Meal Prep - Week 4

Apologies in advance as I'm pretty sure my photos are getting worse as the 'weeks' go on but onto meal prep week 4! I'm really impressed how long we've carried it on to be honest as I was unsure whether it was going to be a phase but I honestly can't explain to you how beneficial it has been through out the week only spending part of 1 day cooking and having everything readily available through the week. We are definitely eating better and a more varied diet too as before it was so easy to just shove something frozen and beige in the oven for half hour and be done whereas now we are eating a mixture of meals with plenty of veg thrown in too!

Slow Cooked Beef with Roasted Carrots and Parsnips - Another great meal for popping in the slow cooker and forgetting about for a while. The carrots and parnsips just went in the oven for an hour and a half or so and the beef was left to cook away. This was lovely but something to bare in mind is when reheated the gravy did go a bit jelly-like so if you wouldn't enjoy that maybe cook the beef on it's own and add fresh gravy to serve.

Chicken and Stuffing Pie - Kal loves a pie and so this week I gave a chicken and stuffing one a go and it worked really well. I never make my own pastry as it's extra time but ready-rolled works just fine and once again this was something that could be cooked in the dishes which saves on washing up too!

Potato Gratin - When I tell you this is usually my absolute favourite thing that Kal cooks, I mean it (ask my hens!) but for some reason it just didn't work for meal prep at all. We cooked these in their own dishes but when we reheated them they had a lot of excess oil at the bottom which made them feel greasy and heavy. We've said we will probably just give this a miss in the future and only have it if we can have it fresh!

Sausage Sandwiches - Just a nice and easy one to throw in - saves a bit of time on the day you're cooking but works really nicely as a dinner through the week. We also said if we had more containers and fridge space etc we could make this as an occasional breakfast in the week! Can't go wrong in my opinion and you can throw in whatever sauce you like to serve!

Sausage, Chips and Mushy Peas - Not entirely sure why we ended up having two sausage meals this week but it worked out okay anyway. The chips had salt and pepper chilli seasoning on which was delicious and I acted like a grown up and ate my peas even though I'm not really keen! This is just a nice and basic meal option to throw in when you're not feeling too adventurous.

Gammon, Potatoes and Cauliflower Cheese - We were a bit iffy initially about how well this one would reheat but it turned out amazingly and is something we would definitely have again! This time we just used a packet mix for the cheese sauce but in future I would 100% make my own.

Chicken, Rice and Green Beans - I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure what flavour this chicken was but it was nice none the less! This was another repeat recipe but we just switched up the flavour of the chicken to try and stop it getting boring. I think this is just a good all rounder to be honest as there are plenty of flavour variations for the chicken and you can also mix the rice up too!

Another pretty positive week with only a couple that had negatives really. It's nice to bring in some of our favourite meals from previous weeks at this point too as we are really working out what works and what doesn't. 

Once again, let me know what do you think about meal prep? Do you have any recipes in mind that we could try?

Disclaimer: This blog post is in no way sponsored and all opinions and photographs are my own.