Today is Day 20. I figured I would take advantage of a slow Saturday to do some meal prep for the next few days. I have learned that food that is unprepared is not really food. It just takes up space in my fridge. For example, broccoli that hasn't been steamed in advance is just a useless blob sitting in my fridge because if it's not ready to go, I'm not going to want to deal with it during the week. So, I spent about an hour and a half turning items in my fridge into food.
I put some potatoes in the oven to bake. While that was happening, I did all the rest.
Steamed Broccoli: I cook a lot of broccoli at once so that I have it ready to heat up for meals. Once it's pre-steamed, it's an easy vegetable to saute in olive oil and goes with most any kind of protein. It's especially handy at breakfast, when I need a fast, easy vegetable to add to the plate. My other standby for that is spinach because you can saute 500 cubic feet of spinach in about 30 seconds.
Tuna Salad: I cut up celery and a whole onion (only using part for the tuna salad...the rest I'll use for tacos) I added spices, avocado mayo, some onion, celery, and lemon juice. All done.
I had to wash the cutting board and items used for getting the tuna salad ready so that I could clear up the sink for the strainer. That way I could drain the broccoli and run it under cool water for a moment before putting it in a tupperware destined for the fridge. The timing was just right...broccoli finished just as clean-up from tuna salad making finished.
Now I was ready for a really tedious task. Washing lettuce. There are few things in this world worse than washing lettuce. I don't like to buy the pre-washed, pre-chopped stuff. I find it's tough. Who wants tough lettuce? Not me. If I buy a head of lettuce, whether romaine or green leaf, if I don't pre-wash and dry it, all I've done is buy something to put in my fridge to rot. I even have one of those salad spinners that makes it easy to dry lettuce leaves after washing them. I still hate washing lettuce. That said, I effectively cleaned and dried a head of romaine and a head of green leaf, finishing just before the potatoes hit the one hour mark in the oven.
I checked the potatoes and added another 20 minutes to their cooking time. I cleaned up the rest of the kitchen. Voila. Food prep for a few meals was complete, including the hamburger I browned last night for tacos. It always seems like a herculean task to get things staged in advance for meals, especially when I really dislike cooking. Too bad I don't also dislike eating. I love to bake, actually. Go figure. Cakes, pies, cookies, bread. It's like some cruel joke. "Let's make her hate cleaning lettuce but love making complicated desserts. It will be hilarious...hahahaahha"
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