The title is really a misnomer, since Martha probably wouldn’t ever do this.  It would be SO beneath her culinary skills, I’m sure. But in my mind, if this experiment succeeds, I’m one step closer to being Martha-like.

I am not a cook.  I do not claim in any way to be one,  just for the record.  My sister is much more into cooking than I ever was.  I know that doesn’t do anything for my wifely image. It’s not very cool to not be a great and fabulous cook, but it is what it is.

I have been doing better lately with my menu planning.  This is not new information, but it is so true. Having a plan and having it front and center on the fridge calendar makes making the meals much easier and much more likely to actually happen.

I found a cool blog with a neat idea about meal planning… making 5 dinner meals for the week in 1 hour.  What’s neat about her meals/plan is that all meals are covered and kept "fresh" in the FRIDGE not the freezer!  At dinnertime you just pop one out and in the oven and you are good to go.  :) 

Her meals are $15 for 3 months, and she also has a week’s worth that you can try for free.  All this got me thinking that there are a lot of meals that I already fix that I could do this with.  I still may order the 3 months, but I decided to give the BIG EXPERIMENT a try this week!

I started out yesterday by making a menu for the week.  {Here’s my menu plan printable I found online…FREE and so cute!} I love that is has the shopping list on the side.  I already had these ingredients, so I used the side for my list of utensils and ingredients. 

The tips she gave on her blog say to get all your ingredients and utensils out on the counter and open everything up.  Then start your hour of prep.

Here’s my stuff ready to get started…

 
I timed myself, and it took me 7.5 minutes to get everything ready to start.

My menu for the week…

Turkey & Cheese Cups
Ranch Chicken
Egg Salad
Baked Spaghetti
Pizza {frozen} & Cheesy Bread Sticks {Tony’s brand… around $2.50 & sooo yummy!}
Ultimate Chicken Fingers

I SOOOO wanted to actually finish in an hour, but I didn’t make it!  :(  I was a few minutes shy of finishing 4 of the meals in the hour, though, and that includes cleaning up and putting things away as I went.

Here’s where things were at the one hour mark…

My time?  Drum roll please!

1 hour, 18 minutes

At the end of that time, I had all ingredients away, counter cleared, and dishes and utensils in sink.

One other tip from her blog was to fill one side of the sink with warm soapy water ready for your dirty utensils and bowls as you go. I think this really helped, and you could really do a quick wash, rinse, and reuse the same dishes if you wanted to.

If you’re wondering how it all fit in the fridge, here’s a pic of everything inside…

I really LOVE this idea, and I really hope that the meals themselves will still turn out well so I will want to try this again. 

I’ll try to post some updates this week on how the meals are going!

Do you think it’s worth it to give up and hour and a half one day a week to have stress free dinners all week?