New Mom: A Week’s Worth of Meals
I am desperately and continuously trying to come up with meal strategies that work for my family and our work schedules that avoid ordering take-out as much as possible. So one recent Saturday morning I decided I would buy meals that could all be made almost exclusively on the grill, have a big grill fest on Saturday night and have meals all cooked and prepared for the entire week. Here’s how it worked out:
Saturday morning: Unpack the groceries, putting chicken and steak tips directly into marinade bags before they even go into the fridge. Also, unpack hamburgers, turkey sausages and assorted veggies. I feel I’m off to a good start.
Saturday night: Husband insists it’s easier for him to pick up pizza on his way home from running errands than for us to grill. (Never mind that his credit card had expired and pizza pick-up required two trips and resulted in cold pizza.)
Sunday night: Husband makes a quick trip to Target while I put the chicken on the grill. I return 10 minutes later to put vegetables on only to find the propane tank is empty. I transfer chicken and veggies into the oven. My husband comes home and switches the propane tank for a spare full one that I didn’t know we had. I cook steak tips on the grill. We eat steak tips, Uncle Ben’s microwavable rice (a surprisingly big hit), and some of the oven-baked veggies. Chicken and remaining veggies go in the fridge.
Monday: Husband and I each take some chicken to work for lunch. Cook hamburgers for dinner. We all eat hamburgers, veggies and a tomato and mozzarella salad.
Tuesday: Husband and I go to the Red Sox game and eat ballpark food. Daughter has leftover hamburger for lunch and leftover take-out pasta and meatballs for dinner with the babysitter.
Wednesday: Husband has leftover chicken for lunch, I have a work lunch, daughter has more leftover hamburger for lunch and chicken for dinner (though she barely eats any). Cook turkey sausages in stove top with onions; red peppers and asparagus roast in the oven. That’s parents’ dinner.
Thursday: Pizza day at the center for daughter! Leftover turkey sausage for husband and me for lunch. Daughter and I go out to dinner with friends. Husband has leftover chicken, maybe?
Friday: We’re out of food and ordering out again.
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2 comments:
Every couple of months I try to stock up our freezer - even if it is just chicken breasts in some bottled marinade. My biggest challenge is remebering to take something out to defrost more than 30 min before dinner!
One thing that works well for us it to roast a big chicken on Sunday. And I mean bigger than 5 lbs. It's the only way to make it worth it. We eat it for dinner Sunday night as a family. And it gets us chicken salad for a few days after - either for lunch or dinner - or chicken quesadillas. When you add apples and nuts to the salad or all the other stuff to the quesadilla, it makes it go further. But the kids are happy to eat it plain, too. I find it gets us through Tuesday, with at least three dinners (Sunday included) and a couple of lunches. I also highly recommend using a crock pot to make a big roast of some kind one day and for dinner the next night make a ragu with the leftovers and serve it with pasta. Two super easy dinners. I am amazed at how much my kids like this meal, especially since they are typically chicken fingers and mac and cheese kids.
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