Skip to main content

All-Aldi meal plan for the first week back at work


Going back to work after baby is a huge adjustment when you just went through an adjustment just a few weeks ago! You have a few precious hours to soak up your baby in the evening, during the witching hours nonetheless. What’s key to your survival is meals that are filling, simple, don’t require a lot of  prep time and can give you leftovers so you don’t have to worry about lunches.

 You’ve got enough to think about so I’ve done the work for you. Each meal should make enough for two people to have for dinner one night and leftovers for lunch the next day.

 Sunday: Chili. I have my favorite technique but I never measure spices or make it the same way twice. I just dump. This recipe is similar but you can easily adapt chili to add any veggies you like. I rotate between using ground turkey and ground beef. Serve it over pasta or rice with cheese and other toppings. No matter how hard we try to finish a whole pot on our own, we always have to throw a serving or two away. We can't eat it fast enough. So if this is your first baby and you only have two mouths to feed, freeze a third of it! Pack leftovers for your lunches Monday.

 Monday: Campbell's chicken rice casserole and veggies from a microwave steamer bag. The prep time on this is fast even though it has to be in the oven for a while. Hand the super-simple recipe to your spouse and have them prepare it while you snuggle your baby after your first day of work!

 Tuesday: Spaghetti and meatballs (frozen kind from Aldi), bagged salad

 Wednesday: Salsa chicken. This is so quick to prep in the morning as a crock pot meal or in the evening in the instant pot and has so many ways you can serve it for leftovers. Make a double batch so it can serve as lunches for the rest of the week. 

 Thursday: Crock pot or instant pot roast. My secret ingredient to make it even more flavorful is Aldi steak seasoning.

 Friday: Dutch pancake, eggs and whatever breakfast meat is your favorite. Plus some fruit. On Fridays, I like to do a meal that takes a tad bit more prep time since I have the whole weekend to spend with my family instead of just that evening. Plus, I don't need to make sure we have lunches to pack for Saturday so it doesn't need to make easy leftovers. Dutch pancakes don't require you to stand over the skillet the whole time! I love to top them with berries. This is my favorite recipe for them and they are wonderful if you add blueberries before baking!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yes, read to your baby!

Babies are just lumps of cuteness that sleep, eat, cry and poop for months. They don't understand your words, but you still talk to them, right? While they don't understand the stories in books, it's still important to read to babies. Research finds that early exposure to language has a “profound influence on children's learning through life,” according to this NPR story from 2014 . There's nothing to lose by reading to a young baby, only something to gain. To read to a baby or child, you are close to them, which is a bonding experience too! The article states: "Just one-third of children in families below the poverty threshold are read to daily. That statistic improves as family income rises. But less than two-thirds of children in families making $95,400 for a family of four are read to daily, according to the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health. As a result, children in poorer families lag behind in language processing as earl...
20 comments
Read more

Aldi turkey chili recipe

This is the chili that snagged me a man. Kind of. When I started dating my husband, I was so excited to have someone to cook for. Once, I told him I was making chili. He sounded disappointed. He said he didn't like chili. He loves this chili and it's not even a pity, "Dinner was good" sort of thing. He says we could have it every week and he'd be fine with it. We joke it's the chili that made him know I was the one. I started perfecting this recipe shortly after I graduated from college. I don't like chunks of onion or peppers so this recipe doesn't have any of that. You certainly can add that in if you're into that kind of thing. This is a great basic chili recipe that isn't too spicy. My husband likes it best served over pasta with cheese but we've also had it over rice, tater tots, hot dogs, French fries...the possibilities are endless. One note: I am a recipe skimper. When I see a recipe online and I see an ingredient I don...
Post a Comment
Read more

Little Lights in my Life in August

I've been in a rut lately. A meal planning, writing, reading, outfit-wearing rut. That means I don't have much to write about. The heat must be sucking out my motivation! That means the things that have made me smile in the last month or so are even more special. The rut makes me grateful for the little things. 1. Two new meals we've tried have been awesome! These ground beef gyros from Mashup mom are delicious. I used Penzey's Greek seasoning in them. We also just tried Instant Pot ragu from Damn Delicious. My son literally cried for 10 minutes when dinner was over. This is a keeper for sure. Both take a little bit more time than I'd like for a weeknight meal, so they'll be double batch weekend dinners for sure to give us some awesome leftovers. 2. This book captured my heart and made it so I didn't want to read anything else for a while. I learned a lot about another culture and got caught up in a beautiful but sad story. I couldn't stop talki...
Post a Comment
Read more