Happy September Everyone!
I can’t believe that I have already been back to work for a week. The summer always seems to go by so quickly! For those of you who don’t already know, I am a teacher and after two months off I headed back to work on the 29th of August. I am teaching grade one this year and I have a wonderful group of kiddos!
Going back to work full-time means that I have less time in the kitchen and less time at my house in general. So meal prepping is a necessity for me to stay on track and avoid eating plantain chips for dinner everyday. I always start by going through my favourite recipes/cookbooks and choosing recipes that lend themselves well to batch cooking (bone broth, soups, stews, chilli, sausage patties, pancakes/waffles, etc.). I also always make chicken soup to have on hand in case I get sick during cold & flu season which for me is inevitable being that I’m surrounded by children everyday. The final thing I do is gather some portable snacks to keep on hand at work for days when I have to stay late and run out of lunch. This year I brought: seaweed, canned tuna, plantain chips, raisins, tiger nuts, veggie go’s chewy snack, dates, & coconut chips).
So how do I go about batch cooking or meal prep? Generally I still cook dinner every other day (I make enough for left overs the next day) but this way I don’t have to cook  breakfast or lunch for myself during the week. In total I made enough food for about 30 lunches and about 16 breakfasts. Keeping in mind you can always eat lunch for breakfast if you like! It took me about 5 hours but it was totally worth it. Now that may sound like a lot of time, but it saves time in the long run. And if you are batch cooking for the first time or you are cooking recipes you have never tried before, prepare for the batch cooking to take a lot longer. It takes awhile to get into the swing of things and learn how to cook multiple things at once. I went through a phase where I was batch cooking every Sunday but I just found it to be taking up too much of my weekend. So instead I opted to still cook dinners and batch cook or meal prep once every 3 or 4 weeks.
Okay now that we got all of that out-of-the-way I can show you what I batch cooked! All but one of the recipes are from the cookbook The Healing Kitchen. Check it out if you haven’t already, it is amazing!!
Oven Baked Pancakes from The Healing Kitchen
American Breakfast Sausages from The Healing Kitchen
Vibrant Healing Soup Base from The Healing Kitchen
Roast Chicken Soup (new recipe will be up on September 28th)
Hamburger Stew from The Healing Kitchen
Creamy Caesar Beef Skillet from The Healing Kitchen
So there you have it! My back to work/school meal prep. I would love to hear what you’re favourite recipes are for batch cooking! I am always on the look for new delicious recipes to change it up!
Happy Cooking!
Meagen Ashley
Note: I am slowly switching to all glass containers. In the mean time I am using the plastic ones I have and I just make sure to never reheat the food in the plastic, I switch it to a glass bowl once its been defrosted.
