Dinners This Week
We are going for super easy this week, with only one meal (Wednesday) that may edge over the 30 minute mark in terms of hands on time. Feel free to swap that meal with another night if you need to because of your personal schedule. This week’s main building block ingredients are my two favorite lean proteins: chicken and shrimp.
Sunday
This meal takes a while in terms of overall time, but your hands on time will be minimal. Start the chicken two hours before you want to eat. At the same time chop the veggies and put them in a pot with water to cover. Store the pot in the refrigerator until 15 minutes before meal time. Then drain, add the steamer basket and more water, and cook as directed.
- Time saver: Purchase a rotisserie chicken from your supermarket and reheat it.
- Note: During cleanup, pull as much meat off the chicken as possible and store in the refrigerator for use later in the week. Freeze the remaining carcass in a freezer-grade zip lock bag for Friday’s meal.
Steamed Mixed Veggies
- Large chop of any mix of firm veggies such as potatoes, carrots, string beans, snap peas, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, onions. (Chop potatoes smaller than everything else because they take longer to cook.)
- Using a medium pot (or whatever size you need to fit your quantity of veggies) with 3/4” water and steamer basket, add chopped veggies and simmer-steam for about 10 minutes until just tender.
- Drain and drizzle with olive oil. Add salt and pepper or any other preferred seasoning to taste.
- Time saver: Buy precut veggies from the supermarket.
Monday
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
- Using some of the leftover chicken from Sunday, chop chicken up fine. Add onions, celery, dairy-free mayonnaise (or avocado), salt, pepper, seasonings of choice.
- Mix together and let sit in frig for an hour or so (optional but definitely tastes better).
- Using the best whole grain bread / flatbread / tortillas, spread salad on bread, add
lettuce and sliced tomatoes. - Eat open-faced or regular. You can optionally use panini press to warm the sandwich.
Accompaniments
- baby carrots cut in half
- pickles and olives
Tuesday
- The above recipe is from another site (not GCH), so use these modifications:
- Do NOT use canola oil (here’s why). Substitute with olive oil.
- Skip the half and half or use coconut milk instead.
- Note: make extra shrimp and save for Thursday
Wednesday
Chicken Tacos
- Chop up about 2 cups of leftover chicken from Sunday night.
- Heat 1/2 c water and 3 tablespoons of taco seasoning in a small saucepan. When simmering, add chicken. Stir and simmer for a few minutes.
- Fill corn tortillas with chicken and add some simple toppings such as:
- Shredded cabbage, chopped tomatoes, shredded cheddar cheese, chopped avocado, light sour cream or greek yogurt, chopped olives.
- Serve with a side salad.
- Alternatively, if you have leftover steamed veggies from Sunday, reheat them and serve them instead. (Remember to take the cucumber salad ingredients off the shopping list.)
Thursday
- Use leftover shrimp from Tuesday.
- Note: Take chicken carcass out of freezer and place in refrigerator to thaw for tomorrow’s meal.
Friday
Soup is so forgiving. Some meat, some veggies, some grains, and a broth are basically all you need. Proportions don’t really matter, which is why there are no specified quantities in the instructions below. Just make it the way you prefer based on what you have on hand.
Chicken, Veggie, and Quinoa Soup
- Cook chicken carcass on a low simmer for an hour in equal amounts of chicken stock and water to cover.
- Remove carcass from broth, let cool. Strip meat off and chop into bite-size pieces.
- Meanwhile, add onions, carrots, cabbage, celery, kale to broth and simmer 10 minutes.
- Optional: add can of tomatoes with juice, or corn (drained) at this time.
- Add quinoa, cook 10-15 min.
- Remove from heat, add chicken meat back into pot; stir and let sit for a few minutes to warm the meat. Adjust seasonings to taste.
- Serve with small toast points, crackers, or croutons. Add parsley or parmesan cheese if desired.
Shopping List
Purchase organic, GMO-free if at all possible.
Produce
- 3-4 lbs mixed firm vegetables (Sun)
- Such as potatoes, carrots, string beans, snap peas, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, turnips
- 2 sweet onions (Sun, Tue, Wed)
- Small head of celery (Sun, Tue, Fri)
- 1 head of leafy red or green lettuce (Mon, Fri)
- 2 tomatoes (Mon, Wed, Thu)
- baby carrots (Mon, Fri)
- 1 green pepper (Tue, Fri)
- 5 cloves garlic (Tue)
- Cabbage – optional, see recipe (Wed)
- Avocado (Wed, Thu)
- 3 small crunchy cucumbers (Wed)
- small bunch of kale (Fri)
Healthy Packaged Foods
- Dairy-free mayonnaise (Mon)
- Whole grain or gf linguine (Tue)
- 2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (Tue, Thu)
- Small can light coconut milk – optional, see recipe (Tue)
- Small can sliced olives- optional, see recipe (Wed)
- 1 can corn – optional, see recipe (Fri)
- 1 pkg 8″ corn tortillas (no flour) (Wed)
- 4-6 oz quinoa (Fri)
Meats and Dairy
- 3-4 lb whole roasting chicken, not frozen (Sun)
- Time saver: buy a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken
- 1-1/2 lbs large shrimp
- Cheddar cheese – optional, see recipe (Wed)
- light sour cream or greek yogurt – optional, see recipe (Wed)
Bakery
- Whole grain bakery bread, sliced (Mon)
- If you are gluten-free, buy GF bread or corn tortillas instead
Staples
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic powder
- Oregano
- Cajun seasoning blend
- or make your own, see recipe here
- Red pepper flakes
- Bay leaves
- Taco seasoning
- Check the label – don’t buy a mix that has ingredients you can’t pronounce. Here’s a recipe for homemade taco seasoning, which I’ve used before and is good.
Breakfast and Lunch
If there are only two of you the meal plan will generate enough leftovers for you to take them for lunch at least one or two days. If your meals have to stretch to 3 or more people, the easiest thing is to double one or two of your recipes during the week, and save the extra in lunch size containers. Mark them with the date you made them and put the oldest ones in the front of the refrigerator. Eat or freeze them within 4 days.
Take a look at this post on how to automate breakfast and lunch to review the variety of options available for easy healthy breakfast and lunch meals.
Talk to us!
Did you find an error? Tweak any recipes? Skip or swap any? C’mon over to the Facebook Community and tell us about it.