How I Meal Plan and Cook Real Dinners (While Working and Momming), Part Two

Okay, so Part One was the navel-gazing essay. Part two is the practical stuff!

Meal Planning

At the top of all of my meal planning posts, you find a brief overview of our week. That’s because the first thing I do when I sit down to meal plan is confirm my schedule and Jon’s for the week to come. The biggest thing that impacts the meal plan is if he or I aren’t home for an evening: if I’m out; he’s responsible for dinner that night; if I am, I might do something I know he’s not crazy about or I might only make a plan for the kids. When all four of us are home for dinner, I try to make something I know we’ll all like and can eat together. And, of course, I want to make sure to plan something easy for the babysitter (or my mom) on a night when he and I are both out!

The second thing is that I look at the weather for the week ahead. This is pure indulgence on my part - it’s not necessary, but I like to cook for the meterological mood. It’s going to be chilly and rainy? Sounds like a good night for comfort food! Hot and humid? Let’s do something that doesn’t involve the oven and only requires minimal stovetop time. (Hm, maybe I should put a link to the forecast at the top of my posts, too…)

I then do a reccy of what we have in the fridge, freezer, and pantry. My goal is always to have the shortest shopping list possible, comprised exclusively - if possible - of produce and dairy. We do have to go to the grocery store twice a week at the rate we go through milk, but we also do a big Costco trip every 4-6 weeks and to stock up on non-perishables and things that can be frozen. I swear by shopping lists that can be organized by department - the Spillt app, which is fab for saving and sharing recipes from all over the internet, will sort this for you, if you like having a list on your phone! Otherwise, Sugar Paper has a super cute pad and there are tons of hard copy and printable options on Etsy (like this adorable lemons one).

Honestly, I’m not a big couponner. I’ll check Whole Foods’ website to see if they have any interesting meat or fish on sale that might inspire a meal or two - that’s really the only way I can justify shopping at Whole Foods, especially now that they outsource their challah and it’s not as good anymore - but otherwise I just go to Safeway or Giant. (Trader Joe’s is a fun visit if I happen to be near one, but we shop there more rarely unless we’re craving something that only they carry.) I’ll check to see if anything compelling is on the clearance shelves there, but those are usually non-perishables and I’ll chuck anything I get from there into the pantry for the future.

Cooking

I mentioned in Part One that, even before Robbie was born, Jon and I had conversations about how cooking dinner served as sacred “me time” that I didn’t want to give up. He takes that seriously and is on primary kid duty while I’m cooking, making sure that I have the space I need iboth physically and emotionally. All four of us are usually home around 6pm - Claire’s daycare closes at 5pm and is a 10 minute walk from home; Robbie has to be picked up by 6 and is a 15 minute walk from home. Charlie usually accompanies whichever parent is walking to pick up Claire from daycare, which serves as his walk for the afternoon/evening, so for the most part he bops lazily between the kitchen (to hoover up anything I may have dropped while cooking) and the living room (to hoover up anything the kids may have dropped during snacking). I’ll head straight to the kitchen while Jon grabs the kids small snacks and then supervises play time, and the goal is to have dinner on the table by 6:45. If Jon’s out for the evening, the TV serves as primary parent while I’m cooking.

I do very little meal prepping, largely because I like cooking in full every night, and everything for dinner happens in the half-hour or so after 6pm. There are times you’ll see on the weekly meal plan that the kids and the grown-ups are eating different things; when that happens, either the grown-ups are getting the “real” meal while the kids enjoy something from the freezer like dino nuggets and mixed veggies or the kids get the “real” meal while the grown-ups forage. More often, though, we’ll eat the same thing or a variation on the same thing. For instance, I’ll make pesto pasta with chicken meatballs and Jon and I will have it with sautéed spinach mixed in but the kids will have it plain with raw chopped veggies on the side. Or we’ll do a sort of fajita bar and everyone can choose which fillings they want to put in their tortillas. If Robbie and/or Claire doesn’t want what I’ve cooked, I’ll make them a basic sandwich - that’s their only other option.

I just want to add that, when Charlie and the kids were younger, 6-7pm was hell. It was the witching hour for all three of them, and Jon and I felt like our brains might explode on a nightly basis. We still tried to maintain the arrangement noted above, but it was tough. I have no advice on how to get through it if you’re still in that phase other than to say… you will get through it. Eventually. I promise!

When dinner’s over, it’s either bath time - Jon’s always been in charge of that - and I’ll do the washing up or I’ll play with the kids while Jon does the washing up. If I have my act together, I’ll prep the coffeemaker and the kids’ lunches for the next day. We each take a child for bedtime by 8pm, and that’s the evening done.