Many people are aware of the concept of meal prepping where you prepare many meals on a single day to have food to eat through the week. There are many flavors of meal prepping either for a busy family to have dinners when they get home or for athletes trying to eat many structure meals in a day. I have used meal prepping for years now and have done everything from dinners for the week or food for the hubby if I am going out of town. Since I work full time when I have a harvest I have to use my time wisely to both use everything ready to harvest and not take my entire weekend. That is way I like to stack my harvest preserving on top of my meal prep both by utilizing the items ready for harvest and for preserving the harvest.
Planning
The most import step in being able to do this is to plan. To start I evaluate what is ready to be harvested that need to be used this week. This week I had celery ready to be used and lemons and some herbs were also available but not required to be used this week. I will also take a look at what else is in the pantry, fridge and freezer to see what I have at home already. I also evaluate my week of what meals we will be home for and time available for cooking. For example, on Tuesday I am not working at home and Thursday evening we have our bowling league and have to eat earlier.
Recipes
Now that I know what I need to either use in my menu for the week or preserve I look for recipes to use. I keep a Pinterest board of some of our favorite recipes and a place to save new recipes too. I found two recipes using celery as an ingredient chicken salad and jambalaya. The chicken salad will be for lunch during the weak and sausage and chicken jambalaya would be dinner on Wednesday night. I needed shredded chicken for the chicken salad and would need chicken broth for the jambalaya so I decided to make chicken broth from a whole chicken. The chicken broth would use some of my celery as well.
Now that I had a few recipes using my celery I filled in the rest of the week with some of our regular rotations. Since I knew I would be cooking for a few hours on Saturday decided to make two different chicken recipes in the smoker. One is for dinner on Saturday (Chicken Jalapeño bombs) and another for dinner on Sunday (smoked chicken Thighs). If I am going to turn on the smoker I try to fill it with as much as possible especially in the summer when it gets hot. As a side for dinner on Saturday I decided to make butter garlic mushrooms. Since I had to get carrots for the chicken stock and mushrooms for the side I also decided to make a batch of vegetable broth as well so I could use even more of my celery.
Storage
Storage planning is important for both your items you are using that weak and items for longer storage. Knowing how you plan to preserve items that you are going to keep longer than for this weeks menu allows you to plan the time and tools needed to preserve it. For this week, I am pressure canning the vegetable broth and freezing the chicken broth (freezing since part of it I am using this week). Other preserving methods are dehydrating and water bath canning.
Plan the Day
The best way I have found to organize my plan is to use a weekly planner whiteboard on my fridge to plan the week so I already know the answer to the least favorite question ever “What’s for Dinner?” Many times I will also plan my cooking times on my whiteboard. For example, the chicken broth takes two hours to cook, the smoked chicken takes 2.5 hours, and the vegetable broth takes one hour to cook and an additional 30 mins in the pressure canning for preserving.
My final step is to create the order/plan of what I am cooking based off cooking times and ingredients needed (ie I cannot make chicken salad till I have the chicken cooked in the broth). This is my list to tackle:
- Chicken Broth
- Chicken Thighs & Chicken Jalepeno Bombs in Smoker
- Vegetable broth
- Chicken Salad
- Green beans
- Garlic Butter Mushrooms
Prepping
Now that I have the plan of what I am preserving and dinners for the week I will do the prepping to ensure everything is ready for me to tackle all of the batch cooking and not have my entire day get aware from me.
The first step is to make my food shopping list and go food shopping. I try to minimize how much I need to get from the store so I keep a pretty well stocked pantry and full freezer. I get a box from Thrive Market every month where I get a large amount of my pantry basics from such as olive oil, spices, rice and other staples. I have many items on auto ship so I don’t have to worry about running out of the basics. For my chicken I get a box from Pasturbird where I can get regeneratively raised chickens. I had a whole chicken, chicken breast and thighs in the freezer. Don’t forget to ensure you have any frozen ingredient defrosted in time.
I gather all tools needed such as my pressure canner, glass jars & lids, canning tools (jar lifter, funnel etc). Then I will prep the smoker. I use a propane smoker so I will prep the wood chips, ensure I have enough propane and prep the water tray.
Stacked Harvest and Meal Prep
When all my planning and prepping is done its time to turn my plan into action. Here is a breakdown of my cooking process…
Chicken Broth
I used a simple chicken broth recipe of carrots, celery, onion, garlic and a whole chicken. I chopped the vegetables in large chunks and everything went into a large stock pot with salt, pepper, and bay leaves to simmer on low for 2 hours.
Chicken Thighs and Jalapeño Bombs
Next I made the jalapeño bombs to go into the smoker. I use a filling of cream cheese and cheddar that are put in a jalapeño . Then a thin chicken breast is wrapped around the jalapeño and sealed by wrapping it in bacon. I then seasoned the chicken thigh and they all went into the smoker.
Vegetable Broth
Next up was the Vegetable Broth. Similar to the chicken broth a use a base of carrots, celery, onion and garlic. For the Vegetable broth I used mushroom for my umami flavor and a bunch of fresh herbs from the garden.
Prep veggies for Chicken Salad
While everything was cooking I used this time to prep the vegetables and the sauce for my chicken salad. The vegetables and fruit in the salad are celery, green onions and grapes. The sauce required a lemon so I was able to use one from my treed. The sauce included mayo, greek yogurs, coconut sugar, dill, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Finish Chicken Broth
At this time the chicken broth is complete. I pull out the chicken to let it cool while I remove all of the vegetables in the broth. I then strain the broth through a cheese cloth to have a clear liquid broth. I set the broth aside to cool till later. I then shred the chicken. I had enough chicken for the chicken salad and to make enchiladas for lunch on Sunday. Oh and the pups got a little chicken topper on their dinner.
Finish Chicken Salad
Next I combined the cooked chicken with the prepped vegetables and sauce. Then into the fridge it went to meld the flavors together.
Sides for Dinner
Next I made my side dishes for my dinner. I made Parmesan Green beans that went into the over for 30 mins and Garlic Butter Mushrooms that were cooked on the stove top as I continued.
Vegetable Broth Canning Prep
As the side dishes were cooking I prepped the vegetable broth to go into the jars for canning. The jars were heated in the pressure canner with water. I removed the large vegetables from the vegetable broth and then strained it through cheese cloth. Then I filled the jars and put it in the pressure canner, sealed the canner and started the process. The canner takes a bit to heat up and then I have to vent it for 10 mins before I can start logging the process time.
Plate and Eat Dinner
While the pressure canner starts to heat up I plate my dinner and eat. I like to eat dinner before I finish for the night so that I only have to clean up the kitchen once!
Fill Freezer Containers with Chicken Broth
After dinner I start putting everything away while I monitor my pressure canner. First up is the chicken broth. My favorite way to freeze items are in PrepWorks Freezer Pods. I have them in 2 cups, 1 cups, and 2 tablespoons. For the chicken both I used my 2 cups and 1 cups pods allowing me to store 8 cups of chicken broth. After they are frozen I can then pop them out and use my vacuum sealer to store them long term for the cups I am not using this week. Another benefit of using the pods is that they have the measurements in the cups so that if I put them in the vacuum sealer bags I can tell the measurements of the broth. Once I filled the pods I stack them and then into the freezer they go. Lastly I put away the smoked chicken thighs.
Clean and Store
The final step is of the evening is to clean up the chicken. As much as I hate this task at least I am doing one large cleanup at the end of the night knowing that many meals I can heat an eat through the week. Once I finish cleaning the pressure canner has cooled enough for me to remove the jars from the canner to sit on the counter for 24 hours as they cool.
Stacking Harvest and Meal Prep
As you can see stacking my harvest cooking and preserving with my weekly meal prep can help make running your homestead a little more time saving. My total cooking time including eating dinner and clean up of my kitchen took me a total of 5 hours. I started around 2 pm and finished at 7 pm. Since I work full time stacking harvest and meal prep is essential for me to be able to maintain my little homestead.
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