What's cookin' this weekend? (meal planning)
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PloddingTurtle
Posts: 283 Member
I've discovered that meal planning and advance prepping is the missing essential element to all my past attempts to stay disciplined and on plan. I hope others will join me in posting their meal planning/prepping successes and difficulties/challenges as well as maybe some links to recipes.
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What's Cookin' This Weekend?
Defrosted- a 4-litre pail of chicken broth
- a container of make-ahead crockpot apricot ginger chicken
- a 2-lb package of beef stewing meat
- Hard boiled eggs
- pot of Rice
- slow cooked apricot ginger Chicken
- Big Batch Vegetable Soup a personalized recipe inspired by the one on this site. Made enough to portion out 1.5 to 2 cups a day for the week, and froze two pails containing a week's worth of soup for future use.
- Beth's Best Tuna Salad (a BudgetBytes recipe) - portioned out in individual lunch portions. Five containers neatly stacked in the fridge ready to go.
- Beef and Mushroom Stew (slow cooker) - will split the finished stew into two freezer containers of 4 meals each.
Next week's Meal Plan (1,600 calories/day)
Breakfast of the week: 1 hard boiled egg, 1orange, 175 g plain yogurt, 1 tsp real maple syrup, 28 g Skinny B cereal (a Holy Crap product - the name just makes me grin every time I see it.
)
Lunch of the week: 2 cups of vegetable soup, tuna salad stuffed in a half bell pepper.
3 P.M. Snack: 1 apple, 1 cheese stick
Suppers, Mon-Wed and Friday: Apricot-Ginger Chicken on rice with salad or a selection of vegetables from my freezer.
Thursday: headed out of town to a second memorial service for my Dad. Lunch on the road. Dinner with close family.1 -
What's Cookin' This Weekend?
Defrosted- split pea soup (five cups)
- Cranberry Dijon Pork (slow cooker) This is a make-ahead meal I put together at the meal prep/tupperware party I went to. I don't know yet if this recipe is a keeper.
- Hard boil eggs
- Rice
- slow cooked the Cranberry Dijon Pork
- individually portioned out meals for Mon-Fri
Next week's Meal Plan (1,600 calories/day)
Breakfast of the week: 1 hard boiled egg, 1orange, 30 g gluten-free Sunrise Crunchy Maple cereal, 125 ml 2% milk
Lunch of the week: 1 cup split pea soup, 150 g cottage cheese, 80 g canned peaches
3 P.M. Snack: 1 apple (150-180 g), 1 cheese stick
Suppers, Mon-Thurs: Cranberry Dijon pork on rice with salad or a selection of vegetables from my freezer.
Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom.
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Sounds like an awesome plan1
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I love this idea! I don't know that I am this disciplined yet, but definitely something to work towards!1
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I'm trying to balance two sometimes competing goals with my meal planning:
- healthy eating / weight loss
- staying on / under budget
I have a full freezer and pantry right now, so my budget is telling me to stop buying so much food and eat down the freezer and pantry. I've actually got next week's meal plan almost completed. Usually I wait until the weekly grocery store flyers come out, in case there are some really good deals. I'm trying to decide if I feel like processing a turkey this weekend..... The weather forecast is for cool and rainy, so running my oven won't be an issue. And I get a lot of meat and broth that I can freeze in smaller usable portions. Or do I pull out a chicken or two? I'm kind of leaning towards the chicken. If turkey is the plan, however, then I need to start it defrosting tonight. Decisions. Decisions.
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@PloddingTurtle so are you basically eating the same meal every day? How's that working for you? Do you get burned out?0
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On work days, I'm looking more for convenience and readiness than variety.
Considering each meal separately:
Breakfasts:
I really don't mind eating the same breakfast every day for long stretches of time, but I make myself change it up every week. I think that most people I know have a couple of favourite go-to breakfasts that they stick to: regular days and special days. I prefer a hot breakfast in the winter, and I've found more oatmeal recipes to try than there are weeks in my winter. If I bake a pan of coconut oatmeal -- this is so good! it's like cake! -- it requires that I eat it for the next six days so it doesn't go to waste. Having the breakfasts ready to go means I can take my breakfast to work rather than hitting the drive-thru on the way to work, or, worse, going hungry and hitting the drive-thru on the way home. This, it turns out, is a win-win for both my diet and my budget.
Lunches:
Again. Maybe I'm unique in that I don't need a lot of variety for my workday lunches. I really need it to be ready to go. When I'm really busy, I want something I can eat cold at my desk. I I do like to change it up from week to week so that I'm not eating the same foods for the rest of my life. That would quickly turn a favourite into something I'd never want to eat again. I'm planning on chicken salad in a half bell pepper for next week's lunches. That's one I really enjoy, but I haven't had for about a month.
Suppers:
I am finding that the same supper meal Monday thru Thursday is not horrible. When we're super busy at work, it's actually helpful to not have to think about what I'm eating or preparing. I go home and pull out the veggies for salad-making or stir-fry-making, and get with making my supper. But I do think that four days is about my limit. I leave Friday, Saturday, and Sunday open to more impulsive, different, or flexible meal decisions. When my schedule is more forgiving, I can and do plan for different evening meals.0 -
What's Cookin' This Weekend?
Defrosted Friday- pail of Big Batch Vegetable Soup
- kilo of ground beef (or ground bison - the package labeling isn't clear)
- two whole chickens
- Instant Pot cooking of the two chickens
- removed the meat, 4 cooked chicken breasts (6 - 7 ounce portions) individually frozen for future meals (handy for hot days when the thought of cooking is odious), 1 lb of chicken meat for making chicken salad tomorrow, and the remaining 4 ounces of chicken meat set aside to top tonight's salad.
- made stock from the cooking juices, chicken bones, and iffy vegetables cleaned out of my crisper before going grocery shopping; strained and cooling, will freeze for future souping.
- weighted and portioned the ground meat into six equal portions of 155 g each (5-ish ounces)
- Hard boil eggs
- pot of rice
- Awesome Chicken Salad with grapes and walnuts
- dish out next week's meals for grab-and-go convenience.
Next week's Meal Plan (1,600 calories/day)- Breakfast of the week: 1 hard boiled egg, 1orange, 30 g gluten-free Sunrise Crunchy Maple cereal, 125 ml 2% milk - this will use up the last of this cereal
- Lunch of the week: 1.5 to 2 cups of vegetable soup, 1 serving of chicken salad in a half bell pepper.
- 3 P.M. Snack: 1 apple, 3/4 cup of vanilla yogurt
- Suppers, Mon-Thurs: Stir-fries all week using the ground meat, hot-pepper infused oil, a generous selection of freshly chopped vegetables: celery, onion, carrot, garlic, bean sprouts, shredded broccoli, bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, spinach, fragrant stir-fry sauce, all served on a 1/2 - 1 cup of rice.
- Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom.
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One of my favourite websites is BudgetBytes.com because it fits in with both my budget and my healthy eating goals. The weekly e-mail blast article this week is all on easing into meal planning and prepping. I'm posting the link here as a resource for anyone interested in incorporating more prepping.
Meal Prep 101: A Beginner's Guide to Prepping and Portioning Meals
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Love budgetbytes. Her recipes are always delish.1
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What's Cookin' This Weekend?
Defrosted Friday- kilo of ground beef ( definitely not bison - I figured out which colour freezer paper means which last week )
- grocery shopping but no prepping
Prepping Sunday:- weigh the ground beef, separate out what's needed for the recipe, make individual burgers or meatballs with the remainder - cook and freeze the hamburgers/meatballs for future meals.
- Skillet Cheeseburger Pasta (a BudgetBytes recipe)
- hard boil eggs
- individually portion breakfast cereal, yogurt, and the pasta for the upcoming week's take-along meals
- advance prep salad vegetables for the week's salad-making
Next week's Meal Plan (1,570 calories/day)- Breakfast of the week: 1 orange or 1/2 grapefruit, 30 g Multigrain Cheerios, 125 ml 2% milk
- Lunch of the week: 1 serving of Skillet Chesseburger Pasta
- 3 P.M. Snack: 1 apple, 3/4 cup of plain yogurt, 1 tsp maple syrup
- Suppers, Mon-Thurs: Chef Salad: extra large serving of freshly chopped low-calorie salad vegetables topped with a boiled egg, an ounce of shredded cheese, 3.5 oz chicken breast, 1/2 an avocado, a roma tomato, and a Tbsp of raw sunflower seeds, plus a full-fat salad dressing of choice. (The chicken breasts were cooked and frozen individually last week.)
- Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom.
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This past weekend was a bit different because my husband and I went to a deli on Saturday morning that we had been wanting to try for years. We bought a huge sub (around 16”) that was turkey, ham and cheese. Ordinarily, I would have (embarrassingly) eaten 1/2 of it for lunch and the other half for dinner. So my husband and I decided to get one to share and we each ate 1/4 of it for our lunch (paired with a small salad), and for dinner we had another salad, We repeated that same day on Sunday. We also spent Sunday making sauce and also grilled up a bunch of chicken for my weekday lunches. Next weekend, I plan to stick to my diet a bit more rigidly than I did this past weekend, but I am not disappointed with how it went overall.
I tend to make a lot of my meals from the skinnytaste website. They have some really tasty meals, a user-friendly website, and all the nutritional information.2 -
What's Cookin' This Weekend?
I went in for eye surgery very early this morning, and even though I will be home recuperating all week, I prepped meals and individually portioned them to both maintain that discipline and to reduce all physical activity and use of ovens to as little as possible over the next week. It's going to be a hot week and I'm under strict post-op recovery instructions and I don't want to start thinking of fast food as an option.
From the Freezer- cooked a 1.5-lb beef pot roast from M&M foods from frozen
- defrosted 2 servings of beef stew (eaten over the weekend)
- defrosted 2 servings of pea soup
Prepped Saturday- grocery shopped but no prepping
Prepped Sunday:
- Beef Roast
- Cook potatoes, carrots, green beans
- hard boil eggs
- individually portion breakfast cereal and yogurt
- advance prep salad vegetables for the week's salad-making
Breakfast of the week: 1/2 grapefruit, 1HB egg, 30 g Multigrain Cheerios, 125 ml 2% milk (or 200 g plain yogurt, 1/2 T maple syrup, 1 serving of granola)
Lunch of the week: Roast beast and a little gravy with potato, carrot, and green bean
3 P.M. Snack: 1 apple, 3/4 cup of plain yogurt, 1 tsp maple syrup or 1 oz cheese
Suppers, Mon-Thurs: A 5-oz beef burger topped with mozzarella and salsa, served with a large salad of freshly chopped low-calorie salad vegetables topped with 1/2 an avocado, a roma tomato, and dressed with a full-fat salad dressing of choice. (the burgers were cooked last weekend and individually frozen)
Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom. (not sure when the prohibition on adult beverages ends after the surgery - the happy hour beverage may be water with lemon)0 -
I kind of went off this weekend , I made chili and hot dogs and we had chips and i got cookies for the kids , i ate the chili and 1 cookie LOL and my pork rinds . I wanted to make something my hubby would love and chili is his thing . They ate like little pigs .0
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What's Cookin' This Weekend?
From the Freezer- Pail of Big Batch Vegetable Soup a personalized recipe inspired by the one on this site.
- Defrosted a 4-serving container of Beef and Mushroom Stew
- grocery shopping but no prepping
- Cook potatoes
- advance prep some snacking vegetables
- hull and clean strawberries
- individually portion lunches and snacks
Breakfast of the week: 1/2 grapefruit, one frozen El Monterey breakfast wrap
Lunch of the week: 1.5 cups of vegetable soup, 250 g cottage cheese, 125 g fresh strawberries, 75 g sliced peaches canned in pear juice.
3 P.M. Snack: 1 apple, 200 g plain yogurt, 0.5 Tbsp maple syrup
Suppers, Mon-Thurs: Raw vegetables (carrot, celery, bell pepper, cucumber, tomato) with 30 g Havarti cheese and a dressing/dip of choice, Beef and Mushroom Stew, potato, and brussel sprouts (frozen veg)
Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom.0 -
What's Cookin' This Weekend?
Saturday- grocery shopping but no prepping
Prepping Sunday:- Instant Pot Experiment - Making my own Cottage Cheese - done
Prepping Monday (Offices closed in lieu of Canada Day falling on Sunday):- advance prep some snacking vegetables
- hull and clean strawberries
- individually portion breakfasts, lunches, and snacks for my two remaining work days this week (I'm using some banked OT and vacation time to take Thursdays and Fridays off for the rest of the summer)
Next week's Meal Plan (aiming for 1,570 calories/day)
Breakfast of the week: 200 g of plain yogurt, 0.5 Tbsp maple syrup, 1 apple, 35 g Quaker Harvest Crunch cereal as a crunchy topping
Lunch of the week: 187 g (3/4 cup) home-made cottage cheese, 125 g fresh strawberries, 75 g sliced peaches canned in pear juice, and when I run out of cottage cheese, egg salad sandwich.
3 P.M. Snack: 1/2 grapefruit, 150-cal cereal/snack bar
Suppers, Mon-Thurs: Time to use up a lot of odds and ends in my refrigerator freezer compartment: spaghetti sauce, meatballs, Instant Pot beef stew,slow cooker Sesame Chili Chicken, individually portioned bits of hamburger. The vegetables from my crisper can be prepared as a stir-fry or a salad depending on what works best with which meal.
Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom.
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I've been down for the count with a bad summer cold and fever that came on super fast last Thursday and wiped me out for two days. I gave up trying to eat on plan, then gave up food, then gave up on water. I'm still not feeling 100% yet.
I don't feel like shopping and food prepping for next week. I think I have enough good food to carry me through the first half of the week's meals, so I'm going to wing it this week.1 -
Feel better soon
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Feeling better, but sounding awful to everyone else. It's definitely improving. Back on track this morning.0
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What's Cookin' This Weekend?
From the Freezer- 2 x 2-lb packages of ground beef
- 2 x whole chickens
- Big jumbo size bag of frozen mixed vegetables
- raspberry picking in my mom's garden
- grocery shopping
- vegetable prepping
- Instant Pot cooking of the two whole chickens: all chicken breasts individually frozen, remaining meat used for making chicken salad, carcasses back into the pot along with vegetable peelings and boiled for chicken broth; strained, cooled overnight in refrigerator, skimmed visible fat, and used in final soup making step on Sunday
- Hearty Hamburger Stew (I can't remember where I found the recipe that I wrote down in my journal. It's similar to this recipe here except I use 2 lbs of ground beef to increase the protein count per serving and I frequently resort to four cups of frozen mixed vegetables if I don't have a bunch of vegetables at the ready in my crisper that need to be souped) - froze in two containers of five servings each for future lunches
- weighed out and separated enough ground beef for suppers this week, refrigerated
- seasoned remaining ground beef, formed into 4-oz patties, cooked, froze
- Big Batch Vegetable Soup (my own variation inspired by the recipe here - I added canellini beans to it this time to increase the fibre and protein macro since I plan on going to the gym every day next week) - 1 pail to the freezer, 1 pail to the referigerator to use this week, a 3rd pail of just chicken broth frozen for future soup making.
- Hard boiled eggs
- pot of rice
- Awesome Chicken Salad with Grapes and Walnuts - enough for five lunches
- individually portion breakfasts, lunches, and snacks
Breakfast of the week: 187 g plain yogurt, 1/2 T maple syrup, 30 g granola for crunch, fruit of choice (fresh-picked raspberries, possibly some blueberries too since they're in season or an apple)
Lunch of the week: 1.5 - 2 cups of vegetable soup, chicken salad served in a half red bell pepper
3 P.M. Snack: 1 orange, 1 HB egg
Suppers, Mon-Thurs: Will make a sizzling spicy stir fry using ground beef and freshly chopped vegetables and serve it on rice.
Friday: happy hour beverage and a supper with my mom.
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