So here’s plan from the Plan Prep Pour household last week.  And I’m going to put a large emphasis on the word plan this week.  You know how sometimes you do everything you can to make a week successful?  You plan.  You prep.  You’re organized.  You’ve got this.

Right up until when you don’t.  Things got out of hand at our house last week.  Football practice started.  Soccer started.  Suddenly there was a Lego robotics club meeting.  Oh, and that appointment after school Thursday…..getting the picture?  So I hope my plan helps, but I also wanted you to know I didn’t follow most of it. Because sometimes, even with the best laid plans, it doesn’t work that way.

Breakfasts for the week – this was easy, and I actually ate them every day!  I bought some fresh pico de gallo at the grocery store (Safeway) and each morning I scrambled two eggs, added the pico until heated through, and served with some diced avocado.

Lunches – those largely went as planned for me too.  I’d cooked up enough chicken breast for the whole week.  A couple days I had it just shredded on top of a bagged salad blend of greens (thank you Trader Joe’s and Safeway for having a bunch of these that make my life easier) and bottled dressing.  But for 2 lunches I really enjoyed this new (to me) mason jar salad recipe for Cobb Salad in a Jar with Buttermilk Ranch from Skinnytaste.  In fact, they were so good, I’m making more for this week!

Here’s where things got a little crazy.  Dinners.  Which apparently we have to have every day?

Monday – so as you can see, the plan for Monday was a lentil soup with chicken made in the pressure cooker.  But that didn’t happen.  Instead we had some leftovers from the week before.  I can’t even remember at this point why it didn’t happen.

Tuesday – I made the soup.  And thank goodness, because it had to serve as leftovers later in the week too.  And it was amazing.  Even my pickiest most discerning child ate it and asked for seconds.  This too is a skinnytaste recipes.  Pressure Cooker Lentil and Chicken Soup – I made it exactly as written and it was perfection (with a little hot sauce added to the adult servings).  I will say this, the recipe doesn’t warn you that pressure cookers also take time to come to the right temperature.  So it’s not done in the 30 minutes specified.  Mine took between 15-20 to get there.  So it was done in 45-50 minutes, not 30.  But it couldn’t have been easier to throw together, and it allowed me to help with homework while it cooked. One other thing, though, if you are a calorie counter/tracker.  I think that hers are off on this one, as she says it’s 8 servings at 129 calories each.  But my lentils alone had more calories than that…I commented on the blog, but it’s remained “subject to moderation” for over a week.  At 8 servings I clocked it at closer to 250/275 calories (still totally reasonable), but you’ll want to check it yourself if that matters to you.

Wednesday – No turkey meatball soup was ever made.  But that was the plan, and I’m sure it is delicious.  Here’s a link in case you want to try it:  Turkey Meatball Tortellini Soup.  You see Wednesday it turned out we had football from 5:15 – 6:15.  So instead I decided to pack the kids “dinner boxes.”  These yumboxes are my favorite thing for packing kids lunches or other meals on the go.  We ate PB&J, carrots and ranch, strawberries, and yogurt at the park and in the car.  The feral animals My adorable children were still hungry when we got home, but I was able to appease them with some apples and peanut butter during homework time.

Thursday – I was really looking forward to creating a new original recipe for black bean soup, but it will have to wait.  Legos and appointments and unplanned Target trips prevented cooking.  I let the heathens the children have lunchables from Target for dinner.  They thought I was the BEST MOM EVER.   For five minutes anyway.  We’ll try black bean soup again soon.

Friday – They ate their planned takeout and I went out with some girlfriends.

Saturday – friends took pity on us, and invited us for football and dinner.

Sunday – as I type this, I’m ready to prepare this pasta casserole (which I have made before and is delicious).  I love it, because you don’t have to cook the noodles ahead of time.  Chicken Sausage and Peppers Macaroni Casserole – I leave the mushrooms out because the rest of my household is ridiculously picky has such discerning palates.

Have a great week – I hope this plan provides you with more guidance than it did me!

Cheers.