Food Prep Day

I am constantly in search of inspiration to make my life more effective. I've heard of food prep day before but a recent Podcast episode gave me a much needed boost of confidence to give it a try. Prep day is simply a day set apart to prepare for success during the week.

Because I am taking one solitary college class this semester, I realized that I need to be ready for all the food demands we have here at home. I like to cook most of my food so looking at my schedule, I realized that I can't possibly accomplish that in small chunks.

Here's how prep day worked for me:

• I waited for the kids to come back from school and I had their afternoon snack ready to go.
• All the recipes I needed were at hand and I previously purchased all missing ingredients.
• I made a list of foods to cook and I went to work!
• The kids did homework and played while Food Prep Day was going on. We also ate dinner during that time.
• I had all dishes cleaned 6 hours after I started this process.

Here's what I cooked:

• Rice
• Beans - recipe here
• Meatloaf Cupcakes
• Kale with chicken fajita meat
• Ground beef with garlic and onion seasoning (for spaghetti later on this week)
• Cauliflower rice
• Banana nut muffins - recipe here (my spin)
• Granola bars - recipe here (I used flax seeds, chia, walnuts and chocolate chips)

It is not a fancy menu but it works for our family. I also did not want to be an over achiever and cook an enormous amount of food for the whole month. This is a small step for what I hope will become my norm. Oh, the day before I made a breakfast casserole and those last for two days around here.

The reality is, not every Monday is the same in the Listenbee household. We actually have afternoon commitments. I might have to move prep day to Sunday or break it down in two days. The keys is that if I want to succeed, I need to plan my meals, prep my meals and expect this preparation to set us up for a successful week. 

Many good things come from food prep:
• I don't have to wonder what's for dinner.
• I don't have to eat junk food.
• The kids have great food for lunch every day.
• The kids have homemade snacks every day.
• We know where the ingredients of the foods we are eating came from.
• We get an extra amount of satisfaction from all the work that goes into cooking these meals.

I have other areas of life that can seriously benefit from Prep Day. I always prep my workout clothes the day before so there's no doubt that exercise will happen.
I always write down my weekly schedule so that I will be prepared for the things I committed to attend.
I am seriously trying to apply my 45-minute organization solution when it comes to laundry so that we will be prepared to walk out of the door looking our best.
Zig Ziglar's quote often rings in my head when I am tempted not to prep and go with the flow:

"You were born to win, but to be a winner, 

you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win."

Let's all expect to win this week!
A big hug from me to you my friend.