Cooking for the Week?

I have a friend that spends one weekend a month cooking. She makes a couple baked zitis, cooks chickens, roasts, and a big pot of pasta sauce. She then divides everything into single servings and throws them in the freezer. All she has to do is take out the meal and throw it in the fridge the day before. The day she'll be serving something she only has to make a veggie or salad and maybe pasta, rice, or potatos and she's done.

We do best with this during grilling season. My husband has 2 Weber charcoal grills and he fires them up Saturday or Sunday afternoon and we do several meals at once - like a leg of lamb and a large piece of salmon, or a chicken or chicken pieces and some steak, or shrimp, or hamburgers hot dogs and brats. Veggies go in the grill wok with a little olive oil and kosher salt. We use different rubs depending on what we want to do later.

Salmon can later become salmon cakes, salmon salad (with dill and chives), salmon with cream sauce, dill, Parmesan and bow tie pasta (YUM!). All can be turned into entree salads - think steak and blue cheese - Caesar salad with shrimp or chicken. All also can make great sandwiches - chicken salad, lamb in pita with cucumber sauce, leftover brats with grilled onions and peppers --- now I'm hungry!

I get ideas from Rachel Ray and the old silver palate cookbooks (the salmon pasta dish), Bobby Flay, etc.

Good luck and good eating.

I don't do the plan for the week. Our family is too busy with daughter's activities, etc. We are lucky to be home together by 7pm. Hubby travels a lot as well so a lot of times it is just myself and daughter.

We do eat out often, most every lunch and I keep dinners kindof light unless I have a day when I can prepare. I love to be in the kitchen preparing meals.

I keep my freezer well stocked with steaks, chicken and pork. If I know we have a schedule that daughter will be home afterschool and nothing else going on for the evening, I will pull something out in the morning and prepare a nice dinner.

My daughter loves pasta so I keep a lot of pasta on hand. I make stuffed shells and freeze them separately and she will pull 1-2 out and heat with marinara. I do make my marinara from scratch and I make about 3 quarts when I make it because we go through a lot of marinara. The marinara freezes well.

We eat a good bit of steak (I only buy the top quality from Hirsch's in Plano...SO worth it) He has the same steaks you would get at a high end restaurant like Del Frisco's for example. THE best butcher shop.

I have a home made chicken pot pie that freezes well. Daughter loves chicken pot pie.

I just play it by ear as far as my meal prep.

Good luck.

Well, I don't do that, for the reason you named as well as I don't have enough freezer space, but I do plan out my meals for the week and that helps a lot! It cuts down on prep time b/c I know what I'm going to make and can get things organized as the week goes on. I'm guessing maybe you work during the day, but if not, I try and sometimes get some of the meal prepped during nap time so that when both my kids are running wild I have less to do! Good luck! If you have the time and space, this would be a great idea!

Oh, and kraftfoods.com, allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com all have great ideas!

I tried to do this myself.

FIrst, I picked about 20 favorite recipes or things I wanted to try. I typed them up in a binder.

Next, I made a "randomized" list of meals (entrees and sides) for 5-6 days - I made about three versions so I would have 3 weeks worth of menus.

Last, I made a shopping list for each week and included staples, like bread, cheese, yogurt to fill in for non-cooking meals. I organized by section of the store like produce, deli, butcher, etc.

It took me 1-2 evenings on the computer. I twas reaslly prety easy. I don't freeze neals unless I really feel like planning ahad and cooking on the weekend. I have to admit, I don't use a menu every week, but I do pretty frequently. And by doing it for a few weeks in a row, I htink it actually made me a better planner in gerneral. It is like learning how to think in a more organized way.

I like to make something up the night before I can just stick in the oven when I get home from work, like lasagna, or stick something in the crock pot first thing in the morning. I've never been organized enough to do the cooking all on the weekend thing.

I have no idea if you can find this, but there was a book about 10 years ago that described how to do this, not for the week, but for several months at a time. It was written by two women who did this together. They had recipies for several different meals, and all they had to do was to get together on one weekend every few months to shop and cook, then freeze. They added salds, veggies, and other seasonable items fresh.

It seemed like a lot of work, but could be worth it.

I find it to be worth it to just make double batches of what you already cook (what is frezable) and freeze them for later, that way you can cut your cooking in half.

M.

Rachael Ray has done things on this - check your library for a cookbook or some of her past magazines. She's big on making something that can be used in 2 different recipes. She's also big on 30 minute meals and 5 ingredients or less, and puts in some shortcuts you can take to minimize the prep.

I also do a lot with frozen turkey meatballs or chicken tenders - I buy them in big bags from BJs or the supermarket, then pop out what I need. By the time the fresh veggies are steamed, the meat is done in the microwave!