Favorite Meals/Foods

(Louise M) #1

I was just wondering what everyone’s favorite meals are?

Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner:
Snacks if you have any:

I am trying to come up with a meal plan but am simply awful at it :grimacing: . I enjoy the cooking part but the planning part I always have trouble with. I prefer to make in bulk as it makes the prepping easy for our crazy lives at home. I need flavor, quick and easy meals. Also I am trying to do all of this on a budget as well. I don’t want to break the bank. I already normally try not to eat out or processed foods so I know eating healthy can be expensive. I am not looking to buy any “Special” products just want healthy food options where I do not need to buy “extra” items.

Thanks in advance

(Lazy, Dirty Keto 😝) #2

Breakfast - usually none but if I do, a nice fat-filled coffee, bacon and eggs, or an omelette

Lunch - usually my OMAD and I usually cook the night before and pack for my lunch the next day or 2. So it widely varies. Chicken thighs, steak, burgers, etc.

Dinner - see lunch

Snacks - almonds, cheese, pepperoni, pork rinds although I don’t snack much anymore

#3

I do cheap and easy keto meal preps based on the proteins that are on sale in a given week.

Otherwise, my pantry list is mostly geared around lazy microwave recipes.

Favorite meals :

  • Smoked salmon + capers + Jalapeno cream cheese + chopped hard-boiled eggs + diced onions
  • “Everything” omelets
  • Pizza
  • Meat and veggie “dump” soups (includes chili and curries)

Favorite snacks :

I subscribe to these YouTube channels for all kinds of recipe ideas :

(Khara) #4

:+1::+1: My favorite is a giant family pack of chicken legs and/or thighs. We Traeger (BBQ) them and then can eat on them for several days. Makes lunch and dinner super easy. We can add a veggie if we want but often only want the meat.

For breakfast I like having a quiche or frittata egg bake already made and this can be made in muffin tins to be more portable. There’s tons of recipes out there but you can pretty much throw anything in without ruining it.

(Carl Keller) #5

If you have an Aldi near you, their pork and poultry prices are great. I can get chicken quarters (leg and thigh attached) for less than $1.00 a pound. For less than $5.00 I can buy a pack of 4 quarters and easily get 2 meals out of them. They have pork roasts that run around $10.00 for 4 pounds and that’s easily 2 meals. Eggs are a great source of nutrtion and can be found for around $1.00 a dozen.

Also check at your local super market for specially priced meats. As they near their expiration date, you can find really good deals because the store would rather get half price than throw the food away and get nothing. Be nice to the in-store butchers and ask them if they know of any good deals to be had.

(Marianne) #6

We are eating OMAD and that is usually a nice piece of meat (pork steak, steak, hamburger, etc. - if it’s not a fatty cut of meat, I add bacon fat), and some cole slaw (mayo, spices, vinegar - OMG). Depending on how hungry we are or how big the piece of meat is, we may have an oz. or two of pepperoni, a little bit of cheese, hard boiled egg. Sometimes I made a salad with a ton of stuff on it - eggs, cheese, meat, blue cheese, etc. I definitely don’t fuss but we eat great!

#7

On a discussion elsewhere, it was pointed out that bone and skin/fat make up about 60% of the weight of bone-in, skin-on thighs, so getting boneless and skinless thighs would be cheaper even at $2.50 a pound. If all you want is the meat.

(Carl Keller) #8

The skin and fat is life! Why would anyone not want to pay for the most delicious part of the thigh?

Comparing Walmart’s skinless/boneless thighs @ $2.15/pound vs Aldi’s bone in quarters @ $2.23/pound, the price difference is trivial. I imagine the chicken company makes a killing when we buy the boneless/skinless stuff since they can use the refuse to make pet food or stock and turn it into pure profit.

If you like boneless thighs, it’s fairly easy to debone it if you have a small, sharp knife and know where to cut:

#9

I would never remove the bone myself. It falls off after cooking anyway. My only point is that if all you need is the meat, it can be cheaper to buy boneless and skinless at a much higher price per pound.

Personally, I shouldn’t eat the skin. Too many calories.

(Carl Keller) #10

I just gave you an example and it came out to a 8 cent difference. That’s hardly a “much higher price”. :stuck_out_tongue:

#11

Comparing apples to apples…

If you account for the weight of the bones then it can be much higher.

$2.15 per pound boneless x 5 pounds of all meat = $10.75

$2.23 per pound x 5 pounds with bones = $11.15
If 1 pound is bone, you’re getting 4 pounds of meat which equates to $2.78 per pound of meat. (I’m guessing the weight of bone. Haven’t weighed them lately.)

That’s about 30% price difference.

Personally, I think the bone adds a lot of flavor depending on the cooking method so the extra is often worth it.

(Carl Keller) #12

Sure but if you are not getting the skin and some of the fat, you are giving up calories. Both of those things contribute to satiety. So which has more caloric value? A boneless, skinless trimmed thigh or a decked out thigh?

According to cronometer.com, one Tyson, skinless, boneless thigh @ 3oz is 98.72 calories while one Tyson natural thigh @ 4oz is 250 calories. My belief is that the latter thigh is going to do a much bettter job at pacifying my hunger.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #13

My mother taught me to figure the price per serving, rather than the price per pound. By her logic, the more-expensive ground beef was often a better deal, because less of it ran off as fat.

By my considerations, however, since the fat is going to become part of the sauce and is therefore not lost, the logic works out a little differently. But the principle still applies, and if eating the fat reduces the size of the serving needed, then bone-in might well be more economical.

(Ethan) #14

Steak

#15

Here’s what I’m referring to:

In their sample size, the weight split was about 40% meat, 30% bone, and 30% skin and fat. I usually wait for chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on) to be less than $1 a pound. Alternatively, I could get a similar bargain with boneless, skinless chicken thighs if they were $2.50 a pound.

For example, right now from Walmart, I can get bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs for $1.13 a pound, and boneless, skinless chicken thighs for $2.32 a pound. So, technically, if all I want is the thigh meat, the bone-in, skin-on is going to end up costing me $2.75 a pound. Much cheaper to get the boneless, skinless to begin with.

#16

The article I cited above claims 30% of the weight is bone and 30% of the weight is skin and fat. So, actually, it’s $5.43 per pound of meat.

(Will knit for bacon. ) #17

Do you have a pressure cooker or a slow cooker? You can cook a huge beef or pork roast and have leftovers for days and freeze what you don’t eat for later.

Brussels sprouts or broccoli or some other favorite veg roasted on a sheet pan with bacon or chicken on a rack above them so they get basted in the drippings as they cook is delicious.

I like Whisps cheese crisps for snacks, or full-fat cottage cheese. Breakfast involves coffee, for the safety of those around me, and eggs in some form.

I’m also a fan of baby spinach salads. Baby spinach with whatever leftover meat, cheese, cold veg, and sauce I have floating around in the fridge. Excellent with taco meat or French dip meat.