Cooking/Shopping for the Week & Prepping/Freezing Meals
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can you tell us your budget, how many people are you feeding, are you eating high protein/high fiber ect?
things you don't like?0 -
can you tell us your budget, how many people are you feeding, are you eating high protein/high fiber ect?
things you don't like?
It's just my BF and I. I eat 40-50% carbs, 20-30% protein, and 25-30% fat. Not other restrictions, but I don't like brussels sprouts.0 -
I use the Fresh 20 to plan my meals, tell me what I am cooking eat night, and what to buy at the grocery store.. The concept is 20 ingredients for 5 meals without waste. I paid $24 for the year with a Groupon. I bring leftovers or salads typically for lunch.
I do try and freeze meals but find that you have to plan to take them out...
Neat! Do you think it's saved you enough money to be worth the $24?0 -
Our weeks are somewhat boring but we're really busy and have 3 small kids so planning is a must.
I have a white board that I use for the menu and to list grocery items.
I hardboil eggs on Sundays and peel them so I can grab and go for breakfast.
Dinner is usually a pasta, baked chicken, burger, pork chop, steak, salisbury steak, etc. accompanied by a frozen/bagged veggie, salad, etc.
Sometimes I'll make a pot of chili or soup and freeze it in ziploc bags to eat during the week or later. I'll pop it in the crockpot in the am and it's good to go by dinner.
Our dinners are always prepped and made within a half hour because of our schedule, and we eat pretty healthy... Make a list and go from there!
My BF and I have a thing for whiteboards lol I have one at my cubicle and he has two at his house! We are definitely planning on using the white board for meals and making our grocery lists. Do you freeze your own cut veggies or buy the frozen bags?0 -
Bump for later!0
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Heres what I do....
Go to the store and buy the meat that is on sale, get home and portion it out into zip top bags. Add a marinade and freeze.
So for example, today boneless skinless chicken breat was on super sale. I bought 15lbs. When I got home I took out my favorite marinade recipe cards (5 total), and made triple batches of each. I then labeled the zip top bags with the marinade name. Then I put in 1lb of chicken and 1/3 of the marinade written on the bag. Seal, removing as much air as possible. Smoosh it around until the meat is coated in the marinade. Then I chose a bag of complimentary frozen veggies to go with each marinade (stir fry veggies to go with my asian marinade, etc...). Put the chicken/marinade bag AND the frozzen veggies into a 2 gallon zip top bag. Lay the bags flat in the freezer until solid. Then you can stand them up like files to save room. In the morning grab a bag and toss it in the fridge to defrost. Serve with salad.
I have seen some people reccomend putting a copy of the recipe card into the 2 gallon bag as well...that way you have heating instructions close by.
I eat mainly paleo with limited raw dairy, so casseroles/pastas are out for me. This works really well, and in about an hour I had 15 dinners in the freezer... plus I only had to clean up once!0 -
Oh, also the above can be done with different cuts of meat obviously...just useyour favorites!0
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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.0 -
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Bump! Thanks for all the ideas!0
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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 lol0 -
bumping for later. I really need to do this. Thanks for all the great suggestions0
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Bump for later.0
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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.0 -
Very cool!
Okay, another question as I'm thinking of it.
What about cooked grains? Buckwheat (kasha), quinoa, rice--can they be cooked and frozen?0 -
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.0
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