Discover How To Plan Your Meals To Maximize Your
Learn How To Plan Your Meals To Maximize Your Time
Meal preparation and bulk cooking are both fantastic techniques you can utilize and customize to fit your families requirements. The idea behind this is basic. The principle is that you cook and or prepare your meals ahead of time and then protect them by either freezing or fridgerating them. Also, meal planning you can cook one big meal and get 2-3 other meals out of it! The secret here is to make every meal you cook count!
When you are going to prepare a household favorite, double, triple, even quadruple the dish if it will keep in the freezer. Sound wonderful does not it? Why not provide yourself a much-needed break-- cook ahead today so you can unwind tomorrow!
The first step in meal planning is always the most challenging. To make it less difficult I suggest that you grab the following supplies: Pen, paper, your personal recipe collection or your preferred cookbook and a comfortable chair.
Start by writing down a list of your favorite meals and plan on preparing a grocery list that will accompany your list. Now, considering that we are talking bulk cooking here if you typically would serve up one pot of spaghetti plan to serve 2 (that would indicate that you will need to double the recipe so make sure to change your shopping list appropriately) It will take the same amount of time to cook simply a little extra planning is needed.
Next you can use a blank calendar and merely write the meals down on the day you will serve them. I personally publish my meal plan up on my refrigerator for the whole house to see. This likewise assists to trigger me for the next day of meals that will be served.
The crucial tool in meal preparation and bulk cooking is your freezer. If you have a small freezer, don't stress; you can fit lots of meals in that small freezer area it will just call for a little bit more imagination on your part. With making use of freezer bags, that you can stack flat and making use of some freezer proof containers you will be shocked at the number of meals your freezer can hold.
Here are a few important and extensively utilized meal preparation techniques and suggestions:
One Prepare Wonder ~ With this method you would prepare one main course dish that can be used for various meals. For Instance, lets say you just baked a large turkey. You might slice some of the turkey off and serve the breast with gravy, dice some of the turkey and prepare a turkey gumbo and use the rest for either a soup or turkey salad. Mind you, you do not need to prepare all of those meals on one day. After the Turkey has been cooked and cooled, you can freeze and refrigerate the turkey that you cut off the carcass and prepare your other Turkey associated meals at a different time.
Quick and Easy meals ~ Be sure to integrate those quick and simple meals into your preparation procedure. If your household loves Careless Joes cook up the sloppy joe meat wholesale and freeze it then all you require to do is thaw the meat, grab some buns and viola.
What about Hamburger Assistant? Why not prepare 2-3 boxes of it, separate it into 3 different big containers and freeze them. That concept alone enables you to prepare 3 meals in simply 30-minutes.
Designate a meal for a specific night ~ Every Friday night in my house is either Pizza or hamburger night. The concept here is to choose any night of the week and just designate a meal to opt for that night. I constantly make sure that I have plenty of Frozen Pizzas with a range of toppings on hand in my freezer. The same opts for those Turkey hamburger patties (my family doesn't eat much ground beef). The concept behind this procedure is that you now have one nights meal currently planned. You can likewise stock up on that meal when the items are on sale. If you see Frozen pizzas being sold in bulk, get them up!
Love your leftovers ~ This is one of my preferred parts of meal preparation as it permits you to utilize your creativity. At least every other week approximately make sure to go through your refrigerator and take stock of what you have in there. When you combine 2-3 leftovers, you might find that you eat right there. You can utilize left over pasta from spaghetti to prepare a pasta salad, leftover spaghetti sauce and simply a few pieces of chicken can be a fantastic meal to top with cheese and place in the oven. Again, with a little creativity you can make your leftovers work for you!
Use the sales paper ~ everyone enjoys a great sale and I use the sales paper to assist me in my meal preparation. When I see our Family favorites on sale instead of purchasing one, I will buy 3-4 of the same items and merely get home and prepare the meals or freeze the food that I bought. My household and I like Chicken. When I identify whole chickens on sale Ive been known to purchase up to 5-6 at a time. Remember that I have a family of 6 and in my family of six; there are 3 teenagers (and you understand how much they can consume). By going shopping like this, I in fact save affordable plumber Canberra hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year in food alone!
Helpful supplies
Labels/ freezer bags/Freezer-proof containers: Be sure that you have all of your freezing and refrigerating needs on hand. When storing food in freezer safe containers make sure to position a label on the container with the name of the meal and the date the meal was prepared.
Crockpot: This handy device is my buddy in the kitchen area. When using a crockpot you actually prepare the meal, place it in the crockpot, Set it & Forget it. It is a hands totally free cooking experience. I prepare whole chickens in my crock pot and then slice the chicken up to freeze and use for sandwiches, enchiladas, chicken plumber Canberra salads, chicken soup, chicken stew. as you can see the possibilities are endless.
As you can see, meal planning is a money, peace of mind and convenience-- what else could a busy mommy ask for?
Now, lets get Cookin!