School Meal Prep Made Easier?

School is about to be in session for many of you and/or your family. If you work or own a house, too, you know that things are about to get even more intense in your morning and evening routines. Some people find planning ahead for meals to be very helpful in their busy lives. Today, as special feature article, I want to share with you all a book I was sent to review via the Amazon Vine program. Healthy Meal Prep by Stephanie and Adam of Fit Couple Cooks is designed to help families plan out three meals a day for a week for a wide range of dietary needs. I got this book for free in exchange for writing a fair and honest review of it for Amazon.com; this article is a unexpected bonus freebie for us all and no other form of compensation was received.

The primary negative for us on The Chocolate Cult is the fact that only one recipe has any cocoa powder or chocolate in it at all. That would make for a very fast review but since I also tried a few other recipes for the Amazon review, I'll share those with you as well. Thinking about the ingredients I keep in my house and that my family and I can eat, I ended up testing out breakfast recipes more than any other meal.

The first recipe I tried came from the "Cut the Carbs" week planner. The Egg and Feta Muffins" were very tasty but damn, a small part of them stuck to the baking pan and it took me about an hour to get it cleaned and yes, I did oil the pan well before putting the mixture into it. Next time, and I would make these again, I'll either use a cupcake liner or silicone pan. Here's what mine looked like with a full week of breakfast meals or not depending on when you eat them and how many you want.

Then I tried the only chocolate/cocoa recipe in the book, "Chocolate Banana Overnight Oats." I am not much for cold oatmeal but I love warm oatmeal. I was willing to give this a try. I loved it! Then I made it again with chocolate protein mix as well as regular cocoa powder and it turned out well, too. Here's one serving I made.

The repetitive nature of these meal plans would not work in my household. Not only would my family get bored but I'd get bored, too. Of course, if you have good quality containers you might be able to freeze the meals and spread them out over weeks if not months. Of course, just making these meals takes time and I'm not convinced you save a lot of time versus just saving leftovers and making meals when you need them but I stay at home where I'm a full-time author, I'm not balancing working outside my house with childcare, relationships, and self-care. This sort of book might be very useful to you.