My System for Planning Meals
By: Jean Anne Feldeisen
Tags: Lifestyle, Eating, Cooking, Family, Food

My System for Planning Meals

A one page way to plot the next week

Photo by Edgar Castrejon on Unsplash

Why plan your meals?

I have been married for fifty years and for most of that time I have taken on the responsibility for making 21 meals a week happen. In order to shop and prepare in an orderly way for these, it is useful to have a plan. Sometimes over the years I have planned well, other times I just wing it.

Some years I have totally reneged on the chore, letting my husband plan things (NOT happening). We ended up eating at his mother’s most of those times. So you see what I was up against. If I had been a real women’s libber I wouldn’t have put up with it, I know. But, Don has lots of other strengths, and I have always loved cooking and planning menus and grocery shopping, so I prefer doing it.

I started planning menus as a child, reading cookbooks and dreaming up the perfect summer or Christmas or Sunday menus just for fun, the way other people would do crossword puzzles. I like to think about how different ingredients would work to create an appealing recipe, and how different dishes go together into a balanced and artfully arranged meal.

There have been several phases to my meal planning life.

Obsessive new mother

Let’s see, there was the overly planned phase when my daughter was a baby and where every meal was written down and contained some new and interesting recipe. (My time was also scheduled in fifteen minute increments from 6 AM til 11 PM, and I was making her baby food, sewing her clothes and mine, taking piano lessons, canning and freezing vegetables from the garden, baking bread and going to graduate school two days a week. I eventually had a breakdown on the steps of my piano teachers’ house and quit doing a lot of those things all at once).

Happy housewife-hostess

There were those times, after I got over the obsessive phase, when my daughter was in school and my husband was building our house next to trailer where we lived. I was at home most of the day and interested in cooking. I planned the meals, made lots of desserts and breads and soups and always had food around in case someone came to visit.

When we were building the house, this happened a lot and I baked my little heart out making cookies and pies and cakes for helpers and lots of pots of coffee. (I tried nailing up one piece of sheetrock, once, until they asked me to leave and make the coffee- it was a good decision)

Too little money or too much

There were times when I was home and we had no money, when my mother or mother in law would send us home with soup or vegetables or casseroles. There were times when we had plenty of money and bought all kinds of fancy groceries, lots of liquor, had parties and wasted way too much food (and got wasted way too often).

Focus was elsewhere

There were the times when I was working and my husband was working and we rarely were at home together so we were eating out a lot and hoping for the best. Sometimes this worked out pretty well, sometimes it didn’t. At times there was nothing to eat in the house, other times there were tons of things that got thrown out because they got lost in the refrigerator and never used.

Finally grown up

When we moved to Maine, our eating lifestyle changed again. Here we have a garden and greenhouse and cows that supply milk and cream and butter, and pigs and chickens and fresh eggs. Also, I am a grandmother, have no children of my own to care for, and the good sense to realize that eating well was important to us as a family. There was no shortage of food and it made sense to cook this fresh, healthy food for our meals.

Until March, when Covid hit, I was working four days a week at an office 30 minutes from home, often arriving home at 7 PM or later. If I didn’t plan what we were going to eat, things just fell apart. My husband was usually home before me and would begin dinner but needed direction from me. We tried to discuss what to eat for dinner in the morning before work and that usually resulted in a meal.

I took to cooking a big meal on both days of the weekend as well as a soup so that we would have things to eat on my late days. It worked pretty well, though I was spending an exorbitant amount on groceries and we still ate out too often.

Seeing the end of the world

Then there was Covid-19. Suddenly, it seemed impossible to see clients face-to-face in my office. I decided to come home, bring my business into my home, and do telehealth sessions. A series of different conditions now influence my meal planning:

I spend less

At this point in my life, I have enough money for groceries but no confidence that this condition will necessarily continue. When my husband and I stop working, we will have to live on Social Security and our savings. I have a sense that I should be spending about half as much as I do now for groceries. Wasting food that we either grow ourselves or pay good money for is out of the question.

Shop less frequently to save resources

I saw that during the several months-long lockdown, I went in to town only twice a month for groceries and saved a lot of money on gas, eating out and groceries.

(Side rant

Besides, when so many people stopped driving their cars temporarily, the air pollution over China and Los Angeles decreased dramatically. This is a good thing to remember even after the forced lockdown ends.)

Some of us (myself included) have been misusing our resources, endangering the planet. I decided to just stay home more of the time, take care of the important stuff (like freezing, canning, drying all the vegetables we grew) and plan my shopping trips better.

Make mealtimes an important feature of the day

These days, meals have become one of the important structural pieces of our day for my husband and I. They break the day into parts, give us breaks from our various projects, and specific times to spend together. Every couple or family may not want or be able to tolerate this much togetherness but it seems helpful to us. And it is especially nice if we are looking forward to the meal. I have found that choosing a variety of foods for each meal makes this happen more reliably.

Make them healthy

Then, we are in our seventies and trying to maintain our health. So we want meals that are lighter than we used to eat, nutritious and full of plants. I want to cook, but am not willing to spend all of my time cooking now. We want out meals to be comforting and pleasant and not interfere with our sleep. We have decided to adopt the rule of not eating after six and trying to have a bigger meal midday and a lighter meal for supper. Sometimes I like to skip breakfasts and just have coffee. My husband wants to keep eating breakfast.

All of these factors are important in planning our meals. As you can see, these conditions were widely different at different times in my life, as they will be in yours.

How do you plan for the kinds of meals you want to eat?

Answer these questions for yourself every week:

1. How often do I want to eat? How many different meals should I plan?

For us, we plan 3 meals a day, though I sometimes skip breakfasts- so I need to plan 21 meals

2. How often do you want to eat meat, dairy, eggs? How many vegetarian or vegan meals? Is everyone in the household eating the same diet?

For our household, we want to limit red meat to twice a week, so I plan to have poultry twice, seafood twice and vegetarian once. We both eat the same diet, though I limit bread, potatoes, and desserts imore than Don.

3. When during this week do I have extra time to cook? And when is time really short?

I have some time to cook every morning and before supper. I have extra time Friday through Sunday and plan any projects, soups, and broth and baking for those times, usually.

4. Are there special occasions happening this week- meals out or away from home?

None this week, for us, no appointments or special plans away from home that might be an excuse to eat at our favorite diner.

5. What is in the refrigerator, pantry or garden that needs to be used soon?

We just brought in some tiny broccoli and cauliflower bits, there are tons of winter squash and pumpkins to cook, and it is time to get a good supply of apples from the orchard in the next town. There are also lots of leeks in the garden.

6. What is in the freezer that should be used soon?

Ugh!! Pork and more pork. We raise pigs here on the farm and we got half a pig last November but are having trouble eating it all. Covid has limited our entertaining — we used to make a roast for Sunday Dinner and invite the whole extended family. But it is hard for two of us to use up a big piece of meat.

7. What kinds of dishes have you-all of you in your household- been longing for, asking for, talking about?

Don wants chimichangas because our daughter has been making them. They sound too complicated, but I guess I could make an effort.

8. Are there new recipes you’ve been wanting to try?

Sauteed Polenta and Italian Sausage- a recipe from the Gourmet cookbook Fresh sounded good. I bought the sausage last week and froze it.

Photo courtesy of the author

One Sheet Meal Planner

Right now I’m using a clipboard with a stack of these forms on them and when one week is over I slip it on the bottom and keep it there for a while for reference.

You could use a notebook and divide each page into 7 columns. Or each day you need 4 boxes (for three meals plus cooking tasks). There should be room for the dates of each day of the week.

Now plug these things into my meal planner for the week. As you’re answering the questions, make notes about busy days or meals out.

First I pick the dinners, alternating kinds of main dishes, trying to change up the meals so they are not boring. I have to work harder to come up with vegetarian meals as they don’t occur to me as easily as meat- based meals and Don would never request them, though he will eat them. So, one pork roast will give me two meals, fish cakes one, fish chowder two. Chicken stir fry and turkey meatballs and one vegetarian chili, gives me seven dinners. If there is a special recipe you’ve wanted to try, put it in and plan on it.

Now you have the bare bones of your plan filled out and can begin to add in the side dishes, pickles, sauces, salads, condiments, breads that add contrast, interest, and a variety of nutrients to the meal.

If I have fish cakes for supper, they also appear for the next day’s breakfast with an egg. Every chicken turns into several different meals – chicken salad with sherry soaked raisins, a veggie-filled chicken stir-fry – before eventually becoming a soup. Soups or bean stews are the usual lunch in colder weather. I plan on at least one meal of leftovers for dinner from a roast or chicken. Soup is great on nights when cooking time is limited.

It helps me to have a spot to write down cooking tasks each day. Since I have a little time in the morning it is easy to do some prep for the day’s meals. Defrost fish for dinner, boil some eggs for lunch while washing the vegetables or cooking beans in the instant pot. If it’s on the list, there’s a much better chance I’ll think of it before its too late.

Photo courtesy of the author

Have fun with it

I have fun with this, sit and pore over cookbooks planning things to fit with my menus. And I write changes in the sheets.

You may not want to or have time to fuss with this. Just get the basics into your plan, and you can still improvise with side dishes or that jar of pickled something a neighbor brought over or some cornbread or biscuits. Bon Appetit!