The Blue Collar Kitchen

The weekend is a good time to cook a little extra of certain items that can be used in meals during the week. You can cook extra meat, beans, soup, and several other items that will save you precious time during meal prep next week. The good thing about this is that it does not add very much time to your weekend cooking.

If you don't already, you may want to make a weekly meal planner to help you plan what items you can use during the upcoming weeks. This can be as simple or complex as you would like to make it. I know some people that eat pratically the same items on certain days of the week, every week. I am not that structured and like to mix up the recipes, so that does not work for my family.

You can use a premade weekly menu planner like the free one found at microsoft by clicking this link. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC300023051033.aspx?pid=CT101423511033&WT.mc_id=42

If you like to use a paper planner, you can use any of the many available ones on the market like this one.
Day-Timer Mini Weekly Planner 2010, Two Pages per Week Format, Pocket-Size (D13331-1001)

Here is an example using ground beef.

If you are making meatloaf for dinner Sunday and the recipe calls for 2lbs of ground beef, take out 5lbs.

While the meatloaf is cooking, brown the left over 3lbs of beef. Once it cools, divide it into three 1lb portions and place in freezer bags and freeze. On your menu planner you can add three recipes that call for ground beef. For me, I would make spaghetti on Tuesday, Tacos (or your favorite mexican) on Thursday, and Hamburger Helper for lunch on Saturday.

You can do this with many ingredients. My favorite is soup. I recieved a 27qt pot for a christmas present a few years ago and it makes a huge batch of soup. I will usually freeze 5-6 gallons of soup after cooking one meal. You can also do this with waffles and pancakes, peas, beans, and other legumes.

This simple steps can cut your cooking time during the week in half. be sure to experiment with your favorite items to see how much time you can save.