Since being married to Scott, I’ve had to learn how to cook and stay organized with groceries, ingredients and meals. If you read this post, you’ll know that food is one of Scott’s love languages. He wants to be fed and he wants to know what he’s going to be fed. The first year or so it was a lot of trial and error. I wasn’t very efficient in the kitchen and sometimes the cooking took forever. There were some nights when meals didn’t get finished until 8:30pm and I needed to go to work the next day. Other nights, I was wondering around the kitchen, clueless as to what the hell I was going to cook. But just like anything you work at, I got good at it. I figured out how to meal plan, scan my pantry for what ingredients I had and needed, shop and get it done! These are some simple things I do to make sure I’m able to feed my crew for a week:
Get a planner
It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. The one I have is from Target. What made me buy it is the little section at the bottom that says “Tonight.” That’s where I plan what we are having what night. Writing it down is super old school, but I’m a teacher by trade. I write everything down. Even when I need to clean my toilets.
Decide on your meats/main dishes
I go through my Pinterest page or cookbooks from home and decide what I’m going to cook. I usually try to pick a different meat every night and try not to cook it twice. Then I plug it in my planner. When picking a main dish, I try to pick things I haven’t cooked in a while, things I have cooked and I know are going to be easy, and sometimes I pick things that might take a little more time/prep. Meals that I know are going to take longer I’ll schedule for Sunday afternoon when there’s not a lot going on. If it’s something that I haven’t made and I’m not familiar with, I’ll skim through the recipe and look at the steps to determine how long it’s going to take. I always make a note when meal planning what time I need to start making dinner so it’s done and we’re ready to sit down by 6:00.
Know what you have and what you need
This is where I had to get my pantry organized. I had such a hard time finding what I needed. I was always sifting through the spices and cans. It took more time to find ingredients than to actually cook the meal! I got these can organizers from The Container Store. I keep all the same types of cans in the same row so I can see what I’m running low on. The baskets I got from Target. They hold miscellaneous ingredients like sauces, pastas, bread crumbs, etc. I use this to organize my spice rack. Keeping everything organized makes cooking faster AND it keeps me from buying doubles and sometimes triple of what I already have.
Make your list
When I got good at cooking and meal planning, I would just make a straight grocery list on a piece of paper. I found that I would get done with one section of the grocery store, move onto the next, and get to the bottom of my list only to have to go back to the original section because I had missed something. Shopping with a one year old, I have about 45 minutes from the time my foot enters the door to when I’m throwing the groceries in the back of the car. Any more time and I’m encountering a meltdown. My grocery list had to be organized and efficient so I could get in and get out. I made this grocery list to keep all my stuff organized and in the same section of the store. I get everything I need from produce, leave and not come back. Circling the store like a crazy person just wasn’t working.
Keep in mind that I AM a stay at home mom and meal planning and cooking is a little easier. My meal planning and grocery day is now on Monday’s. When I was working, I would meal plan and grocery shop on Sunday’s, sometimes on Saturday’s depending on what I had going on. And no, I don’t cook EVERY SINGLE DAY. Scott hates wasting food so if it’s a huge dinner, we’ll eat it again the next night or I’ll freeze it for another time. We’ll also get takeout at least one night a week so I can have a break.
Hopefully this makes shopping and meal planning for the week a little easier. It is a lot of work, but I get it done on Monday’s and IT’S DONE for the rest of the week until the following Monday. I know what I’m making, I have all the ingredients, and it’s ready to go. Oh, and the husband does all the dishes 😉