Happy Pinay Mommy

A Busy Mom’s Guide to Daily Meal Preparation

Hi Mommies!

Suddenly just got inspired to post my weekly meal plans for my Little Familia. Me and some of the moms over at my facebook group are discussing about how to go about cooking when you have very young kids and do not have help at all. I just wanted to share my food preparation strategy to everyone who may be interested on how i go about our daily meal preparation. I earlier wrote about meal planning here.

daily meal preparation
How will you ever find the time to cook? here are tips on daily meal preparation. Photo Credits

I just wanted to expound that what I usually do is:

1. I do an inventory of what we have in the freezer/ref and pantry

2. I meal plan accordingly. I try to include easy to cook recipes like what i have written here.

3. i draw up a grocery list of what i have to buy for the meals.

(You may want to read a related article on how to save on grocery shopping, pinoy style by clicking here and here)

4. i batch cook during weekends, usually the day of or day after i did the grocery shopping

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5. i usually cook for more than one meal so that i could have a back-up freezer meal for the next week, and so that we would not have to be stuffed with left-overs for days on end.

6.I try my best to marinate the meat i bought the same day so that i would not have to go through the trouble of thawing them before marinating them.

7. I would pack the marinated meat into small-sized zip loc bags — i just use the SM Bonus brand because it is cheaper.

8. I invest in lock and lock containers, or make use of tupperware to store my meals for the week.

9. I strive hard to heat the food during the week via stovetop/induction cooker, and i try hard to avoid microwaving. But if i really have to use it i use glass containers.

10. I usually ask the grocery attendant to peel the veggies for me, and if i am extra lazy, i ask that it be chopped as well so that all i have to do is wash them before cooking!

11. I also apportion salads whenever i have extra time (like when the kids are napping) so that it will be easier to grab them when we will just have sandwiches for dinner

12. I also pre-make spreads whenever i can but just the simple ones — tuna, chicken, and egg.

13. I am lazy too, so if some food or ingredient will make my coking life easier i go for it! Daily meal preparation can be very tiring.

14. I also buy food that dos not need to be thawed and could be eaten/cooked pronto to respond ASAP to growling tummies.

Still a work in progress when it comes to healthy eating

I am still a work in progress when it comes to offering the most nutritious meals for my family. We still have convenience foods (canned, ready to fry, cured) and we try hard to avoid it. Of course when you are n the thick of daily meal preparation you sometimes fall into the trap of what is convenient, delicious, and what gets appreciated — and we are a carnivorous family! I promise to really intentionally make our meals greener. Ill be writing about that journey soon.

Hope you could stop by again to browse through the weekly meal plan i plan to post every Friday.

Thank you again!

Do you have any recipes or strategies that you can share with us?

here’s a video on speedy meal prep i might try next time:

http://happypinaymommy.com/2015/06/03/paano-malaman-kung-may-impeksyon-ang-pusod-ni-baby/

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happypinaymommy
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