One of my favorite parts of the weekend is sitting down and putting together my meal plan and shopping list for the week ahead. For some reason I find it to be one of the most relaxing things I do. I grab a stack of cookbooks, open up my Pinterest cooking board, pour a big ol’ cup of coffee and get to work.
I didn’t always meal plan. Before I started paying attention to how healthy (or not healthy…at all…) I was eating I usually just went to the market with no list to wander around and grab things off the shelves that looked good. FYI: Chewy Chips Ahoy ALWAYS look good. So do Frosted Cheerios.
If you don’t miss Lizzie McGuire on some level you might not be human…
I haven’t always been successful at meal planning (and I’m not always still). Sometimes I’ll get a little too overzealous when planning and by Wednesday I’m so burned out on kitchen time that I’m willing to eat trail mix for dinner. Sometimes the week just gets in the way. Things come up. Meals get tossed aside and I end up having to throw away less than fresh produce (…the absolute worst feeling in the world is tossing fuzzy strawberries in the trash…especially when you felt like Indiana Jones finding a pint of rubies when you purchased them at the market).
But, still I enjoy the process. And I like to think that I’m still learning and improving my system.
Here are the most important lessons I’ve learned:
1. Technology Is Your Friend
I LOVE the Shopper and MealBoard apps. MealBoard makes it insanely easy to plan a nice visual layout of the week ahead. It’s easy to copy items multiple times so you’re not typing the same long stinking recipe title in over and over again (Hellloooooo leftover lunches!!!!). Shopper saves me from getting to the market and having a mini meltdown when I realize I left my paper list at home. I always manage to remember my phone (because I’m a slave to it). Combine these two apps and I’m like a meal planning/shopping Terminator.
2. Plan One Less Meal Than You Want To
Life happens. You plan 5 drool worthy weeknight meals but then on Thursday the dog busts out of her crate like The Incredible Hulk while you’re at work and you find yourself having to make a trip to the pet store to buy a new super-reinforced crate and there goes dinner (not that that’s ever happened here). Like it or not, something is bound to come up and I’d rather run to a store on Friday to grab ingredients for one more meal or pick up some delicious takeout than throw away some weeping lettuce.
3. Throw In A Few Easy Meals
I’m talking no recipe required, made this up in my mind, maybe it doesn’t even need to be cooked, takes less than 20 minutes including cleanup kind of easy. For me, this is usually a taco night. I cook some quinoa and beans with taco spices, chop up some veggies and have a fiesta. This is always a welcome break from double checking how many teaspoons of sriracha I’m actually supposed to be adding to a recipe to ensure that I don’t melt my tastebuds off.
4. Relax
Maybe you forget an ingredient. Maybe that new recipe you found on Pinterest kind of (really) sucked. It’s not the end of the world. There’s always a veggie burger in the freezer to comfort you.
The Sweaty Donut 