We live in a fast paced world, which is the reason why fast food restaurants are thriving so well in our economy.
It almost seems like we don’t have enough time to stop and cook lunch or dinner for our family anymore. We are moving so fast during the day, by the time we get home we want to plop down and hang out for about an hour before we are falling asleep.
If there was a way you could have lunch and dinners prepared for your family every night and not have any of the typical stress, would you try it out?
Cooking
Believe it or not, you can have high quality meals ready for you every night of the week and not have to lift a finger to prepare anything each night. Many people are taking advantage of monthly meal planning. Basically, one day a month, preferably on a Saturday or Sunday, people will spend the entire day cooking meals to freeze for later.
Now, a month worth of food is quite a bit and even more difficult to store, so many people opt for the weekly meal planning. Same type of situation, only this time you’re doing it on a weekly basis. Spend one day cooking and have meals prepared for the rest of the week; that takes a lot of the stress and effort out of planning healthy meals for your family doesn’t it?
Freezing
Freezing is probably the most challenging task you will come to if you decide to try out monthly or weekly meal planning. It is not difficult because freezing is freezing, the problem comes in with storage space. Many people who chose to meal plan this way, typically purchase a deep freezer or a separate stand-up freezer to keep all of their meals in.
Since space is limited, you will have to devise recipes and meal plans that you know will be able to fit into the space you have available. Just remember, if you are trying to freeze items like pancakes or berries, it helps to lay them out first to flash freeze and then bag, otherwise you will end up with a solid mass of frozen pancakes. Unless you want to eat 30 pancakes, I suggest the first way.
Reheating
Reheating is simple. Some dishes you will want to cook all the way, such as casseroles, which can simply be reheated in the oven on 250 degrees for about 25 minutes. Other dishes, like lasagna, you will want to leave un-baked so it will have that fresh taste when you pull it out and bake it for 30 minutes on 375 degrees. Usually the recipes you got the meals from will have proper reheating instructions so be sure to check there first for reheating directions.
Fixing healthy meals for your family is simple and preparing them ahead of time takes all of the stress out of trying to squeeze in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich between practice and bedtime. Why not have great tasting meals to sit down with every day of the week? Grab some recipes and a free weekend and prepare the best week of meals your family has ever seen.
