Planning & Prepping Update

Weekly prep and menu organization is not something new for our family when paleo came along. However paleo certainly forced us to super size it! Two of my early blogs, found here (menu / prep), explain my full process. Those blog posts were written a year ago for our old gyms website. I transferred them hear when I started up the blog.

I've since since become more efficient, although the same process applies. Instead of making 5-7 breakfasts, 5-7 lunches, 5-7 dinners we rely much more on meals that share the same ingredients, bits and pieces that can be used in multiple meals in different ways, one protein paired with different veggies for another meal. This is soooooo much easier and takes less time and costs much less! Another benefit is that if we run out of time one night to assemble the full meal then you just grab a few items and throw them on our plate. This doesn't happen often but it is possible. Basically 'garanimals' for food, which paleo lends itself to nicely.

This is what a simplified weekly menu looks like. I always divide into the three meals, then in the lower left are extras or snacks. This particular menu is one that I use for teaching / prep sessions. Because we have a 2 hour time frame and the idea behind the class is to understanding prepping and how to use dishes for multiple meals and pair them differently. For the fall gym classes they made: Breakfast Meatballs, Chicken Salad, Sweet Potato Hash, Taco Night and Sweet Potato Carrot Patties. These 5 meals will work for breakfast, lunch or dinner. You can see how I paired them each with different items for each meal. The 'POST' in the lower left are items that can be used for post WODs. In the middle bottom was an item that they could use with some of the meals, as they had made paleo mayo for chicken salad. The lower right was another idea they could use the sweet potato carrot patties for if they ran out of food. The menu is meant to have you cook a few items only so you aren't spending days in the kitchen prep prepping.

This is my actual menu for this week and it's coded for prep in red. We general make breakfasts to be used just for breakfast. This is because I'm the only one that will truly eat ANYTHING for breakfast. The boys all want 'breakfast foods'. Lunch and dinner we will use interchangeably and this is where leftovers play a huge part! I do not list out everything we are having with each meal, especially for lunch. I list the main protein for lunch and then for dinner I list the protein and main veggie. For lunches add a fruit, and standard veggies such as green beans, carrots, salad, broccoli, cabbage, etc or a vegetable leftover if there is one. So don't think the kids only have ham rolls for lunch, lol!

The red on the menu is what has to be prepped or how. This enables me to easily do the prep in a day or pick what I have time for throughout the week if I don't get a prep day. Additionally it makes it easy to see what can be grouped together. I can easily see what needs to go in the oven and what all needs veggies shredded. It comes down to efficiency. It also allows someone else to easily jump in and help, which happens often.

So this week for prep the things that were done are as follows:

Baked: 

• pizza breakfast loaf
• scotch eggs
• pumpkin cereal (this will last 2 weeks)
• italian meatballs
• chicken for buffalo chicken meal (this was also diced)

Veggies shredded / prepped:

• spinach/broccoli/kale mix were shredded for smoothies for the next two weeks (1/2 in the freezer)
• veggies diced for buffalo chicken meal
• cabbage shredded for coleslaw
• sweet potato/onions/green pepper shredded and diced for hash to go with pulled pork
• sweet potatoes/carrots were shredded for sweet potato and carrot patties that will be made on wednesday (my mid week prep day if needed)

The items with no red under them will be made fresh the day of, generally on an off gym day when there is more time. Or it's an item that really tastes better fresh and not made in advance. 

Remember that with prep it doesn't all have to be done in one day. Determine what your schedule is for the week and where you are able to do it. Some weeks are rougher than others and we don't have time for a prep day. If this happens then we will do an easy meals like tacos or burger for Monday. Then Monday night while one of us is doing dishes then the other will prep meals for the next day. This will continue each night throughout the week then. I also generally know it's a rough week in advance and will plan a simple menu such as: hamburgers, meatballs, sloppy joes, pizza, breakfast for dinner, ect. 

Another thing that helps me in a pinch is that I have a manilla folder that I save all my weekly menus in. I'll either look back to see what we haven't had in a while and pull from multiple menus or i'll just take a  menu and use it as is. Why reinvent the wheel!?

One final thought came to me as I was re-reading the above. All the recipes that I have for this week are  favorites that we've made numerous times, so the hubby and I both know where the recipes are. However on weeks where we have new recipes or if I think we won't remember where the recipe is then I have to code the menu. Below is a heavily coded menu week.

My secret coding:
PIN = Pinterest board / either the 'To Try" or "Tried and True" which are meals we've made and liked
PP = Practical Paleo cookbook
EP1 = Everyday Paleo book 1
EP2 = Everyday Paleo book 2
MG = MacGourmet, which is an electronic cookbook that I keep

So why is this needed? Because I have an awesome husband and kids that help with the cooking and getting meals in the lunch boxes and on the table. The easier I make it for everyone with prep and coding then the more help I get. Think smart and work smart…..get everyone involved!

How do you plan and prep?

Enjoy!
Yvonne