I am a big believer in ‘making hay while the sun shines’ or simply planning ahead and preparing for future occasions. One of the easiest ways I save myself time at busy times, is to prep things when I have time to spare - so that I am able to easily make healthy and nourishing choices at meal times when time is limited.
Generally, in my house (and I’d bet in most homes!) mornings are busy and often a little rushed. With all of us on a schedule to get up, showered, fed and out the door for work or school in different directions, it could be very easy to resort to ready-made and pre-packaged foods for breakfast and/or lunch to make those work mornings more efficient.
The thing is, I place a really high priority on consuming fresh, nourishing, delicious food at every meal, and I am not keen on foregoing meals that will properly fuel my family and I, just for the sake of a few extra minutes when I need them. Added to this, I avoid purchasing pre-made/packaged foodstuffs as much as possible, especially the snack-style food-like products which seem to be heavily marketed to time-poor families as options for school and work breakfasts and lunches. The waste and over-use of packaging materials in these kinds of options is just sad to me, as well as the lack of worthwhile nourishment, and I avoid it all I can.
So, I do a few things ahead of time to ensure I have ingredients prepped and meals on hand when I need them at times of rush.
It’s not rocket science - and I am certainly not the first person to ever pre-organise or prepare in advance for anything - but I can certainly vouch for this way of doing things. I’ve been doing it for years and years and I have stuck with the process for a very simple reason. IT WORKS. IT MAKES OUR EVERYDAY LIFE EASIER AND SMOOTHER.
In our lives, having a few bits and pieces prepared and stored in an organised fashion really helps to make mornings and other times of busyness much more pleasant and much more nourishing – both in terms of the food and in terms of the peace and serenity! It also minimises waste, as foods are stored properly in re-usable containers and there is minimal throw-away packaging.
I love a fresh salad at lunch times but even I (often known in my circles as the salad queen!) would get tired of peeling and grating one carrot, part of a beetroot, going out to the garden and picking a handful of leaves for each bowl of salad each day (not to mention that there’s no use in picking salad leaves in the middle of the day as they’d be all soft and wilted by then!)
Making a salad from scratch for one person every lunch time is too time consuming and fiddly and cuts into every day a little too much for my liking.
Instead, once a week or so, I pick a big basket of mixed leaves from the garden early one morning before the sun is properly up, wash and spin them dry. I store them in a big glass bowl and cover them with a beeswax cotton wrap and this provides me with the whole week’s worth of salad leaves ready in the fridge whenever I need them. (You can do the same with purchased lettuce, spinach and rocket etc) .
I also peel 8-10 carrots and grate them in the food processor, storing them in an airtight glass container in the fridge, then do the same with 2-3 good sized fresh beetroots, into a separate container. (This is for a family of 3, who all eat salad for lunch and also sometimes for dinner through the summer months. Obviously amounts will need to be adjusted for your family)
Cherry tomatoes are picked as they ripen, washed and dried and stored in a container in the fridge, as are cucumbers and any herbs we have to use. And the same goes for purchased vegetables - I wash and dry and store them in the fridge as soon as I bring them home.
Everything is on hand and in the mornings, all it takes to make a few lunches is to bring out all the containers and use what we need of each of the ingredients in them for salads, sandwiches, wraps, etc to be packed off for the day. Honestly, it saves prep times during the week by A LOT! If you spend 45 mins (or maybe a little less or a little more, depending on how many of you in your household) preparing these few things (or whatever the things are that your family enjoys eating regularly) once a week when you have it spare, you are setting yourself up for a week of nutrient dense, fresh, quick and easy lunches (and also dinners if salad is a component of your dinners)
You can add chopped boiled eggs, nuts and seeds, fish or meat of your choosing, cooked lentils and beans – whatever you would like as far as protein goes once you’ve made up the day’s lunches, and you are set to go.
Having a little cooked quinoa or a quick lentil salad made up in containers in the fridge is another way to increase variety of salad ingredients - pop some on top and you've suddenly transformed a plain green or toss salad into something totally different...same goes for salad dressings, but that's a whole other blog post yet to come!!
A couple of great breakfasts that I am enjoying at the moment are really easy to have made up in the fridge in containers (perhaps a few days worth of each) so that they can be served from throughout the week without a lot of fuss and bother – just a few spoonsful into a saucepan or pan, heat and you’re good to go!
- Mushroom, kale, celery, shallots, baby peas, chopped nuts and seeds all cooked up together with salt and pepper and a little water until only just cooked (the green veg are all still quite bright and green). I cook up a large saucepan of this mix, then keep it in the fridge for 4-5 days, and then this can be dished into a small frying pan or saucepan, a little for each person each day, heated and served for bfast - maybe add an egg to it once it’s heated and cook to your liking. So easy and quick if you’ve got the veg mix par-cooked and ready to go!
And if you’re a cereal fan, here is a delicious muesli-style porridge you can make up ahead of time and then reheat in portions on the day:
A couple of dessert spoons of rolled oats, one of flaked quinoa, one of ground nuts and seeds (I use a mix of Linseeds, sunflower, almonds, pepitas, chia, hemp, sesame) a spoonful of chopped mixed nuts (whatever you like) and maybe some flaked coconut...(all of this is what I use for one portion for me - but just adjust the ingredients to match what you enjoy!)Then just cook up however many days’ worth you’d like to (no more than x4 as you probably don’t want it sitting there in the fridge for longer than that once cooked) and then cook with water till softened - use your judgement with how much water. Store in a sealed container in the fridge and draw from it when you’d like a nutty porridge for breakfast fast...
Serve with a little honey, blueberries or whatever fruit you’d like, some coconut kefir or some natural yoghurt - please yourself .
I've actually recently begun using steel cut oats rather than rolled oats and whole-seed quinoa and I am finding these a really nice option too. I soak the steel cut oats in water for a few hours and then add rinsed quinoa (about half quinoa to oats) and bring it up to a gentle boil. Once you've soaked the steel cut oats it doesn't take long at all to cook them till tender, and quinoa will be cooked by the time the oats are. Add all the extras you would like to - I add ground nuts and seeds, chopped nuts and seeds and stir it all through well and do the same as the above version - pop it into an airtight container and store in the fridge to draw from each day. it take a minute to heat it for breakfast in the mornings, top it with fresh fruit or honey or yoghurt or kefir (or all of the above!) and you have such a nourishing breakfast to enjoy!
Or another idea is to bake yourself up a loaf of high protein paleo bread - lots of eggs, grated veggies, almond meal and maybe some cheese and/or leftover meat or ham thrown through the mix. There are lots of recipes to look up for paleo style bread and the ones that I’ve tried are delicious sliced and grilled or just eaten cold - so quick, too, once you’ve made the loaf, and great to freeze if you cook double or triple the batch...again, planning ahead and making use of time when you have it!
Breakfast muffins are another good go to...look for recipes with wholesome ingredients low on the processed sugars and flours and choose options to really nourish you and try to store them in the freezer if you make a big batch - they take no time to defrost (maybe take them out the night before ) and, depending on the ingredients you choose to use, can be a great quick, nutritious meal when time is short in the mornings.
Making dinners that allow extra for reheating of leftovers is another great way to save on cooking time and to give yourself a night off without resorting to takeout. Curries and pasta sauces, roasted veg and casseroles, dahl and even certain dips and spreads make wonderful reheat options or light meals when you are late home or just want a relaxed, healthy meal without the effort. They make brilliant next-day lunches too!
When baking biscuits or muffins I opt to make a double batch ….the oven is on anyway, I’ve made a mess in the kitchen anyway, which will need cleaning up, and I have gone to the trouble of getting all ingredients organised. It takes little extra in terms of time to whip up double and then freeze for another day…and yet the time I save in doing this, is quite substantial.
None of these ideas are difficult - or particularly new - they are simple, tried and true ways to make life simpler and easier. J
ust think about your busy times and plan around maximising your use of time (and that wonderful appliance called your fridge/freezer!) so that you are getting the best out of your day and the ingredients you purchase. With a little planning and forethought there should be no need for buying lunches everyday (unless that’s what you want to do) or for throwing out unused food at the end of the week (a massive drain on the finances as well as the planet as a whole). Time well spent means there’s time leftover for you to use on other things you enjoy later!! And having your fridge, freezer and pantry stocked with foods which nourish your good health and are ready and available in short order when you know your time is limited, is one of the best forms of self-care I know!
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