Meal Prepping To Save Money And Energy...

Hi Honeys, 

How are you today?  Well and happy I hope and looking forward to the weekend ahead.🤗  Hubby & I, as we do every weekend, started writing our shopping list earlier tonight and it dawned on me how much we meal prep these days.  Far, more than we used to.  The reason we're doing it, among other reasons (which we'll get to) is because it saves on our utility bills, therefore saving us money.  

Watching where the pennies go is getting to be, not just important, but downright essential right now honeys.  Here in the UK, everyone's utility bills have just shot up to alarming levels.  Ours has almost doubled to £217 per month.  When this is added to the prices of grocery items going up on an almost weekly basis, and the fact that we only have one salary now, well it's getting scary dear ones.  

Meal prepping and filling our freezer though, really have been helping make our grocery budget stretch a little further.  "How is it helping, Rosie?"  I hear you ask.  Well, it helps like this honeys...

Scenario one:  I decide to make one of Hubby's favourites as a treat for his dinner.  Lasagne.💖  Into the kitchen we go and rustle up a lovely, tasty lasagne. (Hubby always helps, thank you sweetheart x)  Dinner is eaten, happy Hubby, dishes done and put away.  

Or...

Scenario two:  Instead of cooking enough beef mince to make one lasagne, we cook two huge packs of beef mince, adding all of Hubby's favourites, including his fave pasta sauce.  From this enormous pot of beef mince in gorgeous sauce (yum😋) we then create one large lasagne for dinner.  So, Happy Hubby again, 

but in addition...

  

The same huge pot of beef mince also allowed us to create (as you can see in the photo above): 

* Three more large lasagnes 

*four dishes of yummiest, make-ahead mince (square dishes on the right hand side) which can be frozen, to later be removed from the freezer and then have a layer of fluffy mashed potatoes added on top to make cottage pie, or maybe little potato slices to make hot pot.😋 

*Four dishes of this delicious minced beef with pasta (I used macaroni or elbow pasta) mixed through and a little grated cheese on top. 

*A large dish of spaghetti bolognaise - where our beef in pasta sauce is used as a base for cooked spaghetti.  The spaghetti and pasta sauce is all mixed through and is soooooo yummy when re-heated.😋  

So, how does this help save money and energy Rosie?

Well, instead of making one dinner, I've created so many more but I've used the same energy honeys.  It's the same ring on the stove top to cook the mince, and if I'm going to cook a yummy lasagne in the oven, why not cook four of them?  The oven is still turned on for the same amount of time, burning the same amount of electricity.  

The other dishes were made using the cooked beef mince in it's yummy sauce and by adding cooked pastas.  All of these extra dinners then went into one drawer of the freezer.  

Putting the "prep" into "meal prep"

Hubby said it best when he said it was like "banking future dinners."  He also made the point that it's a bit like having lots of "ready meals" but so much healthier, because there are no additives or preservatives being added.  All of those worrying E numbers etc.  

He's right, of course.  We know exactly what's in each meal because we put it there.  We know it's healthy and good for us.  Having all of these "banked" dinners is also helping in other ways too.  

These batch cooked dinners are so, so great to have in reserve on days when my arthritis or spine pain is making life difficult, because even if I'm not strong enough to cope, I know my sweet Hubby has a lovely dinner in the freezer.  

Planning our meals...  

Every Friday, before Hubby does our weekly shop next day on the Saturday (love you sweetheart x) we plan out our dinners for the week ahead, using a board that hangs in our hall.  This shows us what we need to buy that weekend, it also means I know what we're having for dinner each day and acts as a great reminder of what needs to be take out of the freezer each day too.  

If we're having one of our "banked" dinners from the freezer, then it will be taken out of the freezer the night before and place it into the fridge to allow it to defrost.  It's then placed into either the air fryer or into the microwave.  The meals are all already cooked, so they just need heating.   

Over to you then honeys.  Do you meal prep?  Have you tried batch cooking to save on utilities and cooking time in the kitchen?  Do you have any tips to share?  Why not leave them in the comments section below?  Are you taking part in Blogtober?  Why not leave a link to your blog or youtube channel in the comments, I'd love to visit and I promise I'll say hello when I do.🤗  

Till tomorrow then dear ones, thank you for visiting and keeping me company, have a fabulous weekend, hugs always x