Sometimes things just get stuck, often around the holidays and other busy times of year. There’s so much to catch up with, and things kind of get stuck when it comes to food and cooking. I found this out recently, when there was so much going on, and I didn’t even realize that I didn’t have a proper food plan. Every day I would be like; whoa, I have no idea what we’re doing for lunch or dinner today. Then I would have to make a last minute plan, like doing some quick online shopping for something like quiche or pie, or chicken breasts that I could cook quickly. This just kept happening day after day.
That’s not usually the case, because we usually have stuff that we’ve cooked that week. We like to do a lot of cooking on Tuesday and Wednesday – our kids each help on different days. We also do quite a bit of cooking for our church family, so we have to be doing a lot of cooking, but sometimes there’s just a lot going on, and things don’t happen. That’s what happened to me last week, and I had about four days where I just realized: oh, I don’t have a plan for this.
Now I want to tell you what I did to kind of correct that, because it got to the point where I felt overwhelmed, and it wasn’t working, and I just never had the energy to cook.
So, for me, it always helps to cook in advance a day or two – though not so much freezer cooking, because I think the food tastes better when it hasn’t been frozen, and usually the kind of food we like doesn’t always do so well frozen. We like to have a lot of fresh food. Potatoes don’t do well frozen, especially in their whole form, and they get a bit watery when they’re reheated. But we like to make a few meals in advance and have them in the fridge.
For example, my son will make chicken curry, and then we’ll have that in the fridge, and we’ll eat it a day or two later, with perhaps some rice and butternut. Or perhaps my daughter will make some beef stroganoff in the Instant Pot. We’ll have that in the fridge for a couple of days, and then we’ll eat it with rice or mash, and some stir fry vegetables. She can also make a good meal of beef meatballs in sauce, or we’ll do a corned beef in the instant pot, or a stew in the crockpot – a lamb stew, or a whole lamb, or some whole chickens. All those things seem to work well overnight in the fridge.
If I’m doing a roast lamb, I find that it does well the whole day on low, but sometimes it’s not as tender as I want even then, so I do it for about six hours on one day and then four hours the next day. And I find that works great because I’m not good at getting things going very early in the morning.
So, those are just some quick ideas, but I want to talk about the steps for getting out of that stuck place when things are busy. For me, the first thing is to look in the freezers and see what meat I have. If stuff is frozen, even if I have a lot of meat or meals that I could cook from the freezer, if it’s not defrosted then I feel stuck because the moment I realize that we don’t have lunch or dinner for today, it’s too late to defrost something. I’m not into doing things like trying to defrost a package of mince quickly and cooking it while it’s half frozen – that’s not fun. Usually I end up trying to make another plan.
Another thing we did this past week when we got stuck was to open some tins of tuna to eat with bread, but then sometimes I didn’t even have the bread defrosted. We get our bread from a particular place that has really nice sourdough bread, and I can’t just quickly buy more of that.
For me, it comes down to being organized, and when my brain is full, and there’s just a lot on, sometimes that falls by the wayside. What I did this week was to start by looking in my freezers, and checking out every piece of meat in there. We found some beef tenderloin steaks to be cooked. We found packages of ground beef. We found packages of chicken breasts. We found some hake that I’ve had for about six months. It was in all different shapes and sizes of packages, which we could put together to use for a meal for the seven of us. I found packs of stroganoff, some tiny beef sausage, and a couple of corned beef chuck roasts. We have a gammon that I’m going to cook for Christmas, and we have a pack of ribs that we can use for my husband and my date night.
Then we looked in the tin cupboard, and we found a bit of tuna, some salmon tins – nice wild caught salmon, and some coconut cream, which we use in curry and in smoothies. Then in our produce cupboard we found a bit of pasta, some tomato puree, and etc.
Then I opened my spreadsheet where I do my menu planning. Some of you might do it on paper. I used to print out a weekly menu plan and fill it in by hand. You must do whatever works for you. I just have a spreadsheet, and I have the days of the week. I usually do one week at a time, but this time I continued up to the 6th of January, because I know during the holidays I’m not always thinking about food or meal planning.
First I filled in our Friday nights. On Fridays we do either homemade pizza or takeaway pizza, and sometimes Chinese takeout. Then I looked to see whether there were any events coming up. There were a couple of birthdays – my son’s and my husband’s, and I filled in meals at restaurants for those dinners. (This spreadsheet was for planning dinners. I do lunches separately.) Then I started to put in regulars that we like to do. For example, on a Sunday after church, we grill burgers and have toppings. The boys do the grilling for us, and the girls cut all the stuff to go with it, like tomatoes, cucumber, pickles. and cheese slices.
We have three girls and two boys, and they all help with cooking. My youngest, who’s 10, is starting to help, but the others are all 15 and up and they’re pretty good at helping, or even cooking on their own, so that’s a huge help to me. Part of the problem this past couple of weeks is that my oldest daughter has been sick and hasn’t been able to do anything – she’s been completely out of commission. As well as this, my oldest son has been working a lot, and hasn’t been able to do his cooking – he’s quite the chef. Keeping up with all of that has been what’s pushed me over the edge into chaos.
So, I took this spreadsheet and started filling in all the meals. Then I made a list next to the place with the actual menu, a list of potential meals, and I wrote down all the meat options that we have in the freezer. I thought of things that we can make from what we’ve got, and then I made a shopping list below of things that I need to supplement those meals. For example, if we’re having chicken curry, I want to get some butternut to steam with it, and we also have rice. Or with the steak, I wanted to do a stir fry or a salad. So, I added items that we might not have to that shopping list. Then I started putting those complete meals onto the meal plan, with the meats we have. We’d be shopping for the extras that day.
I also put in date nights, usually on a Tuesday night. On those nights our kids have chicken pie or steak pie, and my husband and I like to have cheese fondue or ribs. This week we’re doing short rib stew and fondue.
I took all the meals from the column of potential meals, and slotting them into the actual dates, I started to fill up the menu plan, starting with the earlier days. I also try to think of meals that I like to do regularly, meals we can easily get the ingredients for, and I filled some of those in as well. I added the ingredients for those to the shopping list, and then I took that shopping list and shopped on my online app. I tried to make sure I had everything I needed for at least the next five days, and then I ordered. That came later that day, so then we had the things we needed ready in the fridge.
I also took out the meat that I needed for the next three days to defrost. I started defrosting it on the counter, and then found a spot for it in the fridge. We have two fridges, and I often leave defrosting or defrosted meat in the one, and then I’ll have things like yogurt, milk, cheese, other dairy, and a few things like sauces in the other fridge.
So, then I ended up with a menu plan that had a few gaps, especially later on in the month, that I would either fill, or we would do something spontaneous for. Sometimes we like to buy kebabs and sausage and have a grill. That’s an easy one, because all I need to have is the meat, and it doesn’t have to be pre cooked.
Then I planned who would be cooking on what day, and asked the kids if they would be happy to cook or help cook that item. Now it suddenly feels like things are a lot more organized, and I know exactly what’s going to be happening for the next three weeks over christmas season. I can also see at a glance what we need to prepare in advance. We like to try and do the meals two or three days in advance, and we do them in the mornings, because sometimes it’s less crazy than in the afternoons, and we’re not doing homeschool much at the moment.
So, having a plan helps so much. Sometimes I just don’t have a plan, and I don’t feel like having a plan. But then, when I do have a plan, it feels a lot better.
What we do for our lunches, and also what I’ve done to help with the craziness, is to try to set things to each day of each week. On Mondays and Wednesdays we try to do some sort of cold meat with bread. Sometimes I cook corned beef in the instant pot for that, or sometimes we get a healthy version of ham, and we sometimes do tuna as well. On other days I do soup and grilled cheese, or a soup of chicken in broth with bread. Then on the days when we have less protein the rest of the day, like on a Friday night if we’re having pizza, for lunch I’ll try to do something more nutritious, like a bolognese, a chicken curry, or a stir fry. Once a week I also do chicken breasts in the oven to go with bread.
This all slots in, as long as I have the shopping done in advance. I think the main struggle for me is not being aware of what’s coming, but as soon as I have a slight plan, even if I change it, as long as I’m getting something out the freezer every day to defrost in time, to put in the fridge that night, and then cook the next morning, that works really well for me. As long as I have defrosted meat in the fridge, then it’s quite easy to make meals. At the beginning of each day, I can just grab the meat, decide if we’re doing slow cooker or instant pot, and then do the meal for that day or for the next day. I find it quite easy to cook meat once it’s defrosted and in the fridge, although I don’t want to have too much at once, because then the fridge gets full, and I don’t know what to do with the stuff. I guess I could freeze the cooked version sometimes, but having a lot of meat in the freezer is definitely the best way for me to make sure that I don’t run out of meals during the week. So, it helps to have a meal plan, have the meat defrosted in the fridge, and then have time each morning where the kids or I cook.
Now, obviously not everyone has kids who can cook, or who are old enough to cook. In that case, having a time slot in the morning or evening – whatever suits you – definitely is the biggest help.
For sides I like to have a variety of options. There’s stir fry pre-cut in the fridge, butternut to steam, potatoes to cook, or broccoli to steam, and those things are all really fast. When I need them for dinner or something, we can just do them a half hour before. But if the meat, or the main part of the meal, is done, that’s always the biggest win.
I also do casseroles sometimes, like lasagna or cottage pie, but I do find those quite labor intensive compared to just cooking a piece of meat such as a roast lamb, a roast chicken, a corned beef, or something like the stroganoff or curry that I mentioned.
So, I hope that you are not stuck, and that you’re having a good day, and a Christmas season that’s not too crazy. Remember that you can always get some frozen meals to warm from somewhere if you need a break – I really find it helps to do that every now and then, just to help me have some time to reset. Don’t feel guilty about that.
Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next time.
