In a previous post, we admittedly made meal planning a bit onerous sounding. While stated there is a bit of learning involved. In this post, we will try and ease that burden of learning as promised. We will give you some tips and tricks we learned. The hope is that you will not have to learn the hard way like we did so you have an easier journey.
Here are Some Tips:
- When portioning, use a digital scale. Doing this gives you a better way to estimate portion sizes when you go out to a restaurant or attend an event.
- Choose simple recipes with reusable ingredients. You reduce food waste by doing this.
- Read the recipe’s serving size and calories. This way you can adjust the portion size to your calorie needs accordingly.
- Create one-dish meals to start. A meal like Arroz con Pollo can include starch, vegetables, and protein which makes it a very quick win.
- Cool before freezing. Place the extra portions in the fridge for several hours before attempting to freeze.
- Don’t overdo it. There is a limit to how many extra servings can be made in home equipment. Try to stick to 8-10 portions.
- Shoot for keeping a 2-3 month rotating menu on hand. This will allow you to get better and keep it fresh.
- Label and keep track of it. We used a magnetic whiteboard before finding apps to do better management.
- Instapots, slow cookers, and Dutch ovens are your friends. These ways of cooking take much less active time and space.
- Take one day a week to meal plan for the week. This allows you to make sure you are going through what you made.
Start With Freezing to Keep it Simple
Most things go wrong in the freezing stage of making your meals. You must cool food down to as close to freezing as you can before it goes into the freezer. If you don’t, the long ride from say room temperature to frozen creates ice crystals that damage the food. The damage results in the food being mushy when reheated.
Where we started with freezing was using BPA-free meal dishes and takeout containers. As long as your food isn’t in the freezer for more than a couple of months it should be fine. After that, you risk freezer burn with anything in contact with air. We will revisit this idea later when we talk about other storage methods.
The USDA has a pretty good write-up on freezing to start from. If you are just starting, it is a good read and is a cautious approach. We are well aware that this agency must keep an entire diverse population of the US safe. That means creating an umbrella across all people. That umbrella covers those more readily affected by food problems like the very young and very old. With experience, we have learned our own version of guidelines based on our comfort levels. We expect you will too.
Have Fun With It!
Lastly, make it fun. Some things are NOT going to work out. I accidentally made what turned out to be 24 servings of fish stew that I was none too proud of taste-wise. I have also spent some quality time with Easy-Off and scrub brush trying to save a pan. Don’t sweat it if something doesn’t turn out.
Overall, cooking for your calorie budget and eating at home is better for you. Here is why. It puts you in charge of your portions and ingredients. You control your spending is generally less expensive than eating out. It is a positive lifestyle habit. Finally, it also saves time. As you get better at it it simply becomes part of your weekly todo.
You should now have some tools to make meal planning easier. This learning became another catalyst for us in our journey. It eventually led to better budget control, more free time, and a host of other long-term gains we will talk about more later.