(An African peanut stew I made a while back, one of our favorite soup recipes!)
Baking has always been something I enjoyed, but cooking, not so much. Cooking has felt like a necessary evil for so many years, with five babies coming right after another, and feeling like 50% of those ten years we were in low-key survival mode. But my kids haven't been babies for years (it feels sad to say that), and it's time to get my act together and figure out how to make cooking dinner something I can enjoy, with more meaningful and enjoyable end products for my family.
However, zeal doesn't equal skill, and a major hangup for me in cooking for my family well has been meal planning.
In our 14 years of marriage, I've never really meal-planned. When it was just Derek and me, and we were working it didn't feel necessary - we'd figure something out together when we got home. When I had babies, it felt impossible, and so I just scrounged in the pantry each night around 5:00 to see what I could come up with. Over the past couple of years I have tried a few times to make a meal plan, but it ended with me rearranging meals until the plan was unrecognizable and then giving up.
This post may just be a cry for help. Meal-planning gurus, teach me your ways!
All that said, I've realized anew recently that cooking good meals consistently is one tangible way to show my family I love them, to serve them well, and by serving them to also serve the Lord in the way He has called me to. So figuring out this meal-planning issue is no small thing.
When we recently visited family in North Carolina, my sister-in-law made an interesting point as we were talking about cooking and meal planning - she said she finds that if she can just plan three meals a week, things have a tendency to work out. If she can plan and make time to fix those three meals, the other two nights of the week they can eat leftovers, and the weekends often include eating outside the house, so thoroughly planning only three meals a week is sufficient.
When she said that, meal-planning suddenly seemed a little more doable. So I think going forward this fall, planning three meals a week will be my goal.
Here are my three meals this week:
-Pesto pasta with bell peppers and sausage
-Chicken enchiladas
-Roast chicken and vegetables
Meal-planning experts, this is where you tell me all your secrets! Comment or send me an email please!
I am not an expert at meal planning at all. Meals are easier for me than ever with just one kid (albeit a fussy one) at home so I wouldn't say that I struggle anymore. But, I don't and have never formally meal planned. In thinking about it, I sort of subconsciously adhere to what your SIL said. Before I grocery shop, I think of three meals for sure to make for the week. Then we have leftovers (hopefully!), I can wing one or possibly two meals a week (much easier with just three people to have to consider) and we almost always eat out one meal a week and more if we have to. I wish I had a good tip for you. Maybe one would be that you're never too old to keep trying new dishes. Don't feel like you have to make the same things. As I have more spare time with an emptier nest, I find that I enjoy looking at recipes and trying new ones.
I can't even imagine not meal planning, haha! I know what you mean about survival mode, though. It fell by the wayside when I had babies as well, and even in the toddler years it's been hard, but I need the structure. Here are my tips: one night a week (ours is Friday) for take out. For the weekend, I make really simple meals, like BLTs or hot dogs. Sunday is our sabbath, so I do a crockpot meal or a snack dinner. During the week, this time of year I'll make a soup we can eat from for two nights, maybe a night of breakfast for dinner (egg and sausage burritos, hashbrowns with eggs and cheese and avocado, french toast, etc), and then on a day when I'm home and not running to an activity, I'll usually attempt a new recipe. Having some sort of structure helps me a lot, and I have a rotation of recipes we all love which helps as well.
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