It’s been a (very very ohmygod very) long time since my last post, so I thought I would ease myself back into blogging, as it were, by not trying too hard to post pictures and discuss recipes. Instead, I wanted to talk about something that I sit down and do every weekend: our meal planning.
Please be warned: I am about to divulge some seriously OCD stuff about myself. I wish I could be the kind of person who could walk into a market with no plans, the kind of person who could pick up a couple of porkchops and not only immediately dream of 5 different dishes to make with them but would also know exactly what to buy while I am in the store. Sadly, I am not that kind of person, so I have to meal plan.
First, I do try to plan in a bit of flexibility by only planning about four meals a week (sometimes five). I always leave Friday and Saturday nights open for last minute dinner plans with friends. Not to say we’re popular or that happens often, but if we were and if we did, we wouldn’t have to worry about when to use up already purchased food.
I also usually plan a complicated meal for Sunday, one that introduces a new technique, so that I have the time to really focus and learn because I am reeeeeeeediculously slow in the kitchen. Like, I will take five minutes easy to dice an onion, a task that you would think would grow faster by repetition. It does not, at least not for me.
So besides those two caveats, here are the rules I follow when planning a meal:
1. One chicken dish. Because I like chicken and because it’s really versatile.
2. One vegetarian dish.
3. One red meat dish (usually beef or lamb) OR seafood dish.
4. One pasta dish OR sandwich dish OR pork dish. Paninis are pretty much one of my favorite things on earth but I find it difficult to balance either of these types of dishes with vegetables as they tend to be carb-heavy and unhealthy, but they’re also easy so I typically pick one or the other. And as for pork – Martin is a huge fan but I am not so it tends to get sidelined a little.
And usually if i I make a fifth meal, it’s because of this rule:
5. One “I just saw this recipe that looks amazing and OMG I have to make it right now” dish.
Overall, the key is variety. I want to make sure I am not making too much of any given thing.
For inspiration, I turn to a lot of different sources. My major one is an idea given to me by Amy – it’s a Google Doc that I maintain of recipes I’ve found while browsing online. Which I keep organized with a clickable Table of Contents because I can:
Hey, just keeping it real. Real organized.
For recipes I’ve already made, I keep myself organized with MacGourmet. It’s a great application and the syncing capability with the iPad is a great plus! Now if I could just get Martin to build me a handy-dandy little stand for while I was cooking … 
I am also a huge cookbook hoarder so I’ll often pick a couple at random to browse through. My favorite cookbooks at the moment are:
Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table
Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter
What I like about both of these cookbooks is that there is a focus on simple foods done with fresh and high quality ingredients. I think that’s my main goal when I cook. I mostly just want to always know what I am putting into our food and, by extension, ourselves.
For good all-purpose cookbooks, my favorites are The Joy of Cooking, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and the yellow The Gourmet Cookbook. For good online recipe resources, I turn to Serious Eats, Southern Living and The Food Network. I also think that the blogs Simply Recipes, One Perfect Bite and Food Wishes are great.
And there you have it. My crazy meal-planning strategies. Now that I’ve shared mine, please share yours. I’d love to hear!
Meal planning… hm. I think about it the morning of, assess what’s in the fridge, and decide around 4pm what we’re eating based on how I’m feeling, what we have, and what’s on sale. I have two google docs – the one with the recipes I want to make, and then one that’s maybe like the iPad application – it’s just a cooking journal where I write down what I made, what I did differently from the recipe (because I can’t just follow a recipe), and what I thought of it. That’s good for when I say “ohh, I want some of those things I made that one time – how did I do it?”
In Seattle, we ate out or with friends maybe 3 nights a week or so. In Zurich, I think it’ll be more like 1 night a week, just because eating out is so expensive and not as common as the US. Meat is also expensive here, so I think there will be more vegetarian or near-vegetarian meals than what we had before (which was still approaching about half our meals before). This week, we had: a sausage patty with salad (the sausage was on sale after their 1 August celebration (like July 4)), chickpeas with spinach, sardine/avocado sandwiches, and a Thai curry with a little chicken and a lot of veggies.
I hope you’ll share some of the recipes you make in Zurich, I feel like I always have the worst time with vegetarian ones.
I use a lot of grains for veggie meals – wheatberries, bulghur, rice, etc. Not very much tofu because I feel like I’m not good at cooking it (except for curries). And beans! Yay beans! Mostly lentils because they’re quick.