| 1. One whole package of bacon, cooked in the oven, drained then stored in a big ziploc baggie. 2. 6 - 8 hardboiled eggs. Eat them as is, make eggs salad, slice one over a salad, add to tuna salad, devil them, pickle some, etc... 3. Cheesecake. Freeze some slices for anytime, the rest becomes breakfast or dessert. 4. Salmon - I buy a filet, slice it into portions, freeze them on a cookie sheet, then store them in a baggie in the freezer. Put a frozen filet on a sheet of foil, add some olive oil, butter, dill and lemon - make a pouch out of the foil and pop into the oven for 20 mins at 375. DINNER! 5. Smoked Tuna Dip - A BIG can of tuna, softened cream cheese (about half the amount of the tuna) and drops of liquid smoke to taste. Serve with pork rinds for dipping, top with jalepeno slices. YUM! (And I hate pork rinds, but this is just too good...) 6. Sausage Links - cook up a package of these and you can grab a link when you need a little something, have them for breakfast, cut up and add them to scrambled eggs... A little prep one day a week goes a long way towards making the rest of my week that much easier. =============== I cook up 6 chicken breast and make my sauces that I put on top of them. My fave is my Alfredo Pesto sauce. It is just a can of Alfredo sauce and a package of Pesto. YUM! I buy hamburgers that are already shaped and all I have to do is throw them on the frying pan and they are done in 10 mins I make a huge amount of ranch dressing now. ============= Each Sunday I: Make big bowl of tuna salad (tuna, mayo, celery, onion, salt, pepper) Make big bowl of chicken salad (same as above, just use chicken) Boil up 12 eggs Grill about 6 hamburger patties Make SF jello Fry up a package of bacon This way I can put together lunches and/or dinners without even thinking about it. Saves time and money! Every few weeks I'll bake one or two quiches. ======= I cooked a whole turkey breast yesterday. Had for dinner and took all meat off the bone and will have with salad, in gravy tonight, and turkey salad tomorrow. I also will cook up 1 lb bacon, keep in fridge and take a few slices here and there. I also made quacamole for a few days - gets watery after 3 days. I will make egg salad (12 eggs, 3 tbls mayo, celery, salt & pepper) to have with my greens. I will make a roast on Weds/Thurs - - that will last for 3 days. I made a box of Atkins Muffins on Saturday - froze them in zip-loc - use as needed. I do a lot of ahead preparing since I work 9 hrs a day and need to have food on hand to take to work and for lunches. ====== I make a big batch of spicy sausage balls (makes about 60 balls)... freeze half and bake the other half when needed... 4 are a serving (about 2g carbs), and a nice, filling snack, and heat up in 30 seconds in the microwave. We buy a head of lettuce, wash it up and shred it (do it by hand so the edges don't brown)... that way we only need to grab a handful for a quick salad. We pre-shred carrots, cheese and radishes too. We keep cut up cauliflower and celery in the fridge for quick snacks, as well. I started buying the pre-formed ground sirloin patties and salmon fillets at Sam's... we can have hamburgers on the GForeman grill in 10 minutes or so... ditto with the salmon. ============ Tuna salad! It's my staple for every snack! Tuna, onion, celery, mayo and a little dill. Pepper and sometimes a chopped pickle. I scoop it up on celery sticks. Grilled chicken "bites" -- basically chicken pieces grilled on skewers and removed for bite-size snacks during the week. I also shop ahead... like I know I want tuna on my green salad at lunch, but I don't want to open a smelly can. So I buy my salad greens, divvy them up into 5 ziploc baggies and then buy 5 vacuum-pack thingies of tuna for the week. That's five lunches, if you add some ranch and some bacon bits. I buy a green and a red pepper and cut into pieces each sunday. I snack on that instead of nuts. Avocados... I go to the Mexican market in my neighborhood for the very small Haas avocados... I buy two ripe ones, two semi-ripes, and two greens. That way I can have one a day or one every other day. I start ripe and work my way down. ============== quiche (crustless, of course) "fried" chicken - with pork rind/parmesean breading (eat it cold with mayo/dijon combo or hot with anything) turkey salad (like tuna salad, but with turkey) hard boiled eggs steak - whatever is on sale. I let it "age" in the fridge for 2-3 days, then marinate it for 24 hours, then use the Foreman grill until rare. I slice it as needed, and eat it cold (on salads or as a snack). I can also pack it with an ice-pack for "on the road" meals. ======= Bacon fried and put into ziplocks boiled eggs food process my lettuce and ziplock it Chicken breasts grilled or strips sauteed and ziplocked fresh veggies, cleaned and cut up and ziplocked Atkin's muffins baked and frozen in ziplock bag homemade low carb ice cream in 1/2 cup containers(put in freezer) egg salad, chicken salad or tuna salad broccoli and cauliflower salad ===== In the fall and winter, about once a month I make a huge batch of meatloaf - about 5 loaves, usually. I freeze them and I defrost and cook them as needed. ====== Five lbs of chicken wings - shake on cajun spice mix and bake until really crispy; store in fridge in ziploc bag and have ready for snacks Chocolate cream cheese (8 oz. nuked for 45 seconds; blend with 1 T. cocoa powder and vanilla davinci syrup to taste); chill & eat w/spoon any time. Cook 5-6 pounds ground beef, crumbled in skillet and seasoned with salt & pepper. When cooled, put in ziploc bags in freezer. Zap in microwave to thaw and use in cheeseburger quiche or to make taco meat or in pasta sauces or casseroles. The messy part's done--just add to recipes as needed. Dooalot's flax-bran muffins...sometimes make a double batch; freeze half; keep others on hand for snacks or quick meals (w/schmear of cream cheese). By substituting vanilla syrup for the water & splenda in the recipe, I can get these down to about 1.5 carbs per muffin. Bake a whole bone-in ham; have for one meal and cut up the leftovers, package into meal-sized portions and freeze. FILL THE GRILL!!! With meat & veggies--all kinds, whatever is on sale or what you like or whatever will fit on the rack! Leftover grilled mushrooms, peppers and squash tossed with strips of steak or chicken and a splash of Italian dressing is DELISH--hot or cold. DOUBLE or triple anything you cook during the week or on weekends; freeze half, and you've got a second meal cooked with little extra effort. If you don't have a freezer, do it anyway and divvy it up into lunch-sized containers and refrigerate. You'll have lunches made for the week and can save yourself some $$$. Make Atkins flan (custard) and divide into four servings to have ready for breakfasts, desserts or snacks. Make a triple recipe of CJ's Breakfast Pudding; divide into cups & cover w/saran; put in fridge for breakfasts & snacks. That's all I can think of for the moment. If more comes to me, I'll post again. You mentioned meat loaf, and something we do occasionally to save time is to shape the meat loaf mixture into patties instead of loaves. Bake as usual, but it takes WAY less cooking time that way. Also, when freezing ground beef, make it into patties (3-4 per pound) and freeze them FLAT in gallon size ziplocs. When you're ready to defrost, it takes WAY less time to defrost patties than a huge block of meat. Or they can go directly onto the grill from the freezer! Sometimes I buy several pounds at once and spend the time doing this on the weekend. Then it's all in stacks in the freezer ready when I need it. Buy a whole pork loin and cut it into meal-sized sections. Freeze individually. You can put them frozen into the oven; season and cover w/foil; bake at 300 for about 4-5 hours. Clean all the romaine lettuce on Sunday and put in Ziploc for the week. Make a big roast in crockpot in middle of week to get me thru the rest of the week. Lots of hard boiled eggs. Clean all my celery - ready for a little cream cheese anytime. I even put numbers on my bottled water (1-5) to keep track of my water consumption. ============== Ann, that is a great idea numbering the water bottles. Thanks. I enjoy cooking daily (my hobby) but here's some suggestions for those who don't enjoy it or have the time: Get a rubbermaid or Tupperware deviled egg container and make deviled eggs. Make beachgirl's cheesecake in cupcake containers. The full recipe makes 24 cupcakes so that'll keep you in cheesecake for awhile. When I made them yesterday I made some plain and some with some chopped up RS caramel clusters in them. Make quiche and bake in cupcake containers, then freeze and nuke as needed. Shrimp cocktail is great and easy to make. I just make up bruceh's ketchup and add in some horseradish and it is wonderful. Our store has frozen shishkebabs that are delicious and do not require thawing. Check into those at your store. Whenever you bbq, add a few add'l pieces of meat/poultry while you're doing it. It doesn't take any more time or energy to make a few extra pieces of meat. Make up a veggie tray in a covered plastic container and use it for munchies or order a veggie tray/meat tray from your local store with only the items you enjoy on it. Maybe there are some people at your office that might enjoy having a meat/cheese/veggie day and will share in the cost. Marinate fresh brocolli in Italian salad dressing. Make up a batch of zuchini and/or cheese sticks to the stage before frying and freeze them on a cookie sheet. Remove them when solid and store in freezer bags till you're ready to fry. Make a log of your fave lowcarb cookie dough and keep it in the fridge. Slice off a few cookies and bake when you're in the mood. *"Fry" up chicken legs w/Atkins bake mix, egg and heavy cream in the coating. *Keep pepperoni slices to nibble on (the kind that go on pizza) *Egg salad or tuna salad to put on top of salad greens. *Deli roast beef, turkey, or ham sliced and rolled with cream cheese inside. *Lo carb deep dish pizza, cold or warmed in the microwave. *Atkins muffins, freeze and defrost when needed. *Celery and cream cheese. *Frozen prawns or shrimp. Defrost and cook in wine and garlic. Peel and dip in drawn butter. *Make cucumber sandwiches w/slices and cream cheese in between. I just came up with another good one to do in advance. I don't like crunchy veggies in omelettes, so I saute everything before adding it. During the week there's no time to chop & saute before adding, so I just sauted a bunch of onions, peppers & mushrooms to use during the week. This has to be better than the usual 4-5 strips of bacon with my eggs every morning. Take a jicama and sliced it very thin. We deep fried them and they were great! Tasted just like a potato chip...just a little different texture. We also grated some up like shoe string "potatoes"..They turned out good too! I'm gonna try making up a batch and putting them in a zip-lock for snacking. These could be addictive I buy deli meat ends,turkey,ham and chicken and grind them in my food grinder. They are less than $2 a pound and make great salad. I add chopped celery and onion .mayo salt and maybe a little mustard. |