We all have days when it seems like we just don’t have the time to make a good meal for our families. We want to be able to serve them nourishing food that they like, but time gets in the way. We come home from work tired, or it’s later than normal when we get home. Whatever the reason is, we are in a bit of a time crunch. Saving you time in your kitchen for these reasons is why I started my “Prep” series.

If you use little bits of time to prepare your ingredients, Meal Prep, then when it comes to cooking, that work is already done for you. If you gather needed ingredients together in advance, Recipe Prep, then again, you’ve already got some of the work for that night’s meal done. If you’ve taken the time to organize and stock your pantry in advance, Pantry Prep, then you can simply gather what you need to make your family a satisfying meal. It all works together!

Meal Prep or rather Ingredient Prep!

I don’t know how much storage space you have, if you have a big freezer or anything like that. I can only tell you what works for me, and give you ideas for what may work for you. Since I live in a house trailer, my guiding principle is “Where am I going to store it!”

If you look very carefully at your family’s favorite recipes, you will see that there are a number of ingredients that are common to them. Off the top of my head, I can think of onions, carrots, celery, and bell peppers. Now, they may not always be prepared the same way. Onions may be diced, sliced pole to pole, or sliced crosswise. Same for the others. So make sure you freeze some of each type.

Recipe Prep

This is where things get interesting! Depending on how you plan to cook your recipe, you can add all the ingredients into one-gallon sized bag or use a large bag to gather all the smaller ingredient bags together. Either way, you can find all types of recipes called either “Dump and Go”, “Fix It and Forget It” or “Freezer Meals” that are available!

Before you jump in and start gathering ingredients, take a moment to actually try the recipe first! If you know of any recipes that you already have that could benefit from having everything already prepared, try them first. That way you keep familiar foods in front of your family.

For example, I bought this book on sale recently. The recipes all look good, and I’ll probably try a few more. But I was cautious and made one for my husband and myself. Halfway through eating, we both agreed that it didn’t have much flavor. So try it before you spend the time to prepare multiple meals.

Pantry Prep

To me, Pantry Prep is where the magic happens. It’s amazing how simple it can be to create something that tastes great from just a few ingredients that are in your pantry. I got started on this idea when I came across a recipe from Allrecipes called “Shipwreck Casserole.” From there it sort of snowballed. LOL!

Pantry prep can also include a lot of the ingredients that Food Preppers use. I’ll let you decide what you want to use.

Home Canning and Dehydration

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention these two methods of food storage.

I’m from Pennsylvania, and I know home canning. It’s what I grew up with. It was the way my mother would stretch a meal to include unexpected guests. As you can see, I’ve started a Pinterest board to gather all these ideas together.

These are the kind of things you want to have on hand if the area you live in is regularly threatened by power outages. It doesn’t matter if it’s because of rain, (I live in Florida), snow (I’m looking at you there in the northern states), or even because of tornadoes (Midwest!). If the power goes out, you need a way to feed your family.

After the Pandemic that shut down the world, I would also take a look at what you would need to keep your family going if something like that happened again. FEMA recommends having a 3-day supply of food on hand for emergencies. If something like that happens again, 3 days is not enough to cover. I started canning again after Hurricane Irma knocked out power at my home for a week.

One last thing….

Don’t feel like you have to stick to just one way of food prep. In every book on freezer meals that I looked at, all of them required you to thaw the food first. If you’ve thrown everything in a gallon freezer bag, that’s a big lump of frozen food! I can tell you from experience, it won’t thaw in your refrigerator overnight! You need it thawed so that it will pass through the danger zone of 40–140°F (4–60°C) as quickly as possible.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the array of ingredients shown above would make the start of a very fine stew. There’s onions, carrots, celery, peppers, and potatoes. Add a protein and pop in the slow cooker. Packaged like this, I dare say all of them would thaw nicely in the fridge overnight.

Here’s another thought for you. This lovely lady has an entire series on canning different kinds of foods. They all start out with the same three words, “I Can Can.” In this book, on page 34, she gives directions for a Boxless Hamburger Helper that uses canned beans, canned ground beef, and a Mason jar with seasonings and macaroni. I’ve tried it, it’s good. To me, this is a great example of mixing up your food prep. I used frozen beef instead of canned, but it still all works together. Step out of your comfort zone and try something different!