Shop With Me At Walmart: Kale Smoothies, Grain Bowls & Burrito Bowls!

Last Friday I went "zero waste" grocery shopping at Walmart. Soon I will start trying out some different grocery stores soon but it was a Friday morning before work so I just wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible!

Our list this week was rather short, we were feeling lazy and decided to make a favorite in our household for dinner: burrito bowls! This this is one of those meals where we already had most of the ingredients on hand so we also usually keep our grocery bill cheap on weeks where we do this. This week our bill was under $30!

In addition to burrito bowls I also wanted to try out a kale smoothie recipe and some of those ingredients are on here as well!

Here's what I bought and was able to get zero waste: 

• Bananas - unbagged in produce
• Kale - unbagged in the produce aisle
• Pineapple Chunks - canned
• Black Beans - canned
• Chickpeas - canned
• Apples - unbagged in produce
• Avocados - unbagged in produce
• Eggs - we buy ours in a giant box of 60 -- yes we buy 60 eggs at a time! This is all cardboard and easy to recycle. This box usually lasts us 3 weeks or so. Buying in bulk is a great way to reduce packaging too!
• Coconut Milk - my favorite dairy free alternative and it doesn't come in plastic
• Tea - unfortunately the box is wrapped in plastic but these tea bags don't come individually wrapped and are stringless which cuts down on so much packaging too.

Meals Made

Second Breakfast = Kale Smoothies: 

• Kale
• Apple
• 1/2 can of Pineapple and Juice
• 1/2 Avocado
• Coconut Milk

These smoothies were delicious! My junior and senior year of college I think I made a green smoothie everyday to go with my breakfast and I loved them. I fell off that routine and would love to get back into it, unfortunately my go-to ingredients are bagged spinach and frozen fruit so I needed to find a new smoothie recipe that would work.  I substituted spinach with kale and. frozen fruits with canned pineapple and an apple. I don't have a proper recipe for this either, I just dump everything in the blender and add more liquid and blend until it's the desired consistency. 

Lunch = Budda Bowls

• Sweet potatoes
• Onion
• Red Peppers
• Carrots
• 1 can of chickpeas
• Spinach
• Egg (poached or sunny side up)

I know I just said I couldn't find spinach unbagged but this spinach was in my freezer and I had just enough to add to these bowls so I threw it in! Actually, this entire meal was in our cupboards so I didn't buy a thing for it (most things were bought during last week's Shop With Me so check that out if you're curious). We've had these bowls for dinner before and they're so yummy. I cut up all the veggies and put them in a bowl, add in the drained chickpeas and drizzle some olive oil and whatever seasonings my heart desires. Then I spread everything out on a baking dish and bake for ~30 min at 350F. I like to check in on them 15 min in and flip everything over too. This whole sheet usually can make 3 lunches for me.

While my bowl is heating up in the microwave I like to cook the spinach on the stove and poach an egg to top it all off!

Dinner = Burrito Bowls

• Black beans 
• Chilis in Adobo
• Onion
• Rice
• Lime juice
• Cilantro
• Avocado
• Cheese, sour cream, salsa as optional toppers

This is our lazy go-to dinner when we're too tired to decide on a grocery list but it's so good it's we don't mind! I use this recipe for Cilantro Lime Rice. For the beans, Kyle cooks an onion (diced) on a pan until slightly browned, then he dumps the entire can of black beans and water in, along with maybe a tablespoon of chilis in adobo. He then refills the aluminum can halfway with water and adds that to pan. Cook that on medium high heat until it thickens up and it's ready to enjoy!

I hope these Shop With Me's can help give you ideas on easy zero-waste meals to make! What were you eating this week?