Hey guys, welcome back to another Sunday Reset. If you're new to my channel, welcome. My name is Monique and I'm a busy full-time working mum of three.
I spend a couple of hours each Sunday to prepare meals and snacks for the week to come. Every week looks a little bit different depending on how busy we are throughout the week. I first look at my diary just to make sure that I am getting as prepared as possible for the week. I aim to have minimal waste in the home and since I've been focusing on this process, we really do have minimal waste. Here is my fridge on Saturday night.
As you can see, there is... barely anything left ready to be all filled up on the Sunday. I'm always making sure that I look through my fridge, freezer and pantry to use up anything that I can. So here I've got a couple of vegetables that I'll be using up in today's meals.
Once I've looked through my fridge I also give the fridge a wipe out and then every second to third week I take everything out of the fridge, give all the shelves and the drawers a good clean and check any expiration dates. It saves a lot of money throughout the year making sure that I'm using up everything that I can instead of doubling up. And here's my container drawer all ready to go for my Sunday reset.
Good morning. So it's now Sunday. So I'm just going to head to the shops and get all of my groceries. I've got my list ready.
I'm going to get in and out as quick as possible so I can come home and just start the prep. I'd love to take the kids to the park this afternoon. So I'm going to get as much as I can get done as soon as possible. So I'll take you on my shopping journey.
So let's go shopping. Sorry, I'm all finished at the shops. I was in there for probably about 40-45 minutes. I spent $332.05.
So I did a bit more of a stock up shop. I also splurged and bought some berries, which I haven't been buying because they're so expensive, like $5 a punnet. But I bought two lots of berries, sorry, two lots of strawberries and one punnet of blueberries, just for a little bit of a treat.
It's sad that fruit has to be a treat, but a bit of a treat for the girls for their lunchboxes because they're back to school tomorrow. So I thought I'd buy that. I stocked up on a few other things like plain flour, self-raising flour. So they're things that I don't have to buy every shop, but I did this time.
So yes, it changes every week, week to week of what I do spend based on what we need. So I'm going to go home. As you know, we're going to wash the fruit and vegetables and basically get stuck straight into cooking because I've got a bit to do today. As always the budget breakdown and the meals made for the week and the meal plan will be listed in the description below.
I budget $350 a week as a family of five to cover all meals, snacks, nappies, cleaning and household and any toiletries that we need. This week I spent $75.22 on meat, $39.38 on fruit, $38.90 on vegetables, $10.80 on treats. This week I didn't spend anything on cleaning and household and toiletries. and then everything else came to 167.75 so the total spend was the 332.05 so this week i was under budget which was great and every week that i'm under budget just continues to roll over for the weeks that i do end up having to spend a little bit more so as soon as i get home i unpack all of the groceries onto the bench i start washing the fruit and vegetables as i allow them to soak for 10 to 15 minutes berries though i only soak for one to two minutes as i find any longer they can get waterlogged and they go bad quickly.
I also get out all the ingredients that I had set aside in the pantry for today's prep and then anything that I bought in today's shop will also be put aside and categorized in their meals. It just helps keep the day organized. Once I've got everything ready for the meals I put everything else away to start as clean as possible. I like to have a clear clean bench, I like to have an empty dishwasher and I like to have a full container drawer ready to go.
alongside the ingredients that i get ready for the week i also get out any containers that i may need to make the meals directly into some of the single serve lunches and breakfast that i'm going to make today i'll get out the container ready to go just so i can quickly grab it instead of fiddling around in the drawer and also make sure that i have that container on hand One of the reasons why I do my Sunday recess is so that I can save time during the week. So even though I love cooking, the time between finishing work and the kids'bedtime is more important for me at the moment to spend time with them than spend an hour cooking, as they are quite young. I've got a five, three and a two-year-old.
I also find that this process takes some of the mental load away by planning the week's meals on a Saturday instead of thinking of what to make every day. Today I started with one of our family favourites, satay chicken. If he could, David would request this every week.
He just loves it. So I started with the marinade first just because I wanted the chicken to have a little bit of time to marinade while I moved on to cooking other things. I also prepared the satay sauce to be cooked later but I put all the ingredients into a pot. As I had all the ingredients already out for the marinade most of the ingredients are the same just different quantities. I got it already in the pot ready to go and I'll cook that later.
Both the marinade and the sauce are really easy. So the marinade is just a half a cup of coconut milk, three tablespoons of peanut butter, I use crunchy, two tablespoons of brown sugar. two and a half tablespoons of red curry paste two tablespoons of sweet soy sauce two tablespoons of fish sauce and about 750 grams of chicken thighs and then the sauce is two and a half cups of coconut milk half a cup of peanut butter then two tablespoons each of fish sauce sweet soy sauce brown sugar red curry paste and then some minced garlic here i'm just giving the kitchen a really quick tidy up between meals it does make a huge difference at the end of the day just cleaning up after each meal next i moved on to making the single serve fajita chicken and rice bowls for my lunches. I've been absolutely loving these single serve rice bowls. I make them with all different ingredients as you'll see on some of my recipes online and in previous reset videos.
I just really love the comforting warmth at the moment during winter. It's just really nice to get one out, be able to put it in the microwave at work and having a really nice warm meal. I normally make five of them but I put three in the fridge and I put two in the freezer for Thursday, Friday. For this one I cut up one red onion, one red capsicum, I cut up two chicken breasts which was about the equivalent of 500 grams of chicken. I added the chicken, capsicum and some frijita mix, I used the Mingle brand today and it was delicious, and some natural yogurt.
Boil until the chicken was all coated and then to each single serve dish I added a quarter of a cup of washed basmati rice, half a cup of chicken stock, I divided the chicken mix between the five dishes, I also used a can of cherry tomatoes. and i divided those up between the five dishes as well gave it a bit of a stir and then placed it in the oven at 180 degrees for about 35 to 40 minutes until the until the chicken was cooked and the rice was tender each day when i heat them up in the microwave i'm just going to add some natural yogurt and add some avocado and some spring onion to finish it off sometimes i'm more at work early so i generally take breakfast with me so this week i'm making some apple crumble breakfast bakes so the recipe itself makes five of them The ingredients for the apple mix is one kilo of granny smith apples diced, two tablespoons of corn flour and two teaspoons of ground cinnamon. Just give those a stir and set it aside. For the crumble top it is one cup of rolled oats, half a cup of chopped walnuts, one of a cup of maple syrup, two tablespoons of coconut oil melted and about an eighth of a teaspoon of ground nutmeg.
I just mix that until a crumbly texture and then to each single serve dish I add the apples, top it with the crumble. I place it in the oven at 180 degrees and cook it for about 25 to 30 minutes until the apples are soft and the crumble is golden. I store all five in the fridge for the week.
I don't freeze them. And then each day when I take it to work, I just heat it up in the microwave for about 90 seconds. And then I top with some vanilla yogurt and they are delicious.
Perfect for winter. Very warm and comforting. And they're nice and healthy. If you want a little extra sweetness, you can also add a little bit more maple syrup to the apple mix before putting it in the oven. If you like the look of this one, the recipe is also up on my website.
So like I mentioned earlier, I like to clean up the kitchen as I go. Just a couple of the dishes that I've made just from the previous meal. It just, again, helps the kitchen stay decluttered.
It helps with the cleanup at the end. And it also means that I can just load up the dishwasher so that when it's full, I can turn it on. so that I can do the next load at the very end.
I also put away any ingredients that I no longer need. I do find it quite satisfying when I start to put everything away because it also puts into perspective how far I am into the cook and how much I've got left. Next, I moved on to making the white chocolate and raspberry muffins.
This again is a family favorite of ours. I do love these muffins because I do find them on probably the moist side instead of like a drier muffin. We all love it and we love how much.
white chocolate and raspberries that I put into it. So for this one you're going to need two and a half cups of self-raising flour, one cup of caster sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla essence or extract, half a cup of vegetable oil. one egg, three quarters of a cup of milk, two cups of raspberries, I use frozen raspberries, and 250 grams of white chocolate chopped.
It's really simple, you just add all the dry ingredients to a bowl, give it a little stir, make a well in the middle, and then in a jug I add all the wet ingredients, give it a little whisk, add it to the dry ingredients, I fold in the raspberries and chocolate, and then I add them to the muffin liners and place in the oven. This one cooks at 180 degrees celsius for about 25 to 30 minutes. once they are cooled I place them in a airtight container I store them in the fridge for about three to five days you can see that I'm about halfway through the cook and there's a lot going on in that oven but that's where all the multitasking is coming into it next I moved on to making some pizza scrolls with hidden vegetables as I showed you my fridge from yesterday there were a couple vegetables that I really wanted to use up so I'm using the zucchini and the carrot in these ones the kids never know that there's vegetables hidden in there as they are mixed with all the other ingredients in there so they don't know.
David also takes these for his work break as well to have some snacks at work. They're really easy I just add some tomato paste or some pizza sauce on the puff pastry. I just get the puff pastry sheets from the supermarket.
You can just add in whatever meat you choose. I've just added some shredded ham and some cut up salami and then I've added the hidden veg and I've added some cheese. I've rolled them up, cut them into smaller scrolls.
and then i've just done a simple egg wash on top they go in the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes until they are nice and golden i store these in an airtight container in the fridge for about three to five days if you'd like to heat them up and have them crispy again i just put them in the airfryer for a couple of minutes my kids actually don't mind eating them old or at room temperature in their lunch box but if you do want to heat it up airfryer for about two to three minutes next i moved on to making the triple chalk cookies this one was requested by my daughter Again, really simple recipe this one. So you need two and a half cups of plain flour, one teaspoon of baking powder, a little pinch of salt, 175 grams of softened butter, three quarter cup of brown sugar, half a cup of caster sugar, two eggs, two teaspoons of vanilla, one tablespoon of milk and 250 grams of chocolate. I used white milk and dark chocolate and I just chopped them up.
In a stand mixer, I beat the butter and sugars until pale and creamy. I then add the eggs and the vanilla and the milk. and continue to beat for a little bit longer.
I add in all the dry ingredients and mix well with a spatula and then I add my chocolate. If I've got the time I place my cookie dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes it just helps to deepen the flavor. As always just clean up as we go so I'm just cleaning up after the couple meals that I've made.
I'm putting the ingredients away and loading the dishwasher. We're about two-thirds of the way through the cook and so it's time for a few things to come out of the oven. my lunch meals are made my breakfast meals are made and also the muffins i've still got the pizza scrolls in the oven just getting nice and crispy and brown now it's time to get the chicken satay thighs out of the fridge that have been marinating for a little bit so in a hot cast iron pan with some oil i'm just going to cook each side of the chicken thigh for a couple of minutes just to crisp up on the outside but doesn't have to cook fully through because i'm going to place it in the oven to finish the cooking process I'm just multitasking with a couple of things at the moment. So I'm just making up a spice mixture for the Jamaican chicken thighs.
So I'll coat the chicken thighs in the spice mix and then I'm going to place them in the air fryer. Now that's going to be our dinner tonight. I'm going to turn them into Jamaican chicken and rice bowls. So I'm just going to set that aside for now. I'm going to flip the chicken before putting it in the oven.
And I'm just going to add the rest of the marinade that was sitting in that bowl too. I finished off the cooking process in the oven. The oven is still set on 180 degrees.
And I just put it in the... and I just cook it in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes until cooked through. As you saw earlier I put all the ingredients together for the peanut satay sauce to go on top so I just kept that in the pot and now I'm just going to simmer it over a low heat until it thickens and is all combined.
On Tuesday we're going to have the lemongrass beef noodle salad so I'm just going to cut up the beef and start marinating that as well. This one is really simple marinade again so it's just 50 grams of lemongrass paste. I just buy that from the supermarket in the herb section.
One tablespoon of minced garlic, one tablespoon of fish sauce and one teaspoon of brown sugar and some chili is optional if you like spice. So I just place it all in this container that I'm just gonna keep it in for the next two days. It's gonna keep marinating it and then on Tuesday, I just grab it out and I'm able to have it on the table within 20 minutes. I also made the sauce that goes with it just again to make it super quick and easy on Tuesday night.
Anything I can do ahead of time I will do to help prepare myself for later in the week, especially coming home from work. As the kids don't really like the flavor of the Jamaican chicken, I had some extra chicken breast so I just simply coated it in a little bit of olive oil and some Italian herbs and I'm going to air fry that as well for the kids so that they're going to have the same ingredients in the rice bowl except for the different type of chicken. We're now at the very end of the cook so I'm just doing a couple last minute things like cooking some rice for tonight's dinner.
I'm cooking the chicken in the air fryer. I love my air fryer it's been so handy I wasn't convinced about having an air fryer so I bought a really really cheap one and then we used it so much that we decided to invest into the ninja air fryer and we use it all the time so I have two different drawers as you can see so I can cook the kids in one and ours in the other We got the cookie dough out of the fridge and Libby and I rolled them into balls and put them in the oven. We like ours a little bit softer and chewier so they again are cooking at 180 degrees for about 10 to 12 minutes. As we're waiting for all the chicken to cook, so both in the air fryer and the sauteed chicken in the oven, I'm making some hard boiled eggs for my lunches.
I've just cut up some pineapple for the kids'lunches. It's just so much easier when it's all cut up, ready to go. We just grab it out and put it in their lunchbox. Same with the strawberries and the blueberries. I've just cut the tops off the strawberries and I'm going to put them in the oven.
place in the glass containers that I have from Ikea, the 365 range. I find that we do get a good three to five days out of the strawberries, especially if you wash them, dry them and keep them in a good quality container in the fridge, then they will definitely last. I'm cutting up the cucumber a few different ways.
I'm deseeding them and cutting them up on an angle for the lemongrass beef noodle salad. And the other ones I'm just cutting up into long sticks that we can just grab and go for snacks as well. The girls love having them in their lunchbox too.
I've grated some carrot to have with the lemongrass beef noodle salad too. The very last thing I'm going to do is place some vanilla yogurt into smaller containers so that I can take that with me to work. I keep them in different containers to the apple crumble so that I can heat the crumble up and then I can put the yogurt on top.
This again just saves me time in the morning. And here is the final result of my Sunday reset. I've got it all laid out here. I'm ready to cool it down and then place it in the fridge. Thank you so much for following along and subscribing to my channel.
Thank you for all of your likes and all your comments. I really appreciate it all and it helps me know that I'm on the right track. So I hope you enjoyed this Sunday reset and of course I'll be back next week.