Food prep- HELP!!!!!!!!

Make whatever catches your interest. If he complains, point out that he's offered no input and you're not a mind reader.

I only meal prep lunches, and it's pretty minimal. I smoke a bunch of chicken breasts on Sunday and use them throughout the week. Wrapped in a tortilla with a laughing cow cheese wedge one day. With Bird's Eye veggie noodles one day. Rice and broccoli another day. Grilled chicken salad. Etc, etc.

I don't prep dinner, other than to take something out to thaw that morning.

Narrow down your choices. Hubby is signalling that he doesn’t care so assume anything is OK. (Well, if there are foods he absolutely hates, you can scratch them).

Have you shopped yet? No? Get to the store and get a family pack or a roast that is on sale. This time of year around here turkey is cheap. Cook it.

What veggies are on hand? Use them.

Rice, pasta, wraps and bread can serve as your starchy side.

Finally, flavourings. Sriracha for spicy Mexican style. Teriyaki for Chinese. Spaghetti sauce for Italian. Butter chicken. Alfredo. You can get them pre packaged to start as you gain confidence.

Keep it simple and used pre-cut veggies when possible via your supermarket or freezer section.

Both of these options are zero added sugar and low carb.

Breakfasts - I steam a bag of small potatoes (in my pressure cooker) and boil up a dozen eggs. I let the potatoes cool and then salt them and put them in a gallon freezer bag. I have 100 g of cold boiled potatoes and 2 HB eggs for breakfast. They are very portable. (I use various spice blends from Penzeys to keep me from getting bored.) Both keep well over several weeks if you make up a bunch.

Lunches - I buy about 3 lbs of pre chopped veggies (I like the Trader Joes 8 veggie mix -- Broccoli, carrots, green cabbage, red cabbage, jicama, green bell pepper, radish, celery -- but you could get close doing the prep yourself) and I add 1/2 cup raw apple cider vinegar, 1 TBSP salt and put them in a gallon freezer bag, mix them all up and measure out 8 oz and top with 3 oz plain turkey from the take out area of the grocery store. Some of the veggies will get soft but the vinegar keeps them from turning bad, at 8 oz each there are 6 servings.

Also, I also do a menu a week out in advance of my grocery trip.

I buy a lot of 1 lb size ground meats, cook them and mix in various veggies and do 1/2 serving of rice or pasta or add some mild beans and call it dinner.

• Traditional spaghetti sauce with meat / lots of noodles then becomes "saucy spaghetti" and makes 4 portions (1/4 lb meat, 8 oz tomatoes, garlic, onion, spices). I precook my noodles angel hair noodles (2 portions not 4) and then dump the noodles in with the sauce and they expand so much, you won't miss them and you've cut half your carbs. I use 32 oz of campari tomatoes and blend them in my blender and add fresh garlic and onion and some butter or olive oil and cook in my pressure cooker for about 45 minutes. Penzeys has a Greek and an Italian spice blend that works really well.
  
• Traditional chili is made as above, but, I add an extra can of beans (not noodles) and only top with 1/8 cup of cheese. Their Chili Spice 3000 is really great for this.
  
• Baked chicken thighs (I eat the skin and suck the bones); throw them in the oven in a frying pan, (300 calories each) bake at 375 until the skin is crisp, (cook either 4 sweet potatoes or baking potatoes at the same time), preboil 1/2 cup water, throw in 1/2 lb to 1 lb frozen spinach and it's dinner...
  
• Another easy dinner is 1 lb of cut up butcher's sausage (it has few additives and less sugar) 2 onions, 2 peppers, 8 oz campari tomatoes and 4 oz cooked pasta (like macaroni). I cook the sausage in about 1 cup of boiling water, whn it's done, there's still water in it. Add the cut up onions, peppers, pricked campari tomatoes. Put the lid on and reduce to medium for about 15 minutes. Add the cooked pasta. Put the lid on and walk away for about 15 minutes.

Having a pressure cooker (I like the Futura ones -- get the 6 Liter one to start) is a game changer in terms of what you can do in the least amount of time. Here is a youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9-1wpfMexo

toxikon wrote: »

I love my weekly meal-preps! Basically all you have to do is find a recipe you like that will reheat well, then scale up the servings size and make it!

Dishes that freeze & reheat well: soups, stews, chili, curries, quiches, pies, pasta dishes, rice dishes, roasted/steamed veggies. Basically just avoid fresh produce or things that could dry out easily if reheated.

Then just make your recipes, dish them out into your containers, freeze some and refrigerate the rest. I like having enough meals in the fridge for 3 days, then I'll put the rest in the freezer.

This is basically my approach to meal prep: leftovers for lunch at work. I keep an eye on the stock in the fridge and that determines whether we make a recipe for dinner with 4, 6, 8 or more servings. We make dinner every night we're home. It's not always a Big Recipe Event...tonight we have a meeting after work, so dinner will be Italian sausages and a ton of roasted veggies. Lunch tomorrow will be today's dinner leftovers. Twice a month or so we'll do some big crock pot recipe (Mississippi Roast is a classic for us) or big stove-top dish (chili, tagine) and that'll provide 10+ servings, which takes some work out of the week. Cooking dinner daily works for me/us instead of cooking on the weekends for more meals at once. I like eating freshly prepared food half the time instead of a higher proportion of leftovers.

It just depends how you want to divide your time, and what feels like less work to you. Cooking for 1 hour daily seems normal to me, while spending 5 hours cooking on Sunday feels like work, so we make dinner and eat leftovers as 'meal prep'. Someone who enjoys that Sunday time and has different weeknight preferences would be happier doing the "one big cooking bash" method.