Weekly Meal Prep - Jerk Pork, Roasted Chicken, Muffin Pan Meatloaf

Hi all!

Hope you had a great week.  Mine was chalk full of eating out & spending money - not proud to admit it, but it is what it is!

The hubby and I went out on Tuesday night (Montanas) and ordered in on Thursday (chicken wings from Axia).  I went out to lunch twice with my friend who I attend the fitness classes with (both lunches were delicious, especially the one from Soulyve in Orangeville, a West Indian restaurant with delicious food).  This week I am determined to live frugally, and I am attempting a no-spend week (see resolutions) since there is nothing that I desperately need.

For meal prep this week I made a Jerk Pork Roast, Roasted Chicken, and Muffin Pan Meatloaf. 


Jerk Pork is one of our favorite ways to prepare pork shoulder.  It's cheap, easy, and full of flavor.  All I did here was season the shoulder the night before with both dry & wet store bought jerk seasoning.  The next day I threw it in the oven at 450 for 30 mins (this helps create an awesome crust), and then poured some water in the bottom of the pan, covered it and let it continue cooking at 325 for 3 hours.  As always, it came out perfect.  This can be eaten with rice or a salad.


For the my super juicy roasted chicken, I took some back-attach (thigh/legs still attached) and put them in a brine of sugar, salt and water overnight.  For my brine I used 1/2c of sugar, 1/2c salt and 6c of water.  This results in amazingly moist chicken every single time.  Seriously, you can't mess up chicken that has been brined.  I'm a believer, you should be too.  The next day I rinsed off the chicken and pat it dry.  I seasoned it with seasoning salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder and some cayenne and put it in the oven on a foil-lined baking sheet at 425 for 40 minutes.  This came out great, and of course can be eaten with your favorite side. 

I didn't get a picture of the muffin tin meatloaf but it's our favorite go-to when we have ground beef.  Just use any meatloaf recipe and put it in a muffin tin, bake at 375 for 30 minutes, add bbq sauce on top, and bake another 10 minutes.  We like them because they are portable and can just be grabbed from the fridge and eaten with anything.  I don't use eggs or breadcrumbs, just the beef and seasoning.

So there you have it, 3 meals done in one day (Sunday) so that we are good for the week.  No more eating out, I swear.

And on to the resolutions...

1. Read a minimum of 20 mins per day - 43 out of 70 days, not great

2. Read a minimum of 1 book per month -
January - The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
February - The Buddha and The Borderline
March - Lost Echoes

3. Drink 80oz of water per day - 20 out of 70 days - to be honest I think I forgot to record  few days, but this still needs major improvement

4. Get in a minimum of 10,000 steps daily - 50 out of 70 days, and I joined another Stepbet so that will keep me motivated

5. Post on this blog weekly - so far so good

6. Lose the baby weight and get into the best shape of my life - working on it!

7. Have 12 no spend weeks - This isn't going so well. I'll keep trying

8. Write for 30 mins per week - 6 out of weeks, getting there

9. Get rid of 52 things -
1-6. Books given to my daughter's friend, they were duplicates that I didn't need to hang on to
7. Threw out some cleaning products and knick knacks that were under the kitchen sink
8. Got rid of some baby clothes that we had been given by a friend - they were all boys clothes
(since we thought we were having a boy) - I kept some neutral items and brought the rest to Once
Upon A Child for some cash
9. Got rid of all the old tupperware (and bought a new set - does that count? I'm going to say yes
because in the past I would have kept the old & the new)
10. Dumped all of the expired vitamins and medicine that we had (some dating as far back as 2010!!) - more on that below
11.  Possibly TMI but I got rid of a ton of old underwear - now I have to replace them, which is always fun.

10. Organize/clean 52 areas (that I wouldn't normally clean during my daily/weekly routines)
1. Organized my book shelves by giving away duplicate books, grouping the self-help novels together, grouping authors together that I have huge collections of, and alphabetizing the remaining books
2. Cleaned the area underneath the kitchen sink - it was a disaster. Now everything is organized
and accounted for
3. I cleaned the top of the hallway closet and threw out winter gear that had no matches along with
other little things that had no business being there (or anywhere). A small project, but a needed
one! (see pictures below)
4. I cleaned our "medicine cabinet" - we have a section of shelving in our kitchen where we keep vitamins and medicine. Most of the bottles were expired, and it was a mess up there. See before and after pics above. And yes, I am still taking prenatal vitamins. We plan on having one more baby so might as well stay healthy for that. To be honest I think I'll continue taking them indefinitely - they are great.

11. Email or call my Grandma weekly - Doing well with this one

12.  Do things to get me out of my comfort zone
1. I attended a mom/baby fitness class, and loved it so much that I'll be going weekly (with a friend     of mine pictured above)
2. Joined another mommy/baby fitness class (salsa) that I haven't started yet - it begins on Thursday and it's an hour away.  I joined with the same friend who comes to my neck of the woods once a week for the other classes we are doing.  This is out of my comfort zone for two reasons - the obvious one is attending and trying a new class, but also the fact that it is so far away.  I usually don't venture too far out of my bubble.  I'll be able to walk around after each class and explore a new city, so that'll be fun, and an added bonus.


Have a great week!

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