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My surgery (hysterectomy) is finally set for next week. I need some ideas for easy to microwave make ahead meals and snacks.

So far I am making and freezing breakfast burritos, beans, Mexican rice, muffin egg bites, lasagna (and pre portioned and individually wrapped.

I welcome anything not too complicated to make because I am already making lasagna.

Also, if you have any other tips to make recovery more stress free and simpler, I welcome that too.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 12:22 AM, Friday, June 5th]

StillLivin, to me it sounds like you already have the food department covered! Ponder some about easy liquids to drink, your body will be wanting a lot of nourishment from liquids and...water can get repetitive. Think what you'd like to see on a hospital tray for a refreshing sip! Best of luck!

PS after my internal colon surgical procedure 7 years ago, I craved fruit smoothies for the healing of the gut lining, their anti-oxidants, and sometimes I added a bit of chopped kale to the blender. Blueberries, strawberries, ice cubes, maybe milk, sometimes a little kale...the only mess is the blender to clean up!

Some famous guy I can't recall his name, has a weight loss book in the library I found, with smoothie recipes for a month! 😀

[This message edited by Superesse at 1:07 AM, Friday, June 5th]

I wrotenl this post for another forum but thought it was relevant

I am fortunate to have lots of freezer space, so I was able to put together a few different options. I can be pretty picky about my meals.

My usual routine at home is to cook a meal for the two of us, then half the portion & put it in the fridge for my lunch for the next day. Because of that, my freeze-ahead food prep was focused mostly on breakfasts and dinners
🍳 Breakfasts
For breakfast options, I made egg bite sammies with English muffins or half a bagel, &some egg and cottage cheese burritos.
I also put together Ziploc bags of homemade overnight oat packs, complete with protein powder. You can buy these in individual packs at the store, but I find they just have way too much sugar. To round things out, I also stocked up on lower-sugar instant oatmeal packs and Cream of Wheat.

Another thing I did was make up freezer packs using those mini two-section meal prep containers—they are great for this! I put cottage cheese or yogurt in one section and berries in the other. That way they are pre-measured, so I just need to thaw them and dump it all into heated cereal.

🍲 Dinners
I prefer to prepare all our dinners from scratch. While I do use a meal service for ingredients sometimes, I really didn't want hubby to have to do so much cooking while I am recovering. He is already doing a lot keeping his business and the house running and clean!

To make it easy on him, I am only ordering 2 easy HelloFresh meals per week, but that is still 30–40 minutes of prep plus cleanup. So, I made and froze simple "dump and go" meals for sheet pans and for the crockpot. (I use a mini crockpot since there are only two of us.)

• Pro-Tip: Buy crockpot liners! They make clean-up an absolute breeze.

Some of the "dump and go" meals I prepped included:

• White chicken chili
• Classic chili
• Beef stew
• Coq au vin

I also made oven ready items

-Chicken parm
• Sheet pan enchiladas (beef and chicken)
• Salmon sheet pan meals

I also prepped some marinated meats ready for the grill:
• Marinated chicken
• Marinated beef/steaks
And of course as we fish on the ocean weekly there's lots of salmon to grill!

For the grilled items, all hubby has to do is fire up the grill, add a starch and a salad, and et voilà!

I usually prefer our food not to be precooked and frozen, but I did make a few casseroles and pies in tin pans so they can just be thawed and popped right into the oven.

These included:
• Chicken veggie rice casserole
• Chicken and ham tetrazzini cordon bleu
• Cottage pies
• Chicken pot pies

It really isn’t that hard to food prep, and there are tons of resources online. I did three prep sessions which were about 1.5 hours each, and I ended up with 42 meals for the two of us!

📝 Organizing the Chaos
• Pro-Tip: Keep your freezer super organized! I did a full freezer clean-out and inventory before I even started prepping. As I prepped the meals, I used a magnetic whiteboard to write down exactly what I had and where it was located. 📸

I made things that hubby can prep easily. I was originally thinking that I would be able to get up and do it myself, but I really need to be mindful of resting!

Edited post op to add

Its been easy for me to just pop things on the oven, add a bagged salad etc. Hubby has done clean up.and dishes. But I could probably do myself as there are is no cooking mess!

I prepare a lot of freezer meals ahead for my husband to microwave in his truck. He does, too.

The easiest things are just that every time we are having steak, pork chops or chicken, we make extra ones to go into the freezer. We cook big roasts so that there will be leftovers to freeze.

Chili is great because you can use it in so many different ways.

Meatballs.

Spaghetti. He likes the sauce to be separate from the pasta. So I freeze the sauce I make, and then add the cooked pasta to the container the next day.

Meatloaf. Enchiladas. We do a Mexican lasagna with taco meat and tortilla layers. Add whatever you like - cheese, refried beans, salsa, etc. We do lasagna roll-ups with chicken (we just buy the ready made roasted chickens in-store). You can use them in so many different ways.

When I had knee surgery, I usually made sure I had some fried chicken in the fridge. If I get 6 pieces from Popeyes or wherever, that's 3 meals.

Sometimes we order a big panzerotti or pizza, portion those out and freeze.

Are you on your own or will you have help?

[This message edited by SackOfSorry at 2:47 AM, Friday, June 5th]