Over this past weekend I spent a couple of hours on food prep for the work week. I made salads for lunch and egg sandwiches for breakfasts. I spent two hours preparing these foods, and it paid off every day for the rest of the week. I kept thinking “This is the best two hours I’ve spent in a long time!” I loved having my breakfasts and lunches taken care of.

Here’s what I did:

In the morning I ran to Trader Joe’s. I got the rest of the ingredients I needed to make my meals: eggs, arugula, yogurt ranch dressing (I can’t say enough about this dressing – I love it so much!), tomatoes, chicken and so on.

Once I got home I got all of my containers ready for the salads. For my breakfast sandwiches, I prepped my english muffins and lightly toasted them. I cracked six eggs, added some 1% milk, and poured the egg mixture into a 8 x 8 pyrex baking dish. I baked the eggs for 25 minutes at 375 degrees. (For a great instructional article on how to make these breakfast sandwiches read this article – it’s where I got my breakfast idea!) I found turkey bacon at Wegman’s (nitrate free) and used it on my egg sandwiches and I had a piece on my salads each day for lunch.

For the salads there was a lot of washing vegetables, chopping, and dividing ingredients into my containers. I lined the containers with a piece of paper towel at the bottom and top of the containers – this really helps to absorb the moisture of the salads – especially by Friday. My salads lasted ALL WEEK!

Tuesday was the first day I tried my breakfast sandwich. I was thrilled with how good the sandwich was – and more importantly how it kept my hunger at bay until lunch time. I love starting the day off with so much protein – I had about 18 grams of protein in this sandwich!

Before I sat down with my salad, I went for a walk outside. I was bundled up and it was refreshing to get outside for some fresh air. Before I ate my salad, I added the Trader Joe’s yogurt ranch dressing, grilled chicken, a piece of the Wegman’s turkey bacon and croutons. It was a great lunch!

Ingredients in the salad: romaine lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, orange pepper, carrots and cucumbers. For me, I just love eating salads during the winter – they taste so fresh and I love having the vegetables incorporated into my day!

Over the weekend I made another new dinner: Shepherd’s Pie. Most traditional shepherd’s pies are made with lamb. I made mine with grass fed organic beef and organic ground pork. Wow, this combination was pretty amazing! I loved this meal and definitely think I will make it again before this winter is over:

I also made a loaf of banana bread:

It was quite tasty for snacks over the weekend and during the work week.

I was very happy with this past work week. I felt really happy to have rather healthy breakfasts and lunches. I was able to run three times over the week – twice outside which was especially great!

This weekend we are expecting some snow in our forecast so I hope I can be as prepared for the work week for this next week – but I’m not quite sure how it will work out!