Why Meal Planning Doesn't Work

If you still find it hard to accept that the only way you're ever going to really lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you expend (I know I do), you may want to just stop reading now. Because I'm going to explain why A Year of Meal Planning was over after just a couple of months. 

I've learned that while you do have to buy groceries (which I was already doing a decent job of) and think about a week ahead (which I was also doing fairly well) to put wholesome meals on your family's table and lunchboxes, an overflowing pantry and a list of planned meals a mile long still won't guarantee success. 

So what, then, do you have to do to get your family fed?:  

1. Think ahead about what meals you'll need to prepare for the week and shop accordingly.
2. Cook (or prepare) and assemble them into meals. If you've stocked your freezer casseroles, as a lot of "planners" advocate, remember that you can't eat them frozen, so allow time to thaw and reheat.

That's it. You can do all the elaborate planning you want, but unless you plan to cook (and actually do it), your family will be eating restaurant food or carry-out pizza, despite your best intentions.

No amount of meal planning works if you don't cook! 

Others posts in the series (which are only useful in conjunction with the act of cooking): 

My New Year's Resolution

Off to a Good Start

Trying Two New Recipes

10 Days of Meals (Not Mine)

New Year's Resolution Update

A balanced, nutritious (and often even delicious) dinner has made it to our table most nights so far this year. Of course, a few poorly scheduled days and evenings have resulted in a few unexpected pizzas, but overall we have done very well. Our grocery expenditures are within budget and our restaurant spending is now under control and in a reasonable range.

In summary, though 2013: A Year of Meal Planning only made it a few posts into the new year, I think "planning to cook" is here to stay!

How are your resolutions going?   

10 Days of Meals (Not Mine!)

For me, it turns out that getting a homemade dinner on the table every night does not seem to depend on planning. Planning does not always equal food on the dinner plates. 

A list of what will be served and when does not help me at all.  What helps me is having on hand what I need to prepare several dishes my family likes. And setting aside time to cook is what makes it happen! Sometimes that means preparing it the day before. And most times that means having the same thing two nights in a row. Fortunately, no one around here minds leftovers!

My method:

THINK ABOUT THE WEEK AHEAD

When making the list for Sunday afternoon grocery shopping (the whole family goes), I note of four or five dishes I'd like to make (and eat) for the week. Most dishes on the list will feed all three of us twice.

MAKE A LIST

Then I add all the necessary ingredients and accompaniments for those meals to the list. 

COOK WHEN YOU HAVE TIME TO BE READY FOR WHEN YOU DON'T

Some nights when I'm not busy, I'll prepare two or three dishes at a time. Read about my cooking nights here  and here.

PLAN FOR TOMORROW

Once the fridge and pantry are properly stocked, it's just a matter of thinking about dinner more than an hour before dinner- preferably at least the evening before. 

10 Days of Meals from Katherine at rhymes with smile

If you like a more structured system, one of my quilting friends has come up with one of the easiest and best plans I've seen (and I've done lots of research). Follow these links to read her posts:

My New Way to Plan Food (Part 3): This is the genius part!
My New Way to Plan Food (Part 2): Read Katherine's Meal Planning Rules here.
My New Way to Plan Food (Part 1): Why Katherine wants and needs to plan her family's meals.
10 Days of Meal Plans
10 More Days of Meals Plans

What's your secret to getting dinner on the table every night?

Trying Two New Recipes

Steve's friend came over to visit, leaving me with the whole afternoon to cook! Only three days into my New Year's Resolution, I'm starting to think it's more about actually getting into the kitchen and cooking ahead more than it is about planning. I've always had plenty of plans- and plenty of trouble following through with them.  I may change my little graphic to "What's Cookin' in 2013?".

Spicy Bean and Lentil Loaf

I copied this recipe from a friend's vegetarian cookbook. There's no sense in giving you the recipe since, as usual, I changed a few things. It was very similar to this vegetarian meatloaf, except that I used no protein substitute- just beans and lentils. I wasn't really trying to replicate meatloaf. I'm not vegetarian and could've made a meatloaf. It's just that I like Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burgers, so I thought I might like this. If it turns out well, and I make it again to refine the recipe, I'll share it.

Veggie Stuffed Pasta Shells

On my list for this week was Veggie Stuffed Pasta Shells, loosely based on this recipe. I wanted to use the whole box of shells, so I planned on using the whole container of ricotta to increase the volume of the filling, and adding a bag of frozen spinach (thawed and squeezed very dry). Also, I like to use the whole jar of spaghetti sauce, lilke I do for my Pumpkin-Ricotta Stuffed Shells.

What I didn't plan on was forgetting to buy the pasta shells. So I dropped by a store I normally don't shop in (because I hate because they never have what I want), which didn't even have jumbo pasta shells. So I'm thinking I'm not leaving the store without something. I buy manicotti shells. Same thing, right? Wrong.

First of all, the fragile lilttle things practically come wrapped in bubble wrap! This scared me- I mean, I've even had problems with the pasta shells! Secondly, you're supposed to pipe the filling in with a pastry-icing-squeezer-thingy, which I have. But guess what? This filling is really chunky, so it won't work. (No, I didn't try- I figured it out first...)

So I took a deep breath and cooked the manicotti. They all survived the boiling, but they split a little, since they're ribbed. A few of them actually worked, but as I tried to stuff the stuffing in, some ripped further. So I opened those up and stuffed them like hot dog buns.

This is what it looked like before going into the oven. I think it'll be okey-dokey. It's not for company or anything, after all.

By the way, I love my new OXO Julienne Peeler. It came in a set along with a regular peeler and a serrated one for tomatoes and other soft fruits and veggies (haven't tried that one yet). Look what it did for my zucchini and carrots!

The veggie-stuffed manicotti just came out of the oven:

A sprinkling of shredded Parmesan cheese near the end of baking hides a multitude of sins! If this turns out to be a good recipe, I'll send you this one, too. If not, at least you know not to buy manicotti shells!

This cooking day should take us through the weekend and keep us out of restaurants. If we decide to eat out, it'll be because we want to, not because we have to!

Off to a Good Start

I've made New Year's Resolutions before that didn't last through the first day. But this one's important to me because it benefits my whole family. Not to mention that I've made it in public, in writing, online.  

Tonight's dinner (planned on the way home from errands- anytime before I drive up the driveway counts as planned): 

• mashed potatoes (freshly made, leftovers will be potato cakes for breakfast tomorrow)
• corn (frozen)
• peas (frozen)
• cranberry sauce (leftover)
• gravy (turkey stock cubes w/ spices and cornstarch)

Cooked for the next two days:

• lentils
• rice (2/3 basmati, 1/3 sweet black, in chicken broth)

Later in the week, we're trying a new recipe: Veggie Stuffed Shells! Well, it's actually goin to be manicotti, because the store was out of jumbo pasta shells. It's not an obstacle, it's an opportunity to try something new. At least that's what I keep telling myself...

I think that'll take care of Week 1. How's your resolution going so far?

My New Year's Resolution

My family likes home-cooking. We want to eat food we like that's good for us. We're tired of eating fast food and pizza because I forgot to plan a meal and it's getting late, and we're sick of over-paying for mediocre food served by people who don't deserve the title of "server". We usually eat at home at least five nights a week, but we're definitely in a rut! Meals feel thrown-together and boring.

Our last restaurant meal began with sticky menus and ended with a $30 bill for two gourmet sandwiches with chips, a basket of soggy fries, and a kid's mac and cheese meal. On the way home, I mentioned that I could've made a wide range of delicious home-cooked meals for three (with leftovers) within that price range. As an added benefit, we'd even know what was in it, and under what conditions it was prepared. The next question was: Why aren't we doing it? That's when we decided.

For 2013, we're moving most of our restaurant budget into our grocery budget to upgrade our grocery purchases. Restaurant meals will be reserved for special occasions and when we can't be home for dinner.

A professor-friend touts the 5 P's: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance! I think that's the key to good family dinners. So this week, I'm eagerly digging through my recipes, new and tried-and-true. We're all excited about trying some new ones and revisiting old forgotten favorites, shaking up our dinner routine, and eating better than ever!

I'll share what I'm learning and doing as we go along. Please join me in making 2013 a Year of Meal Planning!

Leftovers is NOT a Dirty Word!

Back in April, I got on a rant about food waste and promised (or threatened, depending on how you look at it) to elaborate, but never quite got back to it. One tip in that post was to make use of all of your leftovers. Just like your fabric scraps cost the same $9-$10 a yard that the uncut yardage in your stash did, the leftovers in your fridge were once fresh groceries for which you paid your hard-earned money.

My sewing friend Lois mentioned once that her son-in-law "doesn't eat leftovers". I can't imagine anyone being so spoiled that they wouldn't eat leftovers. Dr. Phil wasn't on TV when I was dating, but he has said on his show that it's OK to have a list of a few traits that would be deal-breakers for you when choosing a mate. A sports nut, maybe I could handle. A smoker would only be allowed to smoke outside. A tobacco chewer would probably get on the no-list. But the guy who refused to eat leftovers would definitely not have been husband material for me (and wouldn't have wanted to be, I'm sure)!

Many nights in my house, if you don't eat leftovers, you don't eat! But no one minds, and I'm convinced that it helps us keep our grocery budget reasonable. In fact, I'm one of those people who plans leftovers. Last night's dinner almost finished up our pot of homemade clam chowder, so I scheduled one of my "cooking nights". That's when I put on some music and my apron and spend a few hours preparing several dishes to serve over the next few days. Here's what I made (all these items last several days in the fridge, if stored properly):

• Parmesan couscous from a boxed mix for Mabz to take in her lunch today and tomorrow, since her new braces made her teeth sore.

• A two-quart baking dish of macaroni and cheese.

• A delicious stir-fry full of colorful veggies:

My sister shared a great stir-fry recipe with me once, which I have used for years. For this one, I used my new, original, top-secret stir-fry recipe, which is much easier and tastes even better! Since you're such good friends, I'll let you in on my "secret".

Buy two 56-ounce bags of Birds Eye stir fry mix- one Thai and one Oriental (because there are slightly different veggies in each, and different sauces). Pour half of each bag into a stir-fry pan and prepare as directed. Choose one of the sauces (I used the soy-ginger from the Thai bag) and add it in. Fabulous!

• A big pot of rice for the stir-fry and other uses throughout the week.

All this gets placed in the fridge in clear glass storage containers with plastic lids. I don't mark them with dates because I don't seem to have a problem remembering when they were prepared. But it's probably advisable to do that just to be safe.

Now, for this planned leftovers concept to work for you, it's not enough just to prepare the dishes. You have to make sure that your family actually ends up eating what you have stuck in the fridge.

We have dinner rules, one of which is that we all eat together at the kitchen table every night. However, we are not required to all be eating the same thing, and often don't. Tonight, I ate stir-fry while Steve and Mabz had mac & cheese. Sometimes, all three of us may be eating something different. Other nights, I prepare something fresh that we all like. Sometimes, one night's main dish becomes the next night's side dish Sometimes it becomes the next day's lunch. You just have to keep an eye on what's in the fridge, and make sure it gets eaten before it spoils.

My hair-stylist prepares a fresh, interesting, and often elaborate meal every night for his elderly mother and himself. I asked if they ever have leftovers. He said, "Always, and I always put them in a container in the fridge, but we never eat them." If this is you, think about making good use of your leftovers. You work hard to buy food, and to prepare it. Don't throw away your money!

If planned leftovers aren't really your style, I found a meal-planning strategy on a quilting friend's blog that I plan to share with you. I've done a lot of research on meal planning, and tried lots of different methods, but Katherine's is so unique, yet so simple...  Stay tuned for those links in my next post.

Do you and your family like leftovers?