Once again I’ve fallen prey to ordering delivery all the time. I didn’t write the date on any of them and I now have no idea what is safe to eat. When thinking back as to why I haven’t made something at home or ordered more food to cook at home, I realized it’s because the meal batched into my freezer wasn’t good.
When I made beef and noodles last time, it wasn’t good. There was too much starch and the meat was tough. I knew it wasn’t good when I packed it up, but since it’s not good to waste food and it wouldn’t make me sick, I packed it up and froze it. There wasn’t space in the freezer to prep more meals and I kept thinking “I can’t make more until I eat this”. But it wasn’t good. At all. So I avoided it.
Lessons:
So today’s fridge cleanout is tons of wasted food. Can I say the lesson is learned? I hope. Do not store food that wasn’t good the first time!
Obviously, there were two pieces to this though. I stored and inventoried food that wasn’t good, but I also just kept ordering delivery and forgetting the leftovers instead of getting more groceries and making new meals. There were several days that I wasn’t feeling well and several days that I was busy with special projects but not all of these meals take effort. After all, I’m throwing out lettuce that I had all the other ingredients to make tacos. But I didn’t.
Cleanout:
Most of my cleanout is fast food that I kept leftover side dishes or quantities that couldn’t make meals by themselves. I’m not going to eat one slice of pizza with fried rice. I kept them because I knew it wouldn’t take much effort to add in some frozen meat or an egg and have a whole meal. I had those things. Still didn’t do it.
The remainder of the items are things that I’m no longer used to looking for. Lettuce. Cooked Eggs. Additionally, there were some items I thawed and forgot to eat timely after. Fundamentally, I think these still trace back to the two reasons I don’t throw things out right away:
- It wasn’t good in the first place
- I don’t immediately know how to use the item
Freezer Before 
Fridge Before 
Food Removed From Fridge
Food Goals:
I do have some recipes that have worked well for me, but I’m still working kinks out on snacks. For the snacks, I’m trying to avoid pantry-preserved foods and I’m aiming to increase protein and fat in my snacks. This is why I had the eggs, but I had no concept of how much time was passing or how long they were good for. I mistakenly thought that all 6 were in the same package. I thought that if I opened it, it would speed up how fast they would go bad. My thought was “wait until you want to eat a bunch of eggs”. Oops. They all went bad. And they were actually nicely separated into pairs.
Okay. Mistake made. Now I know. Better to eat them earlier.
Meal Planning:
This time I’m trying out the Simple Meal Planning by Dawn, The Minimal Mom, to help keep meal planning manageable. Of course, I’m rolling my own meals in, and her divisions didn’t work perfectly for me, but it’s not bad for a first try. I need better accounting for snacks, though. She has a newer template than the one in the video linked above but I don’t know if she provides it for free.
She has one list of meals that could be used. The list is subcategorized by types of dishes. For her, this means “chicken” or “Instapot” or “easy/quick”, etc. There’s one week below that that you write the general category to have each day of the week. Then on another page is a traditional meal plan where the specific dish is written for that week.
My week’s plan:
- Monday: *Steak, rice, & broccoli
- Tuesday: Free day
- Wednesday: Parmesan Chicken, rice, and green beans
- Thursday: *Fried Rice
- Friday: *Chicken Pesto
- Saturday: Easy (crackers, cheese, and sausage)
- Sunday: Heavy breakfast (eggs and ground chicken)
This is just the starting point. The meals with asterisks can be mostly made ahead and frozen.
Foods to use:
My broccoli is starting to freezer burn. I also already have a fried rice meal from a previous prep, chicken strips, steak, rice, and ground chicken all from the freezer.
My goal is to prep foods to the freezer (about 3 meals each) every other week.
My List of Meal Options:
Chicken:
- Chicken Pesto Pasta
- Chicken and rice
- Chicken Spinach Lasagna
- Pesto pizza
- Chicken Noodle Soup
- Parmesan Chicken (plain no sauce)
Beef Meals:
- Fried Rice
- Steak and veggies
- Beef and noodle soup
- Tacos
Quick Meals:
- Spaghetti & Olive Oil
- Cheese and crackers
- Sandwich
- Grilled Cheese
Breakfast:
- Toast
- Egg bake
Snacks and Desserts:
- Egg, cheese, and fruit
- Popcorn
- BBQ Chips
- Frozen cheesecake
- Popsicles
- Peach crumble
- Teas
- Soda
So far, this is only 14 meals. However, I can swap steak for fish, etc. to gain more variety. My breakfast list is small because my stomach doesn’t tolerate food until I’ve been up and moving for 3-5 hours.
I added items to my snack list that tend to be the reason that I order out. For instance BBQ chips. I’ve been ordering delivery for soda and chips that I think otherwise I’d have been just as happy with a homemade sandwich.