Meal Planning Schmeal-Planning

It’s for the birds!!!

Hey all, as I sat down to write this week's newsletter, I found myself distracted with the administrative side, updating my spreadsheet where I track my posting schedule, and newsletter ideas (that sounds like I take this all very seriously when in actuality I am sporadic at best). I was procrastinating because I could not come up with any ideas that gave me any kind of nudge to put pen to paper. 

So, as we do these days, I took it to Instagram, asking for topic ideas, and thankfully my students are full of them and trying to fulfill their social media project requirements before the end of the quarter, engaged in the question box. The response that made me sit up and say YES…was one I have been wanting to write about that until now hadn’t felt like the right time, so here was my sign. 

“How to shop at the start of the week for the entire week and not get

 bored of eating the same thing?”

In a chef’s world, we are always menu planning, recipe writing, creating plans for events, and service days, weeks, and even months ahead, at least this is the curriculum we are preaching! But, I will tell you, that does not work for my personal life. Not because we have little kids that we have to get to all sorts of activities anymore, or we have lots of after-work commitments, it’s me…I’m the problem. My family would be happy eating whatever I put in front of them most nights, but I’m moody. I’m a mood cook and eater. While I love sitting down and writing out a meal plan for the week on Sunday, making a list, checking my inventory, and heading to the store, The problem is that the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday me has zero desire to eat whatever I was so excited to make for dinner days prior. 

I watch all these content creators, and influencers on the weekly sharing their meal prep videos, and sometimes I am jealous that I can’t be content eating the same meal 5 days in a row for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Or, how romantic the idea of making a giant batch of something and eating out of the same pot all week long, but I am who I am and absolutely cannot get into this way of eating and cooking. It goes against my love of food and cooking which fuels my creative soul. Somedays the thought of cooking a meal for everyone is just more than I can bear, but most of the time it is part of my daily decompressing ritual. It is a meditation, a time for my husband and I to catch up on the stressors of our days while I am rhythmically moving through dinner preparations.

So what is a cook first and eater second supposed to do with this? While I am a chef at work, I don’t want to cook and eat what I do in my professional life at home. At home, I am more relaxed, less rules around how things should be prepared and eaten. Granted, it has taken me a long time to get over some of the snobby food rules I had ingrained in my head, some from childhood, some from my own doing, and some from my training, but I feel like I’ve made significant progress, don’t get me wrong I’m still a food snob. Still, my guiding light is “cooking rules are meant to be broken!”. The one chef premise I put an end to at home is weekly meal planning.

So, I’m sure you are asking yourself if I’m a glutton for punishment and go to the grocery store every day, and the short answer is…sometimes Yes, but mostly No! Also, I enjoy going to the grocery store, it gives me just as much joy as shoe shopping…that’s a conversation for another time…I’m sure my husband is rolling his eyes and checking our bank account.

If I’m not going to the store every day and not meal planning…what am I doing? 

I recently started hearing the term “ingredient house” and, well, I identify as that. You will not find a lot of prepared foods in my kitchen, but what you will find are all, or close to all, the ingredients you might need to prepare a wide range of dishes. 

I always keep a fully stocked pantry full of an assortment of items including but not limited to dry beans, multiple kinds of grains…sticky rice, basmati, jasmine, farro, millet, and bulgur. The obvious items that most people have like flour, sugar, onions, garlic, and shallots, and the not-so-obvious like a spice assortment that lets me dive into any flavor profile I might be leaning towards that day.

All different kinds of oils and fat, an assortment of vinegars, and flavoring ingredients from many different cultures worldwide. All the canned tomato products, various dried pasta and noodles, dried chilies, and always have Better Than Bouillon™ stock base for when I don’t have homemade on hand. Don’t forget about tinned fish, these can add the perfect amount of umami punch, or be the sole protein in a dish. I always have an assortment of tuna, sardines, anchovies, and smoked oysters. I also have many miscellaneous ingredients around for when the moment should arise, whatever that may be!

Most people when they hear pantry only consider the dry stuff, shelf-stable, and will keep for long periods, these are the items you can buy in bulk and keep around for whenever you need them. But, the refrigerator should also be your friend, and this is where I set myself up to eat what my moody whim might bring. These items have a shorter shelf life and need to be checked on and inventoried for quality. Some of these items are the ones you should shop for on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

This is where condiments, perishable flavorings, and opened need-to-used items live. So how do I plan for a week of eating? In the restaurant, we call items we always have on hand our par. These are the things we use on a daily or weekly basis needed to execute dishes. Besides my flavorings, I always have on hand eggs, for eating and baking with, milk, heavy cream, and sometimes buttermilk, sour cream, and plain yogurt. With these I can make creamy dressings, think ranch, marinades, toppings for tacos, or a little extra creaminess/richness to sauces and soups. 

Of course, I have to have the fermented items, for me, it’s an assortment of pickled things, capers, cucumber pickles, cornichon, sauerkraut, kimchi, preserved lemon, but also fermented umami items like miso and gochujang. These add a punch, used in small amounts add great deep flavor, and have a long shelf-life. Always have soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and hoisin. Because we love all kinds of Asian food, I keep lots of less widely used ingredients like yuzu juice, dried shrimp paste, tamarind paste, and more. 

In the cheese drawer, I always have both Pecorino Romano (the queen of cheeses) and Parmesiano-Reggiano. And, then other cheeses as my mood dictates when I am at the store, Queso-Fresco, Monterey Jack, a funky blue, something gooey like a triple cream brie, mascarpone, and always cream cheese.