Easy Gluten-Free Meal Planning with Prep Dish

All opinions are my own, I received a free trial week through the Prep Dish website.

The Dinner Time Battle

I don’t know about you, but my number one enemy in getting myself organized is the kitchen. It is not that I don’t like to cook, but no matter what I have tried, I just can’t seem to get the everyday meal planning together. Sure we will eat one or two good meals at the beginning of the week (these are the fantastic ones like Arroz con Pollo that you see on this blog), but by the end of the week dishes are piled up and my husband is telling me (after we eat hot dogs and rice for the 3rd night),

It is like I’m living at a college frat house.

Not exactly what you want to hear from your husband.

Along came Prep Dish

I had seen the adds for Prep Dish on Facebook. It is a bit scary how Facebook knows what I need. It is like they can somehow see the mess in my kitchen, and knew that I needed a way to stream line my dinner preparation. A few friends had asked me if I had tried it and since I hadn’t and they offer a free week when you sign up for their newsletter I thought I would give it a shot. In order to give an accurate review I made all the recipes almost exactly as they were given (I skipped the dessert, I couldn’t find dates and we aren’t big dessert people).

A few things I noticed right of the bat:

1. I did not have to give a credit card to get the free one week trial plan.
2. There are two very similar choices- gluten-free and paleo. They are almost the same, but it is nice to have both options.
3. It is all real food. Nothing is prepackaged.
4. Recipes look simple.
5. Extremely organized.

My initial concerns:

1. Preparing and leaving meat in the fridge for several days.
2. How to convince my husband that an egg dish was dinner?
3. Could I get my one year old to eat this?
4. How am I going to be able to afford grass-fed beef and all these organic vegetables?

Let’s do this.

I pushed my initial concerns aside and headed to Trader Joes, because there were several ingredients on the list I just wasn’t sure I could find at Publix or Milams, and going to Whole Foods didn’t cross my mind.

It had to be one of my quickest grocery store trips yet. I bought everything on the list (except the dates and mushrooms, I’m not a fan of mushrooms.) There were a few ingredients I hadn’t tried, like fennel, but I got it anyways. I was determined to try out Prep Dish for what it was and not to start making lots of substitutions.

In all I spent about 72.00. I bought everything organic that I could and wild caught salmon, grass-fed beef, and organic chicken. I was shocked that I managed to get it all for that amount. I picked up some water and a few other things for the baby, but still managed to stay under a $100.00 for the week, which is a new thing for me.

I prepped everything on Sunday afternoon while my husband was home to help with the baby. It took about an hour and a half, plus another 20 minutes or so to clean up. It was very exciting to have everything ready to go for the week on Sunday.

The Meals

The meals were fantastic. We had way to much spaghetti sauce, so I ended up making a lasagna on Friday. There were no complaints from anyone, even the baby ate it!

My final thoughts:

1. I love the organization of it. It is very easy to follow and simple to just cross off an ingredient you don’t want or skip a meal.
2. I like that there are four meals. I do love to cook, so I pick one recipe I want to try, and then use the prep dish recipes the rest of the week. It really reduced the stress of “What is for dinner?” I just pulled out the meal each night and stuck it in the oven.
3. There were leftovers almost every night, which was perfect for lunch the next day.
4. We ate healthy foods all week. It was already prepared, so there was no temptation to grab something out.
5. The clean up each night was minimal. For an entire week there was no pile of dishes.

In the end I decided to sign up for Prep Dish. It really just made my life easier. If you want to try it out Prep Dish is offering My Gluten-Free Miami readers a one month trial for only $4.00. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Go to this special link:  Prep Dish and enter the code: MIAMI.

It has definitely made my life a bit simpler. If you try it out be sure to let me know what you think in the comments!