Save Time and Money with My System of Quick, Healthy Meals Made From Bulk Items

We all know we need to eat healthier and make better food choices for our families. I struggled with this for years before setting up a quick and efficient system that churns out grain and vegetable based meals my family loves with only a few hours work a week. The only processed foods used in this system are sauces! Using the following tips, you can set up your own system and with just a few hours work create a weeks worth of amazing, and healthy meals. As a bonus, not only will you be saving time, you'll also be saving big bucks as well!

This system focuses on planning for dinners, but if you have a family member who eats lunch at home or takes a lunch to work, my system makes it quick and easy to assemble a lunch the night before or the morning of!

1.Set Up Your Kitchen To Accommodate Bulk Purchases
All of our meals are based on healthy whole grains, and all of those whole grains are purchased from the bulk bins at our local health food store. Rather than letting bags of barley, rice and beans pile up in my cabinets, I purchased a variety of glass bins with screw tops from Target. These ranged from $2.00 to $8.00 and come in a variety of sizes. I use them to store nuts, rice, beans, and grains in my cabinets, and also flour, sugar, and cornmeal which I keep in my fridge. The canisters keep everything looking tidy and are easy to clean. I rinse out glass salsa, sauce and peanut butter jars and use these as well for smaller bulk purchases, such as yeast, coconut and sea salt.

I also have a large selection of glass Pyrex to use for storing prep food, lunch dishes and leftovers in the fridge. I keep large bowls for soups, green salads and pasta salads. Rectangular containers hold my chopped veggies; broccoli, a stir-fry assortment, and chopped squash. Smaller round containers hold chopped onions, chopped tofu, mushrooms, and cucumber. When someone wants to make a sandwich during the week, or I need chopped onions for tacos, they are all ready to go!

2. Create A Grocery List
Using a document program on your computer, create a basic list of all the things you routinely buy at the grocery store; milk, bread, lettuce, cereal, ect. Organize these by category such as dairy, produce, meats, ect. Save this list to your computer.

This article concentrates on dinners and lunches, so be sure that your basic grocery list contains the items you'll need for breakfasts. At our home, breakfast is a simple meal either of cereal, eggs or oatmeal.

2. Once a Week, Create a Meal Plan
Designate one day a week for meal planning. Here you will make a list of seven dinners for the upcoming week. I usually have at least one new recipe to try, then I add in a meal or two that we always have once a week, such as stir-fry or taco night. Fill the remaining slots up with dinners based on items you might have coupons for, or that are in season. For example, in Fall and Winter we have soup and bread for dinner a couple of nights a week. In the Summer we grill veggies and shrimp.

Try to use repeat ingredients in your planning. For example, if you're going to buy a can of tomato paste and use half for a soup recipe, add a pasta recipe that will use up the other half.

3. Create The Week's List
Now that you know what your family will be eating for the week, it's time to create a shopping list. Open up your grocery list document and delete anything from your basic list that you don't need to buy this week. If you already have it in your cabinets, you won't need to buy it. And if it isn't required for the week's recipes, you don't need it either. Now, looking over your recipes for the week, add in anything else you'll need. When you're done, print out a copy and don't save the changes! You'll want to use your basic list again next week. After doing this a couple of times, you'll have the process down to just a few minutes.

4. Head to the Store
Make sure you have a couple of hours for the next few steps, as these are the most time consuming. Grab your canvas totes so you won't have to use plastic bags, and get shopping! Stick to your list and buy as much as you can in bulk.

5. Prep and Store
Now that you have your ingredients, it's time to get to work! When you get home, put all of your bulk purchases into their containers. Wash all the vegetables and chop them up according to how you'll use them. This is a great time to assemble a large salad for lunches through out the week as well. I cut up all my vegetables as if I'll be using them for stir-fry and seal them in a Pyrex. Prepped like this they're ready to go in virtually any dish. Lettuce gets washed and stored in ripped-up pieces perfect for wraps, sandwiches, taco salads and regular salads.

6. Lunches
If you'll be using this system for lunches as well, take this time to make a pasta salad, potato salad, soup or rice dish. As soon as I get home and start my prep work, I put on a pot for pasta (for a pasta salad) and a pot for rice (for vegetable fried rice). I add veggies as I'm cutting them up and by the time I'm done with my prep work, I have a few additional dishes that are now available for the weeks lunches and snacks. These are placed in Pyrex and stored in the fridge.

7. You're Ready For Your First Meal
I like to list my week's possible dinners on the fridge so that we can decide what we feel like having at the last minute. Its more fun that way! With everything already prepped and chopped,dinner should be a snap! If you'll be taking lunch be sure to make a little extra and store it right away. Now go find something fun to do with all of your extra time and money!

A few notes...
The only meat we eat at my house is seafood, which really cuts down on the amount of time spent cooking. Each of our meals is based on a grain or beans, and we often use shrimp, tofu or nuts in our stir-fry as well as bake salmon a couple of times a week. These are low-cost ways to get high quality protein without much work!

Eating a diet based on grains and containing no meat has cut our grocery bill so much that we're now able to buy all organic, and we're still saving money!

It takes on average, twenty minutes for me to make dinner. Most of this time is spent waiting for rice to cook! While the majority of our meals are quick and simple, I do love to cook and at least once a week try a new and more complex recipe. I also have time to bake many desserts from scratch!

While our refrigerator looks spare with only unprocessed veggies and grains, we have an extensive selection of gourmet sauces, marinades and stir-fry condiments that ensures no meal is ever boring of flavorless.

We consume a lot of rice in my house. While it is very easy to cook rice on a stove, many people choose to use a rice cooker. You can even set it on a timer and have it ready to go when you get home! Insert a steamer basket of pre-chopped veggies and you have a meal! Just add a delicious topping, such as Teriyaki or peanut sauce.

My husband often takes lunch to work. With this system in place I can wait until the morning of to peek in the fridge, tell him what's available and let him choose what he feels like eating that day. Everything is ready to go, all I have to do is assemble it into a Pyrex.

A Sample of a Week's Worth of Dinners at my House...
-shrimp stir-fry
-vegetable barely soup with bread
-shrimp and bean tacos or taco salads
-baked salmon, rice and salad
-tofu stir-fry
-vegetable fried rice, asparagus, shrimp and steamed veggies
-pasta with clam sauce, salad