I teach full time. I teach middle school full time, but I think any teaching is exhausting. There are tons of memes on the internet about teachers just laying in bed for their entire vacations trying to catch up on sleep. It does sound appealing, but it’s not how I work. I have a bit of routine now. The shorter vacations I catch up on some home cleaning and planning the next two or three months of school. The longer vacations, I tweak the school plans based on where we’re at in the units and what else has been scheduled beyond my control. then I try to put that away so I can again, deep clean the house and prep stuff for our personal lives.
Today after running errands, I did a little writing (’cause yes, I’m an author, too), then I did prep.
Today I first began the pizza dough. But while the yeast and sugar were proofing (about ten minutes), I began cutting the butter into flour for biscuits. The dogs interrupted because they absolutely had to go out then too. Must be the wind changed, I dunno.
Anyway, I continued making both the pizza dough and the biscuits somewhat simultaneously, as they both needed flour, salt, etc. The pizza dough went into my warmed oven to rise, while I then started the cookie dough. As I finished adding ingredients to the mixer, I put them away.
It all came to a finish of baked goods as I spooned the cookie dough onto a sheet pan and put them in the freezer (they’ll be easy to pop whatever number on a pan later and bake), then portioned and vacuum sealed the pizza dough to freeze. Finally I added the milk, finished kneading the biscuits, rolled them, cut them, and yes you guessed it, froze them too.
Why all this baking if I’m not even using it today? Because there is plenty to do when I get home from work each day and having some stuff prepped is huge!
Likewise, I chopped up some leftover pork roast and made a stir fry with that, portioned it, sealed it and froze it for my lunches after vacation. Grab and go lunches are especially important for me.
Tomorrow I think I might make some garlic breadsticks (frozen and ready to bake), and something else. Soon I’ll make up some soups to portion for my lunches, the goal is to have enough portioned and ready for my lunches that I don’t need to repeat a meal in the same week, and just add in one new dish (2-4 portions each) each weekend.
We have a big family meal planned in a couple days. After that I want to prep some side dishes to have in the freezer ready to dump and heat too. I’m thinking orange glazed carrots, confetti corn, and…I’m not sure yet. I need something more than mashed potatoes and frozen veggies as sides all the time.
Do you batch cook or prep meals and snacks ahead?
enjoy your big meal, thanks for following, and only the best to you for 2026…
May 2026 treat you with success, contentment, and only good surprises!
I should make more food ahead of time. I’m terrible about buying lunch at the cafeteria at work. The best I seem able to do is to make a large meal on purpose so that we can eat the leftovers for lunch or for the next day’s dinner.
Those large meal leftovers were how I started prepping my lunches. I would eat one day of leftovers and freeze a second day, slowly building up a surplus (but not too much because freezer burn is yucky!). Then I started doubling a few recipies to intentionally have more leftovers/prep. And If it was a casserole I could double and freeze one for a quick meal that was all prepped.