Avoiding the Stresses of Meal Planning

It's 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. The house is quiet as I sit down with my cup of coffee and open up my calendar. I select "New Event" and my world comes to a screeching halt. The cursor patiently blinks as it waits for me to enter the name of the meal we will be having this evening. 9:05 a.m., and my mind is still blank as I scramble through my repertoire of meals we eat. ...hot dogs...right now all I can think of how to make is hot dogs. 9:20 a.m., the cursor hasn't moved and its pulsing feels condescending, so I've chosen to be knee-deep in a crossword puzzle, pushing off meal planning for a little while longer.

That was a little over-the-top, but those days can be the stuff of nightmares, and they still do sneak up on me every now and then. Meal planning can be challenging, even for a confident cook. Here are some things to do to lessen the stress of choosing meals for the week:

• If you don't have a large repository of recipes to pull from, try and break your weekdays into categories and then search for those kinds of recipes. For example: Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesdays, Pasta Wednesdays, Soup & Salad/Sandwich Thursdays, Chicken Fridays, New Dessert Saturdays, New Main Dish Sundays. If you are too tired to look for a new vegetarian meal for Monday, fall back on the easy favorite of beans & rice. Tacos can always be basic ground beef and classic sides if you don't want to grill shrimp and make slaw for something new. Pasta night can be a jar of marinara from the store and you can grab a can of soup from your pantry to take care of Thursdays. Chicken night could be frozen grilled chicken strips, a rotisserie chicken from the deli, or a package of chicken breast to quickly cut up and cook in a pan, giving you more time to plan out and get excited for making new things over the weekends.

• You could also sort your week by flavor: Mid-Eastern Mondays, Italian Tuesdays, French Wednesdays, Mexican Thursdays, Asian Fridays, American Saturdays, Indian Sundays. You do you!

• Don't aim to make every night a "new food" night. You are going to be tired, you are going to be busy, and you are going to lack the funds to try something new and all of its ingredients each evening. Put one or two new items in your meal plan and fall back on what you know or simpler dishes for the rest of the week.

• Shop the grocery ads for inspiration and savings! Is chicken on sale this week? If so, you know what kind of recipes/meals to start looking for.

• Shape your meals this week around what is in season. Simply Google, "What food is in season now in your state here." Not only will this point you in the right direction for recipes and meals, but also help you save money at the store, as in-season foods are often cheaper than out-of-season.

• Keep a list, an online repository, or a binder of recipes you know and love. Pull them out when you sit down to plan and use it. Be sure to jot down all the foods/meals you know how to make that don't necessarily require a recipe, like burgers, brats, oatmeal bar, burgers, nachos, grilled cheese, etc.

• Visit the web for ideas. Google "chicken recipes," take a peek at what your favorite chefs are up to this week, go looking on Pinterest for ideas, or dig through a large recipe repository such as allrecipes.com.

• Ask your family (or friends) what they are eating for the week.

• Read through cooking magazines, cookbooks, recipes during the week--before you meal plan. Take note of what sounds or looks yummy. I know many new cooks starting out may find reading through recipes daunting, but as your confidence and time increases in the kitchen, you'll understand better how a recipe will potentially taste and what seems doable in regards to time and effort required to put it together.

• Be aware of your social and work/school calendars to use the time you're away from your kitchen to your benefit. Instant Pots and Crock-Pots really can do the heavy lifting in so many recipes. I love slow-cooker weekends when I know we'll be busy doing something during the day, but can still have a home cooked meal that evening, requiring much less effort on my part.

• Make sure your meal plan includes leftovers! Maybe it's Sunday nights where you make a point to clean out the fridge and reheat items to make a meal, or maybe you bought a roast intentionally big enough to make two meals out of. You can find a wide variety of ways to rework last night's main into something fresh and new the next day.

• Give yourself a break and schedule a night away from the kitchen. If you didn't want to go out or order in, you could grab a cooked chicken from the deli, premade mashed potatoes, and a bag of salad on your way home from school/work for a hearty dinner. Make Stouffer's do the work and buy a tray of their lasagna or mac and cheese. There are many different ways to get a hot meal in your tum without slaving over a hot stove.

• Use an electronic calendar so you can look back at what you ate last week and last month, and so on. This will also help reassure you that you truly do know how to cook more than just hot dogs!

Now simmer down, you got this! xox