Ease your mind at dinnertime

You come home from work and go to make dinner…wait? Again? It feels like we are always making meals, doesn’t it? I mean breakfast, lunch & dinner every (most) days adds up and is exhausting. I know it can feel like the hamster wheel of life, but what if we made meals, specifically dinner, a happy part of your day? I’m not going to lie and say that every day at dinnertime I’m 100% prepared and ready to go, but with these simple tips, you can take some of the pressure off and maybe even enjoy mealtime. Before you make any actual plans, start with some household intel:

Look at your week

Which days are busiest at mealtime? Which days are absolutely packed where there isn’t even a 15 minute gap to sit down and intentionally eat? 

Look at your pantry, fridge & freezer

Which items do you already have that need to be used up? Do you have broccoli that is about to go? Do you have a half used box of wild rice that you haven’t used in months? (Totally guilty of this one - it’s going on my list for next week!) Pick a few items - particularly the items that will go bad and/or expire - and make note of them.

Family Favorites

My friend Kendra (aka The Lazy Genius) encourages you to write a list of “brainless crowd pleasers” that is easy to reference when you sit down for meal planning. We have some selective eaters in our household that can make dinnertime tricky. I am not one to make individual meals for each child (who has time for that?) so I try to make sure that everyone has at least one item on the menu that they will eat. A great time to make this list is during dinnertime or even on a car ride when family members are happy to offer their opinions & favorites.

Daily Themes

The general themes that I use for planning meals are Monday - pasta, Tuesday - tacos/Mexican, Wednesday - soup/grilled cheese, Thursday - breakfast for dinner, Friday - pizza. Saturdays and Sundays we have one day we call “punt night” which is basically clearing out the fridge of leftovers. The other weekend night I try to make a more traditional meat & potatoes meal or a recipe I’ve been wanting to make from one of my cookbooks. Now this plan may sound a bit excessive, but I’m super flexible around it and it helps me focus on a smaller pool of options. You might find that assigning a theme to one or two days a week is enough. You do what works best for you!! 

Now What?

Now that you have this detective work taken care of, sit down with your calendar and a piece of paper folded in half, grab yourself a cup of coffee or maybe even something stronger (!), and give yourself a 15 minute timer to plan. You are going to label one half of the paper with the days of the week & put the meals you choose next to that date. Pick the nights that are wide open or very light on plans for the meals that take more time. These nights I choose for my new recipes or meals with multiple components. On the busier nights choose meals that take less work. Soup & grilled cheese night is perfect for a night where people are in & out. Make soup ahead of time, pull some out of the freezer or pantry, or even have your crockpot going all day so your house smells amazing when you come home. Use my favorite method for making a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches, and you’re good to go in a very short amount of time. This also works on breakfast for dinner nights. I make pancakes or waffles ahead of time if I can (or at least the batter and refrigerate it), cook up some bacon or sausages (again, easy to do ahead of time) and cut up some fruit. If you want eggs, those are quick & easy to make in a hurry. Better yet - make breakfast sandwiches to go, heat them up and send your kiddos to soccer with a healthy meal in their hands!

As you are making your plan, make your shopping list. This is where the other half of your paper comes in. I split this up by stores (Costco, Trader Joes, Grocery Store). You could do it by department at the grocery store so all of your produce, dairy and pantry items separated. Or it could be just one big list - do what makes the most sense for the way you shop. As you add a meal to your plan for the week - write down on the list side what you need for that meal. 

Extra Credit

Think about how you can make these meals even easier by prepping ahead. ANYTHING you do ahead of time helps you out when you are in the moment…your kids asking for snacks, carpool coming in 15 minutes, or whatever is putting the pressure on you at the time. Write these things down on the days of the week side of your paper. If you are making waffles on Thursday night for dinner maybe you can throw the batter together on Wednesday night when you have the grilled cheeses in the oven? Write “make pancake batter” next to grilled cheese. If you are making tacos on Tuesday like a lot of people like to do - could you cook the meat during your lunch break if you work at home? Or even shred the cheese and dice the tomatoes? If you are doing pasta on Monday, fill up the pot with water, toss in some salt and put it on the stove so it’s ready to turn on when you get home.

I hope these ideas help you free up some space in your mind during dinnertime. Or that they give you the motivation to try a new meal when you are in a dinnertime rut. Or that you even try the grilled cheese method I love and rely on. It’s a game changer.