Food prep ideas thanks

[Sparkle1953]

I wondered if anyone here does food prep for about a week in front. I have been following LCHF/intermittent fasting now for awhile and doing well. It’s been a bit difficult as my husband eats differently to me and I find preparing meals for him and myself is getting a bit tedious and time consuming.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos yesterday on food prep and would like to be able to do it...say on a Sunday to set up for the week. I usually plan meals out in advance and shop to a menu. For some reason I can’t get my head around how to do it efficiently.

If you can help me get started that would be appreciated.

 

[Hotpepper20000]

I wondered if anyone here does food prep for about a week in front. I have been following LCHF/intermittent fasting now for awhile and doing well. It’s been a bit difficult as my husband eats differently to me and I find preparing meals for him and myself is getting a bit tedious and time consuming.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos yesterday on food prep and would like to be able to do it...say on a Sunday to set up for the week. I usually plan meals out in advance and shop to a menu. For some reason I can’t get my head around how to do it efficiently.

If you can help me get started that would be appreciated.

I pick a protein that both Mr Hotpepper and I eat, add a above ground vegetable. Like sautéed broccoli or green beans. And then a carbohydrate like rice or potatoes for the Mr.
Sometimes the vegetable is a mixed green salad with tomatoes and cucumbers. If it’s a pasta sauce I just have it with sautéed cabbage or more meat.

 

[DCUKMod]

I wondered if anyone here does food prep for about a week in front. I have been following LCHF/intermittent fasting now for awhile and doing well. It’s been a bit difficult as my husband eats differently to me and I find preparing meals for him and myself is getting a bit tedious and time consuming.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos yesterday on food prep and would like to be able to do it...say on a Sunday to set up for the week. I usually plan meals out in advance and shop to a menu. For some reason I can’t get my head around how to do it efficiently.

If you can help me get started that would be appreciated.

Hi Sparkle. Your question is so general it's hard to answer efficiently, I feel.

What sort of things are you talking about that you do now? Based on how you (and he) eat, we might be able to give more specific pointers.

We have always worked at least one week at a time, in terms of meal planning, and where pertinent, prep.

I must admit, I find bulk prep easier in winter, because in summer, I have lots of distractions to deflect me from the chopping boards at the moment.

 

[Brunneria]

I batch cook.

We have a Tescos delivery around every 9 days (we tried every 7 but I always over bought, and we reduced it to 9 for the same amount of food).

In each of our deliveries there are probably 3 or 4 main proteins (for example a big chunk of salmon, beef mince and a big pack of chicken). Day 1 I cook the protein with the shortest date - which gives us hot portions for that day, then the rest gets portioned out into dishes for freezing or reheating. Day 2 I cook the second protein, which gives us hot portions for that day and then the rest... you get the picture. We end up rotating main meals out of the fridge and the freezer so we don't get bored, and there is plenty of variety.

You said that your husband eats differently, but could he eat the same as you, plus carbs? My husband eats more veg than I, and then has carbs too, but almost all the food I do can simply have carbs added as a side. Meanwhile, I eat keto, so usually serve the protein + some extra fat in the form of sauce or topper, so I can get my fat macros when eating something lower fat like chicken.

I usually only cook 3 times for each delivery, and believe me when I say that I don't spend much time in the kitchen.

Last delivery I cooked about 8 diced chicken breasts all at once and mixed some coronation mayo up. 25mins. When we ran out of coronation mayo, I mixed up some piri mayo. Other alternatives are wasabi mayo, blue cheese or thousand island mayo, herb mayo... all home made in about 2 mins. Those chicken breasts give around 6 meals, with any accompanying veg or salad that my husband wants prepped in 2 mins before serving. 2 portions are still in freezer.

The beef mince was stir fried in a big pan and mexican spices added (10 mins plus half an hour of gentle simmer). That yielded 8 portions. We still have 3 of those in the freezer alongside spag bog mince, and balsamic mince from a couple of deliveries ago. When needed, they defrost in a few hours, so we have constant variety available.

The salmon was (this time) a whole side on special offer, I had to cook it in two batches in order to fit it into the oven. (20 mins per half side) The first portions we had hot with horseradish in sour cream and basil (2 mins). I intended to freeze the rest to use in Mr B's packed lunch, but he fell so in love with it that most of it got eaten (with the horseradish cream) before it reached the freezer. He even had it for breakfast, which kind of surprised me.

He has already asked for bassa fillets in cheese sauce with our next shop, so that will be another one session cook, yielding multiple portions too. And I fancy making a curry. Probably lamb, and that will give 8-10 portions.

The freezer has a drawer filled with steaks (can cook them from frozen in 20 mins in the airfryer), home made pate (chicken liver and, at the moment, smoked mackerel), and a few other meals from previous batch cooking.

I think the trick to successful fridge/freezer management is the storage containers.
My freezer used to be chaos. Nothing labelled, and no organisation at all.
Then someone on this forum suggested these
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Meal-Pre...947143?hash=item2cbb6b8647:g:-IkAAOSwCVtcLJB8
and I have never looked back...

Sorry for the length of the post, but I have been doing this for a long time now, and we've ended up streamlining quite a few things. Hope you can find some of them useful.

 

[Resurgam]

I usually do a joint or roast a chicken at least once a week, but I find that having things in the freezer such as stir fry or mixed veges, and some salad in the fridge is all I need to make sure is there ready and waiting.
For my husband I get frozen chips, tinned potatoes, or new potatoes which I boil without peeling as he expects carbs.

 

[Sparkle1953]

Hi Sparkle. Your question is so general it's hard to answer efficiently, I feel.

What sort of things are you talking about that you do now? Based on how you (and he) eat, we might be able to give more specific pointers.

We have always worked at least one week at a time, in terms of meal planning, and where pertinent, prep.

I must admit, I find bulk prep easier in winter, because in summer, I have lots of distractions to deflect me from the chopping boards at the moment.

Sorry, my head is all over the place at present. Today, I took some time out to think the process through. I decided to take one week at a time and properly plan out the menus, shop and then prep as much as I could.

The problems I have been having lately, is even though I have shopped, I always seem to be running out of suitable food for me and then end up eating what I know I shouldn’t.

I’m usually super organised and seemed to have dropped the ball, and am just trying to find my feet again.

Thanks for responding as I was feeling just a bit lost

 

[DCUKMod]

I tend to do things like, where I need to grate cheese, I grate a whole block, the freeze it in 100gr batches. Provided I don't squidge it up when it goes in the freezer, it flows freely from the bag, as and when we want it. My rationale is getting the board and grater (or food processor) out and ready, then washing it up afterwards, it doesn't take a huge amount of time more to grate the whole block.

I do similar things with onions, or other spices, and I never, ever make a single recipe batch of marinades - provided I know what it tastes like.

If I know I have a very busy week coming up, I'll package up the meal prep in a vacuum packed bag, which keeps things very well.

My OH is the main cook in this house, but I'm sous chef, so do much of the prep and clearing away.

 

[Sparkle1953]

Thanks for these responses, they were a great help. Have been shopping, set up menus for a week, prepped the food , got a leg of lamb to roast and some beef ready to go in the crockpot. I think that a bulk buy of steak is on the cards with chicken thighs and legs.

Feeling better today thanks and seem to be clear headed with a plan. There has been lots going on. My husband went in to have stent inserted in his heart a couple of weeks ago and came home with strict instructions about a low fat diet. His diet sheet threw me into a spin..the normal Lo fat high carb eating plan.

I just couldn’t do it. I have had fabulous results doing a combination of Keto/LCHF and intermittent fasting and didn’t want to jeopardise that. I’ve gone from an out of control diabetic to pre diabetic and looking forward to taking it further. He understood how torn I was and between us we are working our way through it.

It’s not easy when the medical profession tries scare tactics and even though you know what your results are from NOT following their protocol it still tends to shake your confidence somewhat. So thankful for this group who seem to always have the right answer and then dust you off and send you on your way away again with renewed confidence.

 

[Sparkle1953]

I batch cook.

We have a Tescos delivery around every 9 days (we tried every 7 but I always over bought, and we reduced it to 9 for the same amount of food).

In each of our deliveries there are probably 3 or 4 main proteins (for example a big chunk of salmon, beef mince and a big pack of chicken). Day 1 I cook the protein with the shortest date - which gives us hot portions for that day, then the rest gets portioned out into dishes for freezing or reheating. Day 2 I cook the second protein, which gives us hot portions for that day and then the rest... you get the picture. We end up rotating main meals out of the fridge and the freezer so we don't get bored, and there is plenty of variety.

You said that your husband eats differently, but could he eat the same as you, plus carbs? My husband eats more veg than I, and then has carbs too, but almost all the food I do can simply have carbs added as a side. Meanwhile, I eat keto, so usually serve the protein + some extra fat in the form of sauce or topper, so I can get my fat macros when eating something lower fat like chicken.

I usually only cook 3 times for each delivery, and believe me when I say that I don't spend much time in the kitchen.

Last delivery I cooked about 8 diced chicken breasts all at once and mixed some coronation mayo up. 25mins. When we ran out of coronation mayo, I mixed up some piri mayo. Other alternatives are wasabi mayo, blue cheese or thousand island mayo, herb mayo... all home made in about 2 mins. Those chicken breasts give around 6 meals, with any accompanying veg or salad that my husband wants prepped in 2 mins before serving. 2 portions are still in freezer.

The beef mince was stir fried in a big pan and mexican spices added (10 mins plus half an hour of gentle simmer). That yielded 8 portions. We still have 3 of those in the freezer alongside spag bog mince, and balsamic mince from a couple of deliveries ago. When needed, they defrost in a few hours, so we have constant variety available.

The salmon was (this time) a whole side on special offer, I had to cook it in two batches in order to fit it into the oven. (20 mins per half side) The first portions we had hot with horseradish in sour cream and basil (2 mins). I intended to freeze the rest to use in Mr B's packed lunch, but he fell so in love with it that most of it got eaten (with the horseradish cream) before it reached the freezer. He even had it for breakfast, which kind of surprised me.

He has already asked for bassa fillets in cheese sauce with our next shop, so that will be another one session cook, yielding multiple portions too. And I fancy making a curry. Probably lamb, and that will give 8-10 portions.

The freezer has a drawer filled with steaks (can cook them from frozen in 20 mins in the airfryer), home made pate (chicken liver and, at the moment, smoked mackerel), and a few other meals from previous batch cooking.

I think the trick to successful fridge/freezer management is the storage containers.
My freezer used to be chaos. Nothing labelled, and no organisation at all.
Then someone on this forum suggested these
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Meal-Pre...947143?hash=item2cbb6b8647:g:-IkAAOSwCVtcLJB8
and I have never looked back...

Sorry for the length of the post, but I have been doing this for a long time now, and we've ended up streamlining quite a few things. Hope you can find some of them useful.

I’m soooo looking forward to getting everything streamlined again. Q

 

[Chatterbox]

I batch cook.

We have a Tescos delivery around every 9 days (we tried every 7 but I always over bought, and we reduced it to 9 for the same amount of food).

In each of our deliveries there are probably 3 or 4 main proteins (for example a big chunk of salmon, beef mince and a big pack of chicken). Day 1 I cook the protein with the shortest date - which gives us hot portions for that day, then the rest gets portioned out into dishes for freezing or reheating. Day 2 I cook the second protein, which gives us hot portions for that day and then the rest... you get the picture. We end up rotating main meals out of the fridge and the freezer so we don't get bored, and there is plenty of variety.

You said that your husband eats differently, but could he eat the same as you, plus carbs? My husband eats more veg than I, and then has carbs too, but almost all the food I do can simply have carbs added as a side. Meanwhile, I eat keto, so usually serve the protein + some extra fat in the form of sauce or topper, so I can get my fat macros when eating something lower fat like chicken.

I usually only cook 3 times for each delivery, and believe me when I say that I don't spend much time in the kitchen.

Last delivery I cooked about 8 diced chicken breasts all at once and mixed some coronation mayo up. 25mins. When we ran out of coronation mayo, I mixed up some piri mayo. Other alternatives are wasabi mayo, blue cheese or thousand island mayo, herb mayo... all home made in about 2 mins. Those chicken breasts give around 6 meals, with any accompanying veg or salad that my husband wants prepped in 2 mins before serving. 2 portions are still in freezer.

The beef mince was stir fried in a big pan and mexican spices added (10 mins plus half an hour of gentle simmer). That yielded 8 portions. We still have 3 of those in the freezer alongside spag bog mince, and balsamic mince from a couple of deliveries ago. When needed, they defrost in a few hours, so we have constant variety available.

The salmon was (this time) a whole side on special offer, I had to cook it in two batches in order to fit it into the oven. (20 mins per half side) The first portions we had hot with horseradish in sour cream and basil (2 mins). I intended to freeze the rest to use in Mr B's packed lunch, but he fell so in love with it that most of it got eaten (with the horseradish cream) before it reached the freezer. He even had it for breakfast, which kind of surprised me.

He has already asked for bassa fillets in cheese sauce with our next shop, so that will be another one session cook, yielding multiple portions too. And I fancy making a curry. Probably lamb, and that will give 8-10 portions.

The freezer has a drawer filled with steaks (can cook them from frozen in 20 mins in the airfryer), home made pate (chicken liver and, at the moment, smoked mackerel), and a few other meals from previous batch cooking.

I think the trick to successful fridge/freezer management is the storage containers.
My freezer used to be chaos. Nothing labelled, and no organisation at all.
Then someone on this forum suggested these
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Meal-Pre...947143?hash=item2cbb6b8647:g:-IkAAOSwCVtcLJB8
and I have never looked back...

Sorry for the length of the post, but I have been doing this for a long time now, and we've ended up streamlining quite a few things. Hope you can find some of them useful.

Can I come and live at your house ?