Org Junkie Guest Post
I have been wanting to guest post on this site for months. Really, it is probably more like a year. And today is my day!
Make sure you check me out over at Org Junkie and see my take on the topic of pre-assembling meals to make meal planning and getting dinner on the table easier.
It is a concept I was first introduced to my by Homemade Gourmet friend and I just kinda took it and ran to apply it to my busy life.
Read my full post on the topic here.
Leave me a shout out over on her site in the comments if you have a second as well!
Are you stopping by from Org Junkie? Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my blog. Take a look around and I hope you find a topic that is helpful.
While you’re here, subscribe to my feed and have my daily blog updates delivered right to your email inbox. (Look in my right sidebar for details.)
Hi Crystal! I saw your post on orgjunkie and LOVE your idea. However, I am not very gifted in the cooking department and was wondering how you defrost your frozen items? Do you use the microwave and if so how do you know how long to defrost them for? This is one of my biggest downfalls when cooking for my family. I have good intentions but when I get home and realize the chicken or meat is frozen I tend to just throw a pizza in the oven instead because I am just not sure how long to defrost. I do know that I can throw chicken in the microwave and hit defrost and the #2 for poultry and then enter the pounds and hit start but usually when the microwave stops it is still frozen and when I put it in for longer the sides of the chicken start to cook. Not to mention it takes like 20-30 minutes to defrost in the microwave. Anyhow…this has turned into a longer comment than I intended. If you wouldn't mind answering my email is triggs399@gmail.com. Thank you.
Hi Tab!
Thank you so much for reading my guest post over on Org Junkie.
The place to start is to plan out your meals. On Sunday I sit down and write all the meals I want to serve for the upcoming week.
You could do this for a one week, two week or month long period. Whatever works for you. I do not have the space in my freezer for 30 pre-assembled meals, so I do one week (sometimes two weeks) at a time.
Write them down. Post the list of meals on your fridge. That way you remember them, you know what you are up against for the week, and at a glance you can decide through out the week what's for dinner.
From there, you are also armed to go grocery shopping with a plan. No walking around aimlessly at the store… you know what you are there for.
Then each night when you are cleaning up the kitchen decide what you guys are going to eat tomorrow night. Grab it from the freezer and place it in the fridge to defrost over night.
By morning if it is not defrosted I will place it on the counter (in a container) to finish defrosting for an hour or so. Then off it goes in the crockpot.
If it is not a crockpot dinner it can stay in the fridge and by late afternoon/early evening it should be defrosted enough to go in the oven or on the grill.
Hope that helps. You can find some neat meal planning pads or small dry erase boards (with magnets on the back) in the dollar bins at Michael's Craft Store, Joanne's Craft Store, or even Target. Or, a simple sheet of notebook paper posted to the fridge does the trick as well.
Having your meals planned out and written down is the first step that will make it all easy and seamless!
Let me know how it goes for you!