5 Easy High Protein Weeknight Recipes
favorite books, best sleep of my life & more!
Happy new year, chicpeas!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season but even more, are excited for 2025!
For the the new year, I wanted to share a roundup of some of my favorite lower calorie, high protein weeknight dinner recipes in this month’s newsletter.
And ICYMI, my 4 week reset started last week here on Substack - it’s 4 weeks of healthy mealprep breakfasts, lunches, dinners, workout splits, dietician crafted snacks, and fitness/nutrition tips for fat loss. It’s available to my paid subscribers (which if you think about it is $5).
Anyways, catchup time! I always love to know what people are reading, watching, enjoying so here are some of mine. Also: the best sleep routine and how I cook my steak perfectly every time.
What I’m loving
Books:
Spark of the Everflame: if you’re a romantasy girl looking for your next fix after Sarah J Maas or Fourth Wing, you have to read Spark of the Everflame. I loved this book so much I joined the ARC team a year back so I could get all the new releases ahead of time and edit/review them. It’s been wild seeing the book go from a few hundred reviews with the ARC team to now being in bookstores!! I reread them recently and they’re still so good ahhh
TV shows:
From
Okay if you haven’t watched this, STOP. My sister and I binged 3 seasons in a week if that tells you anything. It’s now one of my favorite shows of all time. It gives me Lost meets Stranger Things vibes, but better and it’s about strangers trapped in a town where mysterious and terrifying things happen, all the while the townspeople are trying to go home.
Blackbird
This is such a good, if not eerie and disturbing, show. It’s about the real life story of serial killer Larry Hall and Jimmy Keane, and it’s so well done, riveting and equal parts terrifying, and heartbreaking. One of the episodes made me tear up and you’ll know it when you get to it.
Best sleep of your life:
I have an entire sleep routine I’ve gotten down like clockwork. So here it is:
First, an everything shower routine 1x a week with full bodycare routine: drybrush, scrub, body wash, shave, lotion that smells like a lickable vanilla cupcake, and then french rose body oil to seal in the moisture. Always body oil after lotion.
Next, heatless curls, hair bonnet, skincare and then tea. I’ve been romanticizing tea with this gorg gorg tea kettle and peppermint is my ride or die. This special peppermint tea from London is my favorite.`
It’s also nice to change into something special for bed. I’m obsessed with my matching pj set.
Next, I read, watch a show or read for 30 min-1hour. 30 min before bed, I pop a magic Lemme Sleep gummy. Idk what Kourtney put in these, but they KNOCK you out. So make sure you take them 30 minutes before you actually want to sleep.
The end!
Perfectly cooked steak every single time
I love to cook but sometimes getting the cook right on steak or piece of meat is hard. I live and die and breathe by a smart thermometer. It’s super easy to set up and you have perfectly cooked steak, salmon, etc., every time. Amazing. I have a promo code for 10% off if you’re interested: CINDY10.
ACTIVE CODES & PROMOS:
ChefIQ Smart Thermometer, Promo: CINDY10
Walmart + InHome: free grocery delivery
Ulta: $3.50 off purchase, PROMO: 131365
Recipe Roundup:
I make these Just Like Takeout Noodles so often. They’re my go to mealprep recipe for when I don’t know what to make but I know I need something yummy, craveable and packed with tons of veggies.
'Just Like Takeout' Chicken & Shrimp Chow Mein
This high protein, veggie-packed noodle dish is a staple in my dinner rotation. Andddd if you need something with flavor that also has some veggies because you need to come back to life after memorial day weekend, this is it!
I mean…it’s an In-N-Out Lettuce Wrapped Burger . Need I say more?
Animal Style In-N-Out Burgers, Lettuce Wrapped
This is one of my absolute favorite meals to make and it’s on rotation almost every week. It’s easy, and really hits that In-N-Out craving!
Still one of my best recipes. These Arayes are just so, so good.
Meat & Veggie Stuffed Crispy Pita (Arayes)
Happy Election Day! Personally, I’ll be anxiously glued to my screens/twitter for the next few days so…what better than some healthy comfort food?
I make this bowl at least 1x a week. It’s quick, easy and delicious.
La Zinq's 15 min Restaurant Remake Bowl
The WAY my bank account would empty out each week ordering this bowl from La Zinq, a fixture on the healthy LA fast-casual scene. So, I started recreating a lot of my favorite cult healthy spot dishes at home (with the help of staff, thank you Erewhon and La Zinq!) and I realized a. I was saving a ton of money and b. a lot of my favorite dishes were act…
Crispy Chicken Cutlets are my favorite and pairing them with this light, bright salad is a match made in food heaven.
Crispy Hot Chicken Cutlet with Greek Salad
There is truly nothing better than a crispy chicken cutlet. The combination of this crispy, airfried to golden perfection chicken cutlet paired with a super vibrant, zingy and refreshing greek salad is absolute heaven.