I may not be very brave in the kitchen just yet, but praise the Lord I’m that much braver than I was a year ago. Food prep for the week ahead is in full swing. Thank you, Tom and Rae, for offering childcare for this morning so we could get our ducks in a row.
Since the kids got dropped off, we turned on some good music, had some coffee, and began the kitchen stuff! I am not a meal planner, though I’d love to be, but for now, I just wrote down six suppers and I’m doing all the prep I can in advance, making sure I have every part of each meal. Meanwhile, my mom has offered to pick some groceries up for us today, so that is an enormous help!
The meals of the week are as follows.
Sweet and sour sausage. I browned all the sausage and its currently simmering in sauce. It goes over rice. we’ll either have frozen green beans or cold veggies beside.
Chicken salads. Thats just big salad with chicken nuggets cut up into it. Can’t prep that just yet because I don’t know what day we’ll have it and I don’t want the lettuce to get icky if its cut too long. But I have everything for it, and everyone likes it.
Honey chicken. I made the mix, and the chicken is frozen in the fridge, ever so slowly defrosting. Also served over rice with whatever veggie. This is definitely a family favorite. Maybe I’ll make a huge thing or rice and reheat it when I need it. Hmmm… 🤔
Pulled pork. Pork loin is defrosting in the fridge. We own BBQ sauce. Buns are on the grocery list for this afternoon.
Breakfast for supper. Bacon defrosting in the fridge. SO many eggs. Even cheese is shredded already.
Stroganoff. Egg noodles are on the grocery list. We have everything else for it. But I weirdly thought I’d talk to you guys about browning meat. I do it in the slow cooker, and I’ve had a handful of you message me and ask about it, so here’s the play by play of browning meat that needs zero handholding.
Today I did 4 lbs. I usually split that for two meals, but I brown it all together. Today, I got lazy/busy and threw it in mostly frozen. I added 1/4 cup of water per pound (so today, one cup of water) as well as my seasonings, which are always salt and pepper, onion and garlic salt.
I put it on low and neglected it for an hour. By that time, it was all thawed and starting to cook. This handy tool is the BEST for ground beef this way!
Its my ground beefer! Its actually technically a “food masher” courtesy of Pampered Chef, but I predominantly use it for ground beef, and its a total life saver from the big weird beef balls that are hard to break up with a wooden spoon. Especially doing ground meat in the crock pot, it gets balled up when its left for a while, and this thing just busts it right up!
Seriously, guys. Its a game changer.
Beyond these things, I plan to prep cheese rolls for the kids lunches for the week so I don’t have to make sandwiches every morning. And I’ll do a crazy amount of veggie chopping tomorrow, also for lunches. Fourteen of them, to be exact. Its not as gruelling as it sounds. And having the “sandwich” and veggies for the entire week of lunches in the fridge and ready to go saves my brain SO MUCH.
Honestly, crisis or not, I may try to prep like this more often. I really appreciate the headspace it opens up over the following week.