What I Eat in A Day: Minimal Cooking

Here’s a look into what I’m eating when I just don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen!

Welcome to another installment of “What I Eat in A Day” minimal cooking edition! I’ve said before how much I love a glimpse into what other people eat in a day. I get so much inspiration from them, so I love sharing mine too.

Recently I’ve been MIA from this blog. I’m still trying to figure out the work from home with baby lifestyle. Trying to balance it all while still giving Nolan my full attention is practically impossible, but I’m trying! I’ve also been somewhat uninspired with creating recipes – I just want to get into the kitchen and cook/eat without thinking.

So this “What I Eat in A Day” reflects that. There’s minimal cooking and lots of easy-to-grab items. For this particular season of my life I’m about quick, nourishing, tasty food that doesn’t have a huge time commitment. You may look at some of these meals and think it’s a lot of work, and that’s ok. We all have different perspectives on what easy and minimal cooking is. For me, it’s mostly things I don’t have to think much about that don’t require a lot of dishes. Because while I love cooking, I HATE the cleanup!

Breakfast

Breakfast has proved to be my most challenging meal. Pre-baby I could leisurely have my coffee and make breakfast. Now things are obviously different! Nolan wakes up between 6 and 7, so my routine is to feed him before we make our way downstairs. He’s super happy and playful in the morning so it’s hard to take time away from him to figure out breakfast for myself.

Cooking up an egg takes only a few minutes, add a piece of toast, some fruit, and I’m good to go. Plus coffee (I’m a decaf drinker), of course. I’ve been totally obsessed with cherries. I bought a huge container at Costco and basically ate them with every meal until they were gone.

Snack

I don’t always have a morning snack depending on what time I eat breakfast. On this particular day I had breakfast before 7, so by 10:30 I was ready to have a little something.

Celery with peanut butter is a total nostalgic snack. It’s easy and always tasty. I used my favorite peanut butter (Kirkland brand), which contains just peanuts and salt.

Lunch

This snack plate lunch was inspired by Robyn from The Real Life RD. I love following her for intuitive eating content. Plus, she shares a lot of important messages about woman’s health and is really just inspiring in many different aspects.

A few weeks ago she shared how she was doing snack plates for lunch and it made me want one. I used to do this a lot and kind of got away from it, so I was happy to be inspired again.

I made a quick caprese salad with cherry tomatoes and basil from garden, a few cubes of mozzarella, and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic. There is nothing like caprese salad in the summer. It’s SO good.

I also made The Best Hummus from Cookie and Kate earlier in the week. And oh my gosh you guys, it really is the best. SO creamy and tasty. I even picked up a case of chickpeas from Costco so that I can make it every week.

The rest is pretty self-explanatory – pretzels, pita chips, and carrots for dipping into the hummus. Deli turkey and a hard boiled egg for protein, and of course more fresh cherries.

Snack

Throughout my pregnancy and now postpartum, cereal is a go-to snack for me. I’m breastfeeding and hella hungry all day long with little time to actually eat. So what is easier than tossing some cereal into a bowl and topping it with milk? Nothing. It’s the easiest snack ever.

Judge me if you will for this particular choice (Cinnamon Toast Crunch), but it’s nostalgic, satisfies my sweet tooth, and I had it left from when my niece was here. Sure some cereals are better than others when it comes to ingredients/sugar content, but sometimes you just want the sugary cereal.

Dinner

This meal was SO good. Korean-Style sloppy joes are insanely tasty and incredibly easy. I used this recipe and didn’t bother making the kimchi cucumbers. Instead, I used jarred kimchi and tossed some sliced cucumbers with sesame seeds, rice vinegar, and sesame oil.

The meat part is also really easy – you measure everything into a bowl with ground beef (I think pork or turkey would work just as well) and let it marinate. Then just sauté it with onions until it’s cooked. All of the ingredients are something I had on hand. I have a well-stocked pantry and we are fortunate to have access to local pasture raised beef. So this was a really simple and tasty meal for us. For a side, I roasted up some potatoes (freshly dug from our garden) and called it a day.

Dessert

Dinner was quite heavy on the heat, so I was really wanting something cool and sweet later on. This was one of those fancy flavored gelatos – either caramel mocha or coffee chocolate chip, I can’t remember. Both are very good. I’ve also been really into sprinkles lately, which is so odd for me because I NEVER liked sprinkles on ice cream. As a kid I wouldn’t even eat ice cream with sprinkles, but for some reason I’m into them now.

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I hope you enjoyed another glimpse into what I’m eating. I’d love to know what you’re eating too! I’ll (hopefully) be back next week with a new recipe.