Meal Prepping Live Blog

Hi Busies!  Let’s be real, this blog isn’t really live, because when I’m meal prepping, I am a literal kitchen tornado.  I’m flying between the cutting board, stovetop, oven, and sink, not to mention washing any number of things off my hands about every 10 minutes.  

But – I did use a pen and paper to jot down some of my notes during this round of meal prep.  Hopefully these (plus a few bonus pictures) will help give you a better idea of what to expect during Round 2 – and help you realize the amount of trial and error that goes into making the meal prep guide as efficient as possible!

Saturday

11 AM – Slow start this morning, but I’m finally ready – let’s do this!  

11:01 AM – *realize the dishwasher is clean* Ugh!  Never start meal prepping with a clean dishwasher.  It doesn’t end well.  Sometimes if I’m feeling extra lazy, I even throw cutting boards, crock pots, pots, and pans in there halfway through a meal prep day.  Because the dishes are just too hard to face alone.

11:15 AM – Ok, NOW let’s do this!  

• Beans for the White Chicken Chili – rinse and dump 1/2 bag of navy beans and 1/2 bag of great northern beans in the crock pot.  Cover with water until 2″ above beans.  Set on low for 4-6 hours.
• Realize that with a bigger crock pot, I could cook 2 bags of beans at once.
• Order a new crockpot off Amazon.  

Dear Amazon Prime, I would be so lost without you ❤️

Labor Day Weekend got the best of me, and I didn’t do anything else on Saturday except put the beans in bags in the fridge once they were done, and feel like a meal prep failure.  Life happens!  With a little flexibility, you can still fit meal prepping into your schedule.  Enter Monday:

Monday

9:30 AM – Start the chicken for 2 batches of white chicken chili in the crock pot.  

9:35 AM – Mongolian Beef Stir Fry

• Slice flank steak into bite sized pieces, toss in cornstarch, let sit at room temp
• Stir together ingredients for the stir fry sauce

10:15 AM – Start 8 servings of brown rice cooking, to go with the stir fry.

10:20 AM – Saute the beef and add the stir fry sauce.  

10:40-11 AM – Dogs and dishes break, while the Mongolian Beef cools.  Then package it up and pop in the fridge!

Pups know that meal prep days are prime opportunities for kitchen scraps!  I might have dropped them a few pieces of steak on purpose ?

11-3 PM – Lunch, walk dogs, and get organized on what I’m making next.  Oh, and about an hour of time lost to Netflix.  Maybe 2.  Have I mentioned The Handmaid’s Tale?!  During this time I did manage to switch out the white chicken chili from the crock pot and add in the butter chicken.

Shredding chicken for the White Chicken Chili 

Butter Chicken before and after:  the cream goes in after the cooking is done!

3 PM – Lasagna Roll Ups

• Start water boiling and cook noodles, let cool
• Saute ground turkey and stir in some marinara sauce
• Saute spinach, chop and make the rest of the filling
• FaceTime my mom (hi, Mom!) while making the roll ups

4 PM – All The Stove Stuff

• Pop Mom’s Catalina chicken in the oven
• Saute chicken for cajun chicken, balsamic chicken, sun-dried tomato chicken kale bowl, and parmesan pork
• Curse my house for not having better A/C ??? 
• Saute kale
• Cashew chicken (because I try to only wash the wok once per meal prep.  It barely fits in the sink!)
• Chicken in sun-dried tomato cream sauce

Kale before and after cooking – crazy amounts of wilting!

6:30 PM:  The big stovetop session is the hardest/worst for me.  Treated myself to a shower and a night on the couch!  

Phew!  There’s nothing like being done and knowing I won’t have to cook again for 2 months! 

Did y’all like this behind the scenes post?  Let me know your feedback in the comments below!  If you’re meal prepping, tag me on Instagram @busygirl_bites or #busygirlbites so I can see your progress!  Happy prepping!

via GIPHY