Happy Tuesday, everyone! My grocery shopping was very small this week. All I purchased was some protein powder, cucumbers and sumo oranges. I’m pretty confident you don’t need a picture of that! I’m excited for the recipes I made, though, so I wanted to share them with you to hopefully inspire meal prepping for next week.

Protein Waffles – The linked recipe is for pancakes but I always use my waffle iron. For some reason, I feel like the pancake recipe always comes out under cooked for me. I made 2 batches of the recipe attached and 2 with a little cocoa powder and 1/2 TBSP of chocolate chips. To warm them up, I pop them in the toaster and then serve them with PB and a sliced banana. These can also be frozen and reheated in the toaster if you want to do a big batch of them. Of course, I also meal prepped a batch of cold brew.

So, the recipe above is made with protein powder. I struggle to find vegan protein powder in sustainable packaging but I like to include it in certain recipes as an alternative source of protein. Right now, I use Tone It Up because it’s my favorite in terms of flavor. If you know of any that comes in compostable packaging or a place around Boston that you can get it in bulk, please let me know! If aren’t down for protein powder in plastic but want to make a banana waffle/pancake recipe, Chocolate covered katie has several recipes that you could possibly turn into waffles. I haven’t tried these but her recipes are always good and usually can be prepared with a variety of flours including gluten-free, depending on what you can find in bulk.

Tofu Poke Bowl – Holy smokes. This recipe is so good! I replaced the tofu with chickpeas because that’s what I had in the house and marinaded them for probably about an hour? For the marinade, I used these bags and I was super impressed. They didn’t leak at all as I shook the chickpeas around and mixed up the sauce. (At least, I think these are the bags I have. My cousin gave them to me as a Christmas gift. The ones I linked to are sold out but there are a lot of similar styles with the slide tops on Amazon). I kept all the same toppings and used the Dynamite Sauce that she references in the linked post. I already had everything listed and was able to purchase it all package free or in glass containers.

The recipe says it makes 3 but I got 4 out of everything and, honestly, could have probably gotten 5 servings as the 4 servings are hearty!

No-Bake Brownie Bites– I just discovered Jessica Eats Real Food last week. I don’t follow a Paleo diet and more commonly eat vegan (though I do regularly eat eggs) but these brownie bites looked too good to pass up. I also had almost everything already. I did substitute the almond flour for coconut flour because, again, that’s what I had in the house. Unfortunately, I totally botched the recipe. I thought for some reason these were made in a food processor so I dumped everything in and pulsed it for a bit. This is, in fact, not what you are supposed to do. The flavor was still really good, though I can tell the texture is off. I’ll give them another try and next time, will actually read the instructions and use the right flour! Until then, I do recommend these based off the taste!

Stuffed Acorn Squash– This recipe came to me via my mom. She made a batch for me a few weeks back but I had already meal prepped so I popped it in the freezer. She replaced the sausage with vegetarian sausage. As she made it, I can’t speak to how anything was prepared. I imagine you will need to swap out the sausage to keep this plastic-free/no waste but everything else should be accessible.

Protein powder is always something I struggle to purchase in sustainable packaging. What is the one thing you can’t live without and struggle to find a more eco-friendly replacement for?