I mentioned last week that Meal Prep helped me lose weight last year. Once I met Hubba Hubby and we began cohabiting though, I had to adjust my meal prep to include him and his goals (to be clear: I wanted and continue to want to make his lunches, though he tells me all the time that I don’t “have to” — this is one of the ways my family showed love growing up, and it continues to be one of my main love-languages; I cook/provide nourishment in the form of delicious food for those I love or care about greatly).
That proved rather difficult initially so my weight loss stagnated though I’m proud to say that neither of us gained weight during the beginning of our relationship, something that many people experience. I managed to eat intuitively and stopped tracking calories, but mostly my weight loss leveled off and I was stuck. Part of the problem was how I’d gotten used to making one big batch of something, and dividing it into equal portions to calculate the calories. Since I was serving him larger portions of what I cooked, and way too lazy to weigh out the portions, I didn’t have a good measure. Plus his nutrition goals were so different from mine! He is a protein-heavy eater (particularly animal flesh), while I’m light-to-moderate on protein from animals. He will eat some veggies (slight exaggeration; he has a preference for some veggies, but would be happy without eating any, BUT will eat any/almost all vegetables that I make); I love nearly all vegetables and am happy munching away on them. He avoids carbs regularly; I avoid excess carbs but I am happy to eat them as long as they fit my calories.
While I was able to keep both of us fed with mostly healthful choices, as I said our weight loss stagnated. Just as I was about to make an overhaul – I was playing with making different lunch for each of us every week – I lost my job, which means now I only make his lunches. (Again, because I want to – please don’t come at me with ultra-feminist ideas.)
To keep my sanity and his interest, though, I’ve found two things super helpful: the slow cooker!! and trying to keep things ‘international’ in flavor.
Right now, what I’ve been keeping in rotation…
Japanese Curry – this actually isn’t a slow cooker recipe at all, but something I’ve been making for well over 10 years. It’s a bit of a cheat – if you look at the link, I have adapted my method many times over the years now. Sometimes I add apple, sometimes I use fresh veggies, sometimes I use frozen, whatever’s on hand. I mix up the fresh vegetables based on what’s on hand, but my staples include carrots, onion, and celery. I prefer the Vermont Apple Curry medium hot, though I will buy what’s on sale sometimes and experiment — I’ve also liked the java curry but I don’t always see that one in stock.
“Mexican” – taco chili or chicken burrito bowls – this is much like something I was making myself when I was losing weight, though I wasn’t using the slow cooker and instead cooking the chicken in chunks. While the recipes both call for chicken breast, you can certainly use chicken thighs for more fat/flavor/happiness! I riff on both recipes, but the 2nd is definitely easier prep than the first – if only marginally.
Chicken Tikka Masala – Hubba Hubby LOVES Indian food, so he was pretty happy when I found this recipe. It’s super easy — there are different options in the link that give you the ‘easy’ route vs. the more involved route, so you can choose your own adventure so to speak, but I haven’t had any downside from using the ‘easy’ route. The garam masala spice blend was just something purchased at a random store, so no figuring out Indian spices either!
Lamb Tagine – inspired by one of our friends making tagine in his slow cooker, I looked up a couple of recipes and mashed it together with his. I adapted all of these recipes to suit what was in my pantry to limit how much stuff I have to run out and buy, but I’m pretty pleased with how this one tasted – or at least, with how pleased Hubba Hubby was, anyway!
For each of these, I mix up what I serve them with — brown rice, cauliflower rice, quinoa are all popular options to go underneath each dish. I keep the portion size of brown rice low since it’s carb-heavy, but on the side I will sometimes toss naan (purchased at BJ’s or the grocery store) for dipping, I’ve even done tortillas on weeks where I forgot to get naan. My preference, however, is to include a side of vegetables – roasted asparagus right now while it’s springtime (sort of), roasted broccoli or roasted brussels sprouts, all vegetables I know he enjoys and that I can toss a sheetpan in the oven without much fuss while I make other things.
I tend to make these on Sunday, pack them all up and toss the boxes in the fridge. Every morning while we get ready, I take one out and supplement with breakfast yogurt, snacks, etc. and send him on his way with a fun and delicious lunch.
What types of meal prep do you do for the week to help ease your load? How do you use your slow cooker in meal planning? Do you have any recipes for the slow cooker you can recommend to add to our rotation?!
S says
I don’t use my slow cooker any longer because I got an Instant Pot pressure cooker a year ago at X-mas. I love it and can easily make all those dishes after work in a timely manner, even the rice. In fact since I got my pressure cooker I have not used my slow cooker at all. You should consider looking into getting one. I also cook large batches of food on Sunday usually to get me through most lunches/dinners during the work week. It saves a lot of time in the evening, especially since I work 10 hour days.
Feisty Foodie says
Do you have any Instant Pot recipes to share for meal prep?
S says
A lot of my recipes are gotten off the internet and Pintrest has TON of stuff for the Instant Pot. There is a plethora of information out there and many bloggers who have Instant Pots. You can even cook frozen food in them. Hard boiled eggs in 4 minutes that peel like a dream. Brown rice, beans, roasts, even cheese cake, which is probably not on your new diet. Lol As far as particular recipes I don’t use a lot of recipes and am more of a throw a little of this in an a little of that in cook. One thing I have learned is you do not typically need near as much liquid as you think you do, particularly with rice, quinoa, etc… They do not heat up the kitchen. You can put a roast or frozen chicken breasts in and leave the house for a while without worrying. Sorry I didn’t really have any recipes, but there are so many out there and every household has particular food preferences.
Feisty Foodie says
Ahhh, this is all super helpful!! Cheesecake in the instant pot, I hadn’t seen that one — and cheesecake is definitely on the ‘diet’ 🙂 Thanks for the info!!
Lizz K. says
Glad to see you’re writing again! I love meal prep and normally dedicate half a day to do it at home or with some girls at a friend’s place. On lunch rotation I have pork carnitas, pork or chicken abobo, mapo tofu, roast chicken thighs, and meatballs (Italian, Vietnamese, etc.) Base is usually rice, bulgur or soba noodles and roasted veggies as they’re quick to make. Sometimes it’s not necessarily the cleanest foods but still saves us tons of money in the process! Looking forward to more of these entries.
Feisty Foodie says
That’s awesome that you get together with friends to do it!! I would love to do that, it sounds so social even though it’s still, well, a chore 🙂 All that sounds great — can you share recipes for any of your lunch ideas?
Lizz K. says
Sure I can share some recipes! I normally just take from the internet and pinterest as there is so much out there.
For carnitas I use Smitten Kitchen’s Texas Carnitas recipe and then use the meat for weeknight tacos and lunch with yellow rice and veggies. Can be adapted for the slow cooker. (Monique has a great arroz con gandules recipe that you can make in a rice cooker which makes things super easy! – https://iarethefoodsnob.wordpress.com/tag/arroz-con-gandules-2/)
Vietnamese Meatballs from http://iamafoodblog.com/lemongrass-pork-meatball-quinoa-bowl-recipe/ –
is great mixed with soba/bulgur/quinoa/rice and veggies.
Roast Chicken Thighs – http://rasamalaysia.com/ginger-garlic-baked-chicken/ – super simple and can be tweaked to your liking.
Pork or Chicken Adobo is my own recipe that I’ve tweaked to my liking. 2lbs chicken or pork meat braised with 1/4 cup soy, 1/4 vinegar (I use Filipino cane vinegar but you can use apple cider as well), cloves from a whole head garlic, pinch of sugar, a few peppercorns or ground pepper and water to cover. Simmer for about an hour or until tender. Serve with rice, noodles, etc.
While these are some of my faves, I haven’t made some of these in awhile, well, because I get bored of them. I’m always looking for new recipes so I’m looking forward to this series of yours! I’ve pinned the lamb tagine for a rainy day.
PS – I realized my tool of choice seems to be the oven/stove vs the slow cooker haha. Sorry, if you were expecting slow cooker recipes!
Feisty Foodie says
Ooh this is amazing!! And no, no expectations — plus I can always adapt to the slow cooker or use the stove top/oven (I love the oven — inactive cook time is always helpful so I can work on other stuff in the meantime). Thanks for all the links and tips!!
BTW — the lamb tagine (which I’ll be posting step-by-step in a few weeks), you can get lamb shoulder chops at BJ’s and maybe Costco as well (I’m not a Costco member and we live walking distance to a BJ’s). Unfortunately though the meat becomes super tender and the bone chunks that remain are kind of big and small, so you have to be careful — I could trim it, I guess, but my knife skills aren’t the greatest so I’d lose a lot of meat (and bone-flavor)… that’s my one annoyance with the recipe or rather the cut of meat I used. If I could find boneless that wasn’t super expensive…
Lizz K. says
Ooh thanks! I know what you mean with the bony lamb cuts normally available. That’s normally my problem when trying to find goat pieces as well. Looking forward to the recipe!