Emily's rambling

I'm agreeing with the meal plan idea. It is so not worth wasting brain cells and hours of the day on what to have for dinner. My suggestions for Sheri, and anyone else who wants to listen, are as follows.

1. The incredible edible egg. I am not an egg lover, but over the past year have realized how great they are. They are a relatively inexpensive, perfect protein. They are fast and they make me feel settled and full. I love a fried egg on toast in the morning- only four points, super fast and portable. Sometimes I will have a fried egg over salad (left over from dinner) for lunch. Boiled eggs with s&p make a great snack, as well as a great addition to your dinner salad. I usually chop them up and put them in the salad when I'm not having a lot of protein in the rest of the meal or if I just can't stand the thought of eating salad again. Scrambled eggs can be added to rice, even Ramen noodles for flavor and protein. Or have them with a smoothie and toast for an almost instant dinner.
2. The crockpot rules! When you are making your meal plan, plan for a least one meal a week in the crock. The nice thing about it too, is that you can cook a roast or cut of pork-have it for dinner with some potatoes. Then the next night, you pull it and mix in some b-que sauce, have a big ol' salad and make some fast muffins or biscuits. The next day you have for lunch on a sandwich.
3. Wash salad for a day, eat for a week. Make a nice salad with super fresh ingredients on Sunday and then plan on eating it until Wednesday. Eat it on the side on Sunday and Monday, Add cheese, eggs and croutons to it on Tuesday, then stuff your fajitas or tacos with it on Wednesday. We eat salad several times a week. I think it is a must for weight loss. I have found that investing in a salad spinner is a good idea. Spinning the head of lettuce (so much better than bagged) makes it stay fresh a lot longer. Try different dressings. Add nuts and craisins.
4. Take a few hours every month and make a few double batches. I know you probably don't have a lot of freezer room, but maybe even just brown some hamburger so you can throw it in to spaghetti sauce or whip up tacos at lightening speed. Homemade chicken noodle soup is so easy, yummy, cheap (compared to Progresso), and you can freeze a batch in 3-4 ziplocs.
5. Baked potatoes (in the microwave) with canned chili (hormel is the best) and salad. Easy, cheap, good for you.
6.French toast- with fruit so that you can get in your vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. On our french toast nights, I usually make a smoothie with spinach in it. My kids don't seem to mind as long as I use a sweet juice. (orange doesn't combine with it well and neither does yogurt.) Pineapple or mango raspberry or something like that disguises the spinach, and you can really eat a lot of spinach that way.
7. There are some great frozen stir fry veggie combos. Make sure your chicken is thawed, have some stir fry sauce on hand and when you get home, start your rice. Then cook your chicken, add the veggies, stir in the sauce. By the time your rice is done (20 minutes), you got dinner.
8. The best advice I received when I got married was from my cousin. She said she found that if she just made one step towards dinner in the morning, things always went smoother. Whether it was wrap the potatoes in foil, or get out the meat to thaw, or chop some vegetables. I agree with her, and would even suggest doing that the night before.
9. Try to use your ingredients more than once. Steam broccolli one night, put the leftovers in the fridge and use them to make cream of broccolli the next night. Grill two pieces of chicken, one to eat, one to chop up over salad the next night. You will be amazed how fast dinner comes together when some of the steps are already done.
10. Pita bread pizza. I buy whole grain pita bread, bottled pizza sauce and turkey pepporoni. (Smith's Kroger brand is really good and the most inexpensive, I don't really like the name brand ones- too spicy for me.) You can keep the pita bread and pepporoni in the freezer. I pile on peppers, mushrooms, red onion, ham, cheese, anything I might have and bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes. Super fast dinner, yummy and healthy. Of course, you want to make sure your other meals are using up peppers, mushrooms, etc. The pitas are also good spread with a guacamole (just mash an avocado- so good for you- and mix it with a little lemon juice and s&p.) Bake it till the pita is a little cruncy and slice it like a pizza- great to eat with a lowfat soup- or grilled chicken.
11. Don't settle for gross, poor quality food. Things that are prepackaged are full of sooooo many things that will harm your body. (Hey, don't get me wrong, I resort to them too sometimes.) But, take some time to plan and prepare and give your body the nutrients it needs. I am sure it is so hard to cook for yourself- but to tell you the truth it is hard to cook for five kids, a husband and grandpa. I am only more motivated because I will have five crying people on my case if I don't prepare something. But it is just one of those things- you got to do it over and over, day after day. I would love to be able to eat like a dog or cat. Twice a day, just dip into a bag of chow, lap up some water and go on my way. :) But I know nutrition is so important and also feeding your soul by knowing that you are worth the effort it takes. Eating healthy makes a huge difference in how I feel every day- physically and mentally. So there it is, my suggestions and my sermon. I will now get off of my soapbox.