4/12/2024 0 Comments Meal planning two weeks sheetPre-portioned into individual meals? This means dividing your main and your side dishes into individual portions, and you will need appropriately-sized containers for those meals. When cooking a large amount of something, consider how you're going to store it. Food processors, Instant Pots, and slow-cookers can cut your in-kitchen prep time by a lot! Putting them to work for you is a real advantage. Let whatever is true for you guide your shopping. This is especially true of dinner, less so for lunch and breakfast. Where, when, and how much variety do you need? I tend to crave variety in my meals I'm not the person who enjoys eating the same thing every day.If it is going to be more cost effective to purchase pre-cut vegetables, or frozen vegetables, do it. If you know that meal prep time is limited, or that your family won't be eating together because of everyone's individual schedules, it might be time to consider those "easier" options-rotisserie chicken, salad, and bread tapas, charcuterie, or "girl dinner" (an online buzzword this summer) of olives, cheese, fruit, crackers, dips, and deli meats of your choice. Nothing's worse than being ready to turn those leftovers into a spectacular second meal, only to find you don't have a key ingredient of that second meal on hand. These are all things to consider, as they will impact how much and what you buy. Do you enjoy eating the same meal a few times in a week? Do you like to change up those leftovers, turning Monday's chili into Tuesday's Sloppy Joes? Maybe you hate leftovers or, if you're feeding a family, you might not necessarily have leftovers. Consider your feelings about leftovers.If you're at all like me and find yourself less than enthusiastic about slicing, chopping, and shredding-here are some tips to realistically meal plan and prep, without putting yourself on the hook for hours of "kitchen patrol." For myself, I can feel really ambitious about meal prep in the grocery store, only to come home and feel much more ambivalent. However, are your weekends just as busy as the week days? Do you really feel like spending your weekend shopping and cooking? Perhaps you do, or perhaps you don't only you can answer that question. Prepping our meals in advance will diminish food waste (because we're not letting it sit until it rots) and make our weekday routines a bit easier (because we're getting a lot of work out of the way). No matter what your "food goal" is, I think many people would agree that meal planning helps save money, because we will be less inclined to make impulse purchases. With children back in school and the start of a new month, you might feel as if it is time to re-commit to a healthy eating pattern, or to find ways to eat more sustainably. Schedules will fill up again, and routines will change in September. Let's face it-we're roughly two weeks away from Labor Day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |