Hi Friends,
Wow, the first week of the new year was a bit, well, crazy. You may have been a little distracted by going back to work for the first time after the holidays, getting kids back in school, going back to school, and then you realized your fridge was empty.
I went grocery shopping this week. I usually get excited for this; however, I found myself a little blah. I didn’t have a great idea of what I wanted to cook this week, the market section at the grocery store is always bare bones, and I just felt scattered. Do you ever feel like this?
I am not new to meal planning; yet, I find myself always learning new things. Getting back in the swing of daily routine is hard, and this week, I found myself with fresh groceries but nothing for lunch. Clearly, my meal planning needs some creativity. Meal planning isn’t a quick process but we can make it an easy one!
First, let’s talk about how to meal plan to avoid feeling scattered and hungry. First, ask yourself “what do I have going on this week?” Are you in meetings, taking your kids to events, an athlete getting ready for a competitive season with competitions? Check out the calendar, this could easily tell you 1) I need to pack a lunch/dinner, 2) plan to go out to eat, 3) if you have time to have a home cooked meal.
Start small. Instead of thinking you need to conquer every single meal, start with one meal such as dinner. Dinner leftovers can always become lunch!
Where to start?
Here are 4 action items to get started:
- Pick recipes
Where is your favorite go-to for recipes? Cookbooks, instagram, pinterest, websites, etc. Mine are all of the above! To be honest, I start with social media, then once I make a few meals, then I invest in the actual cookbook. In college, I would try to use cookbooks. I hated when they didn’t have a picture. One good thing about social media is there is always pictures!
I save a lot of ideas on my pinerest board. I use websites for the actual recipe or cooking instructions and if there’s a video, even better!
Take a look at some of my faves: Half Baked Harvest, Run Fast, Eat Slow, Cravings by Chrissy, Dennis Prescott, Earthy Andy, and Running on Real Food.
- Grocery shop
Next, make a list or two. Make an ingredient list and a “you’re out of list”. That way you cross off ingredients you already have and catch items you are out of at the house; however, you can’t grocery shop without making a list first! Collect the top 3-4 recipes you want to cook at home and review their ingredients. Save money (and time) by using recipes that call for similar ingredients. This allows you to use as much as you can to eliminate wasting food. For example, if you want to make a steak salad and spinach stuffed chicken, then you can easily use a spinach based salad mix.
Now, go shopping! Everyone has their favorite grocery store(s), pick a day you have the time to shop for the items on your list. Pro tip: don’t go grocery shopping hungry. Everything will start to look “good” and throw you off your game. Stick to the list, start with dry goods, and then to fresh goods. Shopping the perimeter is always an easy way to stick with more fresh foods.
- The Prep
Once you get home and put all the items in the appropriate places. Take a breathe. Big sigh. Now you can choose to prep or leave it for later. Your choice and really based on your schedule. There are times where I like to prep immediately after shopping and there are times, like this week, where I barely made it to the store before work. Getting it in the fridge and leaving for work was the end goal.
But seriously, pick a day that you schedule “prep” into your schedule to see how long you need to schedule, look back at your recipes, how do they say items need to be cut and/or cooked. Do you need to cut up vegetables, marinate the proteins, or mix together some sauces/dressings? If so, make it fun! Put on your favorite playlist and get after it. Once you’ve cut, marinated, or mixed, store it correctly.
The prep is what you make it. You don’t have to do it all at once. It’s easy to see professionals get on social and do it all. They batch cook, cut loads of vegetables, freeze meals, and so on. If you’re new to meal planning and you’re on to prepping the meals, you have already accomplished what you wanted to do: Meal Plan.
- Cook
Finally, the fun part, COOKING! After you have done all of the leg work above, cooking is the part where you see it all come together! Remember, you picked recipes that has pictures and videos, you can’t fail, maybe burn something or overcook the food but you’re not failing! Over time, this process gets easier and faster. You will start to notice cook time decreases significantly because you’ve already completed the hard part above. Best part of cooking is there is usually leftovers, which makes lunch easier! Again, have fun cooking the meals you PLANNED. Follow the recipe instructions and give yourself some patience with the process!