I didn’t post anything last week for Meap Prep Monday as I’m trying to get a bit ahead with my meal preps. Normally, I’ll meal prep Sunday or Monday and then post it right away on Monday. That doesn’t give me a lot of time to try out the recipes (though I definitely sample as I cook!) and take pictures. For this post, I’ll share with you what I meal prepped last week. It gave me a little more time to try things out.

Brunch: Corn Cakes from How Sweet Eats with fried eggs, avocado and sauteed cherry tomatoes from the garden. The idea for this came from Jessica Merchant’s cook book, Seriously Delish, which I highly recommend! One of my furlough goal was to use my cookbooks more. That makes it hard to link recipes here but so far I’m really enjoying breaking away from the internet a bit. If you like the meals mentioned here from Seriously Delish and are on a budget, I recommend checking out your library or purchasing used. My library just opened and they have a curbside pick up option. In terms of buying, I’ve made quite a few recipes from this book and have been a long time follower of How Sweet Eats. I doubt you’ll be disappointed in the purchase! This is not sponsored. I’m just having fun with cookbooks so wanted to pass along some cheaper options if you are interested 🙂

Anyway, in the cookbook, Jessica served the corn cakes with fresh tomatoes, avocado and poached eggs. I tweaked the recipe a bit because 1. I can’t poach an egg and 2. I liked the warm, garlicky sauteed tomatoes with the cold avocado. To meal prep, make a batch of the corn cakes ahead of time. In the morning, fry up your eggs and then add the tomatoes and garlic to the same pan as your eggs (no sense dirtying 2 pans!) as your eggs cook. Microwave the corn cakes for 1 minute or pop them in the toaster.

If you don’t have time in the morning to cook an egg, I think you could also serve this with a hard boiled egg and saute the tomatoes ahead of time.

Dinner: Pizza! I made two different pizza’s last week. One was from The Seriously Delish cookbook that was a Pineapple Jalapeno BBQ pizza, which was on a honey wheat crust. It was super good!

The other was a traditional Margherita Pizza with fresh mozzarella, basil, a pizza sauce recipe from Pro Home Cooks and this homemade pizza dough, also from Jessica Merchant at How Sweet Eats. Again, this came out awesome. It wasn’t as fancy as the Pineapple Jalapeno but all the ingredients were fresh or homemade and it really made a difference! I reheated the slices at 350 F for 10 minutes.

Snacks: I’ve been eating breakfast later and later as I settle into this new normal of being furloughed. It means I’m not eating breakfast until 11:30 or 12 sometimes. So, I’ve been eating light lunches or snacks.

This buffalo hummus is hands down my favorite and I’ve been pairing it with cucumbers from the garden.

I also like the buffalo hummus mashed up with a hard boiled egg and with fresh cucumbers and cherry tomatoes folded in. I’ll top this concoction with Everything But the Bagel seasoning and serve it over homemade sour dough (which I’ve linked to multiple times now but it’s still me favorite). It sounds weird but I sort of think of it as an egg salad with hummus instead of mayo. Also, it doesn’t require turning the oven on so it’s been a good meal for the hot summer days. I had this during the week as another brunch option (I try not to have eggs with two meals). I just hard boil eggs on the weekend and then, in the morning as my bread toasts, I mix the eggs with the hummus, cucumber and tomatoes. It comes together fast.

Watermelon- another great summer snack that I like to meal prep ahead of time. I find I reach for it far more often if I take some time at the beginning of the week to cut it up.

Jessica Eat’s Real Food No-Bake Cake Batter Bites– um, are those Halloween sprinkles in the middle of summer? Why, yes- yes they are! One cannot make Birthday Cake Bites without sprinkles. Unfortunately, I only had Halloween and I didn’t want to go buy more so I used what I had! Interestingly enough, these sprinkles came in a glass container with a cork stopper and I think I bought them at Target. The brand is Dean Jacobs. Just a heads up if you are trying to find plastic free options.

The flour combo here is important so I wouldn’t tweak that if possible. I buy both flours in bulk. I’ve tried just coconut flour before and it comes out too dry. Additionally, I’d invest in or make your own cashew butter for this recipe. You don’t want a nut butter to overpower the almond extract which is giving it the good birthday cake vibes. Other nut/seed butters like peanut butter or sun butter will taste good but won’t taste like birthday cake. So substitute at your own risk 🙂

I realize I am slowly straying from the three standard meals I made when I was working a traditional 9-5 jobs. If you have any questions about how to incorporate these meals into a traditional meal plan or how to make them low-waste, let me know.

What are some no-oven meals you have been making? I would love some ideas for the rest of the summer.