Gift Yourself Time with Food Prep & Storage
If you’re anything like us, autumn always brings with it that sense of new beginnings, the chance to start a fresh season with a handful of shiny new habits and the right tools to do the job. Like the opportunity to get super organised in the kitchen with our amazing range of clever food preparation, storage and ‘heat and serve’ ideas for on the go.
Time is precious too. We’d all love a bit more of it. Time for our family, our friends, for our hobbies and ourselves. With a bit of careful forward planning, preparation and the right equipment we can pinch back some ‘us time’ by swapping out tedious daily preparation for clever batch cooking.
If you haven’t tried it before, you’re going to love how life enhancing it can be, not to mention money saving, as you take care of all the week’s lunches and family dinners in advance.
Plan Ahead
Organisation is the key to success here, so get all your ingredients lined up in glass storage jars. These are perfect when you’re trying to avoid excess supermarket packaging and support local shops by refilling your own jars. Think pastas, noodles, lentils, pearl barley, dried beans, flour, sugar, dried fruits and herbs, they look fabulous on open shelves, nestled up alongside cook books and plants.
Maybe choose a Sunday morning and pop on your latest audiobook to keep you company. You could start off with batch cooking evening meals for the week ahead in the slow cooker or stock pot. Go for hearty winter dishes like chilli, vegan stew, vegetable curries. You can make plenty and freeze for the busy weekday nights ahead. Investing in a good variety of food containers in different stackable sizes is perfect for freezing different portion sizes, for 1, for 2, for 4 etc. You can also use these to pop any leftovers in the fridge or for fresh pack-ups like salad. If you have access to a microwave at work you can always take a portion of main meal to fill you up and help you stay off sugary snacks!
Soup is also great for workday lunches or quick weekday suppers. A hearty staple for colder weather, easy to make in our soup maker and then enjoy on the go from thermos flasks or lidded soup mugs that you can pop in the microwave or travel mugs to take with you on the commute.
Making this kind of prep a habit definitely cuts down on the cost and environmental impact of daily shop bought sandwiches as there’s no packaging for those of us trying to be more mindful.
Talking of being thoughtful, you can even apply this approach to homemade lovely gifts for friends and family who share your values. Just assemble pretty layers of beans and pulses, along with herbs and spices all in a lovely lidded glass jar then make up some labels with simple cooking instructions and tie around the lid with colourful twine. All they have to do is add water and a little of their time to stir the pot, as they think about the love and care you put into a cosy gift from the heart.