Lifehacking mealtimes

r3nu4l

This lifehack can be completely tech-free or can use an Excel spreadsheet or even a database.

I do my grocery shopping online but I used to find myself sitting at the computer thinking "What will I have for dinner [insert day here]" quite a lot. So what I did was every time I had a meal I took note of it. I did this on an Excel spread sheet, you can do it on an A4 page if you like.

So I noted, the ingredients necessary and how many days dinners that would get me. Over time I have built up quite a large repository of meals that I like.

Example:
Quick Chicken (2 days)

• Chicken Breasts
• Carrots
• Parsnips
• Garlic cloves
• celery
• broccoli
• Olive oil

Speedy tuna (1 day)

• Cous cous
• Tuna steak
• Piri-piri spices
• Frozen mixed vegetables
• Garlic clove
• Mushrooms
• Red Onion
• Olive oil

Kippers (1 day)

• Kippers
• Potatoes
• Garden peas

So over the course of about 3 weeks I had compiled a list of dinners I like and ingredients necessary. Now when I sit down to my computer to do my online shop I have a list of ingredients ready and know what to order. I look through my list of about 30-40 meals and decide what I'll have each day then type int he ingredients I need. Works wonders and has sped up my internet shopping and made life easier all round

Anyone else do this or similar?

copacetic

I don't do that Del, but I do make batches of meals at the weekend, and put them in the freezer in individual servings. Come home, heat them up every day. Easy.

r3nu4l

I do that too when I know I've a busy week ahead!

techguy

Go on..you know you want to share that excel file!:D

workaccount

I really need to get into cooking my meals for the week. It just takes up so much time especially when I eat about 6 meals a day (every three hours)

This includes my breakfast so I would not need to freeze that.

My question is can you freeze anything? How do you then defrost it? Does freezing take anything away from the food.... ie. taste etc.??

copacetic

workaccount wrote: »

I really need to get into cooking my meals for the week. It just takes up so much time especially when I eat about 6 meals a day (every three hours)

This includes my breakfast so I would not need to freeze that.

My question is can you freeze anything? How do you then defrost it? Does freezing take anything away from the food.... ie. taste etc.??

everything doesn't freeze well, but most things are ok. it depends on how much the taste matters to you! imo, it isn't really possible to cover a whole week easily with nice meals from a weekend of cooking, if you are eating that many meals a day.

r3nu4l

techguy wrote: »

Go on..you know you want to share that excel file!:D

Only saw this now If I remember to do so tonight I'll upload it but really, it depends on what kind of food you like

copacetic wrote: »

imo, it isn't really possible to cover a whole week easily with nice meals from a weekend of cooking, if you are eating that many meals a day.

Very true, it's possible to get about 3 days or so for me. However, once those 3 days meals are eaten, I then cook a large batch one night with enough food for the next night. Then 2 nights later I do the same again, so I often only cook about 3 times a week.

If you like stir-fries and curry but don't like waiting for rice to cook, you can do some cous cous instead

50 g cous cous into a bowl, add boiling water, leave for 3 minutes - ready

Even quicker than stirfry is this meal - cous cous, microwaved kippers and beans, takes about 8 mins total.

For those who like to cook but don't like the time it takes, a pressure cooker appears to be the answer, you can cook food in about one-quarter to one-half the time it would otherwise take. I haven't got one yet but I'm planning on it.

Fabio

Ugh cous-cous noooooooooo!!! Not nice!!!

Fremen

You could make something genuinely useful out of that if you found a way to include the life expectancy of foods into your chart (VBA, maybe?).

That way, you could plan what to buy so that all your stuff doesn't go bad by the time you want to eat it. That seems to happen to me an awful lot.

Suaimhneach

r3nu4l wrote: »

Only saw this now If I remember to do so tonight I'll upload it but really, it depends on what kind of food you like

Reminder!!

sedohre

Jesjes wrote: »

Reminder!!

+1

marco2polo

r3nu4l wrote: »

I look through my list of about 30-40 meals and decide what I'll have each day then type int he ingredients I need. Works wonders and has sped up my internet shopping and made life easier all round

Anyone else do this or similar?

This is exactly what I was thinking of doing a while back! Brilliant idea, just takes the spontaenity out of it...a few weeks ago I went to Tesco with a huge camping bag, did about 100 worth of shopping, just bought bulk of everything so got discounts and stuff. When I got home, I separated everything into portions (even the sausages :P). Great savings, only problem is the other guys in the house keep b****ing that there's no room in the freezer:rolleyes: So since my diet's gotten so bad (eat practically nothing these days due to stress) I think I'll get down to making this spreadsheet idea and get sorted again

Thanks a million for the reminder!!:D