First of all, I have been deeply influenced in this arena by Kendra Adachi at The Lazy Genius. If you're unfamiliar with her, I'd highly recommend checking out her blog or Instagram feed.
Meal Planning
One of the things Kendra has helped me with is planning meals by using a meal matrix. It's something she has talked about before, but I didn't fully embrace it (at least not for every day) until quarantine time. I needed to make meals as brainless as possible so I could survive every other area of my life in this weird time. With a meal matrix, I am planning a month of meals at a time. For instance, I just switched to May, but here's what our April meals looked like:
My matrix is: random/leftover/pizza Sunday, pasta Monday, Mexican Tuesday, Asian/Middle Eastern Wednesday, breakfast Thursday, grilling Friday, and take out Saturday. (I started out the month planning on soup Friday and grilling Saturday, but we decided to start getting take out again, so I rearranged. Flexibility is the name of the game here). (Actual recipe links for a lot of this stuff at the end of this post!)
Having a plan for each day lets me choose from a handful of things for each category, and before I know it, the calendar is full. (Bonus, if you like the things you've had, the next calendar is super easy to plug things into!)
One Lazy Genius mantra that I really appreciate is to "plan your hot dogs." We all know that go-to easy meal that we end up making when the day has gotten away from us. Plan those in and they'll feel like so much more of a win than if it's just something you settle for. It could actually be hot dogs. It could be boxed mac and cheese. It could be frozen chicken nuggets. Whatever it is, plan for it and accept no shame from yourself or those you feed. ;)
One extra step I take at the time when I'm making my month meal schedule is to start my shopping lists for every week. I shop on Fridays, so I take a notebook and date each page for the Fridays of that month. Here's one of my pages for May:
So for each week's list, I basically sit down with the meal calendar and write down all the things I need for the dinners I've planned for that week. (Plus the basics that we get every week like milk, eggs, bread, etc). Then when I'm getting ready to shop for that week, I just need to fill in the staples that we're out of, anything I need to restock for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, and any nonfood items we need. It has proven to be so helpful, and very much worth the extra work on the front end.
Grocery Shopping
Okay, this isn't rocket science. But the experience sure has changed in the last two months! So if you're finding the task overwhelming, hopefully some of this is helpful.
First of all, I tried REALLY hard at the beginning of all of this to only go to the store every two weeks. But I was finding that I still needed to go on the off weeks to get more milk and fresh produce. So I'm back to going every week. And I say "back to," but really it's a lot different from my big weekly shopping trip before quarantine, when I'd still be at the grocery story a couple more times between big trips because I forgot something or thought of something that sounded good. No more of that--now if I've forgotten something, we just have to deal without it until the next trip. (That has called for some creativity. One week I had chicken broth on my list, and when I got it off the shelf, I knew it was for soup. I forgot that I also needed it for a pasta dish. Then I discovered turkey stock in my freezer from Thanksgiving). :) Unfortunately, with stores running out of a variety of things from week to week, I have resigned myself to the fact that I really need to hit both Target and Cub most weeks. However, if Target is out of one thing, I either find a decent alternative or choose a different meal for that week. (A couple weeks ago they were out of canned coconut milk, but I wasn't about to make a trip to a second store just for that. So I got a carton of coconut milk--meant for drinking or cereal--and heavy cream and did half and half).
I'm not big on stockpiling, but there are some things that I pick up every week if they're in stock because I know we'll eat them. For instance, we eat a lot of pasta and rice. Gluten-free pasta has been very randomly stocked, so I pick it up at whatever store I'm at whether we need it that week or not. Same with rice, which I haven't seen for a while at Target. I keep those things on my list for whatever week we need them, and I still buy them if I see them, but I know that I have extra if they're out. Same with meat--I have chicken breasts and ground beef in my freezer in case the store is out of those when I go. But so far, I haven't seen a shortage of meat.
So you've gone shopping and now you're at home with bags covering every square inch of counter space. This is probably my least favorite part of getting groceries, but I'm learning to streamline the process. When I unpack bags, rather than put things where they belong right away, they go in one of three zones: the counter closest to the fridge gets everything that needs to go in the fridge and freezer, the counter closest to the pantry gets everything that goes there, and the dining room table gets everything that needs to go downstairs (where there are extra pantry shelves and another fridge/freezer).
Here's my fridge stash. Not pictured: the milk that went straight in the fridge when it got carried in, and the ice cream and frozen vegetables that went straight in the freezer.
And here's the pantry stash.
Leah made quick work of the dining room table stash before I could get a picture. (There's another tip--put these hooligans to work!)
Also not pictured from today's trip: LaCroix and soda that went straight downstairs, and bananas and onions/garlic, which are kept in (separate!) baskets on the counter. :)
Another tip as you're getting things into their zones. Deal with meat and produce that needs to be dealt with instead of just sticking it in the fridge to forget about it. In today's trip, that only involved wrapping the cilantro in paper towels and putting it in a ziplock bag (I'd do the same with parsley or green onions. And when I get celery, I wrap it in foil--it stays crisp longer). The meat I got today is all fine in the fridge until I need it. A few weeks ago I came home with chicken breasts for three different things as well as chicken thighs. Most of it needed to be frozen, but I took a few minutes to prep it before freezing it. That meant cutting the chicken thighs into pieces, slicing some of the chicken breasts for one dish, cooking and chopping some more of the chicken breasts for another dish, and cooking the rest to make chicken salad.
When you're making your shopping list, make sure to get some fun foods too. My kids (and husband) are really into pudding cups lately. Also, as the months get warmer, we'll have popsicles and klondike bars in our freezer. I also make sure I have GF flour, sugar, brown sugar, etc so I can bake when I feel like it (or when the bananas on the counter are begging to be made into bread).
One more tip, just in case your family is like mine. Have a place where the rest of your family can write down things they want or need next time you shop. My people are getting used to the fact that I only shop on Fridays, so if they tell me something on Saturday, they know they will be waiting a week until they get it. I also try to ask them as I'm making my list if they have anything to add.
Recipes
If you need a few new recipes, here are some from our April calendar above.
Sunday: if we do pizza, it's generally frozen. Gluten-free is a hassle to make, and GF frozen is pretty decent. Otherwise it's leftovers or just whatever random thing we think of.
Pasta Monday:
I made a few meals' worth of meatballs and froze them, and then just used jarred sauce (I use a variation of Smitten Kitchen's meatball recipe--I basically just don't use veal)
The chicken alfredo is this recipe that I found a couple of years ago that we love.
The bolognese is an old recipe that I tweaked quite a bit and I can't find anything comparable online--but there are lots of bolognese recipes if you google. :)
The penne a la vodka is also a very old recipe, but I made Smitten Kitchen's recipe last year and liked it. I add Italian sausage and it's great.
Mexican Tuesday:
For beef tacos, it's literally just ground beef and Ortega taco seasoning. :)
For chicken, I just make a big batch of it in the crockpot--chicken breasts, taco seasoning, and jars or cans of whatever you feel like. Most recently I did corn, black beans, and rotel. Freezes great and is super versatile--tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, quesadillas, etc.
Pork burrito bowls--pulled pork from Costco and whatever fixings you feel like. :)
Asian/Middle Eastern Wednesday:
The chicken stir fry is literally the recipe I grew up eating, so I don't have a recipe to link.
The chicken shwarma is brand new from The Lazy Genius and we LOVED IT SO MUCH.
The bulgogi pork was something I had at a potluck last summer, and the person who brought it shared the recipe with me. This one is very similar, except I used ground pork and skipped the pear.
The Thai chicken is an old recipe from a magazine, via my mother, but I found the exact recipe here.
The beef and broccoli is from Pinch of Yum. (I found it a little two sweet the first time I made it, so I've been decreasing the brown sugar. This week I halved it, and it's perfect). (We've also got this one on tap for May from PoY)
Breakfast Thursday:
This one looks the most boring, but there really is some variety beyond just the word "breakfast" on the calendar. Sometimes we'll do an egg bake and some muffins. Sometimes we'll do fried egg sandwiches. But most of the time, it's scrambled eggs, either bacon or sausage, and either pancakes or French toast. (During normal non-quarantine life, this is the first meal to go if our week gets rearranged because everything is shelf stable enough to save for another time. So I plan for it every week, but we might actually eat it a couple times a month. But right now, the calendar is the law). :)
Grilling Friday:
No recipes here. Grilling will definitely increase as we move into the summer months. But at this point, we're alternating between hot dogs/brats and burgers. We'll have chips and either salad or veggies/dip with it.
Take out Saturday:
My favorite. :)
Hopefully some of this was helpful. We're in this together, friends! And it's not forever. So we just hang in there. Have a lovely weekend! Minnesota, it looks like a winner!
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