Meals Made Simple
Are you also not a fan of the type of meal planning that means eating the exact same thing for dinner every single day each week? Yeah, me neither.
Let me tell you, planning your meals can actually be quite EASY. This process has saved me a ton of time, stress and energy wasted on figuring out what foods to buy, what to make and worrying about if I have all the right ingredients on hand.
STEP 1:
Grab some of your favourite magazines, cookbooks, your saved online recipes or cooking shows from the PVR and pick out 4-5 dinners that look appealing to you. I usually aim for 1-2 with meat, 1-2 with fish and the rest vegetarian. I find that if you're using the most recent issue of a magazine, the recipes usually utilize veggies that are in-season, a bonus when trying to buy local produce!
I subscribe to Canadian Living, Martha Stewart Living and Eating Well magazines, plus love grabbing the latest issue of Food & Drink from the LCBO. I also love Jamie Oliver’s VEG cookbook and PVR episodes as well so we can follow along while making a recipe. My Instagram saved folder is also packed full of recipes I’ve come across while scrolling my feed and we PVR all sorts of other cooking shows for other worldly options.
STEP 2:
Create a shared list on our cell phone (shared with your spouse or whomever is also responsible for making meals in your household) and enter categories by section of the grocery store. List each ingredient you need, for the recipes you've chosen, under the correct section. Also include other weekly staples like bread, milk and eggs. Our categories are fresh produce, meat/fish, dairy, grains and other.
Add another list at the bottom that includes the recipe name, where it can be found (magazine/cookbook and page number) or a link to the online recipe. You can even go one step further by assigning each meal to a specific day of the week!
Here’s exactly a list of our recipes from the other week:
MON FISH Garlic & Chili Mussel Pasta (Modern Australian Food pg 285)
TUES VEG Speedy Egg-Fried Rice (Jamie Oliver VEG pg 208)
WED FISH Oven-Roasted Cod (https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/oven-roasted-cod-tomato-cannellini-and-swiss-chard)
THURS MEAT Sweet & Sour Pork Noodle Bowl (Modern Australian Food pg 110)
FRI VEG Roasted Tomato Risotto (Jamie Oliver VEG pg 112)
We typically plan 4-5 recipes to allow for takeout 1-2x/week, leftovers or stopping by the mother-in-laws for some homemade Italian food. In this example, you can see two vegetarian dinners, two fish/pescatarian dinners and one meat dinner. This is pretty typical for our household of 2 and we usually cook for 4 so that we always have leftovers for lunches.
STEP 3:
It’s time to shop! If my husband and I grocery shopping together, then it's my job to review the list from my phone, while he grabs each item needed. As an item is placed into our cart, I delete it from the grocery list. By the end of our shopping trip, your grocery list should be blank again!
The same process works for online grocery shopping too. Simply delete each item from your list as you add it to your online cart. Any items remaining on your list that were not available, can be grabbed during a quick stop at your nearest store, as needed.
That's it!
Your shopping is done, you haven't purchased any additional fresh items that will just end up going bad or being thrown in the trash and you've got a week's worth of dinners planned! This method allows for us to both know what's for dinner so whoever is able to get started on chopping veggies or defrosting fish can refer to the exact same meal list. I also find that we are less likely to even suggest ordering takeout when we have a sense of what’s on the menu each night and our fridge is filled with yummy fresh ingredients.
A few other tips for success:
If you work from home, wash or chop fresh ingredients or marinade meats/fish during the day. That way, when it’s time to cook dinner, your mise en place will be ready to go!
Make extra or cook two things at one time! Make double dinners or whip up some baked egg muffins for grab-and-go breakfasts while the oven is already on to roast your dinner.
Don’t stress too much about planning out full breakfasts or lunches. If you don’t have leftovers, breakfast can be an easy smoothie or oatmeal and lunch can be a salad with a can of tuna and crackers. Things like eggs and salad greens are kinda staple items, so we always have them on hand.
Try new things with flavours that are new to you too! This is especially easy when you’re PVR-ing cooking shows, because you can visualize the techniques and quantities.
We love to spend a half hour on Saturday mornings (usually while eating breakfast) to select some recipes, catch an episode of a fave cooking show from the PVR and to get ourselves organized. This method has literally saved so much time + MONEY, ensures we’re always eating seasonally and we NEVER buy/throw away extra food.
Let me know if you introduce any of these suggestions and if it helps!