Sunday Morning Prep

I do Sunday prep every weekend. This makes my weekday meals, which are breakfast, dinner, and sometimes lunch, much easier to deal with because there is always stuff in the refrigerator ready to go.

Here’s what I do. On Saturday morning, I look at what is leftover from the week that I can still use. This week for example, there was a cooked sweet potato, some scallions, a few pieces of a red and an orange pepper, a cup of homemade macadamia nut milk, and about 2 cups of chickpeas that I made last week but never used.

I stand in front of the refrigerator and think about what would be good with what or as my friend Sophie says, “This would be cool with that!” Then I check the pantry to see what I have on hand to determine what I need to put on the Saturday shopping list. Then we head to Whole Foods and complete the mission buying fresh fruits and vegetables, pantry staples like nuts, seeds, and rice, and what ever else attracts my attention. Then I am all set up for Sunday morning prep. When it’s all over, I package everything up so the kitchen and refrigerator are nice and organized.

Here is what today’s prep looked like.

First up, breakfast staples which I make every weekend. We eat tons of granola with homemade yogurt, chia seed pudding post morning runs and for afternoon snacks, and pancakes for breakfast before school.

Granola

Chia Seed Pudding

Pancake Batter 
(using the cup of macadamia nut milk)

Next up, I roasted beets and a small butternut squash. I envision a basic beet salad and chickpea crepes with butternut squash and Brussels sprouts for dinner tomorrow night.

Roasted Beets

Roasted Butternut Squash

While this was going on in the oven, I cooked a cup of black beans on the stovetop which yielded about 2 1/2 cups of cooked beans.

Black Beans

And while the beans were cooking, I sautéed an onion with the leftover scallions and peppers and seasoned them with cumin, garlic parsley and salt, also on the stovetop. Then I added the vegetable mix to the food processor with a cup of the black beans and that leftover sweet potato. The result: five burgers. I browned them in the same pan I cooked the vegetables in (one less pan to wash). We had two for lunch and the other three went into the freezer.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Burgers

I also made a beautiful and flavorful batch of saffron rice pilaf with an onion and a pinch of saffron that I steeped in boiling water. We ate some for lunch and the rest will become a side for dinner this week probably with the black beans and butternut squash.

Saffron Rice Pilaf

Then my son, who helps with everything, decided he wanted to make Chef Chloe’s Goldfish crackers so got out the stand mixer and whipped up some dough. We had a great time using all of our cookie cutters to make not only goldfish but owls, circles, flowers, and more.

Goldfish

Finally, I turned the old chickpeas into hummus which I make all the time. We love it on top of salad, on toast for lunch with avocados, or as a snack with carrots.

Hummus

This all happened in the midst of cleaning as I cooked, watching Clone Wars, playing Sorry, and having a Nerf gun fight!