Ooh shewolf and Bella, good ideas, thank you very much.
I will try both ideas. Awesome!!!
I buy the firm tofu, the soft stuff is for shakes, the firm stuff is for stir-frying and the like. I buy whatever's on sale or low cal, I'm not really brand conscious and we don't notice a difference.
I marinate with canned low sodium chicken stock but obviously vegans don't. There is, I believe, canned veg stock. You can also make your own stock by boiling the heck outta vegetables, as in, boil them for hours and let everything just boil down so that it's darker in color. Mushrooms will produce a brownish color for the stock (not unpleasant). If you want meat in the stock, use the bones - vegetarians, cover your eyes! - it's the, er, connective tissue that's good for stock. Make up a huge batch on some chilly day, just leave it on the stove on low and let it do its thing.
Once your stock is done, separate it out and freeze it. A lot of people recommend ice cube trays, personally I find them not only weird and tough to store but there is an issue with aromas mingling, not only in the freezer but also in the fridge. You don't want your ice cream to smell like stock. So what I do is, I use the teeny tiny tupperwares, they are kind of the size of a standard salt shaker although wider. Then I just heat them up a little in water (or the microwave if the container is microwave safe) and then dump the stock into the soup I'm making. It makes a MAJOR difference in the flavor. Canned is fine, it's acceptable, fast and cheap, but homemade is even better. If you use canned, only use the low sodium, the regular will make you weep from the amount of salt in it.
One thing you can do is to skim off fat from stock (or any soup). Freeze it, the fat goes to the top. Just cut it off with a knife or dig it out with a spoon. Better that it's in the disposal or the birds are eating it, than it ends up on your hips.
Oh, yeah, I'm organized, I guess I always have been.
And it helps, it's less decision-making during the week when it comes to dinner. I like ad libbing as much as anyone, but during the week I'm too tired to be creative and I don't have the time to really think about it because, by the time I've cooked, we've eaten and put everything away and cleaned up and maybe watched a half an hour of TV, it's time for bed (our alarm is set for 4:30 AM, hence the early nights). So it's all preplanned. Another advantage of preplanning is we know what goes on the shopping list and so there is no agonizing over that. The only things we really agonize over are weekend meals. The thing of it is, also, is that when all of this stuff is packed and labeled and ready to rock and roll at a moment's notice, most of it is very flexible. So tacos can become chili, Chinese stir-fry can become Chinese soup, or pizza toppings can become sauce for penne, all without too much effort or thought.
A lot of these things are sold commercially. Tyson, for example, sells precooked chicken strips, but if you make them at home they cost a lot less and you control the seasonings.
One more thing (dang, I'm chatty today!
), frozen veggies are perfectly acceptable as an alternative to doing all that chopping. Just buy separate packages, such as just spinach, rather than a spinach blend with something else. Plain stuff can usually be bought generic or store brand (so it's a lot cheaper) and then you mix it together as you like. Be aware, though, that a part of the freezing process involves the salting of food so check the sodium content and adjust your seasonings accordingly.
I don't prepare meals for 7 days, more like 4 days, but the other 3 are leftovers or get it yourself or let's go out.
