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Welcome to Tween/Teen Tuesday at My Crazy Good Life! Today we’re talking about what to feed your family during sports season without resorting to fast food or prepackaged foods.
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Football season is here and soccer season begins next week.
I’ve dubbed it, “making four meals a day” season.
The boys eat breakfast, I pack them lunch, make dinner after school and then they have a snack when they get home–it’s an eating frenzy here, folks.
The kids have to be at their best out on the field (or court, or mat, etc.) and filling them with unhealthy foods is not helping their performance during practice. Their growing bodies need healthy foods and a variety of food groups to keep up with their practices.
Because of our hectic schedule during wrestling season last year, I know I ate unhealthy foods due to poor meal planning. I didn’t have time to make a healthy dinner so I often skipped eating (making me crazy hungry later, which led to making poor food choices) or ate a quesadilla while running out the door with the kids, and I vowed to not do that again this season.
The first thing I do for the week is plan. We have been eating dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon so Michael isn’t eating right before his 6:30 football practice. The kids come home from school starved, so eating right after made the most sense.
I don’t have the time to begin making dinner at 2:30 every day, so we rely on meal planning to get us through the week. Here’s an example of what our week’s worth of meals look like (I didn’t mean for this to look like a Costco ad):
Monday
Make your own burritos with Costco’s seasoned shredded beef, tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro, onions and salsa served on tortillas.
We buy the packages of seasoned shredded beef and chicken at Costco and freeze them in small portions. When the kids get home I heat the meat, cook our favorite uncooked flour tortillas (also from Costco) and pull out all of the toppings I chopped the night before.
Tuesday
Grilled chicken and peppers.
Tuesday morning I pull chicken breasts from the freezer and put them in a Ziplock bag with some marinade. I de-seed and de-stem a few peppers stick them back in the fridge. When the boys get home after school, the chicken is thawed and marinated and we stick that on the grill with the whole peppers. It’s faster to grill them this way (rather than slicing them first) and we just cut them up while eating.
Wednesday
Chicken salad ring with crescent rolls.
We don’t have these much, but I make an exception during sports seasons. The boys love them, they’re easy and I can pack veggies into it. Sometimes I make a chicken and vegetable mix (with mayonnaise), but lately I have been relying on Costco’s prepared chicken salad and adding in my own vegetables (frozen broccoli, edamame or peas). Here are directions for making a ring out of crescent rolls. When the boys get home I make the ring, add in my pre-cooked vegetables and cook.
Thursday
Make your own burritos – yes, again. The boys love them, and I can always switch from shredded beef to chicken if they want something different. I usually chop up some vegetable toppings the night before or morning of.
Friday
Grilled chicken and veggies. If the boys want peppers again, I’ll grill them. Otherwise, I’ll grill whatever vegetables we get from our weekly fruit and vegetable delivery to go with the chicken.
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For chicken marinades, we use the Cilantro-Lime marinade from Costco:
or spices from the Santa Cruz Chili Company. They’re simple, but yummy.
We do a ton of crockpot meals over basketball season, and I premake a bunch of burrittos/breakfast burrittos and freeze them. These are great in the car or even between games.
That’s a good idea – freezing burritos! Thanks!
It is great that you are going into the season with a plan to plan! Hopefully it will pay off inside the house and bodies and on the field as well!
Here’s hoping my extra 5 pounds stays off this season!!
Make your own burritos is also one of my ‘go-to’ meals. I need to look into the shredded beef and chicken from Costco!
It’s so yummy – and easy!
With a varsity cheerleader in the family this year, we’ll be doing lots of crockpot meals.
I need to start looking into crockpot meals! We haven’t done them yet.
Mmmm that menu sounds delicious! Teen boys have voracious appetites to begin with, and when you ad sports to the mix it’s like a feeding frenzy to keep up, LOL!
That’s how I’m feeling, Beeb! I can’t keep up with them!
We’re heading into mega sports season here too! Many easy meals and hours in the car to follow.
Oh yes – the hours in the car!! Awful for us, as live about 30 minutes away from the nearest practice!
Why don’t I have one near me because that shredded beef is killing me right now. I want that so bad!
Oh no!! I see them at Fry’s, too – do you have Kroger stores near you?
Our only sports season so far was T-ball and our games fell right during dinner time. I definitely see crockpot use in my future!
Yes! We haven’t ventured into crock pot meals yet, but I have an idea they’re coming!
You mentioned your vegetable delivery? Who do you get that through?
3 boy family- all in sports, husband coaches, I coach and manage teams as well. Live about 20-30 min practice. Last year really pushed to be better at meal prep to save major $ as many of our sports require numerous hotel weekends.
The instapot has saved my life- I’m actually in the market for 1-2 more.
Various pasta meals in less than 10min. Can “grill” brats -and other meats. We eat various varieties of “bowl” foods and taco/burritos.
I get many crazy looks when I break out our service bag (plates, utensils) and the pot at our sport location.