Managing Meal Prep
By Caroline Patafio
There can be many pros to living in an apartment while at college, such as having a kitchen and having the flexibility to make your own food. Growing up, I always loved to help in the kitchen, but I never really understood all the effort that is actually put into cooking until I started living in my own apartment. At first, I thought it would be great because I love to cook at home, and I wouldn’t have to deal with eating in the dining halls.
This quickly changed once I got to school and realized a lot of planning goes into having meals for the week, such as making sure we have all the right ingredients and pans. Even after my roommates and I took care of this kitchen haul, we had to figure out what we were actually going to make. This was a much bigger challenge than anticipated because we all like different foods and are all on different schedules. And one of the worst feelings in the world was coming home after a long day of class, work, or practice and having to make an entire meal from scratch. Although there have been many moments like these that made us really start to miss the ease of getting food from a dining hall, at this point in the semester it's safe to say the art of meal prep has been mastered in our apartment. And this is how:
Every Sunday I make a list of potential meals that I want to eat. For example, on Monday I’ll have stir fry, and on Tuesday, I’ll have pasta with meatballs. After figuring out a general plan of the meals I want to make, I then go into detail about the ingredients I need and figure out if there is anything I can make before. For instance, for the stir fry, I can make the tofu beforehand and cut up all of the vegetables. I also make a side list to make sure I restock all of the basics (pasta, soup, beans, etc) and also a list of frozen food (frozen meal, frozen vegetables). After I make the list, I go to the supermarket, typically Giant and Trader Joe’s, and make sure to not go overboard so that none of the food goes bad (i.e. only buying one package of english muffins for the week).
Once I get home, I restock and clean out the fridge, and then I begin the meal prep. I typically clean and cut all of my fruits/vegetables and store them in containers so that they last longer and are easier to grab. I make one block of tofu at the beginning of the week to either have for lunch or for dinner. I also pre-make meat patties out of my Beyond Meat and keep them in the freezer so when I need one I just have to take it out to defrost. I know these seem like very nit-picky things to do, but they cut out a huge chunk of time that I would spend during the week. For example, in the morning when I want to have some strawberries or raspberries for breakfast, I just have to take them out of the container rather than clean and cut them.
Although I love meal prep to save time during the week, I am a huge advocate for having frozen meals because there are some days where it’s hard to make time to cook. Besides, there are so many good frozen meals out there. (One of my favorites is the frozen vegan bolognese from Trader Joe’s). Cooking should not be something that stresses you out. Sticking to the basics and meal prepping makes it a heck of a lot easier.
