As many of you know, this past Saturday was the kickoff to our gym’s biannual diet challenge, called the Eat-for-Life! Challenge. Coincidentally (or perhaps not:) ), this past Saturday was also a CFCOA vegetable co-op weekend as well, meaning my fridge was a well-stocked arsenal for fighting off bad eating habits and jumpstarting my 6-week journey.

Since I’m not much of a football fan,  I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen today with my newfound spare time cooking up some AMAZING meals for the week. Here are a couple of things I prepared.

First of all, I plainly cooked up lots of chicken (I’m not the best or most creative at cooking meats – I just make sure I have my protein). Then, I made a ton of sides with the co-op veggies. With the cauliflower, I made  http://nomnompaleo.com/post/3376620999/roasted-curried-cauliflower. If you have never tried this recipe, it is a MUST! NomNomPaleo is perhaps my favorite go-to recipe site. With the eggplant, I sliced it, lightly coated it on both sides with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then broiled it for 8 minutes. Then, I took both the fennel and some kale, set the oven to 400 degrees, brushed the veggies again with olive oil, salt, and pepper (and added balsamic vinegar to the fennel), and roasted them for 30 minutes. When everything was finished, I portioned out the veggies with some chicken and viola! I now have 4 meals ready to go.

Then, I decided to make some chimichurri so that I can simply cook up some beef and throw it on top along with a small salad of arugula and spinach for some more meals this week. Chimichurri lasts a LONG time in your fridge, so it’s a great topping to have around. Here is a simple recipe for it from no other than SimplyRecipes.com: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chimichurri/.

Happy and healthy eating everyone!