I planned out my first meal prep session based solely on
items I already had in my house. No trip to the store required this time and that was fantastic! I
pulled a 5# package of ground turkey out of the freezer as well as a pound of
ground beef. Once thawed I got to work.
My first task was to combine half of the ground turkey with
the ground beef and some spices and eggs.
I made 20 meatballs laying them out on a plate and then added some
ketchup to the mixture and made it into meatloaf. Pretty simple.
I popped the meatloaf into the oven and the
meatballs into the freezer. Once the
meatballs had firmed up I transferred them to a ziploc bag for either spaghetti
and meatballs or swedish meatballs later on.
While the meatloaf baked I combined frozen broccoli and
cauliflower cuts in a roasting pan, tossed it with a little olive oil and some
seasoning salt. I added the veggies to
the oven about halfway through the meatloaf baking.
While everything finished up in the oven I
peeled three potatoes I had leftover in the pantry, cut them up and cooked them
with a handful of baby carrots. I
whipped the cooked potatoes and carrots up together with some milk and butter
as a side dish for our meatloaf supper.
The remaining ground turkey was browned up and I removed
some to freeze to add to Taco Soup and
then added a packet of taco seasoning to what remained. The taco meat went into a bowl as well as the
reserved ground turkey and once cooled I put it in the freezer. Now I have components of meals that I can
quickly prepare throughout the month in quantities that will leave us with
plenty of leftovers for extra meals and lunches.
Start to finish I spent about an hour in the kitchen, including clean up. Have you done any meal prepping yet this year? What are you making these days?
I made a triple batch of carnitas & taco meat this weekend. Having those available in the freezer means I can quickly grab & go dinner options on busy days.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite go-to's, right there!
DeleteNo I want to start doing meal prep in the future. Right now I am trying to use what is in our freezer and in the frig freezer. It's just my husband and I so it's slow going. But I need to do a deep clean on both freezers. So far in January I've only spent $30 on groceries. I expect to continue this way until both
ReplyDeleteFreezers are empty and I can start oho over with new stock. Saving money!
That was me last year. I needed to defrost our chest freezer and it did take us a while.
DeleteMy kitchen is small, so I store some pantry items in my basement ( I may have to re-think this though). Yesterday, I went through my shelves down there and found many thing I had forgotten about, so they expired. :( But I did grab some cans that were good until next month- so I'm using them today to make a big pot of chili. It should be enough for dinner tonight and a meal for the freezer. :)
ReplyDeleteIt is so easy to lose things in the pantry sometimes. Chili sure sounds good.
DeleteI need to prep but I am currently out of freezer space! 1st world problems.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a lot of space in mine either. Poor us!
Delete