My fiance and I sit down on Sunday before going grocery shopping and plan out our meals for the week. Then we go to the store and only buy what's on the list. We go to the store once a week and that's it! We do a lot of marinades, it makes it easy. We prepare all the meats and sauces right before we go to bed. Then in the morning, we put them together so they can marinate while we're at work. Then we we get home, all we have to do is throw the meat on the grill and voila! If you divide up your meal prep over a span of time, it seems like you are doing less work to cook. At least, it works for us!

I am so excited about getting done with school because now I can start cooking again. I just plain didn't have time before and I love to cook. Eeeee!!! maybe with starting to eat a larger variety of meals I can kick start my weight loss with a boost in metabolism.

Kitchen here I come!!

Hehe, I second/third/whatever the stirfries. So easy, so tasty, especially if you already have leftover rice. The white rice you get at restaurants is always gross as a leftover, but my brown basmati/wild rice combo is always great as leftovers. I also like to use multigrain spaghetti as a change of pace. The nuts are a great addition. I also like to add pineapple! Or orange zest. I've tried cornstarch to get the thicker feeling to the sauce, but haven't gotten it to really work yet. I do usually add a wee bit of white wine to my sauce too. And fresh cilantro is great added on the plate.

I plan the menu for our family, and I do it by the week. The grocery store sale fliers come out Wednesday, and Mom shops on Friday, so I usually spend Thursday evening planning it out. I have a basic template that I always use, sort of like this

Monday - Chicken
Tuesday - Soup
Wednesday - Pasta
Thursday - Big Meal (meat, potatoes, veggie)
Friday - Casserole
Saturday - Hamburer/Hotdogs/etc.
Sunday - Pizza

I also have a list of all the things we eat regularily, dividied into the appropriate sections, so I just have to pick things off it, with the sale fliers as guides. After it is finished I post it on the Fridge, so everyone knows what is coming up.

There is a site called Saving Dinner that my sister Angie used for a while, that you can subscribe to, and they'll make out a menu and grocery list for you. They have various versions (veggie, diabetic, etc).

My hubby loves to cook, but we're so bad about it. We keep saying that we'll cook at home and then we wind up not doing it. As part of my getting healthier journey, we have tried to commit to cooking at home more for real this time, and we've been doing pretty well this week! 4 out of 4 days!

One thing DH has started doing recently that is super easy and super tasty is what I call pressure cooker glop. We just got a pressure cooker for our wedding, and he'll put dried beans (navy recently), brown rice and lightly pre-cooked chicken or pork pieces in the pressure cooker with the amount of water required by the beans and rice. Then he'll let it pressurize and cook for about 30 minutes. No fuss, and super tasty. I think he adds a little salt when cooking, but I'm not sure. And the more rice you add to the batch, the longer it'll last. We probably got 8 servings from 1 cup of beans and 2 cups of rice.

Another thing I do that's really easy is lemon pepper chicken. Sprinkle lemon pepper and a little salt on some chicken breasts, bake on each side for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, serve with whatever. I've usually made Stoffer's mac&cheese and spinach souffle which aren't too good for you but have about 3 servings per container. I did that a lot when I was single and living alone, and I'd immediately divide the portions and pack the extra two for lunches for work. This was my most common mean when I lost 30 pounds a few years ago. And I even made this the other night while having back spasms! The hardest part is flipping the chicken breasts over!

The template idea is really handy. I do something similar, although lately I've been disorganized . Mine is along the lines of Asian night, Mexican night, Italian night , pita pizza or veggie burger night, soup night ...