Healthy Meal planning, prepping and cooking tips for busy Mums

Jane´s two Boys Oliver and Evan 

"Nutrition is really important to me, I'm very aware of what I put not only in my own body but also what I´m feeding my kids. There's no compromising on cooking in my house, my husband is not a cook putting it lightly and so it´s all down to me whether I have time or not, and want us all to eat as healthy as possible whilst keeping things child friendly.

There's lots of ways I have found to make my life easier when it comes to cooking and it starts with the food shop.

I always plan the following weeks meals at the weekend. I use a printable which I have linked up here, where I have my week of meals and shopping list all written out. Believe me this saves such a huge amount of time, and even money on the shopping. I know what we are going to be eating every day so I know what I need to either prep or take out of the freezer, I know exactly what i´ll need from the supermarket so I only do one shop every week and if I can order it online and have it delivered, even better!  I've heard from so many friends about almost daily shops, forgetting items, and this leads to buying things you don't need, more food wastage and lots of lost time.

Depending on my week ahead I will do one of two things, I´ll either know that I have time to make each meal on each day, based on work, kids activities etc or I will prep as much as I can on Sunday so I´m literally defrosting pre-prepared meals. 

One of my greatest allies is my slow cooker, which actually my Mum gave me as she never found herself using it. I don't know how I survived before without one.

 

So what is a slow cooker? Basically you're throwing all the ingredients in to one big pot, whacking it on for 4 hours on ´high´ or 6-8 hours on ´low´ whilst you conference call, clean, run errands, pick up the kids, attend a meeting and when you come back "Hey Presto" dinner for four! So this isn't a kitchen robot, there's no instructions, following along or stages, just one pot, all the ingredients and a dinner ready in no time. Here´s a link to some great Crock Pots currently on the market. This is a great low cost option and you really don't need much more than this, here's another option and one of Amazon´s bestsellers. This one is a slow cooker with a lot of extras!

You can find so many ideas for slow cooker or crockpot recipes on Pinterest but to help you get started we will be adding a whole page of pre-prepped crockpot meals for you this Friday, so pop back here for your recipes!"

We´d love to hear how you tackle eating healthily on a busy schedule so why not pop over to our instagram account and let us know on our meal-planning post what your tips and tricks are and share them with other women who are also on their fitness journey with Nailah Fitness!