I love this! I feel like I’ve been sub-consciously doing this to an extent (read: I constantly make ground beef tacos and your chicken flautas!), but I love the idea of really committing to it for the week. The other thing I like to do to get out of a meal planning rut is think in categories: ie, one taco night, one pasta night, one grilled chicken and veggie night, one sandwich night, and one breakfast for dinner night. Then I can do different recipes within each category for variety but I can come up with those recipes more easily.
May 18, 2023·edited May 18, 2023Liked by Caroline Chambers
Hi! New subscriber here, and so happy to be here. This is such a simple idea that makes so much sense! TBH, Even though I love to cook, I've been doing Blue Apron bc it does all of the work for me, and as a new mom and a person with a 9-5, it all felt like much too much. But this approach is great and feels manageable and I will be trying it (likely with 7 of your recipes!) Thank you!
I love this and truly don’t know how people survive without meal planning. Another thing that helps is putting meals on our shared calendar. Helps for that “delegate” piece, but also when I’m stuck and can’t think of any meals. I just look back to previous weeks / months and get ideas. This also helps me remember when we have something that may impact meals (“oh we have XYZ that night, I don’t need to cook”). Thanks for always providing great content!
My tip for meal planning and grocery shopping is to divide your grocery list up by department. I take a sheet of paper and draw lines to divide it up into quarters: one for fruits and veggies, one for meat and bread, one for pantry items, and one for dairy and frozen stuff. I fill in the ingredients as I pick recipes. This helps me move through the grocery store quickly and know that I’ve found all the items in each section before I move onto the next. Meal planning is both the best and worst thing I do as a working parent - it makes my weeknights so much easier, but it also eats up a lot of time on the weekend between finding recipes and planning out the week. Your recipes make it easier, of course!
This is exactly the step-by-step overview my brain needs.
Also, I have now cooked several WTC meals for my big three-family dinner-share. This is a rotating Monday where everyone shows up with their own plates/bowls, eats, socializes, then leaves with their dirty dishes. As the cook, you just cook way more of a recipe, but your cleanup is the same, and you only cook once ever three Mondays. RAVE REVIEWS for all of them.
This is so freaking brilliant!!! I do something like this with self care activities that keep me from losing my mind, and now I’ll have my meal prep version! Thank you!!!
I posted my substack and linked to this post, did it come through on your end? Unclear if I know how to use technology properly! Here's the link! https://substack.com/inbox/post/83737540
I just want to say that this made me tear up when I got to the end because it feels just SO helpful and doable. You’re saving the world one kitchen at a time 🥹🏆
One thing that helps me with the planning part is having a framework I make meals over the course of the week fit in. For example: 1 meal that can be made ahead, 1 meal with tofu as the protein, 1 pound dried beans used (sometimes that’s 2 meals and other times that’s a soup I can freeze some of for lunches), one meal with fish, etc… For me that helps with the decision making for the different meals.
Ugh, this is PERFECT timing. My husband and I literally just had a conversation last night about the fact that we are sick of making two dinners every night (one for us, one for my 5 yo who only eats beige food). We decided that there will always be a safe food (he reliably eats carrots and apples, so at least there will be that) and if he doesn't want to eat what I've prepared, he can make himself a PB&J. It will mean changing up some of the things we cook for ourselves (soyrizo soup will always be too spicy for my kids right now), but if we source enough meals that I can at least pull SOMETHING out of to feed the wee beasties, life will be happier. I'll look forward to sitting down and having a good think about this soon. Thank you!
Yes I am so so so sick of making the beasts their own meal. I love the nights that I get it together early enough that we can all eat together. They really can eat most of the things I want to, just altered in kid ways or leaving out certain parts of the adult meal and adding some fruit or something! It's just figuring those meals out. My menu that i listed might be a good one for you, too!
I love this process! There’s an app called paprika that costs $5 and does all of this seamlessly. I recommend it to everyone I know. There’s a running joke that I’m the paprika evangelist!
I have a dilemma! I have kept a running list of favourites for a while- read: I started last year, but my problem is that I don’t really *adore* any of them. some I do, but it’s pretty dependant on the season and where I ate said meal. So I never cook anything more than twice! which leads me to an incredible amount of worry about if I (or the people I’m cooking for) will enjoy the meal. Does anyone have any advice for this? Should I just totally discard my current list of favourites that aren’t actually tried and trues? Or should I just continue as I am ?(tbh it is great for my creativity in the kitchen- but it can make me feel like a bad cook)
After following for a year, I'm finally a paid subscriber, and this right here is worth it!! Such a simple, yet brilliant concept! I've been stuck in this overwhelmed mom meal-planning block for a while but I feel like I can finally see with some clarity how meal planning can work for our family. Hallelujah and thank you!!
I have been saying for a *LONG* time (years!?!!) that I’ve been wanting to do MP. But, with my ADHD brain and crazy long hours workdays, I’ve never been able to start planning MP.
My sister and a friend have each previously told me about having “theme nights” (Meatless Mondays, Salad Night, Fish Night, etc.) but I couldn’t even make that work.
You have so eloquently put this together that I’m thinking “how can I *not* follow this?”!
It’s just my DD and me and I like our leftovers for another dinner, I may start out with baby steps and have a 3 or 5 meal starter plan (but include some other regular meals to rotate with).
I love this! I feel like I’ve been sub-consciously doing this to an extent (read: I constantly make ground beef tacos and your chicken flautas!), but I love the idea of really committing to it for the week. The other thing I like to do to get out of a meal planning rut is think in categories: ie, one taco night, one pasta night, one grilled chicken and veggie night, one sandwich night, and one breakfast for dinner night. Then I can do different recipes within each category for variety but I can come up with those recipes more easily.
Really really smart. Knowing it's sandwich night or taco night etc really does give so much structure to the "what's for dinner" conundrum.
Hi! New subscriber here, and so happy to be here. This is such a simple idea that makes so much sense! TBH, Even though I love to cook, I've been doing Blue Apron bc it does all of the work for me, and as a new mom and a person with a 9-5, it all felt like much too much. But this approach is great and feels manageable and I will be trying it (likely with 7 of your recipes!) Thank you!
Makes me sooo happy to hear! It really is so so so helpful!
I love this and truly don’t know how people survive without meal planning. Another thing that helps is putting meals on our shared calendar. Helps for that “delegate” piece, but also when I’m stuck and can’t think of any meals. I just look back to previous weeks / months and get ideas. This also helps me remember when we have something that may impact meals (“oh we have XYZ that night, I don’t need to cook”). Thanks for always providing great content!
REALLY smart putting it in the calendar!!!
My tip for meal planning and grocery shopping is to divide your grocery list up by department. I take a sheet of paper and draw lines to divide it up into quarters: one for fruits and veggies, one for meat and bread, one for pantry items, and one for dairy and frozen stuff. I fill in the ingredients as I pick recipes. This helps me move through the grocery store quickly and know that I’ve found all the items in each section before I move onto the next. Meal planning is both the best and worst thing I do as a working parent - it makes my weeknights so much easier, but it also eats up a lot of time on the weekend between finding recipes and planning out the week. Your recipes make it easier, of course!
This is such a great tip. The quadrant is so smart. Could definitely apply that to your family's "menu" to make shopping easier.
Omg. Quadrant grocery list just blew my mind!!
This is exactly the step-by-step overview my brain needs.
Also, I have now cooked several WTC meals for my big three-family dinner-share. This is a rotating Monday where everyone shows up with their own plates/bowls, eats, socializes, then leaves with their dirty dishes. As the cook, you just cook way more of a recipe, but your cleanup is the same, and you only cook once ever three Mondays. RAVE REVIEWS for all of them.
This is so freaking brilliant!!! I do something like this with self care activities that keep me from losing my mind, and now I’ll have my meal prep version! Thank you!!!
Ok now I am dying to see your self care rotation!!!
I'm going to write about it on my substack next week! And I'll tag this post as the inspo! I think I can do that, right? And you'll be notified?
Oh cool!! I'm not sure but if not pls come back and put the link here! Xo
I posted my substack and linked to this post, did it come through on your end? Unclear if I know how to use technology properly! Here's the link! https://substack.com/inbox/post/83737540
I didn't get notified but this is amazing. The Menu for self care! OBSESSED. And needed it today when I couldn't think of how to de-stress.
This is exactly why I love it! When you're stressed, you simply CAN'T come up with ideas and like this you don't have to!
I will! Let's see if I understand technology well enough! hahaha.
I just want to say that this made me tear up when I got to the end because it feels just SO helpful and doable. You’re saving the world one kitchen at a time 🥹🏆
Oh my gosh, made my night. I'm so glad this is resonating!!!
One thing that helps me with the planning part is having a framework I make meals over the course of the week fit in. For example: 1 meal that can be made ahead, 1 meal with tofu as the protein, 1 pound dried beans used (sometimes that’s 2 meals and other times that’s a soup I can freeze some of for lunches), one meal with fish, etc… For me that helps with the decision making for the different meals.
So so so smart.
Ugh, this is PERFECT timing. My husband and I literally just had a conversation last night about the fact that we are sick of making two dinners every night (one for us, one for my 5 yo who only eats beige food). We decided that there will always be a safe food (he reliably eats carrots and apples, so at least there will be that) and if he doesn't want to eat what I've prepared, he can make himself a PB&J. It will mean changing up some of the things we cook for ourselves (soyrizo soup will always be too spicy for my kids right now), but if we source enough meals that I can at least pull SOMETHING out of to feed the wee beasties, life will be happier. I'll look forward to sitting down and having a good think about this soon. Thank you!
Yes I am so so so sick of making the beasts their own meal. I love the nights that I get it together early enough that we can all eat together. They really can eat most of the things I want to, just altered in kid ways or leaving out certain parts of the adult meal and adding some fruit or something! It's just figuring those meals out. My menu that i listed might be a good one for you, too!
we have a Google Keep note where we plan out our meals (usually) but the idea of repeating recipes is really good & will be useful going forward.
I love this process! There’s an app called paprika that costs $5 and does all of this seamlessly. I recommend it to everyone I know. There’s a running joke that I’m the paprika evangelist!
I have a dilemma! I have kept a running list of favourites for a while- read: I started last year, but my problem is that I don’t really *adore* any of them. some I do, but it’s pretty dependant on the season and where I ate said meal. So I never cook anything more than twice! which leads me to an incredible amount of worry about if I (or the people I’m cooking for) will enjoy the meal. Does anyone have any advice for this? Should I just totally discard my current list of favourites that aren’t actually tried and trues? Or should I just continue as I am ?(tbh it is great for my creativity in the kitchen- but it can make me feel like a bad cook)
I say continue as you are! When the repetition becomes untenable, you'll shake things up willingly, effortlessly, without stress.
After following for a year, I'm finally a paid subscriber, and this right here is worth it!! Such a simple, yet brilliant concept! I've been stuck in this overwhelmed mom meal-planning block for a while but I feel like I can finally see with some clarity how meal planning can work for our family. Hallelujah and thank you!!
Where is the peeler and how do i cut the carrot- literally questions from tonight
Definitely going to put practice to work in 2023
Thank you so much for this!!
I have been saying for a *LONG* time (years!?!!) that I’ve been wanting to do MP. But, with my ADHD brain and crazy long hours workdays, I’ve never been able to start planning MP.
My sister and a friend have each previously told me about having “theme nights” (Meatless Mondays, Salad Night, Fish Night, etc.) but I couldn’t even make that work.
You have so eloquently put this together that I’m thinking “how can I *not* follow this?”!
It’s just my DD and me and I like our leftovers for another dinner, I may start out with baby steps and have a 3 or 5 meal starter plan (but include some other regular meals to rotate with).
You are my ROCKSTAR! I appreciate YOU!!
I keep going back to the Good Mood Food plans when I need inspiration! Can’t wait for the next one whenever it debuts.