I can’t believe Christmas is next week! To help avoid the Buddy the Elf food plan of candy, candy canes and syrup (and cookies, lets be honest!), I’m really making a point to meal prep this week. Having at least some meals on hand with vegetables and fruits will hopefully help balance out all those Christmas treats!

My groceries this week were mostly package-free. I’ve been going through a lot of milk lately because of baking and my new found decaf chai latte habit so I did grab packaged milk. My tofu still isn’t available in bulk. We also can’t use our own containers, still, so we put in our order and the staff at my co-op bags everything for us. Not perfect but I still get to support a small grocery store.

Breakfast: I’ve been hitting the protein oats hard! I use Simply Taralynn’s recipe which is:

1/3 cup of oats, 1 TBSP chia seeds, 1 cup of water and 1 handful of frozen blueberries. Microwave for 1 minute. stir. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir in your favorite protein powder. Add your favorite toppings. I added almond butter, cacao nibs, pomegranate seeds, and Jessica Eats Real Food’s Maple Almond Sea Salt granola. If you opt to make the granola, really watch the time! The recipe calls for 30 minute but I pulled mine at 20 minutes and it very well done! Since I make my breakfast at home, I didn’t really meal prep this but I have meal prepped the the protein oats previously. I measured out the oats and chia seeds into a larger container so I have room to add the water and microwave and I put the protein powder in a small container to mix in after the oatmeal has been heated up. Usually if I’m making this at work, I’ll eyeball the water and just top it with peanut butter since I always have a jar at my desk. This is more often than not my go-to breakfast if I’m trying to keep my grocery budget down because I almost always have oats and chia seeds in my pantry.

Lunch: This cool, gray weather is really killing me lately. There’s been more than one day where I can’t seem to get warm. For lunch, I made this Coconut Sweet Potato Lentil Soup with Rice which turned out delicious! I’m not a huge fan of rice but the basmati rice in this dish makes for a really warm, hearty lunch. Rice really absorbs liquids and this soup is already quite thick so I kept the rice separate until serving.

Dinner: I made Work Week Lunch‘s Miso-Glazed Tofu and Veggie Sheet Pan Meal. I got this meal about a year ago when she opened up her archive and let people try her subscriber-only meals. The tofu is so tasty! If you like the idea of meal prepping and don’t know where to start, I would highly recommend Talia’s program. It’s super affordable, really adaptable if you are vegetarian or vegan, and the recipes are tasty and well tested. She builds your weekly meals and releases them on Thursday, I believe. I’m not a subscriber because I actually really enjoy building my own menus but if that seems too time consuming, check out Work Week Lunch. Meal prepping really helps save money and prevents food waste. This could also make a really good Christmas gift if you know someone who hates having to figure out what’s for dinner.

Snacks: Jessica Eats Real Food released a new no-bake dessert so you knew I was going to be all over that. They came out significantly better than my attempt at her granola! I used cashew butter for the nut butter and cut up Tony’s Chocolonely’s Dark Chocolate in place of chocolate chips. I have access to bulk chocolate chips but if you don’t, I would highly recommend checking out Tony’s. Tony’s strives to make chocolate 100% slave free. They outline what they are doing here, including working directly with farmers and co-ops so they know where their cocoa beans are coming from and paying farmers above fair trade pricing so that they can improve their farms and make a living wage. If your just here for the zero-waste stuff, Tony’s wrapper is made from a mix of recycled paper and paper for FSC-certified paper (FSC= Forest Steward Council and it means the paper comes from sustainably managed forests). The foil is also made from recycled material and is as thin as they can make it so their is less product there to worry about.

ANYWAYS, the Peppermint Brownie Balls came out great! They are SUPER rich and chocolatey because of the cashew butter and the dark chocolate so one was enough for me but they were still super tasty and such a nice Christmas-y treat throughout the week. Because even though we are fitting vegetables in, we still need some Christmas chocolate!

How are your weeks looking? Are you inundated with Christmas treats yet or is working from home really cutting into your treats this year?