Making Mealtime Easier w/ Food Prep

I’m always looking for ways to make things easier and more efficient. And a couple of the things that I’ve found that helps our mealtimes go smoother is to plan ahead by prepping the food right after I do the grocery shopping and to write out a menu.

I did our “big” grocery shopping a couple days ago. This means shopping for 2 weeks. It takes me about 2 hours in the store and then a few hours once I’m home to unload, put away and prep. Yes, I have the kids help. They are great at getting everything into the house and helping get everything stored. I’ve found that a little time right after we get home goes a long way. If we wash and cut the celery and carrots, then the kids will snack on them. Otherwise they sit in their bags, wilting until I finally have to throw them away. It’s also really nice, when packing lunches, to be able to grab prepped veggies to bag up or to throw them into the crock pot when I’m thinking of dinner at 5 am. I guarantee you I wouldn’t be making a pork roast w/ carrots, first thing in the morn, if I had to wash, peel and cut the carrots right then.

I buy 5 dozen eggs, every 2 weeks. But, when I bring home the new eggs, there are sometimes still eggs left in the fridge. I like to boil them and use 1/2 of what I’ve boiled to make egg salad and leave the other 1/2 for the kids to grab over the next couple of days.

After this last shopping trip I rotated the potatoes by taking what was left of the bag in the fridge, washing and baking them and making twice baked potatoes. Had there been more left in the bag, I would’ve used them for potato salad.

Another meal prep step I take is to make sure that any meat I’ve bought is split and bagged into meal sized portions. There’s nothing worse than taking out an entire package of chicken to defrost when you really only need a few pieces. You can also bag it with it’s marinade. Mr. Yoshida’s chicken that’s been stored in the sauce is a favorite!

Once everything is prepped and stored, I try to get a list in my head of what we’ll be eating over the next 2 weeks. I hate having the afternoon sneak up on me and wondering what I’m going to cook. If I take a few minutes to write down meal ideas, it makes it all a lot easier. Since I’ve been working, my crock pot has been a life saver and having some meal ideas written down makes stumbling into the kitchen at 5 am a better experience!

For the next 2 weeks, the meal ideas I came up with are;

Chili and cornbread
Black beans & rice with kielbasa
Mac-n-cheese
Chicken with salsa & cream soup in the crock pot
Spaghetti
Chicken devon
Carole’s potato casserole
Rolled chicken “enchiladas”
Mexican lasagna
Nachos
Pesto pasta (with or w/o chicken)
Pasta with alfredo & crab
Chicken strips
Twice baked potatoes

Having the list also helps me know what to take out of the freezer for the next day.

Btw-I’m always looking for crock pot recipes. If you have a favorite, please share it!

Have a great day~