Favorite make-ahead meals

I've been talking about make-ahead meals with a couple different girlfriends this week. Making a week's worth of breakfasts, lunches and dinners on Sunday can be a huge timesaver on busy weekdays. All you have to do is grab and go or reheat and eat! I like to grocery shop early Sunday morning, come home and turn on a favorite Pandora station and get to cooking for a few hours.

Here are my go-to make-ahead meals right now:

Breakfast: 

Steel cut oat pucks - via New Nostalgia

Breakfast burritos - via hellobee

Lunch

Salad in a jar - via The Kitchn

Chicken tortilla soup - via Food Network

Dinner

Black bean and squash enchilada casserole - via skinnytaste

Quinoa stuffed peppers - via me

A couple of tips: 

Stock up on mason jars and these storage lids for the oatmeal pucks, soup and salad. 

Wrap individual portions of the breakfast burritos, casserole and stuffed peppers with aluminum foil.

With the exception of the salad jars, you can freeze all of these for another week if you don't eat everything!

Recipe: Braided veggie calzone

We're trying to use up everything in our fridge/freezer at the moment, so tonight's dinner consisted of a makeshift calzone. Here's the "recipe" I threw together:

Braided Veggie Calzone

Ingredients:
- Whole wheat pizza dough
- 1/3 cup spaghetti sauce (because who has pizza sauce around ever?)
- 1 cup shredded cheese (any kind)
- 1-2 cups random veggies (we used mushrooms, green pepper and onion)
- Olive oil or egg

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375
- Spread dough in a long, stretched out oval on a pizza stone.
- Layer the pizza sauce, 1/2 the cheese and all of the veggies down the center of the dough.
- Make little slices with a sharp knife up and down the sides. Then, start braiding at the bottom and work your way up.
- Brush the dough with the olive oil or egg
- Bake in oven for 35 minutes

It looks great out of the oven but is a little messy on the plate. Either way, it was tasty -- and a little bit healthy for such an easy dinner!