Go To’s For Meal Prep

Go To’s For Meal Prep

During my Meal Prep Week posting I received a very popular question.  What are your Go-To’s?
Well, that is a super easy question to answer.  There are somethings that are basically a staple in our house.  So, I’ll list them below.  If there should be a recipe, I’ll share that this week as well.
Ready?

Boiled Eggs- Eat for breakfast, snacks, put on a salad, stir into tuna salad, make egg salad.
Roasted Veggies- Peppers, onions and carrots- butternut squash is awesome- Brussel sprouts, asparagus and broccoli are wonderful an of course mushrooms as well.
Chicken- grilled, baked, cubed and sautés is wonderful.  Put on salad, sandwich, wraps, etc.
Meatballs- Italian or BBQ
Quinoa
Brown Rice
Steel Cut Oats
Some type of seafood depending on what is on sale.
Keeping these types of simple and quick foods on hands can really keep you on track and ready to go!!!!!!!!

Meal Prep Week- Day 2

Meal Prep Week- Day 2 of 3

 "How to Make It Work For You!"

We have discussed "Why Bother With Meal Prepping" so now we need to figure out how to make it work for you.  My GOAL of all GOALS for meal prep is to keep it simple!!!!  I'm a huge fan of Food Network and the Cooking Channel.  I love to watch the dishes that they come up with and the ideas.  Some are so very elaborate and some are really good at keeping it super simple.  That is my goal....SUPER SIMPLE!!!

So this past week we shopped via the Walmart PickUp App (which we love!) and I ended up with a GIANT bag of frozen chicken breast.  We have enough chicken for an entire month.  I knew I would obviously be doing something with that.  I got 2 pounds of ground turkey and a package of chicken/apple sausage.  I think that the easiest way for me to explain how I keep this super simple is to just tell you what I did on Sunday.

Put in 3 chicken breast to bake- salt/pepper only

Put 3 other chicken breast in water with salt/pepper to boil- Chicken N Rice (brown rice) (Recipe to follow)

One pound of Turkey turned into BBQ turkey meatballs- Recipe to follow

One pound of Turkey turned into Mexican Turkey for Taco Salad Tuesday (Recipe to follow)

Apple Sausage- not cooked until Breakfast Night.

Cut up Onions, Pepper and Carrots to Roast (Recipe to follow)

2 bags of steamer mixed veggies

Steel Cut Oats in the Instant Pot

3 Baked Potatoes

7 Layer Salad (Recipe to follow)


So here is what it would look like for us.

BBQ Meatballs with 1/2 baked potatoe and roasted veggies

Turkey Taco Salad with turkey meat, roasted veggies, jalapeno's, cheese and yogurt dip

Chicken and Rice Soup

7 layer Salad with sliced baked chicken

Chicken/Apple Sausage with eggs and toast or waffles.

Left overs are all for lunches

We always have staples like Greek Yogurt, fruit, cheese and nuts for snacks.

This is what our week looks like.  The awesome part of all of this is that the chicken and the meatballs could cook at the same time in the oven.  The turkey taco meat and the chicken and rice were cooking at the same time.

It was all completed in approx. 2 hours and the kitchen was cleaned and dishwasher running.  Keeping it simple and balanced is the key!!!!!  You can do this!!  It will change your evenings!!!!!

Part 3 is on the way.  We are on a roll.  What are some of your simple recipes that your family loves?

Please share!  I would love to hear from you!!!!

Meal Prep Week- Day 1

Meal Prep Week- DAY 1 of  3

Let's talk Meal Prep.

Let's talk about how to make it work for you.

Let's talk about easy and simple recipes.


So these are 3 VERY broad and VERY specific topics.  My goal is to make this easier for you and help you be successful at meal planning and prepping. I will cover this in 3 different post so we can break it down and it isn't so overwhelming.

Let's get started!!

Why meal prep?

Why bother?


PART 1


I actually started meal prepping about 6 years ago.  When we lived in NC, I had a coworker that had children about the same age as Kaleb.  One is a year younger and one a year older.  We had so much to talk about.  It was amazing!  This was when it was popular to do 30 Day Cooking and Freezer Meals.  While those are awesome, neither one of us had an extra freezer for all the food we would be preparing.  So we did what we could and shortened it to a weeks worth of cooking.  It was perfect!  We figured out all kinds of short cuts and we would discuss what was on the menu for the week and most important was what was on sale at the grocery store. Once we had that figured out the planning would start.  We had no idea that we were on to something that would be such a game changer.


The average dinner will take anywhere from 45-60 minutes or more to prepare when you get home depending how much you have "prepped" ahead of time and how complicated your recipes are.  I don't know about you but after a full 8 hours at work, getting up at 4:45am to get in my workout, running 2 miles at lunch, the last thing I want is an hour in the kitchen waiting on dinner while Kaleb is STARVING and on verge of being HANGRY and Bo is ready to eat and I am tired and overwhelmed because there is dinner, homework, shower, reading and then it's time for bed and do it all over again.  That used to be what it was like.  It's not any fun.  I had actually stopped meal prepping when I was home for a year before coming back to work in 2014 full time.  Once returning, it was a MUST to return to meal prepping on Sunday afternoons (Saturdays if shopping was done on Friday).


Why bother?  Well, instead of spending the average amount of time in the kitchen, I can have dinner done in approximately 15-20 minutes and sometimes less.  The majority of dinner is already cooked and ready.  The hardest part is finding out what the Hubby wants. (HAHAHAHA).  I prepare on Sunday so that by the time we get home, whatever we are having can be heated up fairly quickly and ready to go.  Long enough to change clothes and Kaleb doesn't have enough time to get HANGRY.  We have done this so long that it is just a part of "what we do" each week.  We discuss what we want for the week and what we haven't had in a while and also depends on the weather.  Not to mention the great thing is that we save money.  What I can have prepared at home is a fraction of what we would pay if we went out to eat at a restaurant and I KNOW WHAT IS IN MY FOOD!  It also keeps us out of the drive through because it would be super easy to do that on nights when I'm tired.


Well, I hope this gets your wheels turning and really thinking about Meal Prep.  It is a game changer and a life saver!!!!!!  Please feel free to post your questions, ideas and comments.  I would love to hear from you!!!

Part 2 will follow and we will talk about "How to Make It Work For You!"