Sunday night arrives and you may have that momentary freak out of ‘what will I eat tomorrow?’ ‘What will we eat for dinner this week?’ That’s if you have not cooked, gotten groceries or planned ahead.

Minimising your stress levels during a busy week can have a lot to do with getting your food planned and important tasks in your week scheduled.

I’m all for hacking more efficient ways of doing things, especially if I know it will aid mine and my family’s happiness throughout the week. Food is a big part of this!

It’s simple: If I plan out our meals, do an online shop and get the groceries delivered and spend some time Saturday Sunday cooking ahead, then life is good. If we get busy or lazy and we do not get around to do this each week, then life gets stressful come Monday when I do not have food ready for all of us at lunch or dinner.

Some people may prefer to cook daily, or even go to the store daily. It depends on your lifestyle and what works for you and your family. For me, I find cooking daily a stressful task. I find going to the shops triggers a level of anxiety. Therefore, I’ve found ways to deal with this as they are obviously tasks that are a necessity! 

I prefer to do more productive and business-related tasks during the week as that is my focus. So this is my opinion on discovering what works for us. Do what works for you and what you enjoy. 

I also discovered that if I cook in big batches like this, my whole attitude towards cooking actually improves and I feel like I have achieved alot! (You may not know this but for years cooking has not been my forte at all!)

We would spend more money and eat poorly if it is not planned ahead too. If my partner Chris has good food cooked for him, he will eat well. If he does not have it done or hasn’t cooked himself (which I’m lucky he does like to do and is great at it!), then he will eat take out every day. Not good for your health or finances.

In fact, by following this food prep plan recently, Chris has actually lost weight and I better maintain my energy during pregnancy as I have food readily available if experiencing low blood pressure or blood sugars.

This is for anyone though, pregnant or not, who just wants to get a bit more organisation around food prep and cooking to save yourself time and energy each day!

You can see from the image (and my instagram posts most Sundays : follow https://www.instagram.com/vanessabhealth/ Instagram) that I would have made some snacks or meals for at least a couple of days to have leftovers. This can be anything ranging from pancakes to spaghetti bolognaise. 

Whatever I cook on Sundays must be enough for at least another meal for all of us. This makes it a more efficient use of your time and energy.

Here’s a recent example of what I did to hack my food prep. 

I did the grocery delivery Thursday to arrive Friday evening, so everything was there for the weekend. If I leave it till Friday to do the order then I often cannot get the delivery till Monday, taking it back to stress and chaos without food ready! (I use Coles online as I find it more cost effective than Woolies.)

3 DAYS (and more) OF FOOD DONE:

TIME TAKEN to COOK on Sunday: 2 hours morning  PLUS 1 hour evening = 3 hours total (plus cleaning time)

YIELD: Lunch, dinner, most snacks for 3 full days, 3 people (2 adults, 1 child), plus a couple of serves put away in freezer.

DISHES (4) : Spaghetti bolognaise, potato and tuna patties, zucchini fritters, fried rice

SNACKS : individual yoghurt, kids yoghurts, nuts and fresh fruit ready to be used or packed in bag to be taken out.

*Note that Lincoln is at daycare 2 of those first 3 days of the week, so I only need one full day’s food for him on Tuesday out of these first 3 days.

We only then have to make breakfast and add in a few sides like a quick salad and snacks.

Breakfast for Chris, Linc and myself : eggs on toast or yoghurt and muesli. Linc may eat just yoghurt or weetbix or some fruit (he is 2.5 years old if you do not know us !) I could make the eggs aswell on Sunday for Monday, but we like them fresh and to be honest after 3 hours in the kitchen on Sunday, that was my limit. I also made Chris some sandwiches to take to work and toast for breakfast as he prefers this than the regular muesli and fruit for breakfast.

Snacks for Linc and myself : yogurt, nuts, fruit, hummus and crackers. Chris does not like to snack and prefers to eat just 3 meals a day. 

Sides : salad leaves with cucumber, olives, tomatoes and/or avocado dressed with lemon, olive oil and apple cider vinegar. We also may add a couple of steamed vegetables to a dish if it does not have vegetables in it. This only takes a few extra minutes and you can hack this even more by chopping up the salad ingredients and placing them in individual containers. I prefer when things taste fresh though, so prefer to get it ready at the time of serving.

*Note on salads – if you are doing a salad as a meal, for example a quinoa salad with lots of ingredients and dressing, then get it all ready and put together for a couple of days worth. Just exclude the dressing so it doesn’t go soggy. Put the dressing in a jar in the fridge and add when serving.

IS IT WORTH THE 3 HOURS ON SUNDAY?

It may seem like a decent amount of time to do 3 hours in the kitchen and sometimes more to get your meals done. You may choose to do only one dish instead of three or four to reduce the time. I say that getting even one meal done and having leftovers will save you that next day stress.

This length of time was longer in this instance because I hand made and grated every ingredient for two big batches of fritters (where you need to grate zucchini and carrots and boil the potatoes), where you can only fit five in the fry pan at once. 

In hindsight I could have had two frypans going! I chose to do a double batch as last time we ate most of them by Monday when I thought I’d had enough for Linc and me on Tuesday lunch, throwing things off course.

For me it’s certainly worth putting in the time and effort as the opposite outcome causes more pain, frustration and overwhelm. The stress, inconvenience, cost and time it takes out of busy weekdays is not something I want to deal with. If you are tired after work sometimes the last thing you want to do is cook. If you are picking up your child from daycare and need to stop at the store then this can be upsetting for them and tantrums and stress may arise for both of you.

If you are struggling keeping up with other things in your life like cleaning, or exercise, or important family time, then having food done can allow you more time freedom for what you want to do in the evenings rather than getting stuck in the kitchen.

IS IT REALISTIC TO BATCH COOK LIKE THIS EVERY WEEK?

No, it may not be practical to do this every weekend. For example we have a wedding and christening next weekend, so I doubt I will have the time to cook 3 days worth of food! So we will do enough to say one day’s worth of leftovers, then do a big batch of something Tuesday for Wednesday aswell. It’s about thinking ahead too. So on Friday evening I could make a dish that can be put away or frozen for Monday night.

Do what works for you on any particular weekend. I was by myself this particular Sunday with Lincoln and he likes to be interacting and engaging with me all the time. So I did need to stop and start, turn the stove off at certain times, give him food, put on a movie for him, etc to get it done. Then we went to the park after that first two hour cooking stint in the morning which was great for both of us.

If you are a busy parent you may need to stop and start aswell to do what works for your family and activities. To be honest I’m also practicing becoming more efficient in this area with our second child on the way.

I’d love to hear how you food prep and any other hacks for food efficiency! Comment below and share this with a friend/ tag them in :-)

Life is short. Focus on the things that make you happy and delegate or become more efficient in the other tasks.

*For a lifestyle overhaul with time-efficient exercise routines you can do from home, clearing mental blocks around your wellbeing and a fresh perspective on stress-free living, join my 9 Week Higher Living Lifestyle Reboot HERE.