My system to make dinner every day of the year effortlessly
Raise your hand if “what’s for dinner?” is the most dreaded question! It’s the hardest thing in being a parent, or even simply an adult: what to make for dinner today! Every day. For the rest of your life!
Florence
2/3/20242 min read
Meal planning is not the solution for me. In fact I apprehend it! I don’t know about other people but ideas for meals don’t come to me when I am in front of a blank sheet! Perhaps I lack imagination? Anything else would be better than sitting down and scratching my head to make plans. For me, meal planning is too much of a chore.
My solution is, when it’s time to make dinner, to open my fridge, freezer and cupboard and simply pick one veg, one form of protein and one type of carb (starchy veg like potatoes, bread as a wrap or pizza base, pasta, rice). I add a sauce (typically tomato or yogurt based), and make condiments available. That’s it. Meal decided.
Every day, I come back from work, open my fridge, and screen for a veg and a protein and then think about a carb to complement it.
I don’t know why it’s so easy. Perhaps it’s because my options are limited to what I have and what I see, it’s not like the unlimited possibilities of the blank sheet when meal planning.
Perhaps it’s so easy because it’s visual, I can mentally project a meal from the options I see whereas meal planning is purely a mental and imaginative exercise. I can create a meal from picking one item first - say the protein that needs to be eaten first due to expiring date, then add the veg that goes best with this item. I have noticed in the past that making a shopping list was hard for me and that I preferred to go to the shop and make a decision there depending on what was available, and perhaps what I could see?
Make a meal by picking the 3 components is a method that works in any circumstances. It works with fresh, frozen and dry foods. It works whether I want a vegetarian meal or not. It works when I have nothing fresh from the fridge and have to go to the freezer or to the cupboard to pick up the 3 components. It works for buying seasonal products. It works when I want a balanced meal (I simply change the proportion of each component: half vegetable in the plate).
It’s simple: open the fridge/freezer/cupboard doors and pick the 3 components; it’s no time and no effort.
