash I have to share, 2. I remembered the brownies, and 3. we had PUH-Lenty of food!

And wine, of course. 🙂

Most of it was catered but there was reheating, etc to do. Took a MAJOR load of stress of my mom’s shoulders.

And I was pretty thankful about that, too, because my sailor and I usually end up in charge of the turkey (we grill it) and it was raining and miserable. I love me some grilling but grilling outside in the cold rain is about as much fun as waxing the bikini line. Right? Right.

Everything was really, really good!

My sister was in charge of the pumpkin pies and she totally made me a gluten-free (minus the crust) pumpkin pie!

swoon!

I was totally not expecting it and was weighing my pumpkin pie options (do I just eat the pumpkin and leave the crust, take my chances with the gluten-y crust, or skip it altogether and just eat a brownie?) when she pulled it out of her bag of tricks. 🙂

We headed back home on Friday (Black Friday shopping? no thank you.) and proceeded to sit on our butts all weekend.

Okay, not really.

We ran errands on Saturday and we hit up some antique/consignment stores and found the most amazing chairs for our dining room table!

We bought the table from Ikea back in 2001 and still had the original chairs we bought with the table.

13 years and 7 moves later, those chairs were DONE. One actually broke a couple of weeks ago. While someone was sitting in it. Thankfully, the chair took the brunt of the damage.

We also bought a new Christmas tree!

The tree we’ve replaced was almost 20 years old and had been through WAY more than 7 moves. It was falling apart and starting to look a little like Charlie Brown’s tree.

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It was definitely time to upgrade. This one is pre-lit! No more ring around the rosie trying to string lights! #winning

I also did a little bit of food prep.

I made some of Lindsay’s Quinoa Breakfast Bars for grab ‘n go breakfasts/snacks (edited the recipe to make it gluten free). They’re all individually bagged and ready for snacking.

 If you have not made these yet, you are totally missing out. Super easy and super delicious!

 I threw together a pot of Smoky Beef and Black Bean Chili for lunches this week.

 Stay tuned for the recipe tomorrow!

steamy!

 

 And, finally, I tried a Pinterest recipe for Ginger Chicken Stir-fry and it turned out fabulously!

We have leftovers so that adds at least 2 more lunches or quick dinners this week. Whoop!

I also roasted up my accidentally left-behind butternut squash. 🙂

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Talk to me: Did you shop on Black Friday? How long were you out and what time did you wake up to go?

– jennifer

Sunday food prep (2) – what went down in my kitchen

Hello!

Happy Monday!

Did you have a good weekend?

It rained all weekend over here. Seriously. My grass is so tall!

If it doesn’t stop raining every weekend, my grass will soon get tall enough for this….

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Just sayin.

We did date night on Saturday – haven’t had one of those in a while!

Dinner and a movie.

Or, actually, movie and dinner. 🙂

We saw Lucy. Have you seen it yet? What did you think?

Then, we went to the mexican restaurant across the street where I had a margarita as big as my head!

And some guacamole that was advertised as “made fresh at your table” but she just brought us the bowl. Guess the guacamole maker didn’t want to push his little cart to each table. Oh well. At least it was fresh!

And not at all spicy. Le sigh. We had to ask for the jalapeno. Oh well. At least the margarita was as big as my head! 😉

Then, I got down to business on Sunday and did some food prep for this week.

Dude, I was EXHAUSTED by the time I was done.

Probably didn’t help that I was doing laundry, cleaning, and trying to pull out a ginormous weed that was threatening to take over my a/c unit at the same time.

First thing that went down were some hard-boiled eggs.

Not for me. Blech.

My sailor and Thing 2 love them. They will be quick grab and go fuel perfect for a sailor’s lunchbox. 🙂

 Then, I made some trail mix.

I like the idea of making our own trail mix because we can control the ratio of ingredients. AND, we’re not stuck with what somebody else prefers or some generic trail mix blend.

I used roasted almonds, shelled pistachios, roasted unsalted peanuts, sunflower seeds, dried berry blend (blueberries, cherries, and strawberries – YUM!), and some M&M’s (my sailor really only buys the trail mix for the M&M’s so he can fool me into thinking he’s eating healthy. 😉  He just doesn’t know I’m on to his little trick.)

We mixed it all up in a big container and then portioned some out into 2 mason jars so we could each have one at our desks at work.

 Pretty fancy, huh? 🙂

 We totally chowed down on Lindsay’s Peanut Butter Banana Oat Muffins last week but I wanted to do something different.

 So, I figured I would give her Quinoa Breakfast Bars a try. HOLY. YUM.

I couldn’t wait for them to cool completely to try one – they smelled so good! They even got a 2 thumbs up from Thing 2!

Shhh….don’t tell that there’s quinoa in them. It can be our little secret. 😉

I took her suggestion and individually bagged each bar for easy grab-and-go in the mornings.

And, they don’t have to just be for breakfast – I have one today for my PM snack with a couple of clementines.

Is it snack time yet? 😉

As you know, I ❤ the sweet potato so I decided I would wedge up 3 and roast them for lunch/dinner combos.

I can seriously eat a sweet potato every day so I’ll be surprised if these actually last 3 days.

 

These are super easy. Scrub, wedge, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, roast at 425 degrees for 25-35 minutes (depending on how big you make your wedges), gobble let cool, put into container for later.

We totally used up all the chicken I roasted last week so I decided to do it again.

Harris Teeter had organic whole chickens in stock this time so I grabbed one and made use of my crockpot.

 5 hours later (on high), I had a perfectly cooked and seasoned bird ready for slicing/shredding.

We’ll use it for sandwiches, salads, etc this week.

 Finally, I decided to make some burgers.

As I said earlier, it pretty much rained all weekend so I was glad I have a cast iron grill pan. 🙂

I used the recipe from my Abs Diet Cookbook.

I had one for lunch today (on its own – no bun) with some of those sweet potatoes, some spicy (for real spicy!) guacamole, and some veggies. Om nom nom!!

So, that’s what happened in my kitchen yesterday. What happened in yours?

Talk to me: When was the last time you had a margarita as big as your head? What movies have you seen lately?