I’ve followed Skinnytaste for a long time now because her recipes are so dang good and healthy! She was a go-to when I was doing WW because she includes the points (and calories, which helps me now) for her meals. I’ve always kept an eye on her weekly FREE meal plans and debated trying one out. There often was a meal or two that didn’t look great to me, or I didn’t want to buy all the groceries, or whatever other excuse I could come up with. I finally decided, after my grocery challenge was over, that I would follow a week of her meal plan for Chris and I to eat. I figured my house was fairly empty of food and waiting for a real grocery trip, so why not? I looked at the most recent meal plan at the time (she had it slated for 2/24-3/1 but I started it on 3/2 instead, since I was finishing my grocery challenge at the end of the month). Most of the recipes looked good to us, with only two really “out of our comfort zone” but not bad! I’ve never made a creamy soup before or cooked with tofu, but we were open to trying them out. This was the perfect meal plan to begin with. Here’s how I approached it and how it went! Prepwork I printed out the recipes, calendar, and grocery shopping list for the week and started looking it over. She has it set up so […]

Because I’ve cooked a LOT of great things in the last 1-2 months, I thought I’d do a little round-up here instead of having a million things in the food section of Lauren Lately. My favorite thing to do while cooking is make things as easy as humanly possible, so most of these recipes will be super simple, as the header suggests 😉 Homemade Crunchwrap Supremes | I found a WW-friendly version of this recipe and it was so good! I tried to buy tostadas online because no store carried them locally, and then they got crushed in transit. I made homemade ones with small tortillas and they were just as good! Buffalo Chicken Chili | God this was amazing; I already want to make it again. I’ve been seeking out Crockpot and Instant Pot recipes like crazy and this one was a major win. I ended up using HALF the amount of cream cheese it called for to make it a little lighter and it was still super creamy and delicious. Chai lattes at home | I was in the mood to get something nice and cozy for the weekends, instead of only having hot chocolate, so I grabbed this one from Target. It’s sugar free so the only WW points are for mixing it with milk, and I use skim milk anyways. SO GOOD! Blue Steak Wraps | This is a simple recipe that I was itching to make to use up the million containers of blue cheese I somehow acquired. It […]

I have been loving Trader Joe’s for a long time, but the closest one in Connecticut was 40 minutes away when I lived there initially. When we moved to to Maine, there was a Trader Joe’s right down the street. I got used to shopping there for probably 75% of our groceries and reserved most meats and quick trips for the Hannaford within walking distance. I was sad to move back to Connecticut and leave my favorite grocery store behind but we FINALLY got one in the same town that I work in! In honor of this big milestone in my life (lol), I thought I would round up some of my favorite Trader Joe’s foods  for you. I recently did a grocery store analysis to share if online shopping for snacks and non-perishables was worth it, and there were quite a few categories where surprisingly TJ’s was the cheapest option! One thing about TJ’s is that they rotate their stock seasonally A LOT. There are some things you can always find there, for sure, but a lot that comes and goes. They don’t have a full website of products either so I had to be creative when finding images. Most of these were taken by me in my many trips to the freakin store.   Pita Bite Crackers with Olive Tapenade This is my number one go-to snack in general, let alone from Trader Joe’s. I would save up calories all day to snack on this at the end […]

I’ve noticed recently that there’s a big trend toward doing grocery shopping online instead of going to a store. This is typically for non-perishable items like canned food, snacks, sauces, etc. Most people still seem to get veggies, meats, and frozen stuff in-store (with a few exceptions!). I’ve been wanting to do an analysis to see what actually makes the most sense from a financial perspective. Influencers have talked about a few different websites for grocery shopping, so I wanted to compare prices between them and see what makes sense for a few of the items I buy regularly. I’m not going to analyze Amazon Pantry or Fresh because I don’t qualify for most of it in my area. My Shopping Situation I typically do my shopping at Trader Joe’s, Stop & Shop (local to the northeast I believe?), and/or Target. My friend’s father owns a meat and seafood store that I want to be better about visiting because he has some good deals as well. We have a local farmer’s market in our town that sells ALL kinds of things but I usually treat that as a special occasion kind of place. I’d go broke if I bought everything from there! My perfect world, shopping-wise, would be to find the best place to get all of my canned food, snacks, and other non-perishable items from, then using a separate place for grabbing fresh meat and/or veggies/fruits each week. I envision myself getting things from one of the online stores […]

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while and seeing Steph’s recently gave me a push to post it. I live with my boyfriend, which means I have to sometimes modify recipes for two people, or make a huge batch of something that we’ll be sick of in a few days. There’s no easy way to cook for two people without extra math or work. I’ve gotten the hang of it recently though. The trick for me is to prepare meats and other ingredients in a more simple way, so the cooking is out of the way early and all in one shot. Here’s how I slay the leftover game so we don’t get sick of eating the same thing for days, and a few recipes I use for multiple day meals. Cooking for Two Modify recipes to fit your ~family size~ aka couple. I do this when it’s really easy to do the math. If there’s a recipe that makes eight chicken breasts with sauce and some kind of side, I will cut the recipe in half so we each can eat two pieces of chicken. (More on that later.) If there’s a recipe for a HUGE batch of soup or stew, I will either cut the recipe in half so we don’t get sick of the leftovers, or freeze it when applicable. Eat “complicated leftovers” meals for lunch the day (duh). I call them “complicated leftovers” when you make a full meal, instead of just basic meat prep that […]