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My 10 Favorite Staple Meals

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Sometimes I feel like my meals are falling into a predictable rut. However, an article in the April 2012 special weight-loss issue of Runner’s World, 50 Weight-Loss Tips, made “staple meals” sound more practical than boring.

Having a rotating menu of staple meals makes meal-planning and calorie-budgeting simple. Here are 10 of my favorites – those meals that tend to show up on our table on a regular basis.

Breakfast

1. Oatmeal with fruit – My top fruit choices are apples, blueberries, and strawberries. Raisins are other tasty choice, but not quite as healthy. Whatever fruit I got with, I always toss in a tablespoon of walnuts, too. Yum!

2. Cereal with granola – I like Flax Plus. It’s a simple, healthy, low-calorie, high-fiber flake cereal. Tossing my own granola (and usually fruit) gives me a healthy, balanced breakfast without all the added sugars often found in breakfast cereal.

3. Peanut butter toast with fruit – A little protein, a little whole-grains, a little fruit. Peanut butter (I use Smucker’s natural) toast with a side of fruit makes a quick and easy breakfast.

Lunch

4. Pasta bowl – My pasta bowl is a favorite for lunch at least once or twice a week.

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5. Grilled chicken salad – No, not the mayonnaise-based chicken salad. Grilled chicken on lettuce with lots of fruits and veggies = grilled chicken salad. Yum!

Grilled Chicken Salad

6. Turkey burger – I’m kind of missing my turkey burger since I’ve had left-over a lot lately, but usually, a grilled turkey patty, topped with grilled onion and red pepper and sliced avocado on a whole wheat bun can be found on my lunch rotation each week.

Supper

7. Grilled chicken – The entire family loves grilled chicken. I marinate it in my light Italian dressing and Brian grills it. I usually make extra for my lunch salad. The supper chicken is accompanied by pasta (homemade Alfredo sauce or marinara sauce) and pasta or spaghetti squash.

8. Salmon – I’m trying to get in the habit of having fish at least once a week. I love wild salmon, while Brian prefers tilapia.

9. Roasted broccoli – I’ve discovered that roasting nearly any veggie makes it taste much better than nearly any other method of preparation. We have roasted broccoli just about every week. Other popular choices are: cauliflower, asparagus, zucchini (with onions and mushrooms) and carrots.

It’s so simple, too. Just drizzle with a little olive oil (not too much because it’s high in fat!), sprinkle with salt, and add a little minced garlic. Bake at 425 degrees until tender.

10. Steamed green beans – I use Gina’s green bean recipe. My oldest (and pickiest) is the only one who doesn’t like this. It got rave reviews at my extended family’s Thanksgiving dinner this year, too.

Those are some of my favorite staple meals. What are some of yours?

This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday.

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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