We still have meal planning on our mind from our last episode, Ep 43. What if weekly meal planning could be stripped back to just 3 simple steps instead of a big affair on Sunday? Today our goal is to give Bethany, an aspiring home cook, the simplest meal plan possible.
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Summer Photo Organizing
As a challenge this summer, we are focusing on getting our photos organized based on Molly Bullard’s advice from Episode 41 Organizing your Photos.
One of her suggestions is to decide what “done looks like for you” before you start organizing your photos. This is such a great advice because photos can be such a huge task and can easily become a never ending project with always more to-do!
So Bethany and I are choosing what done looks like for our photos and focusing on one small task every other week to move us closer to our done. For me, I am finishing the layout for my 2016 family photo book (Yes, I said 2016!). Bethany is sharing her 2017-2018 classroom photos with her kinder families via dropbox (in episode 41 Molly goes into detail about sharing photos).
For this challenge, start with 10 focused minutes on your photos and see how far you get. Set your timer and dive in. For larger project like this, we often drag our feet, but once you get stated the project usually doesn’t feel as daunting.
We’d love to hear what your done looks like. You can share your progress with us below in the comments or on social media. Use the hashtags #AtoBpodcast. What are you going to conquer today?
Meal Planning
One quick search on your computer brings up so many ways to create a meal plan it can become overwhelming. For Bethany, this overwhelming step has left her frozen, unable to know how to plan her own weekly meals. What results is a frozen pizza or a quick stop for food on the way home from work.
But meal planning doesn’t have to be complicated! Let’s start with what we know and keep everything super simple. The goal is to make meal planning a successful experience for a beginning home cook like Bethany. So grab a pen and paper and follow along with us.
Step 1: Create a Master List of Meal Options
Brainstorm all the meals you know how to make. Meal you can make with or without a recipe. Don’t be stingy. List them all out. You know how to make scrambled eggs? Perfect, write it down.
Include meals you don’t get around to making too often but still love. But don’t include any meals you know how to make but don’t really like, leave them off the list altogether.
If you have a long list of meals in your repertoire, (skip the pen and paper) grab your computer and arrange them by main ingredient or by how you cook it (ex. grill, crockpot).
Here is a small excerpt of how my master list of meals is laid out.
Pasta
Peanut Pasta- wheat pasta, broccoli, pb, rice vinegar, soy sauce, scallions
Pasta Salad- pasta, grilled veggies-zucchini, onion, bell pepper, eggplant
Tuna Casserole- pasta, tuna (2), celery, onion, bread crumbs
Crockpot
Italian Pot Roast- beef chuck roast, canned tomatoes, potatoes, onions
Salsa Verde Pork- bone-in pork, salsa verde(12oz), onion, chicken broth, cilantro
Pulled pork sandwiches- bone-in pork shoulder, onion, carrots, celery, orange juice, lime juice, apple-cider vinegar
This list of meals, I also call my Menu Selection Page is at the front of my recipe binder, just like a table of contents.
As you can see above, I include the main ingredients next to the name of the meal. These are the items I would need to add to my grocery list (I leave out the pantry staples I always have on hand). With everything on one page, I can quickly scan to see what ingredients are required for a certain dish and add them to my grocery list as needed.
Step 1.5: Look for complimentary meals
Now that you have your new master list of possible meals, find meals that can coordinate together. Similar to planning outfits for a trip, do you have a side from one meal that can be the base of another meal?
For instance, one night’s meal can be chicken salad. Any leftover salad can be a side dish for the following night’s meal. (Prepare ahead by putting some un-dressed salad to the side so you don’t have soggy salad the next day). Another idea is to make a bunch of shredded chicken in the crockpot that can then be used for multiple meals throughout the week.
Creativity is your friend during this step so don’t be afraid to try something new and tweak as needed! This recipe for Cumin Roasted Salmon is proof of that! (You’ll have to listen the episode if you missed it.)
Not all your meals need to build upon one another but start with getting at least 2 or 3 meals during the week to overlap in one way or another so you are not starting from square one each night.
Step 2: List out 5 meals
From your master list, pick 5 meals for this coming week that coordinate with each other. You could pick out a full 7 days worth of meals but I like have some wiggle room through the week for leftovers or whatever else comes up.
Then head to the store with your grocery list for the 5 meals. I use the app, Out of Milk, so my husband and I can share the list and I can have multiple lists sorted by store.
Once you done grocery shopping, keep your list of meals on the fridge. That’s it!
There is no need to plan out what your having on each specific day, although you can totally plan that out if you want! Your meal plan can be as simple as having a list of 5 meals on the fridge that remind you the options for dinner. You already have all the ingredients so you are set!
Step 3: Plan to ask, “What’s for Dinner?”
This sounds like the silliest step of all that you could totally skip, but don’t do it! Plan a time to look at your list of meals for the week and decide what you are having for dinner. Plan this ahead of time, not as you are walking in the door after work. It could be the night before or in the morning as you are eating breakfast.
You could even set a timer on your phone for the night before or in the morning to ask yourself, “What’s for dinner?” It makes a difference in how your approach your meal if you already know ahead of time. I can’t quite explain it but if you don’t believe me, try it for one week and see what you think. I think you’ll become a convert!
Do you plan your meals out or do you wing it every night or are you somewhere in between? Let us know!
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