Monday to Friday Meal Prep
Written By Natalie Hester
Adult Services Librarian
This month, I’ve decided to try my hand at meal prepping. That’s not to say I haven’t meal prepped before. Usually, I’ll do most of my cooking on one or two nights a week and eat those foods the next couple of days. However, my approach has never been very intentional. It’s been practical, sure, focused on using items I have, trying to create something well-balanced and healthy but still cheap and requiring as minimal grocery shopping as possible. But then there’s always a day or two where I have no real plan and it throws me off and I end up eating whatever happens to be available to me.
For a while now I’ve been interested in creating an actual meal schedule for myself and putting in the work so that I don’t have to worry about it while I’m tired during the week. The idea is that, even when I’m tired, I’ll have something low-effort I can make or reheat. In perusing our cookbook selection, I noticed Fit Men Cook by Kevin Curry. Ordinarily, this might not have been a titled that jumped out at me, but I recognized it from my dear friends Sam and Jesse’s kitchen. Often while I visited they would be cooking with Kevin Curry’s recipes. So, trusting in their tastes and opinions, I’m going to build my meal plan from it.
From the start, there’s a few things I like about Curry’s approach. For one, he acknowledges his struggles and mental health, highlighting the fact that being intentional with his cooking and eating and putting in the work to lessen those daily decisions helps him to fight chronic depression. Secondly, he cares about taste, ease of preparation, and cost. I would rather not eat bland food, I don’t want to be in the kitchen for hours every day, and I can’t afford to eat expensively. All that said, let’s see how this goes!
Here’s the thing: before you can get cooking, you have to plan fully. So, I sat down, read through the book, and made a plan. In an effort to make this work, I’m obviously going to be picking things I like, want to eat, and am comfortable preparing. Curry actually provides some pre-planned weeks if you wanted to start there, but I took them as more of an inspiration than anything. After an hour of flipping through and taking notes, this is what I came up with for Monday to Friday. I’ll be honest, this was already looking a bit overwhelming to me. But I was determined to give it my all, so here we go!
VBQ Minestrone:
First up on my meal prep for the week was this quick and easy soup. My mom used to make minestrone soup all the time, so I’m a big fan. Soups are one of my favorite thing to cook generally because they’re so low effort and can be incredibly healthy. In this one alone there are at least 7 different veggies. The quinoa was a twist for me, as I’m used to pasta, but I liked it! I ended up having some extra to freeze for later after portioning out the soup for the week, which was a bonus. This soup was so comforting and I will definitely be making this recipe again!
Vanilla Almond Overnight Pro-Oats:
I picked this recipe because overnight oats are already a staple of my breakfast routine. I love that I can make them the night before and have them ready to go. However, I’ve never made them with protein powder. I’m less of a vanilla-almond flavor fan, so I made mine with chocolate protein powder instead. I’ve also never put yogurt in my oats and, to my surprise, this gave them more of a pudding consistency and flavor. Honestly, it was good, almost decadent for a Monday morning, and perfect with a freshly sliced banana.
Sweet Potato & Chickpea Abundance Bowl:
Nothing in this recipe was especially complicated, but it was messier than the soup and required more appliances and dishes. I’ll probably continue making variations of this in the future, sticking to the general idea but making flavor and ingredient modifications where I feel like it. For one, the recipe for the dressing called for too much lime for me. It really took over the other flavors, so if I made it again I’d cut back on that. I was pleasantly surprised that the recipe gives you enough dressing so that no bite is dry or boring. The dish came out super fresh and gave me three really well-portioned meals. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with how satisfied this meal left me, both for lunch at the end of a long work day, and I genuinely looked forward to eating it.
Vegan Blender Bites:
Ok, these basically ended up being healthy pancakes because I couldn’t find my muffin pan. But to be fair, that’s an alternate cooking option that Curry suggests. So, I made and prepared all the batter and saved the pancakes in an airtight container. I put cacao nibs in them and honestly they were pretty good! I had them with maple syrup and so they still felt like a mid-week treat (usually pancakes are limited to the occasional weekend). If you feel the call of the pancake but fear they’re too indulgent, maybe give these a shot!
White Mac ‘n’ Cheese:
This is certainly not your conventional macaroni and cheese. Using light, soft cheeses and yogurt instead of more decadent, sharper cheeses allows you to pretend you’re eating a healthy meal, but really I can’t imagine this is much better for you. I guess that’s a compliment to the recipe, after all, since this still felt like a treat to eat. The cumin was a unique but not unpleasant addition, though I did add garlic to round out the flavoring. I’m likely to make this again at some point, but not often as it’s not exactly high in nutritional value.
In Conclusion:
If you looked carefully at my meal plan, you may have noticed that not all of the meals I planned for are detailed here. I did have the “In Love with the Coco-a Smoothie” a couple of times (not pictured) and found that to be an economical use of tofu (also my first time using silken tofu). I added banana to the protein smoothie and it was perfectly chocolatey and sweet. As for the red coconut dahl, I just had more food than I expected from everything else and didn’t need it during the week. Rest assured, that’s going to get me started for the beginning of this upcoming week, as curries are one of my favorite things to make. The great thing about meal planning is this: you have a plan and a timeline, but it’s also ok to add, cut back, or make modifications if something isn’t working for you! It’s most important to do what feels manageable and to listen to your body and mind.
All in all, I think the recipes in this cookbook are great! I felt fueled, healthy, and happy. My least favorite part of the process was doing a big grocery trip, as I tend to be more of a small trip shopper. But I will definitely be exploring the other recipes, too. Definitely recommend you check out this cookbook and other healthy options we have here in the library. Let us know if you do try any of them!
Happy summer, TFPL! Thanks for following along with me and supporting your local library!
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