I’m starting a new series called Meal Prep Monday where I share all of the food I’m making for the week. Because I am well and truly over spending my time and energy making dinner each night, only to have to make something else for my kids.
I’ve been rethinking how I spend my time in the kitchen, lately, and have come to the conclusion that I hate having to make dinner every night. I’m so completely over spending an hour plus making dinner every night and then having to make two more meals since the kids don’t like or want what I make.
Or scrambling to get dinner going because the kids have things going on at night or someone is getting hangry. Which is often.
(If you want to read more about this journey and what prompted me to switch things up, you can find it in my newsletter, The H: Report, Vol.’s 8, 9, and 10.)
For the last 3 weeks, I’ve been carving out 1 day (usually a Sunday) where I spend several hours cooking for the week and/or restocking our freezer. It’s definitely a bigger commitment on the day of, but as someone who can hyperfocus like a rockstar, when I get in the mood to cook, I am in the mood to cook and can knock out 5 or 6 meals pretty efficiently.
As a result, I am spending a lot less time cooking and thinking about food overall. And stress around dinnertime has all but disappeared because everyone just picks what they want, when they are hungry, and that’s that.
At this point in the journey, our freezer is very well stocked and I’m only having to top off our meals with 1 or 2 bigger items for the week and then fill in with whatever snacks and sides everyone wants.
What I currently have in our freezer:
- shredded chicken and beef
- mashed potatoes
- skillet potato kugel
- chicken and beef meatballs
- chicken pozole
- black bean burgers
- banana bread steal cut oatmeal
- butternut squash soup
I use these silicone freezer trays* to freeze everything and I can fit 8 1-cup cubes in a gallon freezer bag. I also have frozen foods that my kiddos like, including pierogies, cocktail franks, chicken nuggets, and chicken egg rolls.
What I made this week to round it all out and get some new flavors into the mix:
- Meal Prep Ginger Ground Beef Bowls: I made this one for lunches and/or dinner for the week and paired it with some jasmine rice. It looks and smells delicious and I am really looking forward to trying it out. I portioned everything out and put it in these glass meal prep containers* so all I have to do is heat it up and enjoy.
- Jasmine Rice: I made an extra large batch of rice in the rice cooker for the week so I’d have leftovers to either portion out and freeze OR to use for a batch of fried rice. Just depends on how much gets eaten during the week.
- Homemade Applesauce: The Little absolutely loves having homemade applesauce, so this one is in regular rotation. I make sure to save the apple peels and cores so I can make my favorite apple scrap apple butter whenever I run out.
- Apple Scrap Apple Butter (or scrAPPLE butter): I am almost completely out of apple butter and had a huge stockpile of apple scraps in the freezer to use. (Of course, I replenished the stash immediately thereafter from making the applesauce but that’s for the next batch). This takes about 10ish hours, so I made sure to get it started first thing this morning. I also use a sugar-free alternative in place of the brown sugar and it’s absolutely delightful.
- Strawberry Salsa: I have been obsessed with using our kitchen scraps in any way I can, so when I saw that you could make strawberry infused vinegar with strawberry tops, I knew I had to a.) make that, and then b.) make a strawberry salsa to use it in. We were also given some fresh mint from a neighbor, so I swapped out the cilantro (yuck) for some mint (yum). I plan to eat it with corn chips for a snack and even top some chicken with it as a way to add some flavor.
- Blueberry-Lemon Scones: I made this two weeks ago, and they were gone within two days, so I figured I’d make another batch this week to use up the rest of our lemons and blueberries before they went bad. I also got to use some of the lemon simple syrup I made with our lemon scraps, so that was a fun bonus.
- Stovetop Mac & Cheese: This one was by request for The Little. Mac & Cheese is her favorite and she thinks it’s the coolest thing that you can make it from scratch. I made a point to buy cow milk and butter last time I was at the store so that it would be the creamiest. She was a big fan and so was my husband.
I know this sounds like a lot to make in one day, but it only took about 2 hours of actual hands on time and about 4 hours total in the kitchen. Which is a lot less than what I’d be spending making something new for dinner each night in a week. The only thing I have to do now for meal time is reheat what I choose.
Are you a fan of batch cooking and/or weekly meal prepping? What are your staples and go-to recipes? Do share!
