Food Planning - Cooking on the Weekends

So, for the past 3 weeks i've decided to cook a quantity of foods to get me through my lunches and dinners for the week. the reason i decided to do this is because I joined a new gym. I now have to work around class schedules, so i'm getting home later. I really love to cook, so I try new recipes and new ingredients and I like to challenge myself.... Getting home later doesn't really afford me the time to do this anymore. Technically it does, but the food isn't ready until 9:30 or 10 sometimes, and I try to go to bed by 11:30 or midnight. People always say don't eat after 8 or don't snack before bed because this can make you gain weight. If you think about it, it's somewhat bollocks. If you have enough calories left in you're day, you're not going to gain weight.... the problem is... if you eat so late and then try to lay down to get a full nights sleep, your body is still in work mode trying to break everything down... This doesn't allow your body to fully rest and can cause a shotty night's sleep. You may be groggy and possibly feel lethargic all day because of it. Another weird side effect from eating so late is you wake up starving. You're stomach is immediately growling for more. Everyone is different so this may not happen to you, but the more people i've talked to, i find this is a common occurrence. I really haven't found anything to explain why this happens.

Ok so back to the point of this story.... I thought it would be a good idea to cook on the weekends. That way i can try fun new recipes and be set all week. Well i've done this for 3 weeks now, and I have to tell ya, I'm exhausted. So, i'm not just going to full on give up. it's just time to make some changes to the plan and really break down what happened.

PROBLEMS

1. I took on too many recipes. I really overwhelmed myself. I thought i didn't take on too many, but then i'd be in the kitchen for 4 or so hours on Saturday and 3 or so on Sunday. it's not fun anymore when you're standing in the kitchen for that long. There's so much i want to try, but there are other things i want to accomplish on my weekends!


2. I was cooking hard level, new, or ingredient intense recipes. Most of the stuff I want to try and work on is generally of a harder level or takes more time to do. For instance, i had this one recipe for skillet zucchini, but it took so much time to salt it, drain it, squeeze it, let it rest some more, squeeze it again, etc... yes you can do other things in the mean time, but all this work for some skillet fried zucchini? Regarding ingredient intense, i basically mean there's a laundry list of ingredients that go in something. Anytime there's more ingredients usually this means more time to do! More chopping, grating, blending, opening, closing, pouring, taking out, putting away, etc.


3. I end up with a lot of leftovers. I can't eat the same thing every day whether it be for lunch one day and dinner another. Also, some I can't freeze because they're fresh ingredients.


4. After cooking and smelling this stuff and or tasting it, i didn't want to eat it. I wanted to order out! How weird right?! Again, i just really burned myself out and didn't want a blessed thing i made on the day i made it.

SOLUTIONS

1. I'm only going to pick 1 or 2 newer/harder recipes to work on during the weekends. Limit the amount of items made that I can't freeze.


2. Since what I make yields many leftovers, freezing things is a must do! This will allow me some weekends off from cooking all together!


3. Yes, we all know how people (rachel ray) say to cut and prep all salad and veggies when you bring them home from the grocery store. I usually never do this, BUT, this is way less time consuming than the actual cooking part. This will take me minutes and then during the week i can just make quick salads or all in one skillet meals.


4. Make plain whole grain starches on the weekend. Boiling water and dumping in brown rice or whole wheat pasta is easy! Heating it up later during the week for a stirfry or skillet dish is even easier.


5. Meat is quick and easy to cook. So I'll keep the meat cooking during the week. Whether it's a filet on the grill or stirfry shrimp, max meat cooking time is less than 10 minutes!


6. Take advantage of those healthy pre-made sauces. I completely forgot about them cause i try to do everything by scratch. No need to do everything by scratch! Trader Joe's has some great ones. The Indian ones are my fav. Cook some chicken and some peas in the sauce. heat up some rice. Throw you're pre-cut salad ingredients together... insta meal!


7. While cooking during the week, limit your ingredients. You don't need 10 different veggies in your stir fry all the time.

Basically, what I learned is try to keep it simple. Make 1 or 2 new recipes, starches and cut up veggies on the weekends. This will only take 1-2 hours. During the week cook the meat and use less ingredients. Use one pan to cook everything! Should take less than 20 mins for cooking and less then 5 to clean it all up.