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Prep, Prep and more Prep!


Dawn Marie

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Alrighty! I turned my Whole30 into a Whole60 because I'm loving it THAT much!Thinking about continuing for 90 to be honest. I make each of meals every day as I go along. The only meal I don't that on is breakfast because it's usually leftovers of some sort. Here is my question to all you amazing people....do you do weekly meal prep? or do you do it a day at a time? I'm getting a little burnt out on the day to day thing, but I'm having a hard time transitioning myself to do a big weekend meal prep for the following week. Any pointers, advice, ideas? I think I'm just having a hard time sorting this out in my mind!

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No wonder you're getting burnt out. Weekly cook-ups for the win! I work 5 days on, 5 days off, so I pick one or two of my off days (usually the first and last) to do A LOT of cooking. Yesterday, for example, I cooked up a dozen chicken breasts, 2 steaks, 18 boiled eggs, and marinated a butt for BBQ. We do a lot of simple salads, or even microwave veggies for sides. Slow cooker, also. We have a family of 6 and we could not do this if we had to prep every single day.

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I can't imagine doing this one day at a time. I do as much prep as possible on the weekends, make a double batch of something on Saturday and Sunday and I STILL end up cooking vegetables or something on either Monday or Tuesday night because I panic I won't have enough. And, honestly, my Friday meals end up being a little bizarre, as does my kid's.

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I'm single and I couldn't do this every day. I tried it one week because I was tired of reheated food, but all that did was make me appreciate the cook-up. Mornings are hectic so I would probably skip breakfast if I didn't have a breakfast casserole or sweet potato hash already made. I may not always have the time to do everything on my day off, but I'll put a stew in the crock pot overnight, or start a pot of chocolate chili or some roasted veggies after dinner.

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I cook each day, but I am also a SAHM, so I have a bit more time. I would say chop all your veggies over the weekend, cook chicken breasts or ground beef that can be used for different things throughout the week, and make dishes that can be portioned out and frozen, etc. that is what we used to do when I worked.

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I'm a huuuuuge breakfast person so I don't like to do leftovers. I like something fancy ;)

I don't exactly do prep work every day, but also not every week. So while I don't have a set routine or way to go about it, each time I'm doing prep work or cooking I always try to figure out ways to reduce the amount of work I'll have to do in the next few days.

I'm given chicken bones on Friday's, so I grab all my other bones from the freezer and start a pot of chicken stock.

I like to add celery, carrot, and onion to my stock, so I prep some of those vegetables for the weekend, and add the peels and trimmings to the pot.

I also like to roast the bones before I put them in the pot of water (it makes it easier to extract the gelatin if you put hot bones in cold water, like when you make Jello). So I warm the bones in the oven for 30 minutes at 350.

Since I know I'm going to be using the oven, I defrost a beef roast and (if I found a good deal) a pork picnic roast. The beef will be used for stir frys saturday, and with pot roast vegetables sunday, and the picnic roast for pulled pork during the work/week days.

Now I have those prepared vegetables for the weekend, so I make two stir frys with that.

( If I have pulled pork: )

I freeze individual pint mason jars with pulled pork, with some room at the top to add vegetables later. That will be lunch for Monday-Friday.

Then when I make dinner each night, I reserve some cooked vegetables to go with the pulled pork the next day.

( If I don't have pulled pork )

I have the chicken stock so I prepare some vegetables and some marinated beef to make breakfast soup. The soup doesn't even take 5 minutes to make in the morning. I literally bring the stock to a boil, add vegetables and marinated meat, cover and turn off the (electric) burner.

Sometimes, when I'm using the oven, I wrap 4 sweet potatoes in foil. Then stick them in the fridge for later. They're good warm or cold.

I hate leftovers, and my system works out in a way that each meal doesn't feel like leftovers :)

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I don't do much food prep, but I do things like pre-dicing sweet potatoes for hash in the mornings (I'm a klutz before 3 cups of coffee, it's just safer this way haha), and I typically make a huge portion of veg at dinner to have ready for PWO and/or brekky. Also, my fiancé is wonderful about making huge portions of meals (i.e. his delish and W9 (not W30) compliant vindaloo that he whipped up last night :wub: )

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I haven't mastered the weekend cook-up (beat laid plans...) but at minimum I've managed to make a loose meal plan for the week, roast a bunch of sweet pots, make stock/bone broth, and a couple bins of chocolate chili and a veggie soup. I find having a running list of what's in my fridge to be very helpful, as well as a list of things I can make with what I have on hand.

I'll second the idea to throw the pots in when you're cooking something else at 350.

Last week I was better about roasting extra veg and therefore I did much better on my veg intake.

Vindaloo sounds great!

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I'm all about the cook-up. It doesn't have to be full-on meals, but at least a base that I can work with to create something else, like a roasted (or crockpot) chicken, ground beef, pulled pork, etc.

My husband loves that I have dinner all figured out every night. Before W30, I was a fly by my pants – “I really have nothing planned, why don't we just order in?†– kind of girl.

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post-21664-0-37666600-1366518624_thumb.j

Hello everyone! I have a question regarding food prep.... I have been washing/prepping my veggies for the week on the weekend and keeping them in bowls/containers in my fridge so I don't have to whip out a cutting board every time I want to make something (see photo).

This has been going great, except this time I cut up a bunch of yellow onions, probably 4, and put them in a sealed tupperware container and put it in the fridge. I opened them about 3 hours later and it smelled AWFUL, like some sort of chemical reaction had happened. Has anyone heard of this happening with onions? I had to throw them all away!

Thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

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Ooh that sounds weird re onions, that's never happened to me before - I'd say it's a one-off, try again and see if it happens!

I don't tend to pre-cook veggies, but I usually make a batch or two of some meat based dish a week, i.e. a curry/casserole etc, and add veggies to it on the day (I don't like soggy veggies :)). And when I do make my veggies to go with the meat dish, which is often a salad or cauliflower rice, I make double so I have leftovers for lunch the next day. Breakfast I make everyday but it's usually very quick and easy like a grated turnip, a handful of spinach and a can of sardines in a frypan.

The only pre-cooked veggies I'll do are roasted beets/pumpkin/sweet potato etc. If the oven's on I figure I may as well fill it up!

I would love to be organised enough to do a mega-cook on the weekend but.... I actually like cooking in the evenings, keeps me distracted from being ravenous ;)

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I usually cook enough for 2-3 days over the weekend.

I'm super (overly) paranoid about food safety so don't like to prepare food too far in advance. My freezer isn't that big, so I can't put too many left overs in there plus I don't have a microwave so it takes 2-3 days for things to defrost in the fridge.

Later in the week, I try to plan my evening meal before leaving in the morning so I'm not scrambling to put something together when I get home from work.

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I do a little of both. For example, today I made sunshine sauce, mayo, nomnom asian meatballs, blueberry chicken sausage patties, chicken liver pate, red cabbage slaw, roasted sweet potatoes and butternut squash, a roast chicken, and I'm marinating chicken thighs. I don't do much prep ahead for non-starchy vegetables, though it's nice to have one go-to salad handy. I chop for stir fries and big green salads when I make them. Sometimes I'll wash and prep crudites. But it's great to have plenty of protein that I've prepped on the weekend for the week ahead. Makes life easier.

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post-21664-0-37666600-1366518624_thumb.j

this time I cut up a bunch of yellow onions, probably 4, and put them in a sealed tupperware container and put it in the fridge. I opened them about 3 hours later and it smelled AWFUL, like some sort of chemical reaction had happened. Has anyone heard of this happening with onions? I had to throw them all away!

I worked in catering one summer when I was in Uni. Onions were the one thing the chef always chopped and cooked straight away. He explained that it changes in some way after it's chopped and exposed to air. Afraid it's far too long ago to remember his explanation but I've stuck by it ever since. What I do now is chop the onion and lightly saute it before I put it in the fridge to store.

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post-21664-0-37666600-1366518624_thumb.j

Hello everyone! I have a question regarding food prep.... I have been washing/prepping my veggies for the week on the weekend and keeping them in bowls/containers in my fridge so I don't have to whip out a cutting board every time I want to make something (see photo).

This has been going great, except this time I cut up a bunch of yellow onions, probably 4, and put them in a sealed tupperware container and put it in the fridge. I opened them about 3 hours later and it smelled AWFUL, like some sort of chemical reaction had happened. Has anyone heard of this happening with onions? I had to throw them all away!

Thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

Weird; I can't say I've ever had that happen. I used to have an "onion keeper," which was essentially an onion-shaped plastic container meant for partial onions...but these days I keep 'em in Tupperware when I've chopped too much and have never had an issue.

I worked in catering one summer when I was in Uni. Onions were the one thing the chef always chopped and cooked straight away. He explained that it changes in some way after it's chopped and exposed to air. Afraid it's far too long ago to remember his explanation but I've stuck by it ever since. What I do now is chop the onion and lightly saute it before I put it in the fridge to store.

Pre-sautéing is always a good idea; time saver and apparently, onion saver too!!
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