Meal Planning: The Grab and Go Method (lunch)

I am not a great cook. I can cook a few things, but not a lot. I have some family recipes, Pinterest recipes, but baking is more my thing. Hands down. 

I have pinned a million pins (okay, ten) about meal planning. I have printed off cute templates to help me. I bought a dry erase board for my fridge. But the bottom line is that it's really hard to meal plan when your life has a scattered scedule. 

Here's a recipe for a Meal Planning Disaster:

• Lack of cooking knowledge combine with
• Lack of time and throw in
• Actually eat dinner with husband 12 nights per month
• Measure out LOTS of meal planning for one along with
• Meal planning for lunch every single day  {you can only eat so much Chickfila, y'all}

So today we went to Costco and we bought a lot of food. I am bound-and-determined to make sure for the next TWO weeks, I don't have to buy lunch at the hospital OR be tempted to grab Krystal on my way up Signal. BTW, GREAAAAAT place for a Krystal. AH!

My Mom always told me that "participation takes preparation" -- same thing with meal planning. Make time to do it, and you are saving money (and calories) by not eating out. So this meal plan is more for lunches, not dinner. I would eat these things for dinner, but some people need a meat and two sides. When it's just me, a salad is a-ok.

As soon as we got home form Costco, I made:

7 chef salads with cheese (buy the 3 lb bag of salad for $3.00, y'all!!), turkey and bacon bits with dressing on the side (in condiment cups), 3 turkey and cheese croissants (no mayo), 2 chicken salad sandwiches. 

I also bought HUGE bags of Skinny Pop, Snap Pea Crisps, and other snacks at Costco and put small servings in sandwich bags. Buying those teeny bags to throw in lunches may save you time, but it doesn't save you money usually ($ vs. oz).

Then I made a list of everything I had made by category, and stuck it on the fridge so we would know what we had, and could mark it off when things were gone:

And the most crucial part of the "Grab and Go" method: ORGANIZE YOUR GRAB AREA.

I LOVE my panty with my fabulous Elfa system from The Container Store. I love those wheeled baskets so much I could hug them. I combined two half full baskets, moved some bigger snack items down to the big drawer on the bottom, and made TWO snack drawers with all of my snacks in them and labeled it, of course:


    

Now when Sam or I walk in the kitchen needing something to snack on, OR food to pack for lunch, we know what's already divided up and prepared and we can grab it and go. In case you are interested, here is the complete list of snacks (including snacks that are pre-packaged):

G&G Snacks: Pantry
Skinny Pop Popcorn
Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Annie's Organic Fruit Snacks
Cashew Mix
Chex Mix
Cranberry Almond mix
Snap Pea Crisps

G&G Snacks: Fridge
Applesauce in squeezy pouches (organic)
Chia Seed squeezy pouches (taste like grape jello!)
Mango and Kale squeezy pouches (so good)
Fresh cut pineapple in rubbermaid boxes

Blue Crab Dip  (crackers in sandwich bag in pantry)
Hummus (carrots in bags OR crackers)

The "main entrees" include salads, turkey or chicken croissants (I only made four today and froze the rest of the pallet) or sandwiches, chicken salad, crab spread, pimento cheese, and when all of those run out, Lean Cuisines. ;)

Hope this helps those of you that struggle with meal planning like me!