Grill-a-Thon!!!

The grill-a-thon is one of the things I do that helps me make good food choices. If you've already heard about it, feel free to ignore this post, but I'm sharing it for those who haven't.

I live alone, so I don't feel like cooking a fresh meal every night after work, yet I don't want to stop and pick up unhealthy food either. So on a Friday or Saturday, I'll go to the grocery store and buy mass quantities of several kinds of meats (for example, pork loin, chicken breasts, and flank steaks). I buy the "family packs" which save money. Then on Saturday, I trim and marinate the meats so they have lots of flavor. I leave them in the marinade overnight at least. Then on Sunday afternoon, I fire up the grill and cook all of it. Yes, it takes a while, but it's so worth it. Some of the meat, especially beef, I intentionally undercook, because I don't want it to be shoe leather when it's reheated. Then I bring it in and cut it all into thin slices (I use an electric knife to save time.)  If you slice the meat against the grain, it is more tender and easier to eat. The thin slices allow all the meats to thaw evenly without overcooking. Then I package it all into ziplock sandwich bags in individual servings. Then all of the pork loin goes into one large freezer bag, which I have labelled. When the slices go into the sandwich bag, I put the slices side by side rather than on top of each other. This also helps it to thaw/cook evenly.

So I come home from work, tired, and I have my choice of 5-6 things in my freezer, grab one, and by the time I've changed clothes, it's ready. Add some bag salad or steamer veggies and I have a meal that's way faster than fast food and really tasty and healthy. Besides the meats I mentioned, I always also keep Sam's colossal pre-cooked frozen shrimp on hand, which can be thawed in a couple of minutes in a strainer under running cold water. Instant shrimp ****tail, or can be thrown on top of a salad.

Most of the marinades I used are bottled, like Lawry's 30-minute marinades---although, as I said, I leave it in at least 24 hours for better flavor. Make sure you like the marinade before you use it for 5 or more pounds of meat. I do a huge amount of meat because I have a lot of freezer space, and one grill-a-thon will hold me for a couple of months, with some new stuff thrown in occasionally for variety.

A bunch of my patients say they love this.

PS---If you have 2 or more people to feed at one time, you could freeze enough for one meal together per bag. 

Connie we do this every time we grill -part gets put up as family sized meals and part as single servings for me and rach for lunches
love it!!!

I need to do this more often Connie.  We have a chest freezer and two side by side refrigerator/freezers.  My think about freezing food is I forget; but we do like to cook so I guess that's part of why I don't do well freezing.

I may try this though, because I love a fresh salad with grilled steak, chicken or shrimp on top of it. 

Connie I've been doing this for years too.  I buy huge quantities when it's on sale then wrap meal-size portions in freezer paper and label.  I go to my deep freeze and pull out 2 chicken breasts, 2 boneless pork chops, and a lean steak and cook them all one one day.  That way I have food to eat all week and also for general snacking.  I do the same thing you do with the cooked shrimp but I also have grilled shrimp at least every other week.

A famous chef once told me his "secret" marinade recipe for tender meat esp chicken-Zesty Italian Dressing.  I use the FF Walmart version cuz it's great and cheaper.  Even 2 hours in it is plenty of time to moisten up the meat.

Thanks for the reminder it's posts like this that are so helpful.

Stephanie---I use the zesty italian dressing, too! I buy the regular one and pour off most of the oil first and use the rest.

Dana and Danni---I'm going to try to post more healthy recipes and tips on here---so many  of the recipes I see are really not wls-friendly. It's so easy to make healthy food taste good!!!

Connie, check out my post from earlier about lurking on OH.  They have some pretty good WLS friendly recipes, for the most part.  There are some that are "iffy" at best but overall it's lots of variety.

Dana, I added a note to that post---I sincerely hope you don't mind what I said---just straight talk from my RD side!