Meal planning
One thing the pandemic did for me was to turn me into a meal planner. There are only two of us, so I’d never planned meals ahead before, but if you only shop curbside pickup once a week and don’t eat out, you need to do some planning ahead. Some things I’ve learned:
It’s best to make larger batches of foods that can be frozen for future meals or eaten as leftovers. It’s easier to cook larger amounts and we don’t always feel like cooking every night, so it’s nice to have food already made.
Meal kits are okay, but still involve actually cooking a meal and that meal isn’t going to give you good leftovers for when you don’t feel like cooking. Ditto for recipes that serve two.
There’s a certain comfort in knowing what you’ll be eating every night and knowing that you have the right ingredients on hand and thawed. There are no longer those evenings where you have lots of ingredients, but no idea what to make.
If you have a plan and ingredients, it’s easier and cheaper to cook than order out.
We have less food waste and fewer things expiring in the pantry.
Here’s my dinner plan for the next few days:
Tonight I made paneer spinach with basmati rice with enough left over for lunch tomorrow.
Tomorrow we have chili from the freezer—already thawing in the fridge.
Wednesday is pot roast in the slow cooker with baked potatoes and a vegetable from the freezer to be decided. It’s a big roast, so most will be portioned out and frozen for future reference.
Thursday is chicken burritos made from chicken thighs that I will have remembered to thaw ahead of time. Extra burritos go into the freezer.
Friday is pizza made from frozen dough, again thawed ahead of time because I know I’ll be making pizza.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Or...Repeats. Sometimes 3peats.
Most meals we cook enough for at least two meals.
The day off from the kitchen is nice.
