Back to school is coming and, honestly, I can’t wait!  Maybe that’s because I’m naïve and have not yet experienced stress associated with back-to-school.  But I’m very excited to simplify and localize my life, find a network of parents who can support each other and make child-rearing at least slightly easier. Am I living in La La Land? Hopefully not…

Part of keeping life easy is meal planning.  No duh…cooking on Sundays has become the default in many households. But I’m talking about making it even easier.  If you are going to cook something on Sunday, why not make a batch and a half or double and freeze the rest of it in portions (if it’s that type of recipe).  Eat that dish throughout the week and get tired of it. Who cares?  So what?  You are freezing it for consumption at a completely different time.  Maybe you won’t have to make it again from scratch a few weeks from now when the craving hits again.  Like pasta sauce, I make that a few times a year, not each time we eat pasta.  Same goes with chili, chicken chile verde and pulled pork.  Planning meals such as these will help stock your freezer for busy nights when you completely forgot about dinner planning or really dislike cooking often.  Before you know it, you will have a variety to choose from to prevent boredom.

Also, prepping foods such as salad greens ahead of time helps.  Or dicing extra onion to flash freeze and have on hand for immediate use when making dishes that require sautéed onions.  If you have to chop onions for one recipe, it’s not that hard to plow through the rest of them and get that chore done.  Cry once, I say.  This can also prevent spoilage too.  You could buy all of this stuff prepackaged and precut. No shame in it, but risk of exposure to pathogens increases, as we have seen with the multiple recalls on prepackaged foods recently.

I’m always looking for other ways to simplify meal planning and prep.  If anyone has any suggestions or would like to start a meal exchange group, please reach out!

Here’s a good example of a recipe for batch cooking.  It kept nicely in the freezer until we wanted it again.  These lentil-based falafels are also good for batch cooking.