fix it forward

The Concept

How would you like to have amazing, nourishing, home-cooked meals on a nightly basis, all by cooking for five minutes a day? That is the premise of Fix if Forward, an approach to meal preparation that is economical (think $25 a week), uses slow-cooked preparation methods for that Sunday Dinner taste, and will only require five minutes per day, cleanup included? If you would be interested…read on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• The foundation of Fix it Forward is two-fold: a combination of “Cook/Freeze for a month” methods and the age-old art of using leftovers.  Each of these is beneficial, as they save time and money, but I ran into issues with these methods which made them useless to me.

• In our image-heavy, commercialized world, I am programmed to reject the idea of “leftovers” as unappealing and something nobody wants. To me, they look like brown lumps of cold, mystery garbage in my fridge and nobody eats them. Sometimes, with a meal like Thanksgiving, it can work, but that’s mostly because Thanksgiving leftovers are promoted all over the place as being appetizing and there are tons of recipes for them on Pinterest.

• The Cook and/or Freeze-for-a-month method did prove useful when I could summon the energy to spend an entire weekend on my feet (after a few hours of planning) to shop and then cook for up to ten hours. If I could fit all the meals in my freezer, I then had to clean up. Oh, Lord. Cleaning a month’s worth of dishes after this work-a-thon, was discouraging. Finally, the frozen meals gradually assumed that “leftovers” (or at least not quite fresh) stigma in my mind and many of them got freezer-burned and ended up in the trash.

• My grandmother, who grew up in the depression, often did the Fix-it-Forward method but lacked the organization of the plan. This can result in “mystery items” such as beef stock, frozen beef that you forgot about and gets freezer burnt, or an overly crowded freezer.

• I wasn’t ready to give up on the possible time and money saving opportunities of these methods if I could make them work.  So, the Fix-it Forward approach was born. Undoubtedly, I am not the first person to think of this, maybe not even the first to name it, but this is my unique spin.

• The concept involves a lot of planning, at least initially.  I have done this for you, should you wish to use my menus, which contain meals that have wide-appeal and are easy on the bank account. As icing on the cake, you can use your plan(s) over and over. You might try a grocery delivery service with a saved shopping list to bring food directly to your door. No shopping time. No list-making time.

• Meals will grow more elaborate, gourmet and contain more ingredients as the month(s) progress(es). Your initial meals will be simple, yet flavorful.  I have taste-tested many simple recipes to get the most popular so you don’t feel short-changed in the beginning! Also, during month two, meals will continue to get more elaborate as you begin to fold in ingredients you started in month one and froze.  In fact, you will “save for later” at least one ingredient a night. It’s so exciting and rewarding to have satisfying meals with almost no work!

• There are a few should-haves to make this work, but you can get by without them if you must. This may add time to your cooking so I’d recommend investing in them. A large crock-pot is high on the list, even if you are only cooking for one or two. You’ll also need: some other basic cooking utensils which I have listed in the shopping list section.  A large pot or pan, big enough to cook five pounds of meat is essential.

• Fix it Forward involves bulk buying, cooking, and preparation work. Don’t let the word bulk get you down; it is less work than doing everything individually.  I will give an example of this method here, assuming that you love ground beef so much you would eat it nightly! Most people wouldn’t, but this simplifies the process for example.  I’m also going to skip tedious steps that you don’t need right now.

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How Fix It Forward Works

1. You will cook your primary ingredient (ground beef for example) all at once with the basic ingredients that go in every meal (onions, green peppers, salt, pepper).  You will refrigerate the cooked meat in a throw-away container, except for one pound. This you will use in your first meal, which involves plain ground beef. The following evening, you will add more ingredients to the batch of ground beef you started the night before. This time, you will add fresh garlic and oregano, both of which are used in Mexican and Italian dishes. You will set aside two pounds for tonight. The other two are put back in the throw away container and refrigerated.

2. You will boil spaghetti noodles, throw some garlic bread in the oven, open up a jar of spaghetti sauce and combine it with the meat mixture. Heat it, of course. The cooking and cleanup of the pot to boil noodles should take no more than five minutes.  Now, you are going to have about one pound of Italian Beef Mixture left after tonight’s dinner, so you will put that in a separate throw-away container in the fridge.

3. The next night is a Mexican night. You pull out the two pounds set aside the night before. You throw them in the crock pot (with disposable liner, of course) with taco seasoning. Tonight is, you guessed it, Taco Night! It will take about five minutes to get out the ingredients for tacos and to clean up. You will have one pound of meat left, so you’ll lift it out of the crock pot, set it in a disposable container and freeze it.

4. Do you notice that you are adding something fresh every night? This keeps each meal from feeling like a frozen dinner.

5. Next night: Double Mushroom Lasagna. You have a pound of spaghetti sauce already made. You layer precooked oven lasagna noodles with mushroom soup, sauce and cheese and stick in the oven in a throw-away tin foil pan with another loaf of garlic bread.

6. There you have it! Writing about the steps takes more time than doing them. I have expanded the ground beef category to include German, Chinese, and American dishes to keep things interesting. If you plan to do this for a month, which I recommend, I included chicken, roast beef, and pork, three meats which most people like. Substitute as you go.