Planning
I plan our meals on a big white board. Throughout the week, I write down ideas. If I see a new recipe I like and that seems simple enough, I add it. I also plan meals around the contents of our CSA box. Here is what we got this week:
Hubby also adds meals he’d like to eat. And we ask the toddler (and more and more he just tells us) what he’d like to eat.
Prepping
I buy most of our groceries on Saturday and Sunday. I have found that spending some time in the kitchen after I get home, washing and prepping fruits and veggies, makes a huge difference. If there is a bowl of washed fruit, we’ll eat it. If it’s not washed, we, especially the guys, are less likely to eat it. I also put together individual bags of washed and prepped veggies for soups, sauces, and other recipes. It’s a huge time saver during the week.
Precooking
I have to admit that I’m not yet as good at this as I could be! I always think, “Oh, I can do that the day we eat the meal. It just takes half an hour.” But more often than not, there just isn’t that extra half hour. In the fall, I try to make one soup and a big pot of stew on the weekend for us to eat during the week (for lunches and dinners). However, there are many more things I plan on doing:
- Cook beans for the week (can be done in a slow cooker)
- Cook pasta (I know it doesn’t take long, but it can be a real lifesaver on busy evenings! I make mostly brown rice pasta these days, and it reheats surprisingly well)
- Make pasta sauce to go with the pasta
- Boil eggs (great for lunches and to add to salads)
- Cut up fruit and put into small containers (really part of prepping)
- Make salad kits (washed and cut up lettuce, other veggies to add, nuts, a little cheese, hard boiled egg, etc. – all kept in bags. It takes only a minute to make a dressing and toss the salad)
- Bake bread (I plan to do a lot more of that!)
- Washed grapes and put them into individual containers for lunches.
- Cut up melon and divided into small containers for lunches.
- Washed pluots and put in a bowl on the dining table.
- Boiled eggs.
- Made salad kits with lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, and green onions.
- Made butternut squash soup.
- Made vegetable curry.
Meal 1: Butternut squash soup
Meal 2: Vegetable curry and brown rice.
Meal 3: Salmon and roasted veggies.
Meal 4: Tami’s (Nutmeg Notebook) Beef and Bean Chili, made in the slow cooker, will be slightly adapted due to what I have on hand.
Meal 5: Spaghetti and tomato/veggie sauce (the toddler can never get enough of this…).
Questions: Do you plan meals? Do you precook meals? Kelly from Fitting Back In always does a fantastic job of precooking an entire week’s worth of food! She is an inspiration! What are some meal planning and/or precooking tips you would like to share? What’s on your menu this week?
Be well,
Andrea
