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If it weren’t for the photos I managed to snap, Monday’s dinner would have been completely gone from my memory.
Fortunately, I managed to take a few photos and so it’s all coming back to me now. In my last post, I mentioned that on Sunday we had friends over for dinner and I made stuffed peppers, buns and angel food cake.
In addition to making dinner for everyone, my impossible to do list was about a mile long as we are getting ready to move. So alas, despite my best attempts, no meal prep for the week ahead was done and I was on my own for dinner on Monday – MOSTLY.
The most minimal of meal prep
The only thing I managed to do on Sunday for meal prep for the week ahead was:
- Cook more quinoa than I needed for my stuffed peppers recipe
- Take an extra serving of ground beef out of the freezer
These two steps took me almost no time and helped give me a starting point for what to do dinner on Monday. If you don’t have time to meal prep – cooking some extra grains and defrosting some meat can be a great place to start. If we are aiming for a traditional “meat, potatoes, veg” kind of meal, consider yourself 2/3 of the way there after taking these two quick steps.
The Menu
I have already mentioned that I absolutely love my Skinny Taste Meal Prep cookbook! And I love it because she has a whole section on bowls – that you can pull together in about 20 minutes.
On Monday I made the Korean Beef Bowls. I served the beef with cooked quinoa, chopped cucumber and some Korean hot sauce.
Kitchen Hack for Ginger
One of my little kitchen hacks, is the I always keep a big piece of ginger in the freezer. This way it always stays fresh and when I need to use it in a recipe, I just grate it in using my microplane. I find this to be the fastest way to get fresh ginger into any recipe.
Our Table
I love doing a “bowl” style meal for a two reasons:
- It lends itself nicely to family style meals because you can do a “build your own” style
- It is easy to offer my kids lots of different options because I bring a bunch of different choices for the “building” to the table.
You can see that I rounded out the meal with some leftover berries from the Angel Food Cake on Sunday (there was no cake left, but some berries!) and I also whipped up a ginger mayonnaise.
This is little a recipe that I made up. I simply combine a bit of mayonnaise, fresh (frozen) grated ginger and a spoonful of sugar. I adjust the ingredients until the mayo has enough tang and punch from the ginger with just a bit of sweetness from the sugar to balance it out.
What did they eat
I did not get four photos (two boys – before/after). I only have two.
My one little guy starting with berries. I didn’t get an after shot and at this point I can’t remember what he ate!
But I feel confident telling you that he ate all the fruit!
My other little guy likes the bowls and LOVES cucumbers, so while I didn’t get a before shot, I remember that he had some quinoa, beef, cucumbers and fruit. He also happened to “clean his plate” – though of course this was completely, unprompted by me!
So What?
My Sunday this week just didn’t allow me to get my typical meal prep done for the week ahead. But fortunately just a little bit of prep can go a long way to helping dinner get on the table.
If you are having a busy week and know that dinner for the week a head is going to be scramble, try making a double portion of grains (rice, quinoa, pasta, etc) so that you can use the left-overs in a new dish later on in the week. While you are at it – grab a portion of meat out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to defrost.
If you don’t know what to do with these things – make up a “bowl”. Cook the meat and season with anything you like (for great ideas – check out the Skinny Taste Cookbook). Put it out on the table with the warmed up grains, some chopped veggies and 1-2 of your families favorite sauces. Voila, Dinner is Served!
