My attempt at meal prepping

by Molly Sams

Like many of you I have a serious addiction to Pinterest. I love the seemingly infinite amount of sources for everything from DIY projects to what would be the perfect birthday gift for your dog. Sometimes I am utterly amazed by what I can find on this site and I am often inspired to try to learn and do more because of it. One of my latest interests has been meal prepping. It is a sensible and common practice that involves cooking and creating your meals for the week ahead of time. It has been done for decades now but many Pinsters have made it into an art form.

I noticed many were becoming interested with meal prepping when the ideas started popping up daily on my board. It was crazy to see how, almost overnight, people were making these customizable, nutritional, and beautiful meals that could be stored throughout the week or month without losing color or flavor. Now I knew meal prepping had been done decades before Pinterest. My mother still bakes breakfast muffins once a month, cooks large delicious meals to eat for a week, and creates stunning to-go meals for when she is traveling or will be away from home all day. So I knew even before Pinterest it was a smart and fun way to make your breakfast, lunch, and dinner ahead of time while still having plenty of room to play and experiment. Now I just had to figure out a way to make it my own!

Since I have a small kitchen I'm usually prepping in my dining room. 

I figured simple and comfortable was best while I started out on my culinary adventure. I decided I would make chili (one of my favorite staples from childhood) and a veggie curry. I know it sounds intense but both are much more simple than it sounds. Here is what I used for each dish.

Picture is fuzzier than I would like but you can see all the goodies!

Chili

1 large can of dark kidney beans

1 large can of black beans

½ can of chickpeas

Half of a red onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 C of frozen corn

2 bell peppers

½ green pepper

½ C lentils

1 C frozen red peppers

1 pinch of parsley

1 smoke salt

Plenty of black pepper

And even more chili powder

2 C water

The curry ended up in the crockpot today. I cannot wait to see the results!

Veggie Curry

½ can of chickpeas

Half a red onion

2 potatoes

2 cloves of garlic

1 C frozen peas

1 C frozen corn

2 bell peppers

½ green pepper

½ C lentils

1 C frozen carrots

Plenty of creative curry powder

1 jar of curry paste

1 C water

After everything was in its place I began cooking yellow rice (my personal favorite) and then cleaned up the kitchen and dining room (my usual prep station). It was fun, interesting, and did not require a lot of work on my part. I spent about 20 minutes chopping and gathering ingredients and now I go to the stew pot full of chili once in a while to give it a stir. This was the perfect time to assess my Tupperware situation. With about nine small lunch containers, two large soup containers and two even larger casserole containers I knew I would be ready to go. Here is the finished product!

Perfectly packaged and ready for the office!

As always the chili is delicious (thanks, Mom!) and the curry is flavorful and colorful. I’m glad I decided to give this a try and hopefully I can make a habit of it. Let me know what you guys think and how you prepare for the workweek ahead!