The Battle Goes On.....

I have a continuing battle with laziness and take out food. Since moving out of my parents' house I have spent way too many calories and paychecks on overly processed, fatty convenience foods with the mantra, "it will be easier when...." I have ups and downs with finding diet plans to at least give me a script for meal planning and a collection of cook books that rival my collection of knitting books, (I'm starting to think I collect more then do). Well I am finally deciding now is "when." I have my own kitchen for the most part since J doesn't really go in there except to grab stuff out of the fridge and help doing dishes. I am working as little as I probably will ever work, with a good schedule, so no more eating dinner at midnight or at 3 pm before practice. Last Sunday I had a great surge of motivation and decided to prep 3 meals Sunday afternoon to get us through the week, in the hopes that between Wednesday night knit night/take out and maybe dinner out once on the weekend we would be set. Since most recipes make enough for 4 people it makes sense that we would have a good amount of leftovers. I also wanted to use some of my freezer and pantry stash (FYI - consumables like yarn and food are definitely in the stash category while books are collectibles).

Now for the plan:
- Satay Chicken Burgers, with English muffins, string beans, and fries from the freezer

- Spaghetti and Meatballs

- Squash Mac and Cheese

Execution: I'll give myself a 6/10 because I need to up the lunch planning factor

My best meal was the squash mac and cheese, which was my first thing up. I was able to make enough to fill my half size baking dish and a freezer container. So the baking dish ready to go went into the fridge for Monday night and we had the leftovers Tuesday for lunch. Not starting this Sunday night meant no leftover for Monday lunch (-1)

I made and fried up the meatballs so Tuesday I could just make a quick sauce put the meatballs in to finish cooking while pasta boiled. Here is where I lost 2 points. The first -1 was not doing this Tuesday night but instead getting lazy and putting it off till Thursday. This then left Wednesday and Thursday lunch leftovers out, and there goes the second pt.

So now it's the end of the week and we both had travel plans on Saturday, me to the NE Fiber Fest and J to the Providence Beerfest and only 2/3 meals used (-1) and lunch bought almost every day :(

At least I froze the chicken burgers. I was able to defrost them and cook them up last night for dinner, so Yay!

Recipes:

Satay Burgers:
I originally saw this on the Rachel Ray talk show but since have estimated/made it my own.
1 lb ground chicken
1 large scoop peanut butter
A few table spoons soy sauce
Spoonful minced garlic
Some ground ginger ("fresh" if I have some in the freezer)
Black pepper
Chopped up scallions

Mix all the ingredients then add the chicken, make into patties and cook.