Bento 11/20

Kitty here,

I landed a new job that will last at least for the season. The upside is, there's no fast food nearby. Means I have to get back to cooking, and that means more awesome content for you all. I can't wait!

Boiled egg
Sweet potato with cinnamon
Some banana chips
Pita chips
And a garlic mixed veggie thing. Mushrooms, cucumber, carrot, spinach and cashew nuts with garlic and soy sauce.

4/5/18 Grocery Haul

 I decided to get back on my healthy eating kick. I also need to save some money. With working full time, both are really hard to do. Here's to meal prep!

So I spent about $30 on

Groceries that will last me more than a week. I'm hoping I can stretch 2 out of a lot of this stuff. Some things like the chia seeds however, will last much longer. I did have quite a few staples already on hand so the bulk of what I needed this week was just produce. Let me give you all a quick break down.

1 Dozen eggs (I went to 3 stores sadly because prices were so high at the others, lucky for me though it wasn't out of the way)

1 package of frozen burritos. I like keeping these on hand for something quick when I get home late from work.

1 box frozen loaded perogi. Another snack that I like to have on hand when they are on sale.

1 lb of red grapes. Again, another good sale that I wanted to take advantage of.

1 package of chia seeds. This will last me at least a month.

1 package of individual cheese sticks. I take these to work often in my lunches.

3 bell peppers. Another good aldi find. 3 peppers for under $2. Can't beat that. These will go in lunches for work with hummus.

1 bag of carrots. Another snack I like to keep on hand, as well as something I take to work for lunch.

1pt grape tomatoes. I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes in general, but these little ones are great.

2 mangos.

2 cucumbers

2lbs of sweet potatoes. I plan on slicing them thin and making crisps out of them.

1 block of cream cheese. Instead of going through Dunkin Doughnuts drive through for a bagel I'll just make one at home.

I also picked up a block of mozzarella cheese,  but that will be for pizza rolls tonight. So I won't count that in, even through it was part of the final price.

All and all, a pretty good haul. I can't wait to see what I make from it.

Cook extra

It seems like such a simple concept, but deep down, it's not. Making extra of something only for it to go bad later isn't a good way to save money. In fact just the opposite.

That's another story though.

So how can you save money when you like to make meals by the seat of your pants?

Prep the bases.

Prep the things you can use all week. For example rice week.

One day you can have fried rice, another Mexican beans and rice burritos, and bake some chicken and toss it on top of rice. 3 meals right there, all with one thing in common.

Rice.

Rice and other grains are super easy to batch make. Like tonight, I was making dinner and made some quinoa. I trippled what I was making and tossed it all in my rice cooker.

A full pot later, I now have extra for the rest of the week. Maybe even seconds if I wanted.

I can't tell you how amazing it felt to scoop a serving put and have that all leftover. I have one less thing to worry about this week.

You can too.

Things I didn't toss.

Yesterday was a day of purge. While I really wanted to throw it all away, I knee that with my new meal planing I would be using a lot of it.

Some things I kept, and plan to keep on hand:

Oatmeal
Lentils
Quinoa
Barley
Pancake mix
Stuffing mix
Padta
2 cans of soup
Pasta salad mix
Instant potatoes
Peanut butter
Pancake syrup
Frozen waffles
Frozen turkey sausage
Chicken tenderloins
Frozen veggies
Frozen chicken patties
Bread (kept in the freezer)
Fruit bars
Half dozen eggs
Package of cheese that's unopened
Tubes of crecent roll dough
Spices, and condiments.

That's a big list, bigger than I'd prefer it to be, but it looks like I have an easy start on this. I'm lucky and have plenty of food to make over the next week or more.

My plans, use what I have, and only buy what I need to finish the meals until it's gone. Then I can go shopping and really challenge myself.

A fresh start.

With my life being what it has been, my diet has been the least of my worries. However, now that things are getting better, I too wish to get better.

My depression is still a lot to handle, I have no energy and my limitless sex drive has been detrailed. I miss being me. I miss feeling good.

That's why I threw out (almost) all of my food. Everything that isn't helping me feel better, went to the trash.

I hardly ever cook and I need to start again. The only way I know how, is to hit the reset button. Tonight I will go shopping and start my new diet and life. I will be forcing myself into meal prepping.

My goals.

$10 a week and still eating healthy.

Walk with me.

Beginning meal prep!

I've finally found a few moments to start getting my life together. My first move. Meal prep. With working full time and driving about 3 hours round trip, the last thing I want to do is cook when I get home.

During my day off today I made some quick easy food so that I can come home and have food ready. Instead of stopping at McDonald's every night because they are the only thing open.

Here is what I have waiting for me for the next two days. A side of fresh raspberries. The main course is a little more complex, but still very easy, and affordable to boot!

First I made a batch of rice, roughly 1 cup total. (Before cooking ) I layered that at the bottom of my container after it had cooled. Then I cooked up some chicken in coconut oil. I used tenderloins because they were on sale and easy, you could use whatever you like. I'm sure shredded rotisserie chicken would be great here too. Then I drained and rinsed some canned corn. Again, it wad on sale, use whatever veggie you prefer. I did the same with a can of black beans.

That's it. Super simple but a fairly well rounded meal.

A step in the right direction

Whelp, work has dumped hours on me and I haven't done much the past week outside of sleeping and working. So now that the location is open, I can get back to caring for myself. That means re-banning myself from fast food. And of course get back to excersie.

Today, I was able to wake up and make myself something simple. Even better, it didn't cost me much.

Pardon my poor images, it's real food though. Haha.

So here I have a waffle, some turkey sausage, and an egg.

Total cost for this breakfast, about 50 cents. It was filling and full of protien. And butter, but that's just a personal preference.