Cooking/Shopping for the Week & Prepping/Freezing Meals

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Oh, also the above can be done with different cuts of meat obviously...just useyour favorites!

This is all really helpful, thank you! I will definitely be checking some of those books out.

We also have a crockpot and I have seen people make the 'bagged meals'. Has anyone done that with success? It looks like a great idea!

I have been oogling lunchboxes at projectlunchbox on Pinterest. They are soooo cute! Definitely gonna invest in the ones that have the little freezer-thingy built in. I feel so silly for not taking advantage of the fridge at work. :P

We do freezer crockpot kits and they turn out well. You just need to remember to grab them out of the freezer and put them in the fridge the night before.

I had another thought today as I was going about my business--I do a lot of "morphs" because we don't love leftovers. If I'm grilling chicken, I'll grill enough for 3 meals worth and do grilled chicken with a veggie that night, leftover chicken on salad another night, and leftover chicken shredded on sandwiches or sliced on pizza or as fajitas another night. I like to make a roast of some sort on Sundays and then use that for sandwiches and some dishes through the week as well.

I usually buy the giant half pork loins when they're on sale and slice each into a couple of roasts and some boneless pork chops--it's at least $1/lb cheaper to do chops that way than buying them already sliced.

Bump! Thanks for all the ideas!

I get the majority of my suppers from www.skinnytaste.com

Depends on the meal on how I store it. For the lowfat baked ziti w spinach, I store a single serving in a BPA free plastic container. So a pan makes 8 servings for me. My meatballs, I store in zippie bags and as long as they are completely cooled and you let the air out of the bag before sealing it, they won't get freezer burnt. Certain things I make little foil packs, like roasted cauliflower and roasted broccoli, any meat without a sauce or tomatoes.

This week I made Skinny Taste spinach and feta stuffed chicken, which I stored my portions in zippie bags. I got 5 meals out of that. I will make the ziti next week, and the following week, I will be due for making cauliflower fritters and turkey taco filling. Staggered out like that, I'm only spending about an hour or so per week and have a constant rotation going in my freezer lol

Bump for later.

Should I buy a huge set of tupperware? Some Pins I see have stuff in big ziplocks...won't that freezer-burn?
What are some spices used in most things? (I am really bad at spices)
Do you have a budget?

Ziplocks are great for the freezer (the freezer bags are made for that). If I'm not freezing for more than a week or two, I'll just wrap it up in a couple of layers of plastic wrap. I'm not a fan of Tupperware, really. I like glass dishes for the fridge.

Onion powder, garlic powder & black pepper are the most common spices I use. Well, I seem to never have pepper on hand, but I should.

I definitely have a budget, and it's TIGHT. I work some cheaper meals in with more expensive meals. For me, the most expensive is chicken, since I only eat boneless, skinless, and it's about $15-16 for four breasts. That makes two dinners for two of us. If we have something like caesar salad or fried rice, I usually use one breast. With chicken, if you're not going to use it within a couple of days, freeze it.

Tip -- Leftover pasta sauce can go right in the freezer in the jar. Freeze it with the cover off, then pop the cover on once it's frozen.

What I've done is plan my menus for each day (which is the same all week) and try to minimize what actually needs to be cooked when making the menu. Think choosing recipes (buy a cookbook!) that use the fewest amount of ingredients possible. This is also a huge time/money saver. You really only need to freeze portioned out stuff if you're trying to do all your cooking for a couple of weeks at a time. In that case, you'll want to plan what you want to eat each week (if you want variety) or plan to cook 2 weeks worth of the same daily menu. I've seen people use cheap plastic ziploc bags to freeze cooked/portioned meat, poultry, and fish. A food saver goes a LONG way toward avoiding freezer burn. So does avoiding how much moisture ends up in the ziploc before you freeze. Think letting stuff completely cool before putting it in the bag and tossing it in the freezer. For my husband and I, I'll cook all the food and put it in large tupperware containers in the fridge so that we can dole out portions as needed. I'll portion out food for my lunch and snack at work the night prior. If you plan to do a little bit of cooking each day, prepping the foods in advance that you'll use in the recipe is very helpful on cutting down on your time spent cooking. I make a tuna and egg scramble with cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and shallots (fancy!) every morning. This WOULD be time consuming if I didn't pre-wash and slice all of the vegetables at the beginning of the week. Believe it or not, fresh chopped vegetables will keep for a decent amount of time in the fridge, but anything past a week is pushing it. Taking fresh veggies and then freezing them will not work very well unless you plan to eat them cooked or use them in a recipe later. The freezing ruins the texture and makes them mushy. Same goes for refreezing fish. Have fun and remember that there are as many ways to prep meals in advance as there are people doing it, so find what works for you. Also, don't spring for expensive tupperware if you're not completely hooked on it. I use the cheap generic tupperware you can buy at virtually any grocery store for storing large and small portions of food. Prepping food in advance helps SOO much with tracking your food and creating that "control" in the great weight loss/maintenance/fitness experiment, LOL. But it is really designed to help you save money. So don't spend more than you have to to do it.