Meal planning and finding time to cook

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  • writergeek313
    writergeek313 Posts: 390 Member
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    I can make a homemade breakfast sandwich (English muffin, egg, cheese, and turkey sausage) in the time it takes an English muffin to toast. Yogurt and cereal takes about 2 minutes to weigh and combine. Rolled oats take two minutes in the microwave, or overnight oats can be prepped the night before.

    Most of the time, I do my meal prep on Sundays. I have a really busy job, and that's the easiest way I've found to guarantee I have healthy options with minimal efforts through the week. Some weeks I portion everything out so I just need to reheat a container when I get home. Other weeks I make a lot of basic ingredients that I combine in different ways. I also try to prep the basic components of my lunches for the week on Sundays or Mondays. For instance, tomorrow I'll be defrosting grilled flank steak and veggies I froze last month and will cook up a carb to go with them (probably either brown rice or whole wheat couscous). Then I'll weight and package my portions. The day I'm going to eat it, I'll add some baby spinach and salsa or salad dressing. That means 5 minutes of prep in the morning.

    It's all about thinking about how you're using your time and try to use it more wisely. An hour or two of work can feed you quite a few times so you don't have to cook every day. If you wait until the last minute, you're going to be less likely to make healthy choices.
  • Amandawith3kids
    Amandawith3kids Posts: 367 Member
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    i have 3 kids, a small business, and for various reasons, i drive about 350 miles a week. so i'm pretty busy.

    i made 4 weeks worth of meals, and we rotate through them. most of the meals are done in 30 minutes max, and a few are crockpot meals that cook all day when i'm extra busy. this also helps with controlling the budget.

    if you dont know how to cook, its easy to learn.
  • SPeffer1
    SPeffer1 Posts: 74 Member
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    I understand being busy - it's hard sometimes. Between working 50 hrs/week, a toddler, volunteer stuff, gym, and church - it's busy. What I've found is it is so much easier for me to take a couple/few hours on a weekend (or whatever day you have the most free time) and cook ahead. This past weekend I made:

    Wheat pancakes from scratch - My son eats these daily and I freeze them. Every morning all I have to do is heat them up
    Boil a half dozen eggs
    Make bread (bread maker so super easy)
    Baked a spaghetti squash and shredded - ready to grab
    Cooked a lb of veggie protein crumbles to use like burger
    Crock pot of steel cut oats (this I actually didn't do this weekend, but typically do). This is my breakfast every morning
    Washed, cut up,prepped strawberries and grapes I bought. Froze the majority of the grapes for later.

    Often I will also make a bag of black beans, cook, and then freeze for later.

    I like to meal plan on Fridays so I can grocery shop and prepare for the week. Then it's not as big a deal when I get home from work at 6:00 and my son goes to bed at 7:30. If I had to start from scratch I don't know what I'd do. Same with breakfast - I get up at 5:00 and get my son up at 6:00 a.m. and we have to be out the door by 7:00. So fast and easy it is!

    I also take these items/leftovers for lunches at work.

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