Meal Planning and So Much More...

In true Fits & Starts fashion, I'm trying something new.  Again. Stuart and I always try to build our grocery list off of a meal plan for the week so that we save money at the store. We've done it for years, and we love having a plan during our busy, busy weeks.  We even tried meal planning on a monthly basis like our good friend does, but we like talking about food too much.  It's so enjoyable to sit down and brainstorm about the different food combinations, pour over my collection of food magazines, and have a plan of action for our week ahead.  This week I went a step further. I loooove organizing, so I decided to organize my fridge based on the meals we planned, and to pre-prep the meals in true Greenling fashion.  Here's how it worked out...

Our meal plan for the week:

 Sunday: Seared Salmon with Sauteed Bok Choy over Ramen Noodles
Monday: Grilled Chicken with Piedfort Green Beans and Biscuits
Tuesday: Roasted Pork Loin with Sauteed Carrots over Italian Orzo
Wednesday: Crock Pot Chicken and Leeks over Baked Potatoes
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Frozen 'Leftover' Pizza

Lunches: Blue Cheese and Cranberry Salads

Breakfasts: Hard Boiled Eggs, Yogurt, or Grapefruit
Saturday: plan for next week :)

Prep ahead:

Thaw salmon, chicken, pork, and bacon.

Clean and bag bok choy.

Prep green beans and slice red onion.

Peel and cut carrots into rounds.

Clean leeks and cut all veggies to go in crock pot.

Prep lunch salads.

Prep breakfast items.

It took us about 30 minutes to plan our week, then during Corgan's nap, it took about an hour and a half to do all the prep work for the week.  One of the things we really battle with each week is doing a home-cooked meal when we are so tired and busy.  We cook with a TON of fresh veggies so all the chopping and cleaning takes too long on a weeknight.  This time, I hope that getting it done before the week starts will make it easier.

For lunches, I prefer cold food as opposed to heating up leftovers.  Stuart will eat leftovers any ol' time.  I portioned out 7 tupperwares of mixed lettuce and 7 snack-sized bags of salad fixings.  Each bag has dried cranberries, blue cheese crumbles, pecan pieces, and I will add some grilled chicken after dinner on Monday. Stuart is going to grill some extra for me to add.  I also have some blue cheese dressing in small tupperware containers.  All of this is grab-and-go for my weekday lunches.

Next, I prepped all the veggies for the week.  My family has a great recipe for green beans, so we'll make a double batch on Monday.  I'll freeze one batch worth for a later meal, and we'll enjoy the rest at dinner and for leftovers during the week.  I also washed the leeks, bok choy, carrots, and celery for our other recipes.  Everything is prepped and cut.

The container on the left has tons of carrots sliced into circles for our sauteed carrots.  It will make plenty for leftovers for lunches.  On the right is the container of sliced leeks, carrots, celery, onion, and garlic for the crock pot meal on Wednesday.  Stuart is in class on Wednesday and Thursday nights, so coming home to an already cooked meal is awesome!  I will also bake some potatoes the night before so I can do a quick microwave heat-up on those and have dinner.  This is also something that Corgan should love!

I also took all the meat out to thaw so I don't have to worry about remembering the night before.  We put our more delicate meat early in the week (salmon), and everything will be used within the first four days.

Both Stuart and I eat breakfast either in the car or at our desks.  We're not morning people, so it works well for us.  Baby girl eats a home cooked breakfast that we take to daycare.  She's a sleeper, too, so we don't want to get her up earlier than we have to. I hard boiled a weeks worth of eggs, there's yogurt to grab, or I have some pre-halfed grapefruit.  No, the wine is not for breakfast.  It just happens to fit well there in the fridge.

We also  have a Corgan section of the fridge. We really try to have her eat what we eat so that we can continue to develop her pallet, but since we don't eat a lot of carbs, we keep a lot of cooked noodles in her area.  I also have different steamed vegetables in containers, and home made zucchini carrot muffins. Tucked in the back is some whole milk yogurt as well.  It's just a lot easier to find something for her to eat if its all in one place.  There are some nights that we don't get home until her dinner time, so grab and go is essential!

I know that seems like a lot, but with only 2 hours of effort on a weekend, most of which is during her nap time, I hope to be able to shave off a lot of effort during the week.