It’s Sunday and you know what that means…meal preppity prep prep day. I have no idea why I just called it that. Let’s quickly move on, shall we?
Okay first things first: I totally messed up my back last year. It’s a long (kind-of) story. Seems I was on the road to messing up my back due to the aging process and some disc stuff, then I had an injury (yes, I fell down a flight of stairs at an Airbnb), and then ignoring all of that and proceeding to exercise 4 times a week without knowing what my core was. Whatevs. When you know better, you do better and thank goodness last year (and continuing on this year) two incredible women (Emily with Thrive Physical Therapy and Wellness and Linay with Steel City Pilates) came into my life like fairy dust and have helped me reconnect with and understand my body. What does this have to do with meal prep on Sundays? Well, I found that I’d do all of this wonderful body work during the week and then undo all of it on Sundays because I’d stand for 4 hours without paying any attention to my core and now I’m doing better. Okay, okay…TODAY I’m doing better (because Linay helped me see all of this last week). So for all you folks out there battling the aging discs, aching joints, and everything in between – be careful on your meal prep days because the damage can sneak up on you fast.
Second thing: There’s talk of snow, ice, freezing drizzle, freezing rain, sleet, or the potential to just be cold. That’s how winter weather goes in Alabama. I’ve already warned the kids and they are like, “Sure, Sure…we’ll see about all that.” Blargh. I refuse to lose the “it might snow” hope that was instilled in my little Southern baby heart many (many, many) years ago. Yes, I realize that I’m only setting myself up for disappointment, but I am Southern. I WILL ALWAYS HOPE FOR SNOW.
Today’s meal prep is going to be all about soups! I mean, why not? IT MIGHT SNOW FOR GOODNESS SAKES.
First up is the Minimalist Baker’s Creamy Tuscan White Bean & Kale (I used Spinach) Soup with her homemade croutons. I followed the recipe (mostly) and am really pleased with the outcome. A few things to note: if you use a larger can of diced tomatoes because you didn’t have anything smaller, just add more coconut milk at the end. Also, you should ALWAYS make the homemade croutons. For anything. Not just this soup. I mean, why don’t I do this more often? I could eat the entire tray. But, I won’t. I mean, I think I won’t.
Second, is Crack Chicken Soup by The Recipe Critic. I guess it is called crack soup because it starts with bacon, includes a ranch dressing pack, and ends with cheese? I don’t know why we have to associate those delicious things with crack, but I’ll go along. I needed another soup to balance out the vegetarian soup featured before this one. Okay and fine…I figured if I used all of those ingredients my kids would indulge me. I decided to do it in the Instant Pot while the other soup cooked on the stove. This soup is good. Very good. You should try it.
Last recipe today is Alison Roman’s Pumpkin Maple Muffins. I was scrolling my way through Instagram and stumbled upon Jennifer Garner making these. God, I love Jennifer Garner. Don’t you? Here’s the video should you need proof of how great she is. Also, I want those leg warmer thingies she’s wearing. Okay, back to the recipe. I made this as written UNTIL I noticed that my canned pumpkin expired in 2021. Whoopsie-daisy. How does that even happen? Maybe that’s indicative of how much I use pumpkin in my life. So, I put all of the wet ingredients together (even down to the browned butter part, which was supposed to go in after I added the dry ingredients) and waited patiently for my Shipt grocery order to arrive with the canned pumpkin. Then I just added the pumpkin, mixed in the dry ingredients, and guess what? All worked out splendidly. In Jenn’s video (see how I just pretended we were BFF?), she ended up having to make a bunch of small muffins with the leftover batter. I just waited until the first batch was done and made 5 additional big muffins. These are delicious and I’ve already had two today. No shame. The end.
That’s it for today because I’m trying to be thoughtful with this back of mine. Hope you are having a great weekend. Now, I’ll just go and obsessively watch the weather. Bye!