Easier Prep Ahead Meals

By Angela on August 30, 2017

Eating at home instead of in restaurants is the #1 way to save on food costs, but it’s not always so easy. I was visiting with another mom (while we chaperoned a field trip) about how expensive it can be to raise a family. She confessed that they get food stamps but also spend over $700 a month in restaurants for their family of 4. She knows it’s sabotaging their goals, but she feels trapped. How does a family get food on the table when they are so busy and stressed?

Planning and Preparation. The busier you are, the more important it is to have a detailed plan and scheduled in time to make it happen. If part of your meal is already done, and all the ingredients are on hand, cooking is not as big a deal.

I meal plan on Wednesday, shop early on Saturday and meal prep for the week either Sunday night or Monday morning. If you don’t have time to do your own meal planning, I offer affordable, detailed meal plans done for you. If you’d like to do your own but aren’t sure where to start, click here.
After about 6 months of prepping my meals ahead this way with the FitMama meal plans, I have some thoughts about how to make meal prepping easier. The idea of Fit Mama is to have all of my food made ahead for the week, so I can focus on the meals my family needs the rest of the time and not have to make two different things every night. Plus if my food isn’t already made before I get hangry, I will stuff my face with any and all edible substances within reach.

Meal prepping lets you borrow time from a moment when you aren’t as stressed and move it to the moment that is the most intense.

With Fit Mama, I eat 6 small meals a day. Prepping 36 single serving meals for the week is more labor intensive than prepping 6 family dinners. Yet, it has been the part of the program that has brought me the most success.

It’s important to choose simple when you are in the busiest seasons of your life. I’ve narrowed meals down to 3 types:

The easiest are stir togethers like overnight oats, homemade gelatin, chia seed pudding, or protein pancake or waffle batter. They go together the quickest and make me feel productive.

2. Then there are casseroles, marinated meats, and crock pot or one pot dump recipes that can be assembled or thrown in a bag, then cooked quickly just before meal time.

3. On the more labor intensive end of things are meals that require cooking some of the ingredients before the dish can be assembled and cooked again. For example, My breakfast stuffed sweet potatoes require pre-baked potatoes, browned turkey sausage, and pre-cooked scrambled eggs before assembling. They are delicious! But if my prep time is shorter than usual, it’s not the best choice for that week. A good option for these types of dishes is to prep the singles first, such as browning hamburger and leaving the rest of the chores for another time. It’s a lot easier for me to consider making stuffed sweet potatoes for breakfast if all I have to do is put it together for the final bake.

The other option is do to generic meal prepping. This would include cooking a bunch of hamburger in bulk and then freezing it in portions ready to throw in a meal. Or filling the slow cooker full of chicken breasts to shred. Or washing all your produce and shopping it ready to go for the week.

There’s no right or wrong way to prep for your meals as long as it feels doable to you and takes some of the pressure off when you’re the most stressed.

It’s also the perfect time to get some of the family members involved. Here’s a screen shot from a live video my boys did with me to show the FitMama members how we meal prep. The boys have learned to dice and chop and all sorts of other kitchen skills by helping me in this way.

Tell me about you. How do you meal prep? Any tips for us?

The Best Proteins to Buy when You’re Broke

By Angela on February 24, 2017

We’ve all been there. Funds are limited, but you still have to eat. Most people think of high carb foods like white bread and pasta when funds are low, but it’s important to get plenty of protein, especially in times of stress.

Eggs

Eggs average $1 a dozen or 17 cents for a 2 egg serving with 140 calories and 14 grams of protein. They are full of healthy fats and vitamins too. With eggs you can make: egg salad; scrambled eggs; fried egg sandwiches; creamed eggs over biscuits; and frittata.

Meal Plan Shopping Lists Made Easy

By Angela on August 20, 2015

When I started my meal plan service the hardest thing I had to do was generate the shopping list. In the early days I spent 50+ hours a week on the meal plans and wondered what I had done to myself?!!!! I’ve shaved off 30 hours a week from my hands on time by , figuring out some more efficient ways to do things. (If you don’t have time to plan for yourself, it’s really affordable to let me do it for you. Try it guilt free. It helps both our families at the same time.)

In the GSP meal plans, subscribers notice my recipes are written backwards. Traditionally the amount is first and then the ingredient i.e. 1/2 cup Butter. I write the ingredient first, and then the amount i.e. Butter 1/2 cup. It allows me to offer 4 recipes sizes AND use excel to organize a shopping list. If you are planning just for your family you will only need 1 serving size, but the same principle works.

After I have compiled all my recipes into a document, I quickly copy and paste all the ingredients into an excel file. I add a column for categories, and then sort. Excel will place all my identical ingredients right beside each other so I can count up how many cans of tomato sauce for the week.

PLUS excel is already formatted to talk to the Out of Milk app if I save the list as a csv file. Once I upload the shopping list to Out of Milk, my husband can access the list from his phone as well. If I have already purchased some things and marked them off the list, they will be crossed off on his device too.

Here’s a short video to show you how easy it is.

Step 1 to a meal plan you’ll actually follow

By Angela on August 17, 2015

Drumroll please……Here are the survey results!

If you don’t meal plan, you are in the majority. I didn’t for years either.

When I lived in the country and could only get out to shop once a month, I planned by the month. Now that I’m back in the city, planning for the week is much easier. Most of the comments said it was too overwhelming to think about more than one week at a time. I hear that!

The majority of readers struggle with ideas and then actually following a plan. I’m no different! I spend a lot of hours each week searching for new, cost effective, and family friendly ideas–because that’s my job. It’s still hard to find the time to put a meal together at the end of a busy work day. I’m always searching and testing to find new ways to simplify this without sacrificing health or budget.

This was the most skipped question. I think that means the majority of readers are looking for traditional foods with a healthy edge. Most readers are concerned with fitness and weight management and look for lower carb, higher protein options. We are no different at our house, yet with 6 growing kids and a skinny husband it’s a challenge to juggle my needs with theirs.

STEP ONE to a meal plan you will actually follow:

Get a blank calendar and make note of the days that you are CRAZY. If this is the day you need a crock pot meal put a yellow highlighter over the square and if you need something as easy as pancakes (Yes, for dinner) then highlight it pink (too busy in the mornings to do crock pot.) Leave normal days plain.

I use the calendar program from Microsoft Publisher to meal plan, but you can use a Dollar Tree printed calendar (with puppies or cupcakes) if you prefer.

Then search Pinterest or Yummly (or the recipe section of this site) for the types of recipes you need for your special days and write the titles on your calendar in pencil.

Even though I plan one week at a time, I still record my plans in a month calendar. That way I can easily see what we had recently and flip back for ideas.

Later this week, I’ll show you how to take the organization a step further so you can easily see what can be prepped ahead in a couple of hours on the weekend.

AND several of you left comments on the survey that will be fun to look at more closely too.

P.S. Here’s a short video if you want to see details about how I do it.

When a Meal Plan is Important

By Angela on August 12, 2015

When I was a young wife, I didn’t meal plan. I didn’t WANT to meal plan. I have a crazy talent of opening the fridge taking out a few bits of that and a smackerel of this and pulling it into a delicious meal. Some people do cross-words to stretch their mind, I prefer to cook from little bits of nothing. Doing this saved us THOUSANDS in food costs over the years. I had little waste, tons of variety, and usually it was yummy. I shopped for the things that were the best value and most nutritious and made stuff with what I could find.

Fast forward a few years (err 15….) throw in 6 kids, 4 schools, 3 jobs, and all the trappings — my mind is mush. On more than one occasion I’ve opened my fridge, seen the little bits of nothing and crawled into bed with a bowl of cereal leaving the family to figure it out.

I’m not proud of it. I’m just admitting it happened.

When life is so busy that I can’t remember your middle name, it’s time to have a meal plan. With a meal plan you I a shopping list that allows me to shop once for the whole week. With a couple of prep hours on the weekend that the rest of the week is doable.

Today was the first day of school for 3 of my kids, plus I hosted a garage sale for 14 families and was running all day. It was an ideal “hide in bed with cereal” day, but instead we had slow cooked stew and biscuits at 5. The difference was a plan and ingredients on hand that I could just dump in the crock pot in a couple of minutes.

If you are struggling with getting dinner together or life is crazy busy, I’d like to give you some support. Will you answer 6 questions for me?

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

By Angela on April 6, 2012

It’s hard to believe Grocery Shrink Plus is already in it’s 5th week! If you haven’t signed up yet you are missing out. We’ve been trying all sorts of new recipes and tecniques. It’s so much fun! And I’m really loving the facebook group. It’s so fun to see the photos of everyone’s family and food. The ladies are so encouraging! I love to see little notes like this one:

We’re really enjoying these recipes, Angela! Everything is so easy to make, healthy, and delicious. I feel so much more organized in the kitchen as well. Thank you so much!–Stephanie

With Grocery Shrink Plus, everything is laid out for you. I hope this is freeing. Freeing enough that you can relax and let your kids help you in the kitchen. The day we made chicken nuggets, little Brandon stopped in to help. I was surprised how good at it he was! Read more…