Week 4: Sunday, prep day.

Meal Plan, Week 4:
CrockPot Coq au Vin
CrockPot White Chicken Chili
Ground Turkey/TVP chimichangas
Ground Turkey/TVP meatloaf with mashed potatoes and corn
BBQ pork tenderloin in the crock pot on sandwiches


This week I made three goals: 1. To make the week completely free of processed food. 2. To do all of the prep work on the weekend and 3. To make some more baby food. Since I had family visiting on Saturday, that left everything to be done on Sunday. So far since 12 noon, I have:

• Shopped for supplies at Costco (meat and diapers are cheaper in bulk), Target (baby stuff), Food Lion (groceries) and Whole Foods [I cannot afford to grocery shop at Whole Foods so I just stopped here on my way home from work for some TVP]
• Steamed 2 heads of cauliflower (BOGO!), then roasted it and made mashed cauliflower
• Steamed a butternut squash and some carrots, thn pureed them for baby food
  
• Prepped and ate CrockPot Coq au Vin (recipe below)
• Prepped a turkey/TVP meatloaf, filling for chimichangas and rehydrated some white beans for the white chicken chili
  
• Boiled and mashed 5lbs of potatoes
• Taken the pork tenderloin for the BBQ pork and chicken for the white chicken chili out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge
  

I'm exhausted. Don't forget that I also portioned and froze this stuff as well. Thankfully I have a fabulous husband that helps with everything. In the midst of all of this, I was playing with my baby - who, by the way, is the cutest person on this planet. To show for my time, I have a week of meals prepared, and 9 containers of butternut squash/carrot baby puree, 1 container of mashed cauliflower and 1 container of mashed potatoes in the freezer for the future. Even if I could find the time to exercise, I couldn't physically do it.

As a sidenote, my baby is adorable. She is trying to crawl and it is the funniest thing to watch. She cannot get the arms AND legs together so she ends up leg-crawling with her face planted on the floor, or arm-crawling with her legs dangling behind her.

Today's recipes:

Coq au vin
taken from A Year of CrockPotting
*** With potential for **** using a different red wine. I used old Shiraz that was probably way past it's peak. Don't do that. It was a bit too strong and didn't "go" with the recipe. Also, I would cut the red wine to 1 cup and add no broth. It was way too liquidy. As always, I've posted the original recipe; you decide whether to make my suggested changes.

--6 to 8 chicken thighs (I used boneless, skinless)

--6 slices cooked and crumbled turkey bacon

--8 oz sliced baby bella mushrooms

--some baby carrots, I don't measure these things

--1/2 chopped yellow onion

--3 cloves chopped or minced garlic

--1/2 t black pepper

--1/2 t kosher salt

--1/2 cup chicken broth

--1 1/2 cup cheap red wine

--2 large fresh thyme sprigs

Cook your bacon. Dump the chicken into your crockpot and start layering in the rest of the ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. The flavors meld so nicely when cooked low and slow.

I served this with mashed cauliflower (see below) and a bit of pureed butternut squash. Shut up, I made it for the baby and it tasted good.

Mashed Cauliflower
serves 3 or more depending on portion size

****this is a really good, low cal side dish. Use in place of mashed potatoes but let's be clear, they DO NOT taste like potatoes. It's cauliflower, people.

1 head of cauliflower
1 cup light sour cream

Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam until fork tender
Spread on a cookie sheet and roast at 350 degrees until the florets begin to brown
Add to food processor or stand mixer and blend with the sour cream until chunky but mashed.
Add salt and pepper to taste


Have a great week!