Which brings me to today's voluntary simplicity idea:
Create a simple weekly dinner menu. If figuring out what’s for dinner is a nightly stressor for you or your family, consider creating a weekly menu. Decide on a week’s worth of simple dinners, set a specific dinner for each night of the week, go grocery shopping for the ingredients. Now you know what’s for dinner each night, and you have all the ingredients necessary. No need for difficult recipes — find ones that can be done in 10-15 minutes (or less).
I tried this. Really, I did. Somewhere in one of my old, entirely filled to the brim to do notebooks with all the old items crossed off there is a list of six meals corresponding to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, with Sunday being a wildcard day. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but from a grocery shopping perspective... not so much. It just didn't seem to work as far as perishables went. And then summertime came and I wanted different foods every day. I guess this is silly and picky of me, but if I say that on Thursday I'm going to eat X, invariably I want Y. So I kept cheating and then threw my weekly meal plan out the window.
Only the fates could know that the idea would be presented to me again as part of this project!
It's hard to get jazzed about simplifying in the kitchen when the chore is one I don't like - and don't like a lot - but of course there have been other days and other posts in which my fellow contributors have encountered a chore or responsibility that vexes them. I assume they handled it with grace and fortitude and also sucked it up and dealt. Which is what I ought to be doing. The logical part of my brain says that simplifying a chore that one doesn't like can only make that chore easier. The emotional part of my brain says something like "COOKING CAN GO TO HELL RAWR RAWR FOOD PILLS BRING 'EM ON, NASA!" For indeed, I would be the first in line to purchase nutritionally balanced food in easy-to-swallow, utterly non-messy pill form.
Where was I? Oh, right, meal planning. I did a week-long meal plan around Day 16, and it worked well for one week, by which I mean I tolerated it. And I know I ought to do it again, but I think I need some help. Amy's Day 37 was inspiring, but I think I need some very specific ideas for foodstuffs that don't require much cooking or prep time since I get home at 4 p.m. and I want to spend as much time at that point in the day with my child, not doing a lot of chopping and mixing and so on. Does anyone know any easy foods besides crepes and omelets and lentil soup and roasted broccoli that I will start me down the road to a broader mealtime repertoire? Like I said, I can cook. I just don't want it to usurp the time I have so precious little of!
What about making something with your kid? Then you kill two birds with one stone. Actually three or four because not only are you making dinner and spending time with your child, but you are teaching them useful life skills AND being involved in the prep often helps kids take pride in and enjoy the food they've made.
ReplyDeleteOne of our favorite make together meals is pizza. I usually buy the prepared dough from the market at Bertucci's because its really good and easier than making from scratch.
We use a can of crushed tomatoes for the sauce, shredded mozzarella, and you can top it with whatever veggies you have on hand. Sliced mushrooms and peppers and little pieces of broccoli are a favorite here. It ends up kind of being like an art project.
We do a salad of some sort at least once a week. Depending on the time of year it could be most;y greens and tomatoes with a scoop of homemade hummus, or kale and spinach with roasted root veggies and hardboiled egg. It's usually pretty quick, easy to have left overs and can be seasonal.
ReplyDeleteIf you eat prawns, you can make a mean dinner by caramelising cane sugar, crushed garlic and chilli flakes with some sesame oil and bunging in some fresh or frozen prawns. I take the prawns out and reduce the sauce back down again for a lovely sweet, sticky gunge to pour over. I just have this with salad. Quick & yummy. :)
ReplyDeleteSee I never liked the idea of Taco Tuesday and Meatloaf Monday and other stuff. To me a meal plan is figuring out a.) what you have on hand, b.) what seasonal items you're likely to encounter and c.) how your work schedule is. I do a lot of bulk cooking and baking so that I don't have to slave away so much on weeknights. Also, I LOVE my slow cooker! Grab a bottle of Trader Joe's masala simmer sauce, throw some veggies in and turn it on at 8am - come home to an awesome Indian-inspired dinner and all you have to do is boil some rice and fill water glasses.
ReplyDeletei *suck* at sticking to meal plans, but i love to cook. i make sure i have a few key ingredients on hand, and i like to make versatile ingredients. we eat meat, so we make taco meat, but you could easily make fajita veggies or taco TVP, etc. Then you can have taco salad, nachos, fajitas, omelets, ... all from one batch of food. It's basically just about engineering flexibility into the plan. "I don't want tacos, I want pasta" becomes making sauce with the [meat/veggies] instead of taco makings.
ReplyDeleteNow, when all is said and done, I have a very complicated and over-equipped kitchen, so maybe I'm not the best for advice on simplifying...
See my recent post. I second Amy's slow cooker suggestion!
ReplyDeleteWe have a chalkboard next to the fridge, when we shop we write down all the meals in the fridge. We only shop for meals, not pieces of meals. It takes longer to write the grocery list, but it makes for less waste. I always make sure that there at least 2 meals that my hubby can make so that I know if I don't feel like cooking that he can take that night.
ReplyDeleteWhat about enchiladas? I make them with pork or beef, but I'm sure there are veggie options. I tried making totally from scratch enchilada sauce once, and it was good, but not worth the effort when the canned stuff is cheaper and easier. The best part is you can assemble it the night before (after Babby has gone to bed?) Then just stick it in the oven to get all hot and melty when needed.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing I have found in terms of making shopping easier isn't so much planning for meals as planning for leftovers - if you can make a slightly larger portion of whatever you're making, and you know that the extra will be well-suited for inclusion in a meal the next day, then you can shop for both the current meal and the leftovers-inspired new meal the next day. For example, if you did a larger than usual batch of roasted broccoli, then the next day you might make roasted cream of broccoli soup (so on the day you picked up the broccoli, you'd also get an onion and some cream or milk), or you could make veggie fried rice - an especially good option if your meal the night before includes both broccoli and rice - (so pick up a couple three other things that you like in your fried rice, like maybe corn and carrots or whatever, and then combine them with your leftover broccoli and rice from the night before).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of fried rice, you can pretty much throw all leftovers in there and it works ok. Same thing with eggs, scramble up your eggs with whatever veggies and starch you have leftover from the night before for a fritatta or omelette or whatever format you are into.
Erin, I like that suggestion!
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