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I'm trying to lose weight (25 pounds down, 40 more to go), eat out less and cook more efficiently. Right now, I have a wonderful herb garden, along with zucchini growing in my yard, so I have some great options for healthy eating.
This weekend, I went to Costco and bought a large tray of pork chops, a large pack of chicken breasts and ground beef. The ground beef was sectioned into 1 lb, vacuum sealed bags and put in the chest freezer. The chicken breasts and pork chops were marinated for a few hours in a variety of solutions and then stuck in the freezer. I also have a bunch of steaks I can defrost.
I also bought a bunch of tiny potatoes for roasting and have a full spectrum of veggies (mushrooms, red peppers, spinach, asparagus, frozen haricot verts). They are all ready for roasting or grilling. So I'll be defrosting chicken and pork for the foreseeable future for light and healthy meals.
I love having a chest freezer, a foodsaver, a grill pan and a Costco membership. I plan on living on grilled meat and veggies for the foreseeable future
Not quite sure what you mean by your question: do you mean buying and shopping or do you mean how we prepare our meals?
As for shopping, we normally buy is bulk to some degree but not huge amounts. We divide, seal and freeze in serving size portions that is perfect for the 2 of us. We buy fresh produce weekly, usually at Aldi's or road side and farmers markets. When it comes to carbs,we go very light, but I do try and have something, other than bread everyday.
As for the actual prep, that varies with each meal. My air fryer is my best friend, followed by the grill and the electric cooker. 4 or 5 times a week dinner is simply a nice piece of meat, a salad, fruit or green, followed by cold slaw but I always do something a little different with salads. I use some sauces, so meals are interesting. About once a week or so I make dinner using the pressure cooker. Winter I use it more.
That is about all I can say about my meal preparation. I could go on and on but it would just get boring I am sure.
I do not quite understand your question. You have frozen meat and frozen vegetables and potatoes?
Marinades, brines, stuffing meat with vegetables and vice versa.
As far as prep goes - I lay everything out to the gnats you know what before starting to cook.
Extras such as grilled asparagus can be starters for dishes like crepes/fritattas. Your grilles green beans make a good salad with onions and vinagrette the next day.
Meal prep depends on what we are having. Some meals take very little prep work and some require involved prep work that sometimes takes several days. We just had a bento box meal where several of the components took several days to prep, because of pickling and marinating.
I am trying to get better at meal prepping while sheltering in place.
I try to do some lightweight planning on the weekend - thinking about how I will finish using up whatever I have from that week's CSA box (farm produce box).
I try to plan out breakfast and a couple of lunches - so I am not spending too much time cooking at lunch. Most weekends I make a big dish that can be reheated for meals later in the week. This weekend I failed. But I have an idea for tomorrow - I'll probably run to the store real quick to pick up a little bit of stuff.
This week I made some roasted sweet potatoes to have for breakfast. My new favorite is mash the sweet potato with a nut butter, salt, and some chili flakes. Last week I used up my squash by making a frittata and had that for breakfast all week.
I also had a bunch of extra tomatoes last week and made tomato confit. So for dinner, I ended up with a slow roasted piece of salmon with harissa, served on top of the kale, beans, tomato confit. And topped it all with a chopped preserved lemon.
I have a ton of baby potatoes. I bought some at the farmers market a few weeks ago, and of course they had to come in my CSA box last week. I'll either put them in a frittata or Spanish tortilla. Or come up with another dish. Potatoes aren't a staple for me, so I'll be pondering these for a bit. Maybe I'll make a stew with some beans, sausage, and potatoes.....(this just came to me! it is a great idea.....)
I try to come up with 3-4 types of veggies to eat in a day. So 2 at dinner, 2 at lunch. Or maybe 1 at lunch and one at breakfast - just to keep things colorful. I usually cook up some greens to eat every day. I also have an aerograrden full of lettuce, so that might show up at breakfast, or as a 1st course while I am making dinner!
I ocassionally pillage my freezer, I need to make some stuff to put in there, but I usually have a few kinds of beans, a lot of sausage and bacon, potstickers, and of course those greens. I keep frozen fish fillets in the freezer for quick limited prep dinner. And I am notorious for not defrosting stuff, but I do have some meat to use eventually.
I like the idea of freezing marinated meat! I will need to try this, I don't often marinate as I am lazy and do not prep often enough - but that seems like a good idea for some different flavors. I tend to do either a quick cooking preparation or a braise.
I like to think of a flavor profile for a meal, so that even the same ingredients have a different taste from one meal to the next.
With the pork chops and green beans, for instance, one night I'll do them with middle eastern spices and a cucumber-yogurt sauce, and the next night I can do them with Montreal steak seasoning and use dill butter on the beans. Same food, different flavors. Or make them into a stir fry with a ginger-soy sauce.
I believe we're using the term "meal prepping" incorrectly. It actually means packaging complete pre-cooked meals that only need to be taken out of the refrigerator (short term) or freezer (long term) and warmed in the oven or microwave in order to eliminate the need to cook later on.
For me it's making a big batch of chili or soup and portioning it out and freezing. Or back in my carby days, making a full lasagna and portioning. My favorite prepped meals come after Thanksgiving. I spend the day solo, but I still cook a full turkey and sides so I can package the meals in divided containers and freeze.
I believe we're using the term "meal prepping" incorrectly. It actually means packaging complete pre-cooked meals that only need to be taken out of the refrigerator (short term) or freezer (long term) and warmed in the oven or microwave in order to eliminate the need to cook later on.
For me it's making a big batch of chili or soup and portioning it out and freezing. Or back in my carby days, making a full lasagna and portioning. My favorite prepped meals come after Thanksgiving. I spend the day solo, but I still cook a full turkey and sides so I can package the meals in divided containers and freeze.
I disagree, prep work is required no matter how simple a dish is, whether chopping or slicing vegetables. It is still prep work. We often make multiple batches to save for another meal, but the prep work is still required.
One thing I have always done is make a menu for the following week and then I do my shopping. Now, do I stick to the menu exactly? Absolutely not: I will vary it, we may end up going out so one days plans will go out the window or I just get in the mood to make a change, but, for the most part I do follow it and base it on what plans we have for the week. Some meals just come right out of the freezer from days, weeks or months before. On Thurs we usually do happy hour with friends so dinner is very simple; mostly from the freezer. This weekend if all goes well is the starting of our girls canning session so dinner will have to be easy and will not take a lot of thought, probably grilled meat, salad and a veggie. I haven't done my menu for this week yet as things have come up that have been unexpected.
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