 Hey friends, welcome back to my kitchen. Welcome to another Weekly meal prep. It feels so good to get back into the swing of things. This past month had so many different activities and things going on with our children that I just really got out of the rhythm with doing my weekly meal prep, but I'm back at it and I'm so excited to be sharing these Menus with you all and hopefully you can get some inspiration for your own family Monday we're starting off the week with a Sheep pan type meal you all know how much I love those so on the sheet pan We're gonna do some dinner sausage. I had shown you all some of the sausage I like to get at Costco in one of my last Grocery holes, so we're gonna combine that with Brussels sprouts. We'll put that on to a Sheet and put it in the oven and Kind of do most of the baking part of it and then whenever I go to reheat it I may put it back on a sheet or I may Heat it in the microwave. I may heat it in a skillet. It all just depends on how much time I have the night that we eat this meal and to go along with that I'm also making a loaded potato salad that has some really good flavor combinations so I was getting the potatoes peeled and Cut a little bit smaller and put in to a pot on the stove So for that loaded potato salad, I wanted some bacon bits We're gonna go for like a bacon parmesan kind of flavor. It turned out so delicious So my favorite way to make bacon is to put it into my air fryer It's just super mess free It's easy to clean out when I'm done and I really can put it in there and not really worry about it I was enjoying some peppermint tea this morning while I was prepping all of this stuff It was kind of cold outside So it was fun to be in the warm kitchen Getting meals ready for my family So here I'm just getting out the Brussels sprouts and I know some people like to roast them whole Personally, I feel like they're a little more bite-sized if I cut them in half And if they're really large Brussels sprouts, sometimes I do cut them in fourths as well And I'm just putting them into a bowl and then I will mix the oil in the bowl with them There is times I have put them into a Ziploc bag If you don't have a really big bowl and you're short on bowls Whenever you're making this or meal prepping using a Ziploc bag works out really well Because you can kind of squish the veggies around in there and get them really covered with the oil So I just like to drizzle some oil in I stirred around really well and no surprise here if you watch often I'm adding the buttery steakhouse seasoning. This is my go-to veggie seasoning. I use it in mashed potatoes I use it in so many different things So I'm adding that to the Brussels sprouts and then I just stir everything until all of the leaves look nicely coated with the oil And begin to look a little bit shiny I decided to just put a piece of parchment paper on the bottom of my sheet pan It just helps with cleanup and nothing gets super stuck on the bottom then then I'm laying out the sausages I think these were the roasted garlic flavor. They are really really good And I was thinking that we could even cut them up and maybe mix them in with the Brussels sprouts and sort of eat it all together Generally when I serve Brussels sprouts for dinner We make a good garlic butter to dunk them in and just go all out to make it super yummy I threw that sheet pan into the oven and then at this point my bacon was done and ready to come out of the air fryer I'm always amazed at how Great the bacon is when it comes out of the air fryer. It's just the perfect crispness And it's so good and I had to have some while I was working And at this point my potatoes were also finished and at the texture I wanted them you don't want to boil the potatoes too long for potato salad Because they can get really soft and then you're going to end up with mashed potatoes I have been loving making my own mayo But I had some of this Aldi brand mayo in the refrigerator that needed to be used up So I decided to go ahead and just use that in this potato salad I added some yellow mustard a few drops of stevia. You could always add sugar to this as well I just like to sneak in using stevia where I can Especially in something like this where you really wouldn't be able to tell if it's sugar or stevia And then I diced up very very very finely a onion about half of an onion And I think that potato salad needs onion It's one of the traits of potato salad that makes you recognize that taste Is that it's got some good onion in it So here's my little twist and that is adding in some parm The bacon and the parm together was so delicious Even my husband was commenting about how good it was and I just added some freshly ground black pepper as well And I like to stir everything together to get the sauce kind of mixed up before adding in the chunky items Like the potatoes and the bacon. I also put in some rice vinegar just to give it a little Tang rice vinegar is so subtle. I love that about it It's not too overpowering and it made the combination of these flavors just perfect I added the potatoes and then I'm going to chop up the bacon potato salad or really any cold salads Are a place for you to explore different flavors, especially if you've made pasta salads and other cold salads for years Start getting creative try out adding a different cheese or even feta cheese is really great in pasta salads Um, or think of nuts or dried fruit or there's so many ways to bring new flavor combinations to existing recipes and this one here I just kind of threw together with what I had and was tasting as I went to know what to add to it And potato salad is one of those things that is often better once it sits overnight or maybe a day or two in the refrigerator So it works out perfect as a meal prep item and a great side for all kinds of meals So at this point my Brussels sprouts were done and as you can see, they're not crazy crispy Which I was kind of pulling the sheet pan out before it was truly done if we were ready to eat this red way I would have left it in a bit longer, but knowing that I was going to be heating it up For a meal. I just decided I'm just going to go ahead and kind of Stop it before it was quite there Okay, so that was monday's meal Tuesday we are going to be doing chili soup and sandwich melts And I'm going to be making some sourdough later in this week So we will use that for our sandwich melts and probably some pulled chicken that I'll take out of the freezer Or I also have canned pulled chicken as well So I wanted to whip up This beanless chili if you've been around for a long time, you know that in the winter times I make this chili and I don't have crazy measurements for it, but it's always pretty much the same combination of things I just have some ground beef some Onion that I cut up I added some salt and pepper and I like to cook that in the bottom of my pot Preferably a dutch oven. That's what I mostly use for pots and kettles on the stove But I put the lid on so that it helps to soften the onions as it cooks And I just kind of chop up the meat into small pieces that will be great for in chili So now along with that I'm going to add in some bell pepper and usually I like green bell pepper In this recipe, but I didn't have any on hand And I did have some of this orange and yellow bell pepper in the freezer that I had sliced up so I just went ahead and Cut it up and my little tip with frozen peppers Is to cut them or dice them into small pieces while they're still frozen They can be a little challenging To cut if they get too soggy So definitely cut them before they've completely thawed then I added in a pint jar of some diced tomatoes and an eight ounce jar Of tomato sauce all that hard work in the summertime with all of the tomatoes Pays off so much on these cold winter days when you want Some chili and you get to enjoy it from tomatoes that you processed yourself It's so rewarding So after that I'm just going to let it all kind of simmer And then we're going to add in a few other Ingredients including a bag of frozen cauliflower rice That's kind of what I use to bulk up this recipe since it doesn't have the beans in it And then I added in a tablespoon of chili powder And I'm going to Taste it and just make sure that it has enough salt and pepper in it. Definitely want to Test that out. I'm adding in some of my frozen garlic cubes that we made together a few videos ago They have been so handy as you're going to see throughout this video If you wanted to amp up the heat on this recipe You could also put in a little bit of cayenne pepper just to make it a spicy chili We have little ones in the house that don't care for stuff that's too spicy So I have to make sure that it's scaled back a bit But sometimes corey and I will put some cayenne or a little bit of the red pepper flakes in our bowl Just to amp up that heat especially on a cold winter day. So Wednesday We are going to do a grilled lemon pepper chicken Loaded mushrooms and garlic green beans. We have been really Going hard on the garlic green beans around here. I don't know what it is It's just been one of our staple sides in the last couple of weeks So I just put a little bit of avocado or olive oil in to my cast iron I throw in a couple of those cubes of the minced garlic And then I put my frozen green beans on top of that and I let everything cook it takes a little bit of time It's not very instantaneous But if I'm cooking other things I can kind of let it go in the background and stir them every once in a while Next I'm focusing on the loaded stuffed mushrooms. I just have some fermented probiotic laden cream cheese I always love using that brand of sour cream and cream cheese because I know that it is Fermented and then I'm adding in some smoked paprika and some onion powder Kind of went simple with these sometimes I add a lot of ingredients and other times I just find something simple to put in these are so good and they're such a wonderful side For a picnic for a winter meal just any time So I'm just taking the stems off of some mushrooms I'm laying them with the hollowed out portion facing up and then I just take a spoon and Put that cream cheese mixture inside. So I want to tell you how I'm prepping these I'm going to be putting them in the oven until the mushroom is starting to bake and I'm Starting to smell the aroma in the kitchen Then I'm going to pull them out and top them with my cheese and a little bit of chive And then on the day that I actually eat them or we make them I'm going to put them back in the oven and just pretty much let them heat up Let the cheese melt and then it just doesn't take as long to bake them on the day that we're going to eat this meal So now I am prepping my lemon pepper chicken I had two lemons that had been hanging around in my refrigerator Long enough and needed to be used for something And I really wanted to make a good grilled marinated chicken this week So I was like well we can get these lemons used up So one of them I juiced and I'm going to add the juice into my marinade the other one I'm slicing up I'm going to put that in and then we can actually grill those or put them on the chicken as they grill on our smoker So we're going to add the lemon juice I'm going to put in a little bit of rice vinegar a little bit of avocado oil And then I also have a lemon pepper seasoning from Kinders and I found that at Costco as well And I'm just going to put that all in and I like to put that into these vacuum seal bags Because number one I can kind of take my hands and massage the marinade into the meat But then also I can vacuum seal it and anytime you vacuum seal a meat Um, that's in marinade. You're actually helping the marinade go into the meat. It's helping it To kind of suck the marinade against that meat And you can actually marinade a little quicker that way as well You don't have to wait quite as long. So I love doing that And once my green beans have softened up to where I'm happy with them I will put in a nice block of butter Melt that in stir it around and then we are good to go with our garlic green beans. They are so good I feel like I can eat them like potato chips or something like a snack and my daughters can do We just really really love them. So here I'm topping the stuffed mushrooms off with a good raw cheddar cheese And some of my chives that I actually freeze dried from my garden during the summertime I love that I get to pull in some summer flavors even on cold days like this day Thursday we are going to do a steak and broccoli stir-fry with rice. So I wanted to go ahead and get the rice Started I have been really liking this brown rice. I know I've been talking about Costco a lot in this video But for some reason a bunch of the things I'm using this day are from Costco But this is an organic brown rice from Costco that we've been really liking lately And I just went ahead and cooked that up with some of my homemade chicken broth And oh, I just love rice made in homemade chicken broth. It tastes so so delicious So I'm gonna get that cooking while I mix up the stir-fry So we get our own beef locally and for some reason this last time that we got beef We got a lot of chipped steak and a lot of times we make chip steak sandwiches Similar to like a filly cheese steak sandwich But I was trying to rock my brain on other ways we could use this chip steak So I was thinking it would be a really good protein in a beef Asian inspired stir-fry. So I used some coconut aminos. They are a soy free soy sauce type flavor and some sesame oil and some rice vinegar again And then I also put some of my Ginger cubes where I have minced ginger that is frozen and also some of my garlic cubes And I just took a fork and kind of smashed them up and that worked perfectly You can also add in some brown sugar to this. I used a brown sugar alternative I don't think I filmed putting it in but I did put it in this as well just to give it that kind of sweet asian flavor And then I took all of the chip steak out of the packaging and pulled it apart And then I mixed in my broccoli and I did take into account that the broccoli is frozen and it probably will let some water Into this marinade as well So I know it's going to have a little more liquid than what it currently does putting it into the freezer bag And again, I am using a vacuum bag on this marinade as well just to help keep all of those juices up against the meat and even to help marinade The broccoli as well Fridays is a really busy day for us. A lot of times we have homeschool group activities and other things like that So it's a good day for me to do a slow cooker meal So this is going to be down the line of a dump and go meal. I actually got a frozen Roast out of the freezer and I purposely did this the rest of my meats I had gotten out the day before, you know made sure they were thawed out and all of that But this particular piece of meat I wanted frozen because I knew I was going to use it later in the week So it can slowly thaw out in the refrigerator with the other things I'm putting in there and kind of marinade In the refrigerator and that's one thing to take into account is when you're going to be using your meals You know, how long can they last in the refrigerator? Some meals can last longer than others Those are all things that are important to really think about when you're planning out your weekly meal preps So this is one way to allow a piece of meat to Be ready be ready to be put into the slow cooker But also to slowly thaw out throughout the week and gain some extra flavor By marinating as well. And then I just put a stick of butter in chopped up I put an onion or I think half an onion sliced and then I just put some steak seasoning in there as well And as it thaws it will cling to the sides of that piece of meat and it's going to be excellent So my bonus project for this week and I try to incorporate something extra every week Through the summertime a lot of preserving happens, but there are always those odds and ends little Projects that you can work on during the colder months as well And this is one of them and this one is so easy And this could potentially be one of the easiest preservation projects that there is and that is making cranberry juice It's so so simple. So I actually am making dispatch without sugar I may do some more in a few weeks with some sugar But my main reason in using this was for the vitamin c and when we're sick And so I want to be able to just add stevia or something like that instead of a lot of sugar so I put two cups of the cranberries into the jar and then I just added water up to the neck And I'm going to put the lids on screw the rings on finger tight And put them in a water bath for 20 minutes. Now This is a project that you definitely don't want to do on the day that you need it because it does have to sit for a while I probably will let this sit for six weeks. If you do sugar, you may be able to Drink it sooner, but since there is not going to be sugar in these jars I'm going to probably let these sit for four to six weeks at least before we get into them And I just want to make sure that the juice has really extracted as much as possible out of The berries and they are so pretty aren't they this time of year you can find cranberries on great sales that's why I wanted to include this in this video because Through the holidays and after the holidays It is just a good time to do cranberry juice because it often goes on sale, especially after Thanksgiving They're on sale stores are trying to get rid of them whatever they have left and you can take that all home And you don't even have to do it right away. You can throw those bags right in the freezer and then on a winter day when you have nothing else to do You can make yourself some cranberry juice and It's just an easy little project. You don't even need a pressure canner You all you need is to water bath it So I hope that this video was inspiring to you all I know that you all have been wanting more weekly meal preps And that's what I've got coming because I want to be able to get on the ball with that Our family eats so much healthier. We're more consistent with sit-down dinners And everybody's just healthier and happier when mama is meal planning and meal prepping So don't forget to subscribe if you are new here. Give this video a like leave a comment below and I will see you all in my next video