Family Meal Planning, Not So Simple: Cook the Book!

Before children (BC), I thoroughly enjoyed cooking. I scoured magazines (pre-internet) for interesting eats and browsed shelves at bookstores for something that would make me salivate. I didn’t plan out meals; I planned out cooking challenges! And if I only planned one meal for the week and ate cereal or went out with friends for the rest of the week, so be it.

I failed to realize that having kids would totally screw that up.

And while kids for the most part can eat the same things almost every day for a month until they revolt and demand something else the next month, I cannot. And so, meal planning is a must.

You, gentle reader, likely know all about this onerous weekly task, likely have numerous ideas saved on Pinterest, and have a working plan. I have been cooking by the seat of my pants. Every Sunday, I spend time with my notepad (real paper) and binder of printed recipes for meals my kids have eaten at least twice. There have been standards in bi-monthly rotation, like:

• Spaghetti and meatballs, Grandma Turano-style from Dinner, a Love Story
• Chicken tenders or fish sticks with fries
• Meatloaf and veggies
• Albondigas or sopas
• Steak and potatoes
• Stir fry noodles and veggies
• Pizza, various forms

Any new recipes I try are planned around serving them deconstructed on a plate so the pickiness factor is minimized. As much as I’m complaining, the kids will try new foods most of the time; they just won’t finish the entire meal. This puzzling quantum calculation vexes parents around the world.

Now I recognize that I’m likely making a challenging situation even worse by trying to diversify dinner options with new ideas and flavors. But #YOLO!

So I decided to hit the streets and find a cookbook that can help me on my dinner journey. To the biblioteca! I wandered the cookbook section with no real strategy other than to totally judge a book by its cover, and behold:

 The Dinner Plan: Simple Weeknight Recipes and Strategies for Every Schedule by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion. 

Here it is! A solution for me named for exactly what I need! THE. DINNER. PLAN. Brilliant!

Cracking open the book and finding the index, I saw the titles calling to me: Make-Ahead, Staggered, One-Dish, Extra-Fast, and Pantry. These are strategies everyone needs in their lives when it comes to cooking, and the authors serve them right up on, well, a plate.

After reviewing every meal, drooling on every page, I came up with a meal plan for the week that required very little outside-the-norm purchasing and had a lot of ingredient overlap:

• Monday: Stir-fry chicken and broccoli

• Tuesday: Orecchiette with tomato, corn, and basil

• Wednesday: Pork cutlets with potatoes

• Thursday: Leftovers or pantry finds

• Friday: Japanese fried chicken with umami potatoes

I only had to buy 10 items for the week! Huzzah!

Like every Monday morning, I picked up groceries to prepare for the week. On this particular Monday, I had to attend a last-minute event across town, so I made the stir-fry chicken for my family and split. They loved it! And there was enough left over to have for lunch the next day.

Tuesday’s plan for orecchiette was completely derailed by work. The fish sticks and fries we ended up with instead, were divine!

Wednesday will be my day. POOOORRRK! What’s that? Is that my phone ringing? Sigh. Work situation was resolved, but I realized I forgot to thaw out the pork. Oh, hey! Cereal for dinner sounds cool.

Thursday rolled around and we had no leftovers, so I stated brining the chicken, because sometimes fried chicken makes everything better! The rest of the day went like this: “Mmmm, this smells great! I’m going to eat some while I’m cooking. [Ringing cell phone plays the alert for a client.] Hey everyone, enjoy this hot and delicious meal! I’ve gotta go to a hospital and meet a client. I will savor the smell of this tasty food as it lingers in my hair. I hope to find leftovers when I return at some point!” Maybe not in those exact words, but close.

Friday. So. Tired. Hey, look! I have the ingredients to make the bolognese from the book using my pressure cooker! Let’s do that. Hey kids, pay no attention to the vegetables in your meat sauce! It’s a bonus snack!

Biggest pet peeve of most cookbooks and online dinner plans: NO CALENDAR PLAN! What I mean is, if you’re putting recipes together for the week, can I have a grocery list? I would love to see this in cookbooks, where there’s an appendix outlining what meals you can group together for the week with ingredient overlap. Same goes for all the food and recipe blog posts sharing their weekly plan. 

I did use recipes from this book for another week, which tells me I’m going to have to buy this for my cookbook collection. The kids found something enjoyable in each meal, and the book was easy to use, so I’m going to recommend you take a look at this one for yourself and try it out.

Rated: 3 books out of 3 for easy category planning, easy recipes, and enjoyable variety.