It’s Saturday! Which means it’s my food prep day! I’ve only done this for two weeks now.  The first week was amazing, and I spoke briefly about how life changing it was here.  This week was a bit different as I’ve been sick so I haven’t been eating very well at all, however, the amount of time I saved each night was still just as helpful! I thought today that I would walk you through last weeks food prep and comment a bit about what was good and what I could improve on based on how my week went.

So let’s dive in.

I usually sit down on Thursday and brainstorm what types of foods I’ll make for the next week.  My general rules are: it has to be relatively quick to prepare and it needs to be healthy and nutritious.  I do try to have some variety and the trickiest part is preparing food for my son because he can be super picky while at the dayhome, in the end I pack him generally the same breakfast and snacks each day that I know he really loves and I pack a variety of lunches which are always hit and miss.  To be honest, usually my husbands food wins over mine when it comes to what Ezekiel will eat.  After preparing a list of what I’ll make I then create a shopping list.  I do my Superstore run on Friday evening after work for any dairy or packaged food (cereals, crackers mostly) and my Market run on Saturday morning with Ezekiel for all my produce.

This is the size of my kitchen, not overly large and everything is pretty accessible and close.  I do try to clean as I go so it’s not so overwhelming at the end of my prep time.  Last week I set my timer to see how long it would take and it was about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

For anything that needs to be heated I use glass containers, for anything else I’m ok with using plastic.  It’s a bit tricky strategizing what food will go in what container, by the end I have almost run out of containers.

It really helps to be organized with your containers, I never have to search for lids or containers which speeds up the process considerably.

Last week I used maple syrup.  I put the entire container of yogurt in a bowl and mixed in about 2.5 Tbsp maple syrup.

I measured out the yogurt into individual portions – 6 for me and 5 for Ezekiel.  For Ezekiel I added some blueberries.

This was my loot from the market last week.  It was an incredible deal and I couldn’t resist it.  I ended up making a bunch of fruit salad and then freezing the rest.  I should have frozen the majority of it.  The problem was that the fruit was ripe on the verge of overripe so when I made the salad it ended up going bad by Wednesday.

I watch Netflix as I do this to keep me company. 

The biggest problem was that I added the fruit salad to my yogurt which means I wasted far too much food.  Lesson learned.  The frozen fruit has been really great for smoothies each morning, Ezekiel and I have been loving them.

One of Ezekiel’s favourite snacks is cheese and crackers.

I also send cereal each day.  This is my favourite brand for Ezekiel, it’s got great ingredients and is far more nutritious than regular cheerios.

Cut up veggies has been amazing for lunches and to snack on at home.   Even Ezekiel loves snacking on veggies.  I pack a big container (on the right) and then I can eat as much as I want, I just keep bringing the same container each day and I bring a dip as well.  I have wasted far less veggies doing this because I don’t get lazy and they are ready to eat so no more prep needed!

Boiled eggs are easy and fast to grab and go, and super healthy!

This is how I prepared the fruit to freeze, then when they were completely frozen I put them into ziplock bags.  When you do it this way they won’t stick together in the bags.

That’s it! 2 hours of work that saved me at least 1 hour each night! I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

Do you have any meal prep tips? I’m always looking for easier more efficient ways to do things.