 Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and I follow weight watchers and I track calories and macros. Happy Monday, it is a Monday, so it is meal prep day. I'm so excited to share these three recipes with you, muffins, cupcakes, chicken patties, pickled cucumbers. We have a lot in store for today's video. So if you're excited, give this video a big, huge thumbs up. Make sure you're subscribed and your bells turned on because I do a meal prep every Monday and I also upload five videos per week. Check out the description box down below for nutrition coaching where I offer personalized to you macros and calories. Highly recommend, this is how you make sure you're eating enough, getting in your protein and being successful with weight loss and I have one-on-one coaching for accountability and if you would like to chat with me directly. All three of today's recipes are on my recipe website which is also in the description box along with my links and discounts to my favorite things and my Facebook group, come join us there. We would love to have you. So let's head on into the kitchen for this week's meal prep. So the first thing we're going to do for meal prep is go pick a fresh lemon from my lemon tree. They're actually almost completely ripe. I mean, we're getting nice and juicy and soft. I did pick a couple and have been putting them in my water and so we need to find a really soft, juicy one for our recipe. This one is smaller but it's pretty soft so let's grab that one and then I'm going to pick one more and that way I have some fresh lemon for my water. While we're outside, I'll share with you guys a new addition to our patio. Isn't this adorable? This is from the brand tailored canvases. They have fully customizable canvas wall art. I mean, you name it, they have it. I decided to go ahead and have one made for our patio. I think it looks really nice on the wall of our house and it matches perfectly with our patio furniture. So it says welcome to the Clayton patio established 2022 since we bought our house in 2022. They have canvases for everything, kids rooms, your entire home, living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, outside canvas for your front porch. I mean, you name it, they have it and they are fully customizable and affordable. When I was picking out my canvas, I had so much fun looking at their website. There are endless canvases to choose from. Some of my favorites were the ones for the living room. You can put your last name when your family was established, whether you have boys, girls, both. They had things for lake houses and cabins and even gothic signs. I thought that these were absolutely adorable and then they had some really fun ones for the kitchen, especially if you love coffee or farmhouse and then I perused the gym section as well. I have to say my favorite sign in that section was the one that says you didn't die because this is legit for anybody who works out on a regular basis, but they just have so many great affordable canvas options. And again, I just think it looks really nice on our patio and I am very impressed with the quality of tailored canvases. So I will go ahead and link them down below for you guys with a discount code. And we have a little good action happening here. This one's rolling around on his back. So you're having a good time? Yeah, you're having a good time. And then these two, we got our lemons. Let's start our meal prep. For breakfast this week, I am making lemon zucchini muffins. I am so incredibly excited for this. You saw that I was able to get a fresh lemon off my tree in my backyard. That always makes me happy. I can't wait for all of them to be right. I give lemons to my neighbor, my mother-in-law. I love lemon in my water. So that is one thing in my yard that I love. So let me show you what's in the recipe. So you're going to need some all-purpose flour, some powdered sugar alternative. I always use Lakonto. They're granulated, all of their sweetener. So this is the Lakonto powdered. They are made with monk fruit and for me they taste the most like regular sugar. I will link Lakonto down in the description box for you with 15% off. You're going to need salt. I will also link my gravity-fed salt and pepper grinders. I get asked about these a lot there from Amazon, super affordable. This is the Lakonto granulated, unsweetened applesauce, a fresh lemon, vanilla extract, two eggs, a medium to large zucchini, and some baking soda and baking powder. The first thing I'm going to do is grate my zucchini and then zest my lemon. Make sure you set your lemon aside because we're going to use the juice as well. So the first thing we're going to do is put two cups of flour into a bowl, two thirds cup of Lakonto granulated, salt, about a half of a teaspoon of baking soda and one and a half teaspoons of baking powder. Give that a good stir. Make sure everything is combined. We're going to add one half of a cup of unsweetened applesauce. That's our oil replacement. Two eggs, the lemon zest. Squeeze in one half of your lemon. That's going to be about a tablespoon, tablespoon and a half of lemon juice and then about a teaspoon of vanilla extract. You want to stir this just until combined. There may be some dry patches of the flour that is just fine. Definitely don't over mix. Then we're going to add in our grated zucchini. It was about a cup and a half. And then again, we're just going to stir until combined. Make sure you're not over mixing. We're going to let our batter sit for about three to five minutes. The zucchini will start to release a little bit more liquid and then we'll give it one last stir before putting it into our muffin pan. But pull out your muffin pan, spray it with some nonstick cooking spray and then we are going to go ahead and scoop out 12 muffins. I have my oven preheating to 400 degrees. We're going to bake our muffins at 400 for about 15 to 18 minutes. About 15 minutes in, we'll make up the glaze because these yummy muffins have a glaze. So for the glaze, super simple. I have half of a cup of Lakonto powdered. And then I'm going to use the other half of my lemon and squeeze in some fresh lemon juice. Now just do a little bit at a time and then stir because we want to make sure that we don't add too much liquid to the powdered sugar because again, we're trying to create that a little bit thicker glaze that we can drizzle over the muffins. So this is the perfect consistency. See how it's still a little bit thick but yet you can still drizzle it right on top. Look at how amazing these muffins look. They smell so lemony and delicious. We are going to allow them to cool completely before we glaze them. My muffins are cooled. I have my glaze and I'm just going to drizzle that right on top. Look at how incredible these look. Oh my goodness, you guys, these are bakery muffins for way less points and calories. And like I said, they smell so lemony and that zucchini is a great way to sneak in vegetables and adds a lot of moisture to the muffin. So I will go ahead and put points, calories, macros here on the screen for you. For lunch this week, I'm going to make chicken burgers and then I'm going to make pickled cucumbers. I have been craving pickled cucumbers. You know the kind in vinegar with the red onions. My mom used to make those when I was a kid and I loved them. So I'm going to make those as a side with my chicken burger. So let me show you what's in the recipe. I have no idea why I have flour out. You do not need flour for the recipe. What you are going to need though is some fresh parsley, green onions, minced garlic, salt and pepper. You can have cayenne pepper or red pepper chili flakes if you wanna give it a little bit of a kick. I do not, so I'm going to omit those. And then of course you'll need a pound of ground chicken. And then for the cucumbers, you'll need vinegar. I like to do a mix of regular white distilled vinegar and apple cider vinegar. Any cucumber will work. I actually have pickling cucumbers that came in a produce box for my community. So I'm gonna use those up. Some dill, bay leaves and then a red onion. I'm going to start some chopping of my parsley, green onions, red onion and cucumbers. So I'm first going to make my pickled cucumbers so I can get these in a mason jar and get these in my refrigerator because I wanna have some today. So the first thing I'm going to do in a pretty good size bowl is put in my sliced up cucumbers. I did cut up that entire bag. And then I'm going to add about three cups of distilled vinegar. And also two cups of water, salt and pepper, some bay leaves. I'm going to do, I don't know, two or three bay leaves in there. Some dill, minced garlic, my sliced up red onion and a good size little scoop of green onions. And then with the fork, I'm going to mix this together really well. I want to make sure that when I put these in the fridge to start to pickle that all of the cucumbers, onions, everything is under the liquid. And I would recommend stirring or shaking up your mason jar while they're pickling. I have a feeling that I have too much here for a mason jar. So I'm actually going to just put some saran wrap on my bowl, throw it into the refrigerator. And then here in a couple of hours, I'll give it another quick mix as it's starting to pickle. But this looks so good. I'm so excited. Now let's put together the chicken burgers. I'm actually going to bake mine in the oven. You could pan fry these, air fry these, whatever your preference. So I did do one pound of the ground chicken. I'm going to add a little bit of minced garlic, salt and pepper. Our chopped up fresh parsley and our green onions. Like I always say, the easiest thing to do is to go in with your hands to mix and form the burgers. So I did spray a quarter sheet pan with some non-stick cooking spray. And I'm just going to reach in and mix everything together. I'm going to make four chicken burgers. So I'm putting my four burgers into my oven at 375 degrees. I'll probably flip them midway through cooking. I just pulled out my chicken burgers. These look and smell so good. I'm going to allow them to cool for a couple of minutes. I'll package them up and I'll be back to share with you my total lunch, points, calories and macros. So I have my chicken burgers packaged up. I have my cucumbers pickling. I can't tell you how excited I am for lunch this week. I'm going to get in some veggies, lots and lots of protein. I'll probably add a fruit to this. But I'll go ahead and put points, calories, macros here on the screen for the pickled cucumbers. These are obviously not going to have any points. And one side note on the cucumbers, you can add a little bit of sweetener if you want to take away a little bit of the tang from the vinegar. That's optional for you. For a sweet treat, I am making a chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I mentioned in my grocery haul, I have been craving cupcakes. And this is just a healthier spin on them. But there's some ingredients that may surprise you in here, but we're going to be using some natural sweeteners and just a different way to get that fluffy, moist cupcake. So let me show you what's in the recipe. First, you're going to need flaxseed meal, protein powder of your choice. I'm using my favorite, which is ascent. This is the native fuel, micellar, casean, protein and vanilla bean. I love ascent. They have nice clean ingredients. They're affordable. I have the chocolate, the lemon, the vanilla. They're delicious. I buy them right off of Amazon. So I'll link them down below for you. You're going to need cocoa powder, frosting of your choice. You can make it homemade, but I'm going to use the zero sugar frosting from Pillsbury, canned sweet potatoes or sweet potato puree, whatever you have. Flour, again, I'm using Loconto as my granulated sweetener. Vanilla extract, baking soda, cornstarch and some fresh dates. I almost forgot. You'll need some unsweetened applesauce and some salt. So I went ahead and added five dates and my three-quarter cup of mashed up sweet potato to my magic bullet, along with a couple tablespoons of water. I'm going to throw this onto my little mini blender here and get it blended up. You can always add more water if needed. So here is the sweet potato date mixture. Go ahead and set that aside and let's start putting together the cupcakes. So the first thing we're going to do is add half of a cup of unsweetened cocoa to a bowl and then about two thirds cup of warm water, not boiling water, but warm water and then whisk that together until all the cocoa powder is dissolved. Then we're going to add the sweet potato date mixture directly to the cocoa powder and water and then whisk that together. Now I'm going to add in some dry ingredients. So I have one third of a cup of Loconto granulated, one quarter cup of ground flax seeds, one quarter cup of cornstarch, two thirds of a cup of all-purpose flour and one third of a cup of your protein powder or in my case, this one scoop in the scent is about a third of a cup. Also going to add in some salt and a teaspoon of baking soda. Give that a mix just to incorporate the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients. And then I'm adding one teaspoon of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of unsweetened applesauce and then stir to combine. So I sprayed my muffin pan with some non-stick cooking spray and I'm going to scoop out 12 cupcakes. We're going to bake these delicious cupcakes for about 16 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. I just pulled out our cupcakes. Oh my goodness, we've got a bakery happening in my kitchen. I am going to allow these to cool completely and then we will frost them up. I am ready to frost my delicious cupcakes. So I am going to add some of the zero sugar frosting to each cupcake. I will tell you that this frosting, I did try it because I wanted to see if it had, I don't know, a weird aftertaste. It's really good. In my opinion, it tastes just like the regular frosting. Just maybe not as sweet, but still very fudgy, very chocolatey. And I'll tell you, picking up these cupcakes, they are so soft. I think it's the sweet potato puree that makes them really, really soft. But I mean, who doesn't love a frosted chocolate cupcake? I mean chocolate frosted cupcakes for the win this week. I didn't use all the frosting. There's still a decent amount left in the container. And I piled on the frosting. So I am so excited for these. Like I said, we are getting sweet treats, decadent meals this week for super low calories and points. I will go ahead and put all the information here on the screen and on my website, I will include the information without frosting. If you want to make your own or use less frosting, I'll give you the nutritional information as well as points for just the cupcakes. Thank you for joining me for another weekly meal prep. I hope you are as excited about these three recipes as I am. I can't wait to have them all week long. Don't forget, all of the recipes are on my website, which is down in the description box, along with nutrition coaching, links and discounts to my favorite thing. And don't forget, come on over, join our Facebook group. We would love to have you. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.