At some point, the Mild Wife and I decided that we were best served by prepping all of our meals for the week in advance (this practice is often described as "meal prep," which is why I titled this post the way I did). I don't quite remember the details of the conversation where we decided this or how we settled on this as a good option, but it was one of those things where we both sort of knew that this was a good idea.
Now, at the end of the day, all of this is all about pragmatism. If you want to save yourself a bunch of time, you don't cook every day. There's an overhead involved with cooking your meals; you have to chop, wash, grab pots and pans, and so on. If you batch it all up, you can get some economies of scale. Sure, you still have to take out pots and pans, but you only do it once per week instead of seven times per week. The same holds for prepping the ingredients themselves. I can probably chop seven onions at once faster than I can chop one onion at a time seven times.
Still, this practice has led to some fairly amusing experiences. As Exhibit A, I present to you the surprise party that the Mild Wife threw for me a few years ago. As you can probably guess, this involved the Mild Wife deciding to throw me a surprise party a few years ago.
Interestingly, we actually hosted this party at our place. This meant that we had to feed a bunch of people, and that we therefore had to have a bunch of food in our fridge at some point close to the party. Several people asked, incredulously, how I had missed the fact that there was suddenly a glut of food in our fridge. Well, we meal prep. It's not uncommon for us to have a bunch of food in the fridge, and I thought all of that food was for the following week, not for the following day. This admission led to much, much laughter.
The most recent example of this, however, involved the lunch I bring to work. Since we meal prep, there are usually several tupperware containers full of food in the fridge, and I just grab the one near the front for lunch.
However, on this particular week, we also had some left over chili, so we'd put that into similar-looking tupperware. Want to guess which tupperware I grabbed?
Now, at the end of the day, all of this is all about pragmatism. If you want to save yourself a bunch of time, you don't cook every day. There's an overhead involved with cooking your meals; you have to chop, wash, grab pots and pans, and so on. If you batch it all up, you can get some economies of scale. Sure, you still have to take out pots and pans, but you only do it once per week instead of seven times per week. The same holds for prepping the ingredients themselves. I can probably chop seven onions at once faster than I can chop one onion at a time seven times.
Still, this practice has led to some fairly amusing experiences. As Exhibit A, I present to you the surprise party that the Mild Wife threw for me a few years ago. As you can probably guess, this involved the Mild Wife deciding to throw me a surprise party a few years ago.
Interestingly, we actually hosted this party at our place. This meant that we had to feed a bunch of people, and that we therefore had to have a bunch of food in our fridge at some point close to the party. Several people asked, incredulously, how I had missed the fact that there was suddenly a glut of food in our fridge. Well, we meal prep. It's not uncommon for us to have a bunch of food in the fridge, and I thought all of that food was for the following week, not for the following day. This admission led to much, much laughter.
The most recent example of this, however, involved the lunch I bring to work. Since we meal prep, there are usually several tupperware containers full of food in the fridge, and I just grab the one near the front for lunch.
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| Something like this |
Yup, come lunch time, I found myself with a big bowl of chili, with nothing else. No rice, no cheese, no vegetables, nothing but chili. When I say nothing else, I mean absolutely nothing else. I texted the Mild Wife to share my discovery, and we both had a good laugh about the whole thing.
These days, though, if I can't see to the bottom of the tupperware, I poke around to make sure I'm grabbing the right container.
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