Meal Planning Is a Good Idea Right Now
In the past, lack of plans was considered luxurious – even hedonistic – but “things” have changed and lack of structure these days is starting (or continuing) to seem a little overwhelming, or at least extremely boring. In short, it feels like there’s nothing to wait and that can affect our relationship with food.
Having free time to improve your culinary skills is one of the few enjoyable aspects of social distancing, but that doesn’t mean feeding yourself is easy. If you’re not working at all or have moved to work from home, your usual temporary book stands have been taken apart and you are left in a sea of dried pasta and beans. Meal planning can help here.
Identify your quarantine traps
Understand that this “planning” can be as strict or weak as you need it to be. It can be as simple as holiday themed nights – Mondays with lasagna or Sundays with chicken – or you can literally pack lunch for yourself and the kids every day. A plan is just an annoying to-do list if it doesn’t solve any problems, so start by identifying where and how the “state of things” is preventing you from cooking and eating.
The easiest way to do this is to make a list. My list, for example, looks like this:
- After thinking and writing about food all day, I felt sick from eating and cooking.
- Constant restrained anxiety and bouts of depression
- Can’t go to the grocery store at the last minute or impulse shopping
- Feel guilty about ordering food through apps
Your list is probably different, especially if you have kids, aren’t used to working from home, or aren’t used to cooking a lot for yourself at all. But once you identify these problems, you can fix them. I generally find that problems can be divided into two categories, logistics or mood, and meal planning can help with both.
If it’s a logistics issue
I keep reading that people have “all this free time” – I even wrote above, it’s so ingrained! – but this is not true for key workers, people working full-time from home, or people who have to help them. children’s education. If so, then it is probably best to go with the traditional meal planning approach – taking the time to prepare most of the food you plan to eat. Again, try to identify potential pitfalls. If you don’t know where to start, try answering these questions in one of my posts on this topic :
Do you generally like a hearty breakfast? One of my favorite “funny misunderstandings” from Star Trek is when Dr. Crusher tries to feed Picard some new and interesting breakfasts, and he says “ah, okay” and then they are kidnapped and tied to the mind, and it turns out that they are both better for coffee and a croissant (and Picard has loved Bev since she married his best friend). My point is that some people can’t stomach a hearty breakfast in the morning, and it’s okay to eat a slice of toast and an apple instead of Instant Pot oatmeal with yogurt and stewed fruit compote at night.
Will you eat leftover food? And if not, will it be with a partner or roommate? Some people just don’t like leftover food, and these people should not make large batches of one food, planning to eat from it all week, as this will lead to a certain type of sadness. (I thought I was eating leftovers until I got divorced and realized that my husband was eating them and not me, and since then I have adjusted my cooking accordingly.)
Do you like to cook during the week or do you prefer to cook everything at once? Some people would rather sit through a three-hour Power Point presentation on synergy than slicing vegetables on weekdays, but some people find slicing and dicing more Zen. If cooking on a weekday evening tires you, you probably want to set aside some time on Sunday to do all or part of your prep work and cook during the week.
If, for example, you know you hate making breakfast but love cooking dinner, take the time to hard-boil a few eggs or make a large batch of freezer- friendly sandwiches , and pick a couple of tasty new recipes to try for dinner before shopping. weekly (or every two months). If you hate leftover food, consider making a large serving of one protein and then stocking up on different carbs (rice, tortillas, pasta) and sauces so that even if you eat the same thing every night, it doesn’t feel like you. …
And while the current culinary ambiance on display on social media is very urban settler, be sure to stock up on snacks (for dinner ) and buy frozen meals (like pizza, burritos or … uh … big bags of fries). And under no circumstances should you feel guilty about buying pre-cut vegetables or foods that are otherwise cooked . Even if you have “all that free time,” you probably prefer to spend that time reading a book or solving a puzzle rather than slicing onions, because slicing onions is blowing. You can also buy bread. Buying bread is still legal.
If it’s in the mood
Even if for you personally, everything is “not so bad”, there are many terrible things happening, and it’s okay if it upsets, worries, tiresome or just annoys you. For example, I cannot predict how I will feel from day to day and how this will affect my desire to eat and cook. One minute I cry, and the next I make myself a breakfast sausage from scratch – it’s a real roller coaster!
A.A. Newton has written a detailed guide on how to feed yourself when depressed, and it can be useful for you, especially if you have never experienced acute depression before. Dishes are categorized by ease – from “easier than showering” to “harder than showering” – and include miso soup (my current favorite), nutritious fried vegetables, and simple baked goods.
If you usually love to cook but find it difficult to find joy in this activity, buy yourself a new kitchen toy and plan your meals accordingly. I rarely use my stand mixer for baking, but I bought a meat grinder attachment and boy, am very happy to make my own sausages and burger mixes. If you haven’t used a particular appliance in a while, dust it off and see if there is any inspiration.
It can also help to have external influences, such as a virtual recipe club as a kind of meal plan, just make sure you don’t over-expand yourself. Remember, this is not the time to “optimize” or “make the most of” anything. In fact, enough to feed yourself and your family.