Freezer "OAMC" Meals

There's a lot of buzz around freezer meals lately. Or maybe it's not lately and I'm just late to the game. 

Oh well, whatever it is, I had a friend who posted about doing this last month and it REALLY inspired me.  We've been eating VERY poorly since I started working. I simply have NO inspiration and by the time I figure it out, whatever I've decided won't be ready for another hour or two.  And we have two small-ish kids with early bedtimes (for mommy's sanity!) 

When I read her plan and how she went about prepping her meals, I thought "hey, I can do that. And if I do it NOW, it will take me through the Christmas holiday!"   So I started looking through Pinterest and lots of blog posts finding some good and diverse menu plans.  I knew from the start that I wanted "dump" meals - I didn't want to spend a ton of time pre-cooking things and I wanted the prep on the day I cook to be minimal to nothing. 

I will say, almost everything in my meals is clean! I honestly didn't check the Worcestershire sauce or the A-1. 

I found the following meals: 

Mongolian Beef x2

Pepper Steak x2

Mexican Spiced Pork Loin x2

Coconut Chicken Curry x2

Honey Rosemary Chicken x2

Beef Pepperoncini Sandwiches* x2

Herb Wine "Dump" Chicken x2

BBQ Chicken (using SkinnyTaste BBQ Sauce!) x4

Tacos (my own creation) x3

Pizza Dough (following this recipe and process for cooking, but freezing after first rise) x3

I started the day with shopping. Costco and Walmart.  Here's my shopping list: 

Costco

5 lbs beef chuck roast

4.5 lbs beef roast (to chop into stew meat) 

2-5lb bags of onions

2-10lb bags of boneless, skinless chicken breasts

shredded mozzarella cheese

gallon sized bags (although we didn't need these!)

Worcestershire sauce

Walmart

Turkey pepperoni (to freeze for the pizzas)

Whole wheat flour

Fresh rosemary

Green peppers

Soy sauce

Hoisen sauce

Balsamic vinegar

Liquid smoke flavoring

Fresh ginger

1 lemon

2 jars pepperoncini

I had planned to shop today and prep all the food tomorrow. However, I came home and was too anxious looking at everything just sitting there to leave it be! (And my fridge was WAY too full!)   So I started prepping right away, around 3pm. 

After a brief run to the grocery store one last time (Helpful Hint: Don't just say "yes, I have balsamic vinegar in the pantry" - Actually MEASURE that you have enough. I was 1/3 cup shy for the recipe!!) I got to work. First thing I did was make up my own Italian seasoning and taco seasoning mixes. Then I started my pizza dough, knowing it would need to rise before I could package it away.  While my pizza crust was rising, I got to work on my BBQ sauce. I've made this recipe a few times, so I know I like the blend of spices & flavors so I made it exactly as written. 

Once this was done, I labeled all of my bags. I made sure to put today's date, the name of the recipe (sounds obvious, but it wouldn't shock me if I saw a bag mislabeled and could never find the recipe I used ever again!), any additional ingredients to be added at the time of cooking and the actual cooking directions! 

While that simmered and my pizza rose, I started chopping. I PURPOSEFULLY picked recipes that were fairly easy this time around (you know, the first time I've done this!)  Most of them were a sauce or spice mix and meat.  I chose very few veggies. Thankfully, my work schedule gets me home by 3pm everyday, so throwing together sides isn't usually an issue.  I have no problem making veggies and a starch once I'm home.  

My chopping prep consisted of  onions, 1 finger of ginger, 4 green peppers, slicing 1 lemon and some fresh rosemary. I even used pre-minced garlic to make it easier on myself. 

Around this time, my pizza dough finished it's first rise. I pulled it out, separated it into 4 servings and covered three to put away in the freezer. One became dinner tonight!

I put all of my chopped goods in the bags and moved on to the actual recipe ingredients. Sauces, spices, vinegars and sweeteners, if necessary. I did this one recipe at a time until I came to the end. 

Mexican Spiced Pork, Herb Wine Chicken

The last step I did was to add all of the meat. I started with the beef that I had to portion and chop into "stew meat" pieces. I weighed it out and added it to the separate bags - for Mongolian beef and Pepper Steak.   Then I pulled out the bags of chicken. We had an open bag in the chicken in the freezer so I started with that one.  Added frozen chicken breasts to each of the required bags. It took the remainder of the partial bag and a full 10lb bag. 

I didn't have a formal recipe for my bbq chicken or my taco meat. For my bbq chicken, I just made up the BBQ sauce then threw in 4-5 chicken breasts and froze. 

For the tacos, I took already frozen ground beef and added 2Tbsp of my homemade taco seasoning and a can of rinsed black beans. I plan to add a cup of water to the crockpot and probably a bag of frozen corn just before serving.

Obviously I can't speak to whether or not these recipes are TASTY, as we haven't tried them! But I will be sure to update with reviews as we begin eating them!

Curry Chicken, Honey Rosemary Chicken

 Four and a half hours, 2 3 trips to the store - 24 meals ready to go into my crockpot!! Yay for no cooking or meal planning between now and Christmas!! 

BBQ Chicken

Mongolian Beef, Pepperoncini Beef, Pepper Steak

November Weigh In #1

Last Friday - 164
Last Sunday - 165
Today (Friday weigh in #1) - 161!!  YAY!


Laying off the Halloween candy was KEY for me today. Laying off the candy at work - also a big deal.  I've been under my calories and trying to eat more veggies and protein for sure.

Hoping to see the 150's next week!!

Floating right along....

I feel like just when I get into the swing of things, something changes! I was doing well running then the stupid sun stopped rising!!! 

I'm still around! I'm getting more serious about my journey this month. It's my last month as a FitNut and I just want to do my team proud. Plus, I would love to get back down into the 150's. I'm at a high I haven't been at in a long time and let's face it, I'm not comfortable. 

So I'm adapting. Instead of running, I'm doing cardio at home by using the Wii!  I do Zumba Fitness and Just Dance (burns a SURPRISING amount of calories!). I've been doing the Biggest Loser game too, but I'm learning that I have to do the advanced levels in order to feel like it's worth my time. 

I had the worst time with Halloween candy last week! But I'm three days clean now :) 

I'm going to be looking back at the blog to figure out what the heck I used to snack on!!!  I'm having the WORST cravings tonight and I would love to be able to combat them!

Go! Halloween 10K 2013

Sunday was the Go! St. Louis Halloween 10k, maybe my favorite race of the year! I love love the 10k distance - it's far enough to be a challenge but not so far that it kills me. 

This year they changed the course so that it went along the riverfront, down to the Arch grounds. It was neat, aside from spending most of the race running into the sun!

I started out, trying to pace myself. I felt

Work out before the mile mark and thought "well great, this can't be good." Took a peek at my pace on run keeper and realized I could slow it WAY down and still meet my goal of finishing in under 1:10. I had run the race in 1:27 (2011) and 1:08 (2012) but after a half last weekend and only 1 run the week between, I wasn't sure how to expect my body to perform. 

Turns out, it did just fine!

I kept trying to slow down but my pace felt good! My splits were ridiculous and I wish I had picked it up a tough around the corners to come in under 1 hr. But, I wasn't far off at 1:01:40!! 

It just felt GOOD! It made me want to come home and sign up for more races, which is an awesome feeling. 

After the 10K, my kiddos were signed up for a 1 mile fun run. It was more fun for me than E (she burst into tears when someone encouraged her to keep going) and AJ than Daddy (who was wearing jeans and long underwear haha).  But in the end, both of them got their shirt and medal and were happy. :-) 

Guess I should do something more official with all these bibs now!! 

Lost.

So, half marathon last Sunday.

One run - Wednesday - this week.

10K on Sunday.

I'm gaining weight like nobody's business.  I am stuck over 160lbs and I can't get down to where I want to be. I'm in that place where I just want to give up. Throw in the towel. It's so much easier just to survive than to be healthy. Why IS that??

I KNOW what it takes to get there. I know I CAN do it. What is so hard about JUST DOING IT??

I'm still running, I lift when I can. I try to get all of my 10K steps in for the day.

The wake up moment? The size 10 work pants I had to go out and buy (because the 8s I fit into when I started in April were too small) and that now I feel like a sausage in those. In pants that I used to feel AWESOME wearing. And that I remember running and not feeling my hip-fat jiggle. Or my gut. And my feet didn't hurt from carrying more weight. And I felt like I could accomplish something - anything - when I was succeeding.

So folks, that settles it. I'm back on the wagon. If I need to write it all down, that's what I'll do. But I just can't continue to feel this way!! I'm going to make sure to look into Jamie Eason's recipes and menus to make sure I'm making appropriate food choices and food pairing choices. I'm going to cut out the treats (THE TREATS, OH THE TREATS have been insane lately!!).  Cut back on beer. (not wine, I love my wine too much for that! <--- maybe that's the attitude that is keeping me fat, eh??) DRINK MY WATER!!  I am so so bad about drinking enough water!

Weigh ins are on Tuesdays this month. I'm in a place where I EXPECT to gain every week. It's just not ok to be here. My goal is to lose weight this week, even just 1/2 lb. And to KEEP losing, because something has to change!!

Half Marathon #4!

Today was half marathon #4, the MO'Cowbell. It's advertised as the "fastest, flattest half marathon in the midwest" and it didn't disappoint! 

I woke up at 5am and started my pre-race routines - eating a banana, trying to decide if I need KT taped, etc.  We woke the kiddos up at 5:30 and headed out. 

We drove to the park and  I can't remember being this nervous before a race! I was starting to freak out when my little guy said "Mommy! I see stars!" "Twinkle twinkle little star, up above the world so high." He sang it through once, in his cute little way, and it really calmed me! So I asked him to keep singing. <3 And he did!

By the time we got to the park, I had pretty well talked myself out of the nerves. We lined up and rocked out to "Don't Fear the Reaper" (it IS the MO'Cowbell half, afterall!), ringing our cowbells and off we went. 

I made a pact with myself not to kill myself for a PR. I know, I know. Seriously, me not try to PR? But it put so much pressure on me, I just couldn't do it this time.  So as I was running, if Runkeeper was telling me I was going faster than 10:30 min/mile, I consciously tried to make myself slow down.

I had a discussion with someone at the expo on Friday about my last half and how AWFUL mile 8 was and she said I was definitely hitting a wall. Talking to her I realized that despite thinking I was getting the race nutrition I needed, I haven't been having ANY carbs!! So this time, I ran without my hydration belt and grabbed Gatorade. I took the GU pack instead of the honey stinger I usually use.  And amazingly - There was NO wall. I ran the WHOLE race - only walking so that I didn't wear my water/Gatorade instead of ingest it.

The wonderful part is that once I hit 10 miles, it was just another Wednesday morning run!  I am thankful that I'm in a place where 3 miles is something that I can do a few times a week instead of a huge distance. It made the last few miles really fly when I could say "Just 30 more minutes" or "2 miles, I do that before work everyday!" It was just such a nice place to be not to be MENTALLY drained during the race!

Of course, my phone died. FIVE MINUTES before I finished - my phone died!! THAT was my huge disappointment. I guess all in all, that's not a bad disappointment :-)

I finished in 2:21:40, 39 seconds behind my PR from April. BUT - the huge victory here is that I felt GOOD. No, I felt GREAT! Mentally, I wasn't defeated. I had a great time on the race, I didn't stop moving, I KNEW I could finish and I did it.  I'm excited that I have a solution to my mile-8-hatred and I almost can't wait to do another half to try to PR - I came SO CLOSE this time!

MORE BLING!

Next weekend is the GO St. Louis Halloween 10K. Last year, I did the 10K then the half the following weekend. I almost think the half first is a better plan (ask me about that assessment again next Sunday night!) because now the 10K will seem like a cake walk!

8/13

Virtual Race - FitNuts/September

FitNuts had another virtual 5K! The last weekend in Sept, the day we got home from vacation. 

Not my best time, but it was a huge NSV for me. I was having a horrible awful day mood-wise. Instead of turning to food, I left my house and went for a run. It wasn't my best 5K time - but it was still a victory for me. 



I skipped my run Monday, I knew I wouldn't be able to fit it in with going back to work. Tuesday was just a quick 1.5 miler. I have a half marathon on Sunday 10/5 so I didn't want to push myself TOO too hard.  Tuesday while running I twisted my ankle on a stick on the sidewalk. Thankfully it wasn't a long term hurt but it surprised me and slowed down my pace.  

Wednesday I headed to the Y and did my favorite cardio plus and Circuit classes. I hurt myself (MY FAULT, TERRIE, NOT YOURS! :-) ) so I took Thursday off. 

Friday I took a quick run just to keep comfortable. My hips were tight, my calves hurt and my feet were sore. My lower back was so incredibly sore but I made it 1.5 miles. 


 Saturday my family went apple picking. MAYBE one of my most favorite times of year :-)  We picked over 50 lbs of apples! Insane! I couldn't stop getting them, they were so big and lovely!! 


7/13