So many times I see people saying they don't have time to fix food for themselves - to eat healthy, to break their reliance on non-packaged foods. So I decided to try an experiment tonight after I got home from the grocery store. to see how long I spend on food prep onthe weekends. After I put everything away, I set my kitchen timer for 60 mins and began my weekend routine of getting food ready.
Here's what I did, in order:
Mixed up oats, eggs, yogurt, chopped dates (from a can), and peanuts and put in a 9x9 dish in the toaster oven for oat bars (the other thread made me crave them!
). While they are baking ...
Began making cabbage mushroom soup for lunches next week: sliced onions and garlic, put onions in the pot with some olive oil over low heat. While that was cooking ...
Sliced 1/2 a cabbage, mushrooms, and shredded carrots to add to the soup. Set that aside.
Sliced the rest of the cabbage very very thin and put in a gallon zipper bag with a tiny squeeze of lemon juice to keep it from browning. I'll use this for fish tacos and cole slaw next week.
Put on 6 eggs to boil.
Added the cabbage, etc. to the pot, poured in 2 cups of chicken broth and topped off with water. Added a couple of dried chili peppers. Set to simmer and covered.
Preheated the oven to 425.
Turned off the heat under the eggs, and covered to let cook hard.
Peeled and diced a butternut squash (also for soup). Tossed with olive oil, salt, and paprika, and put in the oven.
Cleaned up some, wiped down the counters.
While squash is roasting, pulled out 5 pieces of whole grain bread and cut them in half. Measured out 32g of peanut butter on 5 of the halves, made pb sandwiches, put them in snack sized baggies, and put them back in the fridge (breakfast and/or lunch for next week).
Measured out 28g of baby carrots into 5 snack-sized baggies and put them in the fridge.
Put 1.25 cups of steel cut oats and 5 cups water into the slow cooker for breakfast/snacks next week.
Opened 2 Fage yogurts and squirted in ~1t of honey and put the lids back on. These will go with breakfast - whether it's oats or one of the pb sandwiches.
Portioned out 1/2 cup servings of cottage cheese into 3 of the 1/2 cup sized Glad reusable containers and put those in the fridge.
Rinsed and chilled the eggs, cracked the shells, and put them in a baggie in the fridge.
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At this point there are still 15 mins left on the timer, but I'm done until the soup is done cooking and can be put in a container in the fridge and the butternut squash is done roasting, in which case, I'll set aside about 1.5 cups of it to have with chicken tonight just roasted and I'll put the rest on for soup.
Fixing the rest of the butternut squash soup will be a matter of simmering it in chicken stock and water for about 45 mins.
Oh and I have to let the oat bars cool and slice them and package them in zipper bags.
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All in all, I will spend another 30-40 mins prepping food and I'll have my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks ready for next week. In the bag I take to my office every day I'll take one of the soups or the other, throw in an apple, a can of V8, and a boiled egg. And this week I'll have oat bars as well.
Usually I'll eat my oats for breakfast before I leave the house, or I'll eat my 1/2 pb sandwich in the car on the way in. Yogurt at my desk when I get there.
So really that's it - for about 90 mins worth of work on Sunday evening, I have everything ready for next week. Now all I have to worry about is dinner when I get home.
Obviously this works for me because I tend to eat the same things for breakfast/lunch over the course of a week.
But I did think it was an interesting experiment to see exactly how long I spend preparing for the week.
.
I don't have time ...
But you are right planning is KEY to making this work, and really it takes so little effort and is sooo worth it in the long run even if it does take effort.
