Meal Prep

Have you seen the meal prep photos where people prep the same meals for lunch and dinner? I love it because these folks are organized and ready to go! When I was younger, I would set up my meal plan for weekly dinners. I’d go to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients on Sunday and spend most of the day prepping the food so I would have little to do to get ready for dinner during the week.

My schedule is pretty crazy because I have a ton of events. I was telling people that at the height of my consulting days, my team managed 60 events a quarter. That’s a lot of meals out, whether it’s breakfast/lunch/coffee/evening receptions or sit down dinners. So eating home would be a rare moment for me. I cooked less for me and more for the Mister because I knew that if I didn’t leave him with prepared meals, he would be eating cereal or a handful of almonds. With so many events out for me, I couldn’t cook for 2 people without food spoiling so now I’ve become a freezer gal. I make enough for 2 in case I can get some of it for lunch. Otherwise, the portions that I would have eaten go in the freezer for another day.

Last week, I had 4 out 5 mornings that started with breakfast meetings or meetings of some kind. Breakfast is my least favorite meal but I know that I need protein and such to power through the day. I don’t like to snack so my meals need to be substantial enough so that I don’t lose brain power at 11am which leads me to get “hangry”. On top of that I also had 3 out of 5 nights where I needed to be out at events. Eating is so important to me that I generally plan my next meal while I’m eating my current meal. You should see me while I’m on vacation!

This week I have 3 nights were I’m doing something (one of them is actually having a colleague come over to dinner!) so to make my life easier and to have food ready for the Mister, I did meal prep! I went to the grocery store and designed my menu around having non-meat meals and a balance of foods.

I started making crab cakes first. I saw that there was a sale on lump crabmeat so thought that would be a good way to not have meat for one meal. I’m a Marylander so making crab cakes is pretty common for me. I don’t like to have bell peppers in mine so my recipe is pretty basic.

I don’t measure anything because I like to see how wet the mixture is before I add the bread crumbs. Key ingredients: mayo, egg, minced onion, parsley, old bay seasoning, salt & pepper, sometimes celery if I have it and bread crumbs.

The Mister’s mom is from Rhode Island and she grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of Portuguese Americans. As a result, a meal that she made very often was chourico & peppers. She’s made this meal often in the 20+ years that I’ve visited with Michael’s family. So, I make a version of it so that the Mister has a familiar meal to eat.

Usually eaten with a Portuguese hard roll, this can be made into sandwiches or the rolls can be used to dip into the sauce.

All along the way, my sous chef keeps me in check 🙂

I also made a chili over the weekend with beef and kidney beans so that’s already been portioned and placed in the freezer as well as a small portion in the refrigerator. Meal prep FTW!

What’s your meal plan?

 

 

SaveSave