As many of you may know, our daughter who will soon be 20 years old, I felt very unwell for the first two weeks of January. Influenza A turned into bronchitis, which turned into bacterial pneumonia, and into the early stages of sepsis. After two trips to the ER in the first few days of January, she was admitted to the hospital’s ICU step-down unit for several days. (I’m so thankful they caught the sepsis at an early stage, otherwise it could have been much worse. Read more here. )
Although she has lost a lot of weight and is slow in her recovery, she feels well enough and her blood test results are good enough that she returned to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she lives and attends college. . (Thankfully, her term starts tomorrow instead of at the beginning of the month like many schools, so she has more time to rest and recover!)
She returned to her home in Murfreesboro today. I sent her a week’s worth of meals so she could eat nutritious food but not have to think about cooking and focus on continuing her recovery and school. Here’s what I made for her.
Food I made for Catherine:
She made a list of foods that looked delicious and I decided on meals based on this.
5 meals of charred ground beef and onions with steamed rice (I froze these so she could thaw and heat them when she needed them).
4 meals of grilled salmon and cooked rice
cooked quinoa
Homemade Energy Bites (I added protein powder to the mix to make it a little more hearty!)
Extras I sent with her:
Send with her for a quick meal or snack: Oatmeal packs, yogurt and granola, turkey and cheese, Quest bars, Cuties, steamed vegetables, cooked chicken, apples)
She plans to buy bread, milk, and a few other items. This should cover all your meals and snacks for the week.
Other things I made/baked:
While I was cooking, I made some extra for my family this week. Sourdough bread, 3 loaves of French bread (in the photo above it looks puffed up and looks even better when baked!!), Energy Bites, granola barground beef with rice, quinoa, and onions (I plan on adding potatoes and peas for dinner one night this week).
Homemade energy bites with protein powder
I’ve been saying for years that you can add protein powder as an extra in your homemade energy bite recipes, but I don’t think you actually do that. Added 2 favorites Justin’s Peanut Butter Cup Protein Powder I think it went very well. This way it packs a little more protein punch.
homemade granola bars
Can you believe it? Have you ever made homemade granola bars? This recipe has been on my site for years from my sister and I’ve always wanted to make it, but for some reason I always ended up buying granola bars (probably because they were so cheap at Aldi for years) Is it??)
On a whim, I decided to make homemade granola bars this weekend, but I didn’t have enough peanut butter, nor did I have the Rice Krispies or wheat germ needed to make my sister’s recipe. This recipe is available online I used healthy Cocoa Puffs instead of Rice Krispies and added chocolate chips. It was delicious! !
Would you like to see more meal prep posts like this? Let me know in the comments! Also, what types of meal prep posts would you especially like to see?
Source: Money Saving Mom® – moneysavingmom.com
