This week is actually 4th of July week. 4th of July. Wasn’t it March just last week?????

Here are my groceries for this week. My co-op has reopened for shoppers (yeah!), though allowing reusable bags for produce is questionable. I may be throwing everything in my cart willy-nilly next week if they don’t allow them!

In honor of Plastic-Free July kick off on WEDNESDAY! I tried as hard as possible to make this grocery run plastic-free. We have a very large bulk section at my co-op but it is being manned by the staff right now to eliminate lots of people sharing the same containers. So, some surprises- The almond flour which is sold in bulk but for some reason was pre-bagged in the refrigerator section. I think they may have been reaching the end of their stash so pre-bagged the rest? That’s my guess. Also, that paper carton of salt flakes, I opened it and it was bagged in plastic on the inside. You do what you can!

Other then those two items, though, everything else was plastic free! I ended up not picking up maple syrup, which I have been using in my morning iced coffee. I’m going to make a simple syrup with some raw turbinado sugar I already have (Use what you have!).

Onto meals!

The fact that we are full blown into summer now has definitely impacted my meals. I’m still riding that smoothie wagon hard! If you don’t follow me on Instagram, this is been the smoothie recipe I can’t get enough of:

You can’t taste the veggies at all. Mostly it’s just chocolate, the peppermint extract and the crunch from the cacao nibs. For greens, I used dino kale this week because they were out of bulk spinach. Packaged salad greens is definitely one of the areas I’m personally working on during PFJ so kale was the package-less green of choice. This recipe comes from Jessica Eats Real Food. She will also throw cut up broccoli stems in her smoothie but as I don’t like broccoli, I passed on that addition.

Since this smoothie has a lot of ingredients, I prep the fruit and veggies and put them in the freezer. I also put the flax seed, protein powder and cocoa powder in smaller reusble baggies that I keep in the cabinet. The reusable bags pictured here are Grove Reusable Sandwich Bags, Russbe Reusable Sandwich Bags, Grove Snack Bags and Stasher Snack Bags in Dusk. The mason jar bag was a gift so I’m not sure where that can be found.

In the morning, I add the nut butter, peppermint extra and the almond milk to the blender with 1 bag of the powders and 1 bag of the frozen produce. After everything is blended together, I add the cacao nibs. You can also use chocolate granola or chocolate chips in place of the cacao nibs, but that will add more sugar to your smoothie. I really like keeping my sugar low here. It makes me crave sugar less later in the day.

I eat breakfast a lot later then I used to so this will keep be full from about 9 until 1 or 2, sometimes even 3. At which point, I don’t want anything too heavy since it’s hot and later in the afternoon. So for lunch this week, I’m making this protein snack salad.

I used to make this as an afternoon snack before the gym. It has roasted edamame (I already had some purchased in the freezer), chickpeas, cucumber and tomato. I top it with any dressing I have available (Honey mustard works really well but this week I’m using leftover Miso dressing) and Everything But The Bagel Seasoning. To make it more of a meal, I add a hard boil egg. This is a really versatile base to bulk up. I’ve also eaten it over lettuce, tossed with cold pasta and italian dressing, or with crumbled salmon burger and a sesame ginger dressing. You can also swap out or add whatever veggies you want and it’s a good lunch to have during summer because there’s no reheating.

Dinner is another recipe from Jessica Eats Real Food. This one was inspired by her Whole30 Tuna Melt. As I rarely eat fish, I swapped the tuna for chickpeas.

This picture is pretty horrible. I apologize. It tastes better then it looks!!!

The filling turned out really good and I liked it a lot in the pepper. I didn’t love the cheese sauce but that was 100% my fault. I’m not a huge lemon fan and the recipe calls for the juice of 1 lemon. If, like me, lemon isn’t your favorite, I’d start with the juice of half a lemon and go from there. To keep this meal prep-friendly, I stored the cooked peppers, the chickpea salad and the cheese sauce in 3 separate containers and will reheat and assemble when I’m ready to eat this. If you want to keep things oven-free, I would suggest grilling the peppers instead of turning the oven on. I bet that would be really delicious!

And, what kind of week would it be if I didn’t have a dessert??? A boring one, that’s what! I made the chocolate chip cookie dough bars from, of course, Jessica Eats Real Food. I’m not sure what it was about her meals this week but they seemed quick and easy.

These bars came out awesome! I love that they are no-bake and are sweetened with maple sugar. I used bittersweet chocolate to keep the sugar levels low also. I did use cashew butter because it’s a more neutral nut butter but as a huge pb and chocolate fan, I think I’m just going to go for the peanut butter next time. I wouldn’t skip out on the flaked salt on top if I were you. It’s really good!

And that’s it for this week! what have you meal prepped for this week?