#Cook90 Challenge: Week #2 – Is this still happening??

Every January, home cooks around the world give themselves a challenge: cook three meals a day, every day, for the entire month. It's not always easy, but with these recipes, journals, meal plans, and tips, it's never really that hard.

What is #Cook90?

From Epicurious: The #cook90 challenge is simple: Cook three meals a day, every day, for a whole month. But the real challenge is getting prepped and organized to tackle four weeks of cooking.

I think #cook90 week 2 got started pretty well. I sat down I made a menu of all the meals I wanted to cook. I went grocery shopping with the pre-written grocery list on Saturday and Sunday did a large cook up.

My goal for week 2 was to cook 4 lunches and 5 dinners. Menu for week two:

Breakfast
Egg White Scrambles

Lunch
4 x Pesto Chicken with Vegetables and Rice
4 x Stir-Fry Beef and Broccoli with Rice

Dinner
Barbecued Chicken with Macaroni & Cheese & Broccoli
Peruvian Chicken with sauce (Nom Nom Paleo)

Also starring this week BOOM! Super Bowl 51. On the menu for the Super Bowl:
Meatball Hero Subs
Nachos with Chili

Breakfast was a haphazard affair where I let hubby fend for himself and I ate microwaved egg whites with (pre) sautéed onions and peppers. I even tossed in a few pieces of left over bacon once.

The first thing I did on Sunday was get started prepping for my dinners: for the Peruvian Chicken I spatch-cocked the chicken, made the Peruvian marinade and then set it aside to marinate. I also butchered and seasoned a whole chicken to make barbecue chicken. Instead of making homemade Mac & Cheese I bought a box because Ha! this is a lot of cooking. I also cooked a huge pot of rice – 3 cups dry which is like 1,000,000,000 cups cooked so this was enough for all lunches (4 each, 8 in total) for hubby and I – any left-over rice will be for dinner during the week.

The pesto chicken with vegetables and the stir-fry beef and broccoli were actually pretty easy to make. After I finish prepping the two chickens, I went ahead and cooked those as well. I did take a break between all of this, of course. Once I finished getting the lunches prepared I immediately portioned them out and put them in containers. BOOM! Done.

After another break I got the food for the Super Bowl together. I made Parmesan meatballs with marinara sauce for Hero Meatball Subs and nachos with homemade chili. I made the meatballs and then I let them rest while I got the chili on the stove and cooking. I used can tomato sauces for the chili and used jarred marinara sauce for the meatballs subs (dun Dun DUNNNNNNN)! I made about 30 meatballs, got them covered in sauce and bubbling on the stove while the chili was finishing up.

I was so tired by this point and I fell asleep during the dang Super Bowl.

But I was prepared for week two.

Things I learned in Week 2:
Try for simple meals
There’s never enough Tupperware
Leftovers are my friend
The Freezer + bulk shopping is my friend