Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Prep Ahead!

Linked up to Tammy’s Recipes

I have talked before about preparing food ahead to ensure healthy lunches at work, but this week I want to focus on another way to prepare ahead to get good meals when you want them!

My husband is awesome at making eggs in the morning, as well as brownies or sandwiches, but he doesn’t fix a lot of from-scratch larger meals.  This is fine, of course, because I like cooking.

However, if I’m at work and he’s off, sometimes I’m at a loss when he says “What should I have ready when you come home?”

Really, although I know he’s not stupid I don’t think I can say, “Oh, make this recipe” or “Can you have some bread rising?” Usually, what comes out is more like, “Can you make some mac n cheese?” or “I’ll just heat up some leftovers.”  And even though I know he can cut up chicken and vegetables, I don’t always feel like asking him to take time from other things to do that.

I work long shifts, so there’s no way I can put anything in the slow cooker before work, because even if I had it on low it would burn to a crisp!

SO!  I made a plan:

Prepare ahead of time.

I’ll explain.

Problem:

I wanted to make my Crock Pot Hawaiian BBQ Chicken for Bogdan to enjoy while I was at work for an afternoon/evening shift.  I could, of course, enjoy leftovers when arriving home at a non-mealtime.

Solution?

Prepare the ingredients. (This is not hard for this SUPER EASY dish, but still a good example.) Chop the onions, cut fat off the chicken, and set out the pineapple.  Leave directions to drain the pineapple, etc. and put in the crock pot on low 5 hours before eating.

It’s simple, we are eating what we have instead of turning to ready-prepared foods, and I don’t have to feel guilty if I have no leftovers at home when I’m at work!

Little bonus picture: my lettuce for my lunches at work this week, chopped and ready to go!

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