Due to request, here is a post about my current food prepping routine. I say current because what I am going to share with you is the routine I have used for only a few months. One of the surprises I wasn't expecting when Micah arrived was how much he ended up influencing (that seems like a much nicer word than interrupting, don't you think?) my cooking routines! For the longest time after he was born, it seemed like such a struggle to be able to cook dinner and have it ready in time before we needed to leave for church or youth group or wherever we were off to because Micah would suddenly need to nurse at 4:30 or, need a diaper change, or want someone to play with him...
I began to brainstorm how I could prepare more ahead of time so the dinner hour wasn't as stressful and so I could flex better with whatever comes up. I don't use the crockpot much because I have very few good crockpot recipes that meet my pretty stringent health and frugality standards (although I'll take any suggestions!). I have done some freezer cooking on and off for the past few years, but, again, alot of the recipes out there aren't really that healthy and often have that "freezer" flavor. {Sidenote: I do admire those of you who prepare freezer meals on a regular basis! Way to go!}
The routine I finally landed that has been working well for us for a few months now is two-fold: 1. freeze meal "building blocks" and 2. spend an hour or so prepping fresh products at the beginning of the week for quick use later. This is the most helpful when I have a meal plan set in place. I would like to get better and a little more specific at menu planning, but I sometimes still do go "off-the-cuff", particularly on the weekend. However, I try to at least take the time each week to figure out seven dinner meals. Then, I pick and choose as I get to each day which meal to serve that night, usually based on what leftover ingredients are in the fridge and what fresh produce needs to be used up first.
Freezing Building Blocks
Sporadically throughout the week, I freeze ingredients for later use that can be thrown together to make quick meals. This gives me more flexibility and is much quicker for me than freezing whole meals in my personal experience. Most of the items I freeze are items that others typically purchase already frozen or canned, but I choose to buy fresh, process, and freeze myself in order to save money. Here is what you can typically find in my freezer (and yes, I am lucky enough to have a chest freezer):
- Meal-sized portions of raw meat (chicken, ground turkey, pork cutlets, fish - all usually purchased on sale in jumbo packages)
- Cooked beans (garbanzo, pinto, white, etc. - purchased dry then soaked and cooked, often in the crockpot)
- "Refried" beans (homemade in the crockpot)
- Bone broth in large portions for making soups (also homemade in the crockpot)
- Bone broth in an ice cube tray to add flavor and moisture to recipes in smaller amounts
- A ziploc bag of vegetable "waste" - carrot tops and peelings, celery leaves, onion ends, etc. (to throw in the crockpot the next time I make broth)
- Homemade brown-n-serve wheat rolls
- Bread crumbs (made by using the blender on old bread or on homemade bread recipe fails)
- Soup in lunch-sized portions (I usually try to make an extra large batch of soup when cooking it for dinner so that I have extra for lunch the next day and to freeze as well)
- Berries and peaches (u-picked in the summer then frozen)
- Peeled bananas (purchased when they go on sale then frozen for smoothies)
- Waffles or pancakes (watch out though because bread products only stay fresh in the freezer for a couple months unlike the much longer freezer life of meats and fruits)
- Homemade chili
- Homemade spaghetti sauce (some dinner-sized portions with ground meat, some lunch-sized portions and pizza-sized portions without meat to save on cost)
- Homemade pizza dough
- Shredded cheese (mozzarella and cheddar, usually purchased in jumbo bags at Cash n Carry then divided up into smaller portions and frozen)
- Taco meat and beans
- Butter (purchased when it goes on sale for less than $2 then thrown in the freezer right in the box)
- Store-bought loaf of bread (An emergency loaf in case I run out)
- Tortillas (purchased in bulk for a cheaper price, then frozen in the packaging)
I find freezing in smaller portions helps me to be less wasteful, stretch costlier ingredients such as meat to last for more meals, and quickly thaw what I need when I forget to take it out ahead of time!
Sunday Prep
Sunday afternoon I usually take an hour or so to do some food preparation of the fresh ingredients I use, mainly vegetables. This usually involves a lot of chopping, slicing, and dicing. It depends on the week and what meals I have "scheduled", but here is an example of what I did last Sunday:
- Made a large lettuce, spinach, and shredded carrot salad (should last us several meals)
- Made a large veggie platter - sliced carrot and celery sticks, broccoli and cauliflower florets, bell pepper, cucumber - and a dip to make the veggies more appetizing for snacking (I did a mexican-flavored dip using salsa, cumin, cilantro, avacado, and fat-free plain greek yogurt)
- Containers of veggies for use in specific recipes for the first few days of the week: chopped onion, celery, and pepper for cajun chicken and rice, sliced onion and pepper for cajun chicken pasta (I guess we like cajun??), and steamed veggies for Micah to eat when we are having hard veggies he can't chew, like salad or carrot sticks
- Grilled chicken (Caleb actually did this for me, and it was so nice having cooked chicken around the whole week to dice on top of big salads for lunch and to add quickly to my dinner recipes)
- I didn't do this last week, but I usually chop a bunch of mixed veggies that I can quickly stir-fry together for a lunch meal
I also usually pull out any mysterious containers from the fridge and figure out how to use them in the next week. I'm usually pretty good about using leftovers in other meals, like leftover rice in a soup, for example, but occasionally I do have to throw something out when I do this :( .
Well, there you have it! There is my current system. Hopefully you may find a a tip or two that may help you.
