I Hate Meal Prepping, But Here's How To Do It

So Many Meals to Make/Eat, So Little Time!

     I meal prep, occasionally, because it's healthier (groan), cost efficient, and I don't spend the majority of my measly 30 minute lunch at work picking up food or paying extra for delivery. I also don't have to coordinate with other people in the office on who's getting what food from where and hope I have cash or see who has Venmo (Dear everyone, fucking get Venmo!).
   
     Thank you Facebook for your wonderful (sometimes oddly creepy), but helpful suggestions! Because this baby popped up (see below) and I was like YAAAAAASSSS!!!

https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Metallic-26783-Professional-12-5-Inch/dp/B00WDZOPII/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2JTVPY28XWPJU&keywords=lasagna+trio+pan&qid=1572290435&sprefix=lasagna+trio+pan%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFBTE9DSThQOElKWTcmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA3ODA3NzczTE5aWFJONTcxUjc5JmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA2Njc4MzIzUEhFOEtHQjZVVlJOJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

     What do I put in this magical time-saver?? I buy either a 3-pack pack of plain chicken or a shitton of chicken (the mini sliced up ones) or pre-seasoned chicken that typically comes in a 3 pack:

3-pack: If I buy a three pack of unseasoned chicken I typically filet them (cut them in half) because one piece is too thick for me to eat in one sitting. Then I put the two halves into each slot, add a veggie mix (I prefer carrots and broccoli), and then top them off with the sauce mix of my choosing, unless I buy Hy-Vee's pre-seasoned chicken:

These guys have been a lifesaver! I'm so bad at seasoning things and I don't have the extra time to take to marinate anything the night or two before, so I just pick up some of these bad boys and pour them over my chicken and/or veggies. 

Then I pop everything into the oven for a hour and BAM! Three different flavored dishes ready to go into my sweet Dollar Tree Tupperware (you know, the dollar store where everything is only a DOLLAR; fuck the Dollar General, I may as well go to Wal-Mart!):

I don't spend a ton of money on this "meal prep" kits because these work just fine and if something happens to them, I'm not out a bunch of money and it's inexpensive to replace them. And so far they've held up just as well as any other Tupperware.  

In addition to my sweet $1 Tupperware, I bought these fillable shampoo bottles from the Dollar Tree and I put different kinds of salad dressing in them because you get a 3 pack for $1! opposed to buying the smaller made-for-salad-dressing containers, which I feel don't hold as much and then I get way more bang for my literal buck:

I'm also, then, not taking up a bunch of room in the shared work fridge by leaving an entire container of dressing, or multiple, and I have a variety of dressings! I also put salsa in one for my taco meat concoction; see below! 

"Tacos": I make taco meat on the stove top while my chicken bakes and throw it in one of those divided containers: 

That way I can keep my taco meat and cheese/lettuce separate! Then I either warm my taco shells in the microwave or bring chips and eat my tacos more like a taco salad, scoopin' the fixin's!

Pre-Seasoned: And if I buy Hy-Vee's pre-seasoned chicken then I just have to plop them into the trio pan and bake. I can then throw some veggies and my own seasoning: butter, salt, Cookies seasoning, and/or the Campbell's seasoning pictured up above, etc. into its own row: one kind of seasoned chicken, other kind of seasoned chicken, and veggies, then bake em all for a hour. Typically on 350 by the way.   

     Mind you, I'm not a fitness person, dietitian, or anything like that. I'm just a girl with three jobs, a teenager, and very little time. I also have only done this a couple times because I work so much and pick up so many shifts that I've sometimes screwed myself out of even the mere hour it takes that I have to be awake to do all of this. 

You're talking to the girl who recently washed, dried, and put away her darks, but then only managed to wash her colors, then her roommate put them in the dryer and then her laundry basket for it to sit there for 4 days resulting in me having to redry them to get the wrinkles out from abandoning them for so long. I do A LOT of: work, work, shower, sleep, work, work, bathe, sleep, work, work, donate plasma, bathe, sleep, work, work, work, coma sleep...lather rinse repeat, until I either get 1/2 a day off to do any combination of the following: laundry, clean the bathroom, pick up my room, go through my things for consignment, read, write, take things to consignment, volunteer, see my friends, call my family members, attend my daughter's sports stuff, hang out with my daughter, participate in whatever holiday thing is currently going on, vacuum, (I NEVER dust), love on my kittens (roomie usually heads that one up), watch a show/movie, run misc. errands, workout??? HA!....did I forget anything? Most likely.

Yes, I fell upon this merely by Facebook suggestion and was like, "I don't like noodles (or anything with that texture: lasagna, as the pan is designed for), but I could totally cook three different kinds of chicken at the same time in it so I don't get tired of eating the same thing three days in a row! WIN!!!

Oo, throw some Cookies seasoning on it, then cook it for 20 min., dump some Ragu or knock-off Ragu sauce on it, throw it back in for 20 minutes, and then dump a fuckton of mozzarella cheese on it and bake it for another 5-10 minutes. That totally fucked me out of a nap because of the back and forth, but I did lie down for those 20, 20, and 10 minute increments.