Our Favourite Pandemic Meals

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My husband, Mike arrived just as the country shut down and we went into self-isolation. After not seeing my family for three months, I was excited about being on lockdown with them! While we used to meal prep every Sunday our routine has definitely changed to cook dinner together every night. Here is a recipe round-up of our favourite pandemic meals we’ve tried over the last little while.

I have been following Unboundwellness’s Instagram for a while now so I pulled up a bunch of recipes from her blog and we’ve been working through them.

Paleo Chicken Tenders and Baked Avocado Fries

Pandemic Meals - Chicken Tenders & Avocado Fries

I must say I thought the avocado fries were going to be really mushy but I think these are my new favourite meal sides.

Slow Cooker Chicken Marsala

I love this meal so much, I even prepped a whole bunch of freezer meals later in my pregnancy to have for when our twins arrive.

Sheet Pan Lemon Chicken and Asparagus

Pandemic Meals - Sheet Pan Lemon Chicken

One-pan meals are so easy to make and definitely take the stress out of cooking.

I also headed out to a local organic farm (Leda Farm) one day and picked up fresh leeks pulled right from the ground. I had one extra white sweet potato so I used that and then drizzled coconut cream and black pepper on top.

Pandemic Meals - Leek & Sweet Potato Soup

And last but not least, I ordered Siete Taco shells from Naturamarket so we could whip up some tacos. We simply stir-fried ground beef or turkey, with onions, mushrooms and spinach, fresh avocado, and dairy-free cheese.

Happy Cooking Pandemic Meals!

Cost Effective Meal Prep

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I was asked on my Instagram how could someone meal prep like me but more cost-effectively.

Buffalo Burgers, Steak & Roasted Carrots & Beets or Sauteed Purple Cabbage, Onions & Mushrooms

Unfortunately, I do spend quite a lot on food for Mike and me weekly but I believe our nutrition is an investment in our health. I also love how we’ve simplified parts of our life. Convenience equals time to spend together or work on my side hustles that are revenue-generating.

We use Loblaws Click & Collect. If I wanted to save $3-$5 weekly I would go grocery shopping myself but I value the time I get back on Sunday for doing laundry lol

We order meat once a month from truLOCAL. This actually saves us money from buying from the grocery store. But if I wanted to save even more money I’d shop for my meat from local farmers and negotiate to purchase in bulk. This would only be possible if we had a deep freezer and were able to store large amounts of meat for large purchase discounts.

This is a picture of Buffalo Bone broth simmering on the stove. We get the bones in our monthly box delivery!

If you’d like to shop with truLOCAL you can use this Referral Code: KHJ2BD9W7MZX and you’ll get to add 2 free Striploin Steaks or 4 Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon Filets to your first box!

We purchase our produce from Loblaws. If I wanted to save money I’d shop at another grocery store but I trust the quality of the Organic Fruits & Vegetables that we get there. My other option to save money would be to shop at local farmer’s markets in the summer.

Fresh juice I make weekly!

The above recipes are:

Orange, Grapefruit, Lemon, Ginger & Turmeric

Beet, Cucumber, Apple, Carrot and Melon

Here are some other cost-effective meals:

BBQ Chicken (Antibiotic, Hormone Free) + Green Veggies
Plantain Pancakes (instead of a whole bunch of ingredients)
Lettuce Wraps w/ ground beef, mushrooms + dairy-free cheese

Healthy Habit Time Savers

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I’m all about taking the time to integrate healthy habits into your life. But sometimes you just need that time saver to save your life and give you back some precious time that can be spent with your family or building a life that you love.

In no particular order, here are the top 5 things I do to save time while incorporating healthy habits in my life.

Click and Collect with Loblaws

The first time you set up your online shopping through Loblaws it takes a bit of time. But the amazing part about consistently shopping at Loblaws is that they save your preferences and past orders. I’ve only used the service twice but it saved my last online order and because I’m a PC Plus member it has all my in-store shopping saved as well. I’m ok with a big brother-like entity knowing what I eat on a weekly basis 🙂 I set up the grocery shop on Friday evening, and picked the morning time slot on Sunday. Drove to Loblaws after a morning workout, called the number on the sign, let them know I had cloth bags in my car and approved a switch from organic blackberries to regular ones and they charged my credit card on file, put the bags in my car and within 5 mins I was outta there. The delivery pick-up charge was $5 which is definitely worth my time.

So while Mike and I do enjoy grocery shopping together. Last week on Snapchat you would’ve seen that we made it a competition of who could finish their half of the shopping first. I took the produce and he took meat, sometimes we just need to save our time and spend that extra $5 for a pickup.

Real Plans

I’ve talked about my meal-prepping ways on the blog before. You can go here for an archive of some meal prep posts and then here for my write-up on this meal planning platform that I adore to plan out my weekly meals.

BBQ Chicken

I’m all for cooking from scratch. I believe it’s necessary so we know exactly what goes into our food from the sauces to the spices used. But sometimes the thought of cooking an entire chicken is exhausting in itself. I love that I can get the “Free From” brand of BBQ Chicken at Loblaws and can at least assure myself that the Chicken is free from antibiotics and hormones.

Pill Containers

I’ve figured out that the best way for me to stay compliant with taking supplements is to pack up my breakfast and lunch supplements and bring a pill container with me to work. I placed the container on the right in the picture below on my desk in plain sight so I’m visually cued to see them and take them throughout the day. The other box is my nighttime supplements that sit on my kitchen counter. This saves me time from routing around in countless containers daily.

Juice Companies

While I love making fresh juice each week from my cookbooks when in a pinch it really is so easy to pick up ready-made juices now in the grocery store. I love that one of my favourite brands Cedar Juice is readily available at my Loblaws.

Save some time on your quest to be healthy. It’s so worth it.

Affiliate Disclosure: The links to pill boxes on Amazon are affiliate links and I will be compensated slightly by sharing this amazing resource with you that will help you get healthy or stay healthy.

Auto Immune Paleo Meal Planning

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and a product review where I received the product at no cost. A girl’s gotta pay the grocery bills!

In my MS journey I believe my nutrition is one of the main foundations to stay healthy. After my diagnosis in Dec 2014, the Wahl’s Protocol was shared with me so I largely subscribe to this way of eating after researching it. Adopting this meal plan has helped immensely with my health. I feel energetic, satiated and my digestion problems have been slowly healing. This post doesn’t go into the why of my meal plan but the how practicalities of planning, grocery shopping & prepping.

I then found the Auto-Immune Paleo site full of research & recipes. I’ve been trying out different recipes here and there in my weekly meal planning. Several people on social media asked me to break down what I eat on a weekly basis so here is a long over due post on how I use Real Plans to plan out my AIP weekly meal plan for myself and my boyfriend.

If you’d like more information on Real Plans you can CLICK HERE to read more.

Ok here’s how meal planning goes down in our household. On Saturday or Sunday morning, I log onto my computer and pull up the Real Plans website. In the Plan tab I can schedule out all of my food to visually see what I’m going to eat. I’m a creature of habit and simplicity. We eat all the same food on Monday, Wednesday & Friday and then the same meals on Tuesday & Thursday. This allows for variety but less ingredients and thus less shopping.

Here is a snapshot of what is on the plan for this week…

Breakfast is usually a combination of protein & fat. This week it’s Breakfast Sausages and 1/2 an avocado. On other days it’s a protein & carb. I’ll do this especially on heavier training days. This week I brought the Coconut Porridge back into our bellies and it’s amazing. We’ve tried it before and loved it. Not as easy as making overnight oats but still pretty simple to make.

Once you’ve laid out all the meals you click over to Shopping List. I check off ingredients I already have in the fridge or pantry and then voila my shopping list is complete.

Meal Planning When Tired

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I haven’t done a meal planning post in a bit so here is how I meal prep with my boyfriend when we’re both exhausted from a great week & weekend.

This weekend, Mike had to work at OCR Academy and it was the end of week one with the puppy so needless to say we were a bit exhausted come Sunday. I usually take time to plan out our meals for the coming week, make a grocery list and then grocery shop when he’s done work and meal prep in the evening. However sometimes life throws you fun.

I spent Sunday morning at Le Nordik with an old friend (we used to lifeguard together in high school!) and spent the morning in the baths and then got a much-needed massage for a body that continues to have problems. After X Man Toronto my neck decided to seize up and I haven’t been able to turn it to the right lately. After the most amazing deep tissue and facial stretch appointment, I was on cloud nine happy and raced home to grab a late lunch with Mike. We decided to go straight to grocery shopping after that and wing it. When we wing it this is how I shop.

Decide on what meat we want for lunches and dinners.
Grab enough green vegetables for the sides
Grab a couple of carb options for Mike (as I don’t really touch carbs)
Grab ingredients for fresh juices throughout the week
Grab 2 treats (popcorn & coconut ice cream – 1 bag & 1 container each)

Here is what my meals look like today!

We settled on 3 different kinds of sausages (honey garlic, mild Italian and Oktoberfest – all freshly made by the Loblaws butcher), a BBQ chicken (free from Loblaws brand), bacon & turkey bacon and in the freezer at home we have ribs, steak & chicken. I choose Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Avocados & Snow Peas for our veggies and we grabbed a to-go container of Basmati Rice for a carb option for Mike.

Juice this week is my favourite recipe from Crazy Sexy Juice which includes Grapefruit, Oranges, Ginger & Turmeric and our weekly smoothies include homemade almond milk, frozen raspberries, banana and Magnum Quattro Plain & Simple Protein Powder.

Here’s how we prepped. Mike BBQed the sausages while I made maple syrup, sea salt & lemon juice glaze for the sprouts, prepped the cauliflower & broccoli w/ curry & marjoram & pre-heated the oven to 400 F and steamed the snow peas. The sprouts & cauliflower/broccolli mix went into the oven at the same time for 30 mins total. After the sausages were done Mike started cooking the bacon on the George Foreman and shredded the BBQ Chicken off the bone into a Tupperware while I made fresh juice for the week.

We packaged everything off into containers for the week and the only thing I had to make fresh this morning was the smoothies & coffee 🙂

Happy Meal Prepping!