Meal Planning & Prepping For One

 

I've been doing some experimenting lately with my meals and prepping them for a moderately busy week ahead.  I honestly think I'm busier now than when I was working, but that's completely okay.  Planning meals and doing some prep work helps me a lot, especially when working on a project and I feel too hot and tired to fix something to eat.

 

Each Sunday I've been choosing two meats from the freezer to work with.  This past week I chose a pair of angus beef patties ($1.75) and a package of pork chunks ($2.12) that I had found in the markdown bin of the supermarket a while back.  I've been on a mission to use up several items in my fridge that have been hanging out for some time as well as to use items in the kitchen freezer to prepare meals.  In the fridge I had loads of leftover items to work with.

 

This made enough for me to have three meals

I began by placing the partially thawed pork into my smallest slow cooker and adding the remains of a bottle of BBQ sauce.  I added a little warm water to the bottle and gave it a good shake to get out every last bit.  I let the pork cook on low for several hours while I prepared my next dish.

 

I used up a jar of pickles, some leftover onion and part of a dozen eggs

I love a good mustard potato salad

It has been ages since I've made potato salad so I placed seven eggs into my egg cooker to hard boil and four medium potatoes into a pan to boil.  I chopped up the last two dill pickles I had floating in a jar and a small piece of onion I had leftover from another meal I had made the week before.  Once the eggs and potatoes were done and cooled I peeled four eggs and the four potatoes and chopped those.  I finished it with mayonnaise and mustard along with some salt and pepper.  After transferring the salad to a bowl with a lid I sliced one more egg to arrange on top and sprinkled it with paprika.  Not only did it look pretty it tasted delicious.

 

Two beautiful little quiches, one for now and one for later

It baked up beautifully in my little toaster oven

How's this for a delicious quiche?

Next I made a batch of pie crust divided it in half and set it in the refrigerator to chill while I tidied up the kitchen.  I mixed two eggs, 2 Tbs of cream, salt and pepper in a small bowl.  Then I got out two little pie plates I had acquired from thrift stores, they fit in my little toaster oven perfectly.  I divide the dough in half, rolled out a crust on a floured board and placed it in a pie pan.  Then I did the same with the other half.  I chopped up some frozen broccoli that needed to be used up and divided it equally between two crusts.  I had two packages with leftover grated cheese in the refrigerator that was just enough to equally divide between the two pies.  I sprinkled that on top of the broccoli and topped one of the with the egg mixture.  I then made another batch of the egg mixture to top the other one.  While I baked one of the quiches in my toaster oven I placed the other one in the freezer for another time.  Once it was frozen I slipped it into a gallon sized Ziploc bag and put it back into the freezer.

 

Each quiche is four servings

I had two meals with the angus beef patties and potato salad

Three meals of BBQ pork, potato salad & seasoned green beans

For supper I pan fried the two angus patties and enjoyed one with potato salad, the other was saved for another night.  The next evening I heated up the pork, a can of green beans and had some more potato salad for supper.  Between these things I had prepared, plus two slices of leftover homemade pizza from the previous week I had plenty of food to fix quick meals all week long.  Healthy, delicious, economical and all made from scratch meals to keep me going while I get on with my busy little life.