Learn how to meal prep weeknight dinners with this video! Get tips on setting up a weekly meal plan, grocery shopping, and making delicious meals in advance. Recipes include chili, Sante Fe chicken, and baked spaghetti. Simplify your cooking routine and save time with these easy recipes. Subscribe now for more cooking inspiration!
Effortless Kosher and Gluten-Free Meal Prep Guide for Busy Orthodox Jewish Families
Are you tired of trying to figure out what to cook for dinner every night? In today’s video, I share my meal prepping routine and show you how I set up my weekly meal plan. Plus, I tackle all the grocery shopping and make all the dinners for the week on a Sunday afternoon.
One of the recipes I make is a delicious chili. It’s packed with flavor and made with ingredients like diced onions, sauteed ground beef, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, cumin, coriander, brown sugar, garlic, salt, and pepper. Simply add all the ingredients to a pot, mix well, and simmer on low for at least three hours. Serve it with corn chips, on hot dogs, on fries, or simply enjoy it as is!
Another mouthwatering dish I prepare is Santa Fe chicken. This recipe is super easy because you can make it in a crock pot. Simply combine corn, black beans, chicken broth, chicken breast, diced tomatoes, and taco seasoning in the crock pot. Let it cook for several hours, then shred the chicken and serve it on top of rice. Don’t forget to add some cilantro for an extra burst of flavor!
If you’re a fan of pasta, you’ll love my baked spaghetti recipe. Cook the spaghetti according to package directions and mix it with shredded cheese, spinach, mushrooms, and spaghetti sauce. Transfer it to a baking dish, top it with more cheese and Italian seasoning, and bake it for an hour. It’s a cheesy and comforting dish that the whole family will enjoy.
In this video, you’ll also get a glimpse into my daily life as an Orthodox Jewish homeschool mom. I’ll show you how I tackle my daily tasks and give you a sneak peek into our routines and traditions.
If you’re looking for meal prep ideas or want to see how a Jewish homeschool mom manages her day, then this video is for you. Don’t forget to subscribe so you won’t miss any of my future videos!
Transcription: Meal Prep with Me | Week of Dinners | Kosher • Gluten Free | Orthodox Jewish Mom (Jar of Fireflies)
Hello and welcome or welcome back to my channel my name is Khana and this is jar of fireflies here I make videos all about my life as an Orthodox Jewish homeschooling mother of four and today we’re going to be meal prepping for the week okay first off I want to start by saying that this video is sponsored by Thrive market and more on that in a few.
Minutes okay I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about doing some meal prep because I am really struggling to get dinner on the table in the evening it’s just I’m so tired by the end of the day like I don’t want to deal with it I’m also like we’re so busy and then having a toddler running around makes it nearly impossible to do anything it’s just it’s.
Just hard so I’ve been working out a ways to make a lot of things in my life a little bit more streamlined and a little bit easier and I think I’ve got this meal thing down pretty well okay all right so like I said I mentioned a few weeks ago that I kind of started this whole meal plan thing what I did is I sat sat down and I came up with some.
Meals that at least most of my family likes like it’s really hard to get everybody to like one thing but there are a few meals that are definitely hits with the whole family and other times there just maybe someone who doesn’t love a meal as much as everybody else and that is also part of life when you live in a big family okay so this is.
Basically what I came up with I made this sheet I laminated it I put it on the fridge okay let me explain what this is so up here at the top I have three recipes and these are recipes that I will meal prep on Sunday for the rest of the week this section here is a meal plan for the week and then down here at the bottom is a grocery list for the.
Three different grocery stores that I need to get all these ingredients from this doesn’t mean that I have to go to each of these grocery stores every week but it does mean that these are the places that I prefer to get those particular items but I can always get these items at different grocery stores I also will tag things on to my Thrive.
Market order when I’m putting that together which I do about once a month it’s just in general these are stores that we go out and about to so like if Mr firly is like hey I’m going to Trader Joe’s what do you need I can look at this list look in the pantry in the fridge and say oh can you get this and this for me those are things I need to.
Make meals on Sunday it just makes it easier and gives me less to think about and I’m not sitting there on meal prep day going wait I don’t have all my ingredients okay so there’s really four meals that I will prepare today so one is a pizza crust I’ll make gluten-free pizza crust in advance and that way I can just pull the crust out.
It’s done and I can just throw on the sauce and cheese and choppings put it in the oven and we have a quick and easy meal one night and then I make chili lasagna and Boles now sometimes they do switch this up I’m not making the bologan sauce or the lasagna this week instead I am making a baked spaghetti it is National spaghetti day later this.
Week so I wanted to do that I am making this the chili I am making the pizza crust and then switching it up just a little bit this week I am also making a Santa Fe chicken crock poot meal so I will prepare everything to go into the crock pot and just put that in a Ziploc bag in the fridge so that I can put that in the crock poot tomorrow morning and I.
Don’t have to even open a can of anything or chop anything like it’s just done okay as far as eating these same meals every week couple of things that I do to kind of spice that up so one is I’ll serve something a different way so like last week we had chili on top of corn chips this week we’re having chili again but I’m going to serve it on top.
Of either hot dogs or on top of french fries so one of those two ways so that’s just like a way to kind of switch up the same meal also as you saw we are swapping out and making the baked spaghetti this week and the Santa Fe Chicken so there are just kind of other meals that I know that are pretty easy that I can switch it up with in there as.
Well and I may just make a second sheet or something I don’t know some kind of a system where I have all of these easy meals ready to go so I can sit down at the beginning of the week and say okay I’m going to be making these I don’t know I don’t really love to switch it up though because I really like to have my meals set because then everything is.
Done but I have these ingredients that I want to use up anyways that’s why I switched it up today okay as far as the meal plan for the week goes so for breakfast every day I just have cereal milk scrambled eggs toast so the kids can just choose which of those items they want they can make their own toast they can make their own scrambled eggs.
They can get their own bowl of cereal ready I’m off the hook for all of that okay for lunch on Sunday quesadillas on Monday macaroni and cheese on Tuesday make what I call snack boxes which usually includes like sandwich cheese hardboiled eggs cookies crackers fruit kind of that sort of thing that’s in like AR bento lunch boxes and then on.
Wednesday is my designated leftovers day because inevitably they are leftovers and it’s like who wants the leftover baked spaghetti who wants the leftover chili who wants this and like everybody just like oh I want that one I want that one and they can pick their favorite and then on Thursday we do another snackbox lunch now again this isn’t just like.
Throwing a bunch of crackers and cookies in a bag like it is a thought out lunch with sandwiches and stuff like that but we just call it snack boxes okay anyways then for dinner so Sunday night tonight is chili tomorrow is lasagna Tuesday bologan Wednesday Pizza and Thursday we’re doing breakfast for dinner okay I did specifically set up Thursday as.
Breakfast for dinner because a it’s a super easy meal to prepare and then B if we for some reason have leftovers like excessive leftovers we can have those for dinner that night and also if something happened during the week where we end up not eating one of the pre-prepared meals because we went to an event we got invited out we um I don’t.
Know whatever like an emergency I don’t know what whatever something happened and we didn’t eat one of the meals that I prepared we can then eat that there on Thursday night okay and then I just have my grocery list which even include things like snacks ice cream you know anything that I know that we like to eat on the regular I have included on these.
Lists and I kind of explained how that works already okay all right and speaking of the grocery stores this is such a fabulous time for me to tell you a little bit more about Thrive Market Thrive Market is an amazing online membership based grocery store with an incredible selection of organic groceries snacks supplements.
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Membership options so one is month a month and that is $12 a month and then the second is an annual membership that’s $5 a month and that is build once per year at $59.95 and y’all you will make back your $60 membership in savings and if you don’t Thrive will credit the difference also orders over $49 do ship for free.
They ship with carbon neutral shipping from their zero waste warehouses they are on a mission to be the world’s first climate positive grocery store five makes it so easy for me to shop for my family’s dietary needs with our awesome filters I can add filters for kosher and gluten-free so I can shop for only foods that my family can eat it’s like having.
A custom built grocery store just for me let me show you guys what I got on my last Thrive order I got a variety pack of my favorite potato chips sea salt and vinegar regular and Smoky Barbecue my oldest is a coffee drinker and he requested creamer speaking of the kids I restocked on our favorite macaroni and cheese which is our Tuesday lunch and.
For our breakfast for dinner I picked up a few packages of gluten-free pancake mix and of course you’ve got to have syrup to go with that of course you can’t forget snacks so I got some gluten-free graham crackers and our favorite gluten-free cookies this is something new I’m trying this time it’s a Sourdough sea salt cracker special for.
Our snack picnic lunches I picked up these little individual packages of cookies I grabbed some marinara sauce for our baked spaghetti I grabb some DIC tomatoes for the chicken and the chili and a couple of cans of tomato paste for the chili and of course because andry staple the last thing I got was some lotion for me because I am all out of.
Lotion here in the kitchen and this mama needs it so this is my new kitchen lotion click the link in the description box or go straight to thrivemarket.com jaroff fireflies to get 30% off of your first order and a free gift worth up to $60 when you join Thrive market today all right now let’s get to cooking okay so I am starting with the.
Chili because this needs to sit and simmer for a while so I can just basically get the this started and it can simmer while I’m working on everything else okay first step for this is to dice an onion and then I’m going to sauté this here in this pot with a little bit of olive oil all right now that that onion is.
Nice and cooked I’m adding in my other ingredients in no particular order I’m adding in some ground beef now I have this ground beef in a jar but if you have fresh ground beef you would just cook it here in the same PT hot next I’m adding in one can of tomato sauce one can of diced tomatoes one can of kidney beans which I.
Did rinse and drain and one can of tomato paste all right for flavor I’m adding in 1 tbsp of brown sugar about 2 tbspoon of cumin and about 2 tspoons of coriander all right now it’s just mixing that up bringing it to a simmer and letting it do its thing I will be stirring this occasionally throughout.
This cooking time this afternoon okay so I’m just going to let that chili simmer for I don’t know a couple hours or so there on the stove let all of those flavors melt and it’ll be all awesome then I will just take that entire pot and put it into the refrigerator so that when it comes to chil night I can just pull the pot out.
Of the refrigerator and put it directly on the stove no extra dishes to do today literally the only dirty dish I’ll have to clean today from that is the cotting board and the knife that I used to chop the onion like that is it it’s a good thing okay so while that chili is simmering I can now get to work on everything else so I think what we.
Will do next is get some water boiling on the stove for the baked spaghetti cuz I do need to go ahead and boil the spaghetti noodles for that and while that is boiling then we’ll get to work on the Santa chicken for the crock pot okay this is not my normal spaghetti Boiling Pot but this is what I have right now so this is what I’m using the.
Pot I normally use is in the fridge with some soup in it all right this little handy thing is what I use to hold up my Ziploc bags when I am filling them with whatever so this one is adjustable it stands up and then it Clips on the bag to both sides and it is adjustable for a smaller bag or a larger bag so today I’m pulling out.
The tabs there because I am putting a gallon bag on there I got a little leftover corn already in there okay so I’m adding in a can of corn really it’s two cans of corn because that leftover corn was almost a whole can all right next I’m adding in two cans of black beans two cans of diced tomatoes all right next I’m adding in.
One package of chicken breast and last ly some taco seasoning I’m not really sure how much I really like taco seasoning so about as much as would be in one packet of taco seasoning okay now that whole bag is just in the fridge ready to go in the.
Crock pot here in a couple of days when ready to do that crock poot recipe okay so for the Santa Fe Chicken I’ll take that whole Ziploc out back out of my fridge and I’ll pour it into the crock poot with that crock poot liner in there and I will add one box four cups of chicken broth I don’t have chicken broth I’ll use vegetable broth it’s not that.
Big a deal and I will have that on low for 7 hours I think you could do it on high for 4 hours but I usually just do it on low cuz I’m home all day okay and then I will make some rice shortly before I serve the meal and cilantro on top of that like as a garnish is also super delicious if you are a person who can eat cilantro I know not everybody.
Can speaking a fun kitchen gadgets let me show you this okay y’all know I like to use those Crock-Pot liners I got a silicone crockpot liner and the best part y’all it can go in the dishwasher so I now line my crock poot with this when I’m cooking in the crock pot and then it just stores up nice and Tiny and I don’t have to buy any more crockpot.
Liners I will leave a link to these two fun kitchen gadgets down in the description box below they are definitely things that I use on the regular they’re not like affiliate links or anything like that it’s just me sharing a cool product with you guys all right and with that the water is about to boil so we’ll do that baked spaghetti.
Next okay I’m using this Berea burilla whatever it’s called brand of gluten-free spaghetti and I am using two boxes of these spaghetti noodles that is how much fills up an entire baking tray pan thing that I like to cook this in and that definitely feeds all of us for a meal usually with a little bit of.
Leftover I cook that exactly according to the package directions and then I drain that out in the sink and then I move it over to a bowl where I can add in my other ingredients okay I’m adding two jars of marinara sauce you could use whatever kind of sauce you prefer I just really like marinara and that’s what we use.
Most in this house but I’m adding in a can of mushrooms because I personally really love mushrooms and I’m also adding in um just a bunch of spinach I have some spinach in the fridge that I need to use up and it just that adds a little extra you know protein and greens and all of that to the meal and then I don’t feel obligated to make a side.
Salad to go with this all right I’m also going to add in a little bit of mozzarella cheese really just like a handful so maybe about a cup not even probably the cheese just adds a little bit of extra flavor helps kind of bind everything together and who doesn’t love a little extra cheese there is cheese on top but that’s coming okay so for now.
Though I’m just going to mix all of this together until it’s just well mixed and then I am able to move it into a baking tray yes I’m using a foil baking tray for this because again ease of everything right now is what we are going for with this whole meal planning thing all right after I have smoothed out the top of this and made sure that.
All the noodles are like inside of the pan so nothing Cooks funky then I am going to add on just a generous layer of cheese right on top of everything and then I am sprinkling this with some Italian seasoning for a little extra flavor all right now I can put the lid on and then I always label this I just I guess because there’s like a little spot.
To label it here on the the lid to these trays and it makes me happy so I am okay so that big spaghetti is now in the refrigerator I did not bake it at all so what I will do is when it comes the night that we’re going to eat that I’ll just put it from the refrigerator into the oven I’ll put it on like 350 for I don’t know probably like an hour that.
Way it’ll be all warm and fully cooked through the cheese will be melted oh and I will take the cover off to put it in the oven because otherwise the cheese is just going to melt to that cover and that’s not as fun so once that cheese on top is like bubbly and starting to turn brown that’s pretty much when I know that it’s ready all right so all that is.
Left now is to make a pizza crust since I have a child with Celiac I will be making gluten-free pizza crust for that child and then for the rest of us we can just eat frozen pizza from the store so that gives me like one super easy meal at some point this week and I will go ahead and make two Pizza crusts even though I really only need one for that.
Dinner but I can use the second pizza crust either next week or just at some point during the week if we decide to have pizza for lunch or something like that so it’s just another option to have around which never never hurts okay let’s make some pizza crust all right so for the pizza crust for the gluten-free pizza crust I’m.
Using the gluten-free pizza crust mix from Bob’s Red Mill we have tried a lot of different gluten-free pizza crust mixes and this one has been our favorite it’s super easy to put together you just put the mix and yeast in a bowl and then you mix your wet ingredients which is just two eggs a cup and a half of water.
And some olive oil in a separate bowl and then just add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients mix it up and then you’ve got your dough all right with that dough mixed and ready I’m going to cover that and let that sit for about 20 minutes before I turn it into a pizza crust okay to get my space ready here.
For the pizza crust I lay out Saran Wrap two pieces so it covers the whole area that I need here on the counter and then I’ll put my pizza crust half of what I just made cuz that makes two pizza crust so I’ll put my pizza crust dough on top of the plastic wrap that I have laid down and then I add two more pieces on top and that way I can roll out with a.
Rolling pin and it doesn’t stick all over everything this dough is super sticky it’s not like a normal dough gluten-free if y’all know you know so uh the plastic wrap has been a total Lifesaver for this for us so once I’ve got that into the shape that I want it and about as thick as I would like it then I take off that top.
Layer of Saran Wrap and then I’ll put my pizza tray there on top of it upside down and then kind of using the bottom layer of Saran Wrap I can sort of wrap it around the back of the pizza tray and then sort of flip the whole thing over so then the pizza lands on the tray and then I can bake.
It all right folks and that is it the pizza crust is done wrapped up put in the fridge I do keep those in the fridge until I am ready to use them I just feel like that makes them last a little bit longer so that’s it I’ve now prepared a bunch of meals for this week I am ready to go in here very relaxed now to the.
Week and not have to worry about scheduling cooking time for dinner and things like that I just have to kind of pull things out and throw them in the oven or stove or crock pot and I am good to go I hope that this video gave you some fun new meal ideas or maybe inspired you helped you figure out a way to make your meal planning a little bit.
Easier from week to week if you’ve got some good make aad meal ideas drop it down in the comments below and let us know cuz I know I for when I’m always on the lookout for good meal ideas that are easy to make head like the meals that I shared here today so that is it for this video then so please give this video a thumbs up hit that like button if you.
Enjoyed I would super appreciate it and don’t forget to hit that sub subscribe button if you have not yet done so I would love to see you here again and don’t forget to check out our sponsor Thrive I’ve left you all the information down there in the description box and in my pinned comment below all right and with that we’re done hope you have a.
Fabulous rest of your day and I’ll see you in my next upload all right now I know our snack box lunches for our snack box lunch for our snack box and along okay so that baked spaghetti is now in the oven no it’s not it is not in.
The oven it’s in the refrigerator
