Making Sunday Count

Last night I fixed 3 kids' lunches, zipped their lunch boxes up and had them in the fridge in less than 2 minutes...start to finish and all with a sick, crying 3 year old on my hip...nope, they were not Lunchables, but instead packed with healthy, balanced items!  This I owe completely to the prep time banked on Sunday!

It's really is a process that leads up to Sunday, but Sunday is when I am able to get the time to prep everything.  So, by Sunday afternoon I have planned my menu and done all my food purchasing, so I am ready to get it all together!

• I buy most of my organic chicken frozen (breast & boneless, skinless thighs), so I put 5-7 breasts or thighs in the fridge on Saturday to have thawed and ready for Sunday.  Early Sunday morning I drop all that chicken into a dish and pour marinade over it, then leave it in the fridge for the day (marinade recipe to come).

While some nap and others take their rest time, I take about 2 hours and this is exactly what I do with that time...(keep in mind I have 4 kid's lunches to prepare for)

• Hard boil a dozen eggs
• Make a dozen veggie/egg muffins (recipe in my next post!)
• Wash, chop, store bowl of mixed fruit
• Wash, chop, store bowl of mixed veggies (w/ dip)
• Refresh trail mix (I keep 2 bags of trail mix in the pantry all the time, 1 w/nuts, 1 without)
• Bag 10 trail mix bags
• Bag 10 snack bags
• Bag 10 veggie chips
• Bag 10 apple chips
• Wash and bag fruits for kid's lunches (apples and grapes last best)
• Chop and bag meats for kid's lunches
• Wash, chop prep salad toppings (Salad recipe on upcoming post)
• Make salad dressing
• Make 4 lunch salads (adult lunch meal for 2 days)
• Steam, chop, store 1 head of cauliflower
• Dice 1 yellow/ 1 red bell pepper (for Chicken Carnival & Succotash)
• Make Lemon/Dill Dressing (Chicken Carnival)
• Wash/dry zucchinis for noodles
• Make almond crust blend (Chicken tenders)
• Grill Chicken at dinner time

That's it....

Next up....Veggie/Egg muffins!