planning meals is SO BORING

Am I still doing this? Apparently so.

I recently read somewhere that the best way to meal plan is to come up with three (3) specific meals for the week and then spitball from there. This is obviously not the exact wording of the article I read, but the particulars are lost to the sands of time. And it’s always possible I misread, or misunderstood, or read a fragment of a headline and moved on before discovering that, in fact, choosing three specific meals is THE WORST IDEA EVER. Maybe I didn’t even read an article. But we will go with what we have, which is a fairly fuzzy and growing ever fuzzier memory of possibly reading this Life-Changing Suggestion.

You will not be surprised, I think, to learn that I immediately latched on to the idea of planning FEWER MEALS. The pandemic has made meal planning/cooking more grueling than usual. A better, easier way to meal plan?! Sign me up! Also because of the pandemic, I think I have become better or at least more confident with meal planning on the fly, with the ingredients I have on hand. So this sounds doable. At least for this week.

I don’t want to take away the (only) FUN aspect of meal planning – the searching for and trying new, interesting recipes. But I definitely want to simplify, where possible. So I am going to experiment with planning a few specific things – including some new recipes, or, in the case of this week ALL new recipes – and then fill out the rest of the week with whatever I have on hand. WE’LL SEE HOW IT GOES.

Dinners for the Week of January 4 – January 10

Ginger Salmon Salad
- Follow Up: This was a surprising hit! The sauce was a little fussy to make — not hard, just… fussy. But it was tasty and different. My husband liked it too, even though it was salmon. I would make this again.
Thai Chicken Quinoa Bowls (This recipe calls for pre-made chicken, which I do not have. So I am going to braise a bunch of chicken in coconut milk like so and save the extra for another meal.)
- Follow Up: Braising the chicken in the coconut milk mixture did not go well, possibly because instead of using red curry paste I used sweet chili sauce (to match the quinoa dressing). It was too mild and the chicken was WAY too chicken-y. Yuck. BUT the quinoa bowls without chicken were delicious. I added sliced red and green bell peppers, edamame, avocado, and scallions, and it was so yummy. I put it all on top of a bunch of romaine which made it feel super healthful. We had leftovers and it was delicious, cold, the next day. (I did sprinkle the quinoa mixture with a mixture of soy sauce and sriracha though, which amped up the flavor factor.) Would definitely make this again, but would reserve the chicken for my husband.
Mushroom Ramen
- Follow Up: This was tasty, but very salty. My husband described the flavor as very intense. Having a separate broth was a little weird… it was almost too intense to eat without the noodles, so what was the purpose? If I made this again, I might halve the sauce, add the chicken broth, but then put the entire amount of liquid in when the recipe calls for just adding half the sauce. As per usual, it is very frustrating to watch one billion mushrooms shrink into nothing. I added sliced bell pepper and sugar snap peas to this, to amp up the veggie quotient and I used ramen. This also purported to take 30 minutes of cooking, but even if you don’t count the washing and chopping of bell pepper and sugar snap peas, it took at LEAST thirty minutes just to prepare the ingredients. And I ended up using one million dishes, which annoys me. Probably I wouldn’t make this exact recipe again. But it was fun to try.
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup (I don’t normally like chicken tortilla soup because it has tomatoes in it. But my husband likes it, and I need a slow cooker meal this week, and it sounds good. I am going to try to blend all the chunks out of the tomatoes – and even strain them, if necessary – and we’ll see if the extra work is worthwhile.)
- Follow Up: I did end up blending the fire roasted tomatoes, and even then there were seeds everywhere so I pressed it through a fine-mesh strainer. Also, I think I had in mind that this would be more like chili, which it most definitely was NOT — it was clearly soup. So after it was done cooking and was sitting in the crockpot on warm, I added a can of black beans and about a cup of frozen corn. That helped. This had a great flavor and I would DEFINITELY make it again. Oh – since I don’t like the texture of cooked peppers, I chopped the poblanos into big chunks for easy removal. Next time, I might cut each poblano in half and then toss them afterward — my husband didn’t love eating the chunks of them and I didn’t miss them, but I am sure they did add some flavor to the soup.

Plus, I have pork tenderloin, pork chops, shrimp, and tons of chicken in the freezer. Plus broccoli and zucchini and avocados in my fridge. So I am going to put those things together to make the remaining meals.

What are you eating this first full week of January?

We still must eat, which means we still must make dinner.

I somehow overbought at the grocery store last time (although we are, of course, still out of cheese), and we are swimming in week-old produce that I am hopeful we can use up before it goes bad.

The bright spot in the endless drudgery of meal planning is Carla’s cooking. She did an excellent job with last week’s chicken tenders, doing everything herself (with coaching). And the meal was delicious. (My only complaint is that the chicken tenders don’t get very brown. The panic makes them crispy, but they are very pale. That’s not a Carla issue though; I’ve made these tenders before and I think they have always been pale.)

This week, she chose, much to my surprise and delight, to make salmon and mashed yams and a fruit salad. Surprise: that she picked salmon, which I have to cajole her to eat these days. Delight: that she had such a thorough vision for a meal in her head. I found some recipes to match her request – she was quite insistent that the salmon have thyme involved, because we have abundant thyme in the backyard. I am excited to eat this meal. And I am hopeful that a new interest in cooking will lead to a new interest in trying new foods.

Dinners for the Week of August 24 – 30