What’s for Dinner? Always have an answer with these 5 steps!
Update July 2023: Looking back at old posts is always fun. I wrote this in the fall of 2020, and this system continues to serve my family, and I hope it encourages you!
Preparing daily meals is practical, incessant and spiritual—whether it be for yourself or a small army.
Imagine getting a last-minute call that overnight guests are on their way and breathing a sigh of relief as you head to your freezer because:
there is ground beef and onions already browned for tacos,
spaghetti sauce ready to be heated and poured over your choice of pasta,
a hearty soup, ready to thaw as you make biscuits,
or maybe a fruit pie, lasagna or chicken casserole that simply needs time to heat in the oven!
While this post isn’t about hosting or freezer meals, it is about having a weekly meal plan—which certainly could include frozen pizza, rotisserie chicken from the grocery store or take-out every now and then too!
At my grandma’s celebration of life, we shared how not only did she weave her faith into everyday life, but she reflected her love for us through food!
For a special season, I worked at an outreach school just minutes from this grandma's home, and I enjoyed spending my lunch break with her about once a week. One of my favourite lunches she would prepare was lasagna. She took out individually wrapped pieces from the freezer and heated them. This was delicious and ingenious for someone living alone!
This is love!
Our larger family gatherings at her home were always around a banqueting table.
No matter the situation she was prepared to make us feel welcome.
Did I mention she had two giant freezers filled with pies and other provisions? She was a modern pioneer woman.
Since offering four questions to ask if we want to read our Bibles more in Starved Souls, I am responding to the other struggle reflected in a survey I put out on social media—meals!
“Food matters because it's one of the things that forces us to live in this world—this tactile, physical, messy, and beautiful world—no matter how hard we try to escape into our minds and our ideals. Food is a reminder of our humanity, our fragility, our createdness.”
Shauna Niequist, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes
If you live on your own, these 5 steps will prepare you to invite others in to enjoy connection around the table, and for those of us who already have a small army, this will help us cherish our mealtimes rather than burst into tears when asked one more time:
“What’s for dinner?”
1. Brainstorm
Make a list of your favorite meals:
If there are other members in your household, ask them to contribute.
If you are struggling to come up with ideas on your own, look through recipe books or websites and ask a few friends or family members for their favourites.
Continue to add, or delete items from this collection over time.
You can get a list of easy meal ideas over at my resource page!
Disclaimer: we do not have any allergies or food sensitivities, and we are not foodies. My goal is practical, efficient, inexpensive and healthy.
I love how Shauna Niequest goes on to say:
“But our goal, remember, is to feed around our table the people we love. We’re not chefs or restaurateurs or culinary school graduates, and we shouldn’t try to be. Make it the way the people you love want to eat it.”
2. Plan
Once you have compiled a list, refer to it as you plan the next week of dinners. This saves you from daily deliberating and decision fatigue!
Here are a few tips:
I look ahead at our week and the events, activities, guests and outings coming up and then map out suitable suppers.
This often includes leftovers or a double portion from a meal that I will freeze for a day when we will be out or need a quick alternative.
Whether you use a kitchen chalkboard, scribble on a notepad or type into a calendar app, writing it down takes away all the stress!
I keep an eye on our supplies for snacks, breakfasts and lunches but don't usually pencil these in anywhere, as they come together easily and organically in our home. If you want to jot out ideas for all three meals, go for it!
3. Gather
However you shop, make it routine by picking a regular day of the week. Again this relieves decision fatigue. Of course, I deviate from this sometimes, just like my meal plan, but knowing there is usually a time or day to focus on a certain task saves so much brain power.
Here are a few tips:
As you make your meal plan, add items to your grocery list.
Develop a habit of recording any items needed or depleted in a simple list app as soon as you think of them (or I will go ahead and add them to my online grocery order if there is one in progress).
Shop the house first! Produce may be ripe, or items in the cupboard or freezer may be expiring and could be worked into the menu.
I used to shop every two weeks but transitioned to once a week as our family grew!
If the store you regularly visit has incentives or bonuses, plan your shopping trip to benefit from these money-saving programs.
Superstore works well where I live in western Canada (along with the occasional Costco haul). I use the PC Express app to make my weekly order. The 'quick shop' section is wonderful as it curates my regularly purchased items, so I can quickly select our ‘regulars’ and then price compare where needed through the search bar. Another bonus to shopping weekly at Superstore (for a large family) is we usually qualify for most of the weekly PC bonus gifts!
I only wish grocery pick-up was available when I first became a mom.
Nothing beats driving up to the store, calling in, reading a book for a few minutes and then watching all my groceries appear in the back of my van—often with a bonus gift!
Yes, I really should be getting some kind of kickback for how much I promote PC Express, but I’m just a big fan.
4. Prep, Cook or Freeze
Have you found yourself doing the same types of food preparation day after day?
More tips:
I enjoy green onions and peppers in my scrambled eggs each morning, and for some reason, I was chopping these daily when I finally realized the cutting board and knife only needed to come out once a week. Storing a week's worth of these pre-cut items in the fridge has been so helpful. Many items can be batch prepared when you know your meal plan for the week.
If you didn’t notice at the start, I am a big fan of cooking and freezing. One of my favourite meats to prepare ahead is ground beef. I will fry a stock pot of ground beef and a large pan of onions. I mix these and portion them into Ziploc bags to freeze for things like tacos, soups, stroganoff, loaded nachos etc., and often use some of the freshly cooked beef to make a pot of meat sauce to freeze for spaghetti or building a lasagna!
If I make a more involved meal, I will purposefully cook double, freeze the second half, or save it in the fridge for another meal that week (we don’t mind leftovers here).
If this sounds like a lot of extra work, it really isn’t, and these investments will pay off for weeks to come.
5. Consume & Connect
Engaging conversations are often not on the menu when the baby fusses to be nursed and the toddler throws food at the ceiling.
Even though we journeyed this for a decade, I can say it goes fast!
While our two-year-old still makes messes and fusses at times, our meal times feel way more sane with six kids ages 2-10 then when we had three little ones, three and under!
Research shows that family meals are imperative to the health of a family and, sadly, becoming a lost art. Technology and activities are starving families from slow meals that facilitate rich conversations.
In the blog post Dear Mama, I said “PB&J's will suffice if gourmet is in the gathering.”
No matter what you eat, gathering around the table is about much more than food.
If regular meal times haven’t been a priority, start with very simple meals while developing the habit of eating together.
“We don't learn to love each other well in the easy moments. Anyone is good company at a cocktail party. But love is born when we misunderstand one another and make it right, when we cry in the kitchen, when we show up uninvited with magazines and granola bars, in an effort to say, I love you.”― Shauna Niequist, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes
Whether we live independently, with a group of friends, or with our families, taking five minutes to meal plan each week will provide us with more open doors into the hearts of those we love.
Here’s a quick review:
1) Brainstorm—save and edit this list of meal ideas over the years!
2) Plan—5 minutes, once a week!
3) Gather—save on decision fatigue by shopping on the same day each week when possible!
4) Prepare, Cook or Freeze—prepare chopped items at once, cook double batches, and enjoy the gift of having meals in the freezer!
5 ) Consume & Connect—gathering together to make meaningful connections around the table is the WHY behind all of this!
As we look ahead to Thanksgiving weekend, I pray that no matter how this pandemic distances some of our gatherings, there will still be many rich conversations and heart-felt connections made around a table filled with delicious food.
I love connecting with readers!
Share your favourite meal-planning hacks in the comments below or on social media…
