Meal Plan Monday Post

Last week we mentioned in the meal plan Monday post that we would be starting a 14 week challenge put out by the 100 Days of Real food blog to remove processed foods from our diet. And we had a successful first week of consuming a minimum of two different fruits or vegetables at every meal! Below is a bit more info, how we did, and of course - the meal plan!

Week 1: Eat a minimum of two different fruits or vegetables with every breakfast, lunch, and dinner meal.

We were mostly successful! I think a few times one of us only had 1 fruit / veg at lunch (seemed to be the hardest one) so we would make up for it with an afternoon snack of fruit. Therefore there were always six fruits or vegetables consumed throughout the day!

I found that we were already really good with eating one fruit or vegetable with most meals. While meal planning for this weekly challenge I did have to move things around a bit to make sure we would be meeting the two fruits/vegetables but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Adding a salad and having extra fruit on hand really made meeting the challenge and being successful easy. In this regard so far the challenge for week 1 has been eye-opening. It wasn't hard for us to eat two different fruits or vegetables with most meals (and I thought it would be). So for us to continue this as a lifestyle change I learned that I need to have mixed greens on hand and make sure that the fruit basket stays full!

The meal plan below doesn't include every meal despite the challenge. Most of our lunches were leftovers and then breakfast wasn't too far from normal for us. Some breakfasts included a fruit smoothie, eggs with avocado and tomato (also pineapple leftovers from a dinner), oatmeal with blueberries and an orange (pictured below), and also toast with egg, salsa (we were a bit liberal in claiming salsa as a vegetable) with an orange.

Meal Plan for Monday January 12 - Sunday January 18

   Monday - Pork chop and pineapple skillet supper with arugula and black rice

   Tuesday - Chinese chicken salad
   Wednesday - Beef and pepper crockpot with soba noodles, edamame [inspiration from this saute]

   Thursday - Crockpot spicy Mediterranean chicken
   Friday - Dinner with the neighbors | City Beverage
   Saturday - breakfast Daisy Cakes while running errands
      Donate Electronics Waste | Costco | Celebrate a friend's birthday!
      dinner Salmon with wild rice arugula salad
   Sunday - breakfast Butternut squash hash with black beans, grits, egg
      Make ahead breakfasts: egg muffins & breakfast burritos
      dinner Flatbread pizza and salad