I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Colin usually eats leftovers for most of his meals. During my first 18 months as a mom, I would cook double batch meals every other night, and we would eat the same thing two days in a row. It minimized cooking every day, which helped me streamline my week.

Because C wasn’t the best with independent play and his bed time was so early, I handled all of my cooking after he went to bed for the night.

But now that Colin’s bedtime begins with a 7 instead of a 6 (or even a 5, way back when he was tiny), I wanted to reclaim my nights for myself.  When I am exhausted after a long, draining day, the last thing I want to do is chop, prep and cook, much less wait until it’s done cooking to eat. So one week, after doing my big weekly shop on Sunday morning, I thought it might be interesting to change things up. Mr. Confetti was playing with C outside in the snow, and I decided to get a jump on our week’s meals. I started my prepping all of my ingredients for the week, and then I thought, “Heck, I am just going to cook it all now.”

Bees, it was magic. I didn’t have to cook all week.  By the end of Sunday evening, my fridge was lined with Tupperware containers filled with everything from main dishes to sides, veggies and pre-washed and cut-up fruit.  It. Was. Awesome.

Since then, I have fine tuned my system.  On Friday or Saturday (or even early Sunday morning, if I’ve procrastinated), I will sit down with Mr. Confetti, figure out how many nights he will be home for dinner and how many days he will be in town and need to pack his lunch (usually leftovers).  I review my schedule and Colin’s, and then I create a menu for the week.  Typically, it includes 3 main meals and 3 veggie side dishes, some of which get cooked in double batch so all this food will last the whole week long.  From there, I make my grocery list in my favorite app, and shop during Colin’s nap on Sunday.  Shopping without a toddler is quick and efficient, so I hustle home and start prepping while C is still asleep.  If Mr. C doesn’t have to work on Sunday afternoon, I begin cooking right away since he can handle C for the afternoon, and if not, I wait to cook in earnest until after bed time, and then I will plow through each meal, cleaning as I go.

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Some of the perks of this system include:

  • There is always something ready to eat, right when you get home in the evening, all week long. Just warm it up, and it’s ready!
  • No more balancing act, juggling the needs of your toddler with the food that is hot on the stove.  If you want to engage your child in cooking, you can.  On Sunday.  And then forget about it for the rest of the week.
  • If you’re not in the mood to eat what was planned for dinner that night, you have two other easy options already made and ready (at least at the beginning of the week)
  • If your unreliably picky toddler decides that the meal he ate happily a few weeks ago is now not suitable for his darling little palette, you have two other healthy, homemade options in your fridge.
  • If you realize you forgot something or you run out of energy to finish all of your recipes, that’s okay.  You have all week to find a time to grab that item you missed and cook the dish.  Much better then realizing it right before you’re supposed to cook for that night, with no wiggle room and a hungry kid to boot.
  • While you’re waiting for one dish to finish in the oven, you can move on to your next project or two on the stove – less wait time means being more efficient.

There you have it, my ultimate kitchen short cut.

Have you ever tried cooking on Sundays?  How do you manage feeding your family with the weekly grind?