The weekend food prep

Yesterday was an "around the house" day.  About one Sunday a month we decide to forgo the typical Sunday outings and instead to just stay home and work on things around the house.  I'm pretty into planning ahead, you wouldn't know it, because usually I seem to be a bit "last minute".  There are two reasons for this.. 1) I over obsess over every detail, and 2) I drive my family crazy when I get all "plan every little thing" on them.

But.. Every once in a while I let "the planner" in me sneak out, because it can be of some use when used right.

With three kiddos and a husband that has a funny schedule, it helps to have dinner and other meals planned out for the week.  If I don't have at least a half ass plan, we end up eating Subway at least twice that week.

In the past I have tried the whole "big prep day" thing, where you make all the meals and freeze them so you have all the weeks meals ready.  But here's the thing..I SUCK at thawing out food on time, and we don't like casseroles or pasta all that much.  So this week I developed my own personalized plan for our family.

We eat a LOT of fresh vegetables and fruits.  Yet I keep finding a head of celery that went bad in the fridge.  The problem wasn't that no one wanted to eat it, it was that we were too rushed to cut it up right then when we wanted it.  Then it clicked..I remember when I was a kid, my mom always had a container or two of fresh cut carrot sticks and celery sticks in the fridge.  We were the only kids on the block that didn't get chips or crackers as a snack, instead we got carrots, celery, and apples.  Don't get me wrong, we weren't the "health nut family" (we all know THAT family I'm talking about..), but my mom knew a thing or two about getting the vegetables in our bellies.

My plan today was to keep it simple...simplify is my word for the year after all.  So here's what I prepped today:  I cut two heads of celery into sticks and the rest I chopped.  I added water to each container to keep them crisp!  The sticks will be gobbled up in a few days, so I'll be making more mid week.  The chopped celery I'm going to use when I make my crock pot whole chicken this week.

I divided up three large portions of beans to be used in lunches and sides.  I admit I didn't cook the beans, they're canned beans.  But I still prepped them because having cooked/rinsed beans handy is super helpful.

I wanted to slice up a few bell peppers for snacks and salads, but 2/3 of my peppers had little bugs in them (the price you sometimes pay for organic produce).  So I only sliced one..womp womp womp!  It'll still be a super handy snack with the hummus I already have in the fridge.

I made a giant batch (6 cups cooked) of quinoa.  I used 1 cup in the batch of breakfast bars I made, and the rest was divided into canning jars and put in the fridge.  The quinoa will be used in sides, lunches, and salads. Mmmmmm!

These are quinoa breakfast bars.  Yep, that's right..quinoa for breakfast, and baking with it too!  I found the original recipe on Theleangreenbean.  I took the recipe and ran with it.  I tweaked it to my preference and it turned out awesome!  These will be nice for the morning's when Eric is running late, so he wont end up skipping breakfast.  I'll post the recipe in a separate post for those of you that want it :)

While the oven was already going I put in three chicken breasts.  Two I sliced up and divided for lunches / salads.  The third I shredded to use for misc stuff like tacos, salads, etc.

Lastly I made a giant batch of almond coconut granola.  I tweaked it a lot from it's original recipe so I will be posting my recipe soon, in a separate post.  Trust me..you're going to want this recipe.  It is so stinkin' goooood!

That's all of the prep I did yesterday, because prepping food with three kiddos running around takes twice as long.  I will be prepping more today (slicing more vegetables, finishing the meal plan for the week and getting things thawing for those meals).  Usually in the freezer I keep an assortment of vegetables, meats, breads, and so on.  Having a big deep freezer comes in really handy with our big family.  Even though I may not be the best at thawing out food "on time" it still saves a ton of money because I can buy the natural meats when they're on sale.  Here's to being less stressed at meal time and to eating healthy!