For an hour or so on Sunday, we have become meal prepping machines. This week in the middle of the prepping, I looked at Tom and said, “Do you remember when all of this prep wasn’t necessary?” We both chuckled! But here’s why it is: we have three young kiddos and it’s important to us that we eat a healthy diet of whole foods. I like that during the week I have quick meals to pull out and the kids eat mostly what we eat.
So we all get in the kitchen and split up who does what and knock it out to make the week easier. By that I mean Thomas and Arthur go back and forth from helping to coloring!
Bottom line is this allows for more time to enjoy each other and it frees up the afternoons during the week for me to sit outside with them to play and not worry so much about dinner. What’s better than the dinner prep to me is breakfast being prepped. That means more sleep! And it means things flow better getting everyone up and going. And I can sit with the boys and talk and eat at the same time.
Here’s what this week looked like:
Overnight oats. We like to make as assembly line and do enough for two morning’s worth of breakfasts.
Salads for lunch. We cooked the chicken and quinoa and chopped veggies. Some we prepacked for Tom to take to work. I had a few for me so all I had to do was pop the jar on a plate with greens and eat!
We prepped for two dinners. This week was this chicken and grape recipe that we haven’t had in quite some time. And pulled chicken cheese steaks in the crockpot with baked sweet potatoes. I like to plan on two dinners for the week that make enough to have leftovers the following night. We will usually throw in a breakfast night during the week as well.
By Wednesday I usually need to do some fill in for breakfast or snacks. The boys helped out and did a double batch of baked oats. One for this week and one to freeze.
I also did a batch of blueberry muffins, and we found out John Lloyd is a big fan!
