Skinnytaste Meal Plan (April 2-April 8)

A free 7-day flexible meal plan including breakfast, lunch and dinner and a shopping list. All recipes include calories and Weight Watchers Freestyle Smart Points.

Hope you all have a wonderful Spring break! Sharing another week of meals, please let me know how I can improve these meal plans for you in the future.

If you’re new to my meal plans, I’ve been sharing free, 7-day flexible healthy meal plans (you can see my previous meal plans here) that are meant as a guide, with plenty of wiggle room for you to add more food, coffee, beverages, fruits, snacks, dessert, wine, etc. You should aim for around 1500 calories* a day.

There’s also a precise, organized grocery list that will make grocery shopping so much easier and much less stressful. Save you money and time. You’ll dine out less often, waste less food and you’ll have everything you need on hand to help keep you on track.

Lastly, if you’re on Facebook join my Skinnytaste Facebook Community where everyone’s sharing photos of recipes they are making, you can join here. I’m loving all the ideas everyone’s sharing!

THE DETAILS:

Breakfast and lunch Monday-Friday, are designed to serve 1 while dinners and all meals on Saturday and Sunday are designed to serve a family of 4. Some recipes make enough leftovers for two nights or lunch the next day. While we truly believe there is no one size fits all meal plan, we did our best to come up with something that appeals to a wide range of individuals. Everything is Weight Watchers friendly, I included the updated Weight Watcher Freestyle Points for your convenience, feel free to swap out any recipes you wish or just use this for inspiration!

The grocery list is comprehensive and includes everything you need to make all meals on the plan. I’ve even included brand recommendations of products I love and use often. Cross check your cabinets because many condiments you’ll notice I use often, so you may already have a lot of them.

And last, but certainly not least, this meal plan is flexible and realistic. There’s plenty of wiggle room for cocktails, healthy snacks, dessert and dinner out. And if necessary, you can move some things around to make it work with your schedule. Please let me know if you’re using these plans, this will help me decide if I should continue sharing them!

MONDAY (4/2)
B: 2 hard boiled eggs (0) and 1 cup grapes (0)
L: Tomato, Fresh Mozzarella, Roasted Pepper on Whole Wheat Bread (10)
D: Crock Pot Minestrone Soup (2) with White Bean Caprese Salad (2)
Totals: Freestyle Points 14, Calories 936*

TUESDAY (4/3)
B: 2 hard boiled eggs (0) and 1 cup grapes (0)
L: LEFTOVER Crock Pot Minestrone Soup (2) with White Bean Caprese Salad (2)
D: Grilled Steak Lettuce Tacos (4) with Mexican Cauliflower Rice (1)
Totals: Freestyle Points 9, Calories 894*

WEDNESDAY (4/4)
B: Skinny Overnight Oats in a Jar (5)
L: LEFTOVER Crock Pot Minestrone Soup (2) with White Bean Caprese Salad (2)
D: Chicken and Asparagus Lemon Stir-fry (1) over ¾ cup brown rice (5)
Totals: Freestyle Points 15, Calories 1,007*

THURSDAY (4/5)
B: Skinny Overnight Oats in a Jar (5)
L: Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Avocado and Tomato (4) and an apple (0)
D: Crockpot Kid Friendly Turkey Chili (0) topped with 1 ounce avocado (1) and 2 tablespoons reduced fat cheddar (1)
Totals: Freestyle Points 11, Calories 906*

FRIDAY (4/6)
B: 6 ounces nonfat plain Greek yogurt (0) topped with 1 cup sliced strawberries (0) and 1 tablespoon sliced almonds (1)
L: LEFTOVER Crockpot Kid Friendly Turkey Chili (0) topped with 1 ounce avocado (1) and 2 tablespoons reduced fat cheddar (1)
D: Seattle Asian Salmon Bowl (7)
Totals: Freestyle Points 10, Calories 889*

SATURDAY (4/7)
B: Ricotta Cheese Chocolate Chip Muffins (8) with an orange (0)
L: Chicken Quiche (6)
D: DINNER OUT!
Totals: Freestyle Points 14, Calories 591*

SUNDAY (4/8)
B: LEFTOVER Ricotta Cheese Chocolate Chip Muffins (8) with an orange (0)
L: Buffalo Turkey Cheeseburger with Blue Cheese and Broccoli Slaw (8)
D: Chicken Francese-Lightened Up (2) with spinach salad (1)**
Totals: Freestyle Points 19, Calories 903*

*This is just a guide, women should aim for around 1500 calories per day. Here’s a helpful calculator to estimate your calorie needs. I’ve left plenty of wiggle room for you to add more food such as coffee, beverages, fruits, snacks, dessert, wine, etc.

** Salad includes  1 ½ cups spinach, ¼ cup halved grape tomatoes, sliced red onion,  and 2 tablespoons light Italian dressing.

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Meal Plan for April Week 1

This month, Summer Miller is back, sharing her meal plans for April. Summer is a mom, a full-time food writer, and also helps test the fabulous recipes we bring you every week at Simply Recipes.

Warmer temperatures bring with them a familiar ease to life – more daylight hours, fewer coat buttons to button and less headwear to adorn before flinging open the front door and stepping casually into the sunshine.

Spring comes around to remind us that being outside is a privilege and not a punishment.

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.simplyrecipes.com/best_recipes/meal_plan_for_april_week_1_2018/

Chicken Quiche

This easy lighter chicken quiche is made with refrigerated pie crust and loaded with spinach and mushrooms but you can use any combination of vegetables. A great recipe to clean out the refrigerator!

Chicken Quiche

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.skinnytaste.com/chicken-quiche/

How to Cook Asparagus on the Stovetop

Hello spring and hello asparagus! What’s your favorite way to cook asparagus?

I love them grilled, roasted, baked in to a frittata, or made into soup. But if I’m honest with you, the method I use most often to cook asparagus is to shallow boil them on the stovetop.

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Savory Dutch Baby Pancake with Salmon and Fried Egg

My first food memory is of sitting on a kitchen countertop watching Anna, the young German woman who came to our house to help with cleaning and tidying, pull a puffy pancake out of the oven.

It was the biggest pancake I had ever seen. She slathered it with butter, sprinkled it with lemon, and doused it with a snowy shower of powdered sugar. I was fascinated.

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Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad

Super Moist Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This super moist carrot cake recipe made from scratch is perfect for Easter or anytime of the year. Made with a can of crushed pineapple which makes it very moist, without adding a ton of fat.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.skinnytaste.com/super-moist-carrot-cake-with-cream/

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Muffins

There’s a coffee shop by our house in Seattle that makes a great, substantial chocolate chip muffin with a nice crusty top that isn’t at all too sweet. I’m quite smitten with it.

Recently, I decided to recreate them at home, only making them gluten-free and dairy-free so we could share them with our extended family and friends, many of whom have food sensitivities and allergies.

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/gluten_free_chocolate_chip_muffins/

Smoked Salmon Pinwheels

These elegant smoked salmon pinwheels are perfect if you want to enjoy lox without the bagels for a low-carb, keto appetizer.

Smoked Salmon Pinwheels

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.skinnytaste.com/smoked-salmon-pinwheels/

10 Easter Recipes for Your Family Table

Easter means it’s officially spring, and spring means fresh eggs, lamb, asparagus and artichokes, and citrus!

Whether you’re looking for something classic, or for a new dish to add to the mix, here are some of our favorite recipes for the Easter table.

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Pastelón (Puerto Rican Plantain “Lasagna”)

Pastelón, the Puerto Rican layered meat and sweet plantain pie, is one of those recipes that can divide families.

Being a “Nuyorican” (a Puerto Rican from New York), I found this to be true when my husband and I came together over our first dish of pastelón. As a native Puerto Rican, he argued that my version “wasn’t the real deal.”

It was as real to me as his attitude, so I defended my version tooth and nail!

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pastelon_puerto_rican_plantain_lasagna/

March Coffee Date

We’re already coming to the end of March which means…

A) SUMMER IS SO CLOSE I CAN LITERALLY TASTE IT!!!

B) It’s been a minute! We should catch up! Coffee Date style.

Spring drinks of choice have been mango kale smoothies (I’m hopping back on the train!), iced crafted press-es from Caribou, green tea lemonades, and iced royal tea lattes from Sencha but let’s be honest, that never changes. I even had a rogue WATERMELON juice the other day that was so good and so summery it almost made me cry.

But today, for this “coffee date,” I am actually drinking a big ol jug of minty cucumber water! Um, yeah. It’s taking my entire life up a few notches. More on that in a second.

Let’s chat about March.

I Switched To Beautycounter And I Wasn’t SUper Impressed.

SAY WHAT? I know. Call me crazy, but especially for the skincare, I don’t think I would spend the money again. I just didn’t love the products enough to justify the extra cost, especially when I feel like I can find other clean skincare alternatives that work just as well at more of a drugstore-level price. The lotion never really hydrated my face and the cleansers didn’t feel like anything special to me.

The good news is that even if my Beautycounter skincare spree was kind of a bust, I have found a lot of clean beauty products over the last few years that I can strongly recommend:

• Burt’s Bees Sensitive Face Wash – Clean, easy to find, and affordable.
• Burt’s Bees Milk and Honey Body Lotion – Ditto.
• 100% Pure Potent PM Serum
• 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented 2nd Skin Foundation – Okay, I LOVE THIS STUFF. I only recently started wearing foundation in the last few years and it has been a game-changer. This one is so lightweight and it feels so much better and more natural than anything else I’ve tried. I use Shade 4.
• 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Long Last Concealer in Peach Bisque
• 100% Pure Long Last Brows in Blonde
• 100% Pure Creamy Long Last Liner in Blackest
• 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Pretty Naked II Palette
• Pacifica Mascara – Annoying, because I would have really preferred to keep it all in the 100% Pure family, but the 100% Pure mascara stung in my eyes.
• Beautycounter Mattifying Powder – LOVE because I have very oily skin.
• Beautycounter Bronzer

Also worth mentioning that last year I used the Vintner’s Daughter Active Botanical Serum as my night-time moisturizer and I really liked it. If you want a skincare splurge and you’re into oils, it’s luxurious and lovely.

Okay, are you a clean makeup / skincare enthusiast? What are your favorite products? Does anyone have a good clean shampoo recommendation? That’s one I haven’t found yet.

Also, tell me what you think about Beautycounter. Are you a fan? I love their other stuff (listed above), and if I didn’t mind dropping $50 every month, I would totally buy their lemon sugar scrub on the regular. It was just the skincare that wasn’t right for me.

1A. Eyelash Extension Update

I didn’t keep them up. They’re gone. Too expensive. Too time-consuming. Very pretty, but not worth it for me. End of story.

I Need To Drink More Water.

Like, we probably all do. So I’m trying a few hacks.

1. Adding mint, cucumber, lemon, and other yummies to my water each day. Kind of obvious, but for me it’s a good place to start.
2. Drinking out of a peppy 20 ounce tumbler with a straw. Just more pleasant, IMHO.
3. Only refilling when I’m finished with my existing water so I can track how much I’m actually drinking.

My goal is three of those guys per day (plus additional water from juice, coffee, soups, fruit/veg, etc.), which probably isn’t all that lofty of a goal, but to me it feels kind of epic.

Anyone got any other get-yourself-to-drink-more-water-hacks that I should know about?

Bullet Journal Is Life.

I have gone back and forth and back again on every kind of calendar out there, and I think the Bullet Journal has had more staying power for me than all the other methods combined. Here’s why: it’s customizable. You can make it be what you need / want it to be. If you need specific time slots, add specific time slots. If you need it loose, just keep it loose.

Here’s what mine looks like at the beginning of the week, when I put in my scheduled events with a little circle and leave space for the rest of the week to fill up as needed:

And at the end of the week:

I use a modified version of this Bullet Journaling shortcode to keep track of what I’ve done, what needs to still get done, what I decided not to do, etc. Bullet Journals are good for people who like to kind of build their own thing. It is basically a next-level to-do list that is highly personal and doubles as a calendar and/or a journal.

How do you keep your life organized? Do you use a physical planner / journal / calendar?

I Made Myself a Mini-Jungle-SPa In My Office And It Makes Me Feel Happy.

Chair, diffuser on side table, and plant shelves over top. That’s all you need to make a jungle spa in your very own home. This corner of my office is my favorite place EVER! It’s where I sit in the morning to just kind of center myself before the day starts. Music, journal, pray, meditate, read, avoid email, all of the above.

It’s also where I pile the junk that I don’t know what to do with. Very handy for that.

What’s your happiest place in your home?

We Got a TV!

We didn’t have one (2009-2013), then we had one (2013-2014), then we didn’t have one again (2014-2018), and now we have one again (2018)! This is our struggle. Thank you for understanding.

What is your TV set up? Any no-TV-ers in the house?!?!

That’s all from me!

But that’s not all from Sage.

She would like to look into your eyes and say HEY! You’re gettin’ it done! You’re working hard! You’re rising above! YOU ARE AWESOME!

She would also like you to know that even when you make mistakes, you can always try again.

And she will be trying again in April.

Sage loves you guys.

Cheers to a great coffee (tea / latte / cucumber water) date! See you next month.

The post March Coffee Date appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

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Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup

HOW TO MAKE CREAM OF CHICKEN SOUP

To make this homemade cream of chicken soup, I took a page from making gumbo and started with a roux, which is a combination of fat and flour that helps to thicken soups, intensify flavors and keep the fat from separating out from the other liquids in the soup. The darker the roux the more flavorful the soup, but how dark you go is up to you.

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/homemade_cream_of_chicken_soup/

Cheesy Funeral Potatoes From Scratch

WHAT ARE FUNERAL POTATOES?

Funeral Potatoes are a cheesy, creamy, spoonable potato casserole usually made with butter, sour cream, cream of something soup, frozen shredded potatoes, and a cornflake or bread crumb topping. They are often associated with Southern and Mormon cultures, specifically the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Relief Society (a women-led organization founded in 1842 and dedicated to serving those in need).

However, nearly every region of the U.S. its own version of this potato casserole under a different name. They’re sometimes called cheesy potatoes, hash brown casserole, or party potatoes, among other names.

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8174097 https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cheesy_funeral_potatoes_from_scratch/

Hot Cross Buns

Easy Hot Cross Buns using this easy dough from my Bagel Recipe. No yeast, no boiling, no fancy mixer. Bake them in the oven or in the air-fryer!

Hot Cross Buns

Confession, I have never had a hot cross bun, although I did play it on my recorder in grade school! But I looked at several recipes and noticed the dough was pretty similar to my bagel dough, with the addition of raisins, cinnamon and a glaze on top. I tested them out keeping the sugar on the lighter side, since the glaze on top adds more sweetness and we loved them. I guess you can call them bagel cross buns, if you wish! Serve them Easter morning with some hard boiled eggs and fruit!

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