Tutorial: Meal Planning

We are starting off with the tutorial first today, friends! This is one that my dear friend, Heidi Goehmann, wrote about meal planning. More than a tutorial, it’s a few tips geared to help with the process. Without further ado, here’s Heidi:

Creating a meal for my family makes me simultaneously joyful and full of dread.

It’s a spiritual practice, feeding people.

Jesus fed the five thousand. He ate with his people before his arrest. He broke bread and

revealed himself to his followers on the road to Emmaus. Long before that, the Angel of the Lord sat underneath oak trees and ate with Abraham – curds, milk, and cake. This story is my favorite eating story in the Bible. It reminds me that we eat for a reason. We eat to build intimacy, to share time together, to be nourished by both food and conversation, each a gift from our dear Father.

Read Genesis 18. What details do you notice? What prevailing attitude is present for each

individual in this account? What is the place of food in the story?

How different is Abraham and Sarah’s life from mine?

At first glance, yes, very different. I don’t live in tents unless I make a conscious decision to camp for fun. But my husband occasional comes home and says, “Quick! Knead it! Make cakes!” for a colleague, neighbor, or friend. I generally run down to Hy-Vee, our grocery store, for a box mix, but have been known to craft a scone or a Star Wars waffle for my children and their friends. I’m unashamed to say that I have also laughed at God, complained about being worn out and old, and denying anything of the kind all at once. Yes, we are different, but not so different.

 

[image error]graphic made at https://www.canva.com/

When you set out to meal plan you jump on the internet and quickly become overwhelmed.

There are print off menus, binders involved, and tabs for months and days. Even when we feel like, “All right. This is the system. This is going to work for me. All systems a go!” We quickly figure out that one child won’t eat a particular ingredient, this other ingredient costs too much money, your nearest Aldi is two hours away (heavy sigh), and meal prep day just got scheduled over with a music concert and small group Bible study.

I feel a little like the writer of Ecclesiastes with meal planning, “I have tried it all…There is nothing new under the sun…meaningless, meaningless…” I have tried meal planning for an entire month and laying my year out ahead of time. I thought with this method I’d be done and after one year my life would be neatly organized and dinnertime would be bliss. That didn’t work for me. I am more spontaneous than I thought, grocery ads are slightly less predictable than I thought, and I didn’t gain zeal, I lost it. I have tried cheap plans, healthy plans, Whole30 plans, day-of- the-week plans and nothing quite stuck.

So I offer you here only a few tips for what I know does work for me in getting to a good place, being less frustrated with meal planning, and more joyful about our slim but very clear abundance. You will take some and leave some. You will add your own. These things may look different next year, next month, or next week for any of us. Just like the rest of life, we all have our own systems, and enjoying the toil demands a little bit of creativity.

Heidi’s 15 tips for meal planning with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength:

Tip 1 – I reward myself every week that I go grocery shopping.

This may be a refillable soft drink to enjoy as we walk around the store. It may be that ice cream that’s on sale. It may be meeting my husband for thirty kid free minutes for a half off local brew from the bar in our grocery store. Whatever it is, I have a clear reward in my head. It’s a mental motivator to stay the task each week and write the menu, make a plan, and carry it out.

Tip 2 – I meal plan on Wednesday’s because our grocery store ad comes out that day. I meal plan around what is on sale and anything else I buy is generic ingredients. Our store brand is called, “That’s smart!” and I’m grateful that when I pick it off the shelf it affirms my thrifty ways.

Sometimes I seem a little hardcore when child one wants enchiladas, but enchilada sauce is not on sale, but I can usually skirt around what people are requesting with something close from the ad.

Tip 3 – Because the ad comes out on Wednesday, I shop on Thursdays when they have all the deals still in the store. I despise raincheck and not being able to get what’s on my list. There is no way I want to have to run back to the store to have to get something, so there’s more motivation for me to just get ‘er done.

Tip 4 – I let kids (and my husband) shout out requests for certain foods within the half hour time period I am meal planning. After that, your request is saved for another week. I love you and want to feed you what you love. Mama also ain’t got time to dilly dally while you think.

Tip 5 – I only meal plan dinners, usually six a week with one floating “make something work” night for flexibility.

Tip 6 – We make one to two soups a week to stretch the budget and always serve it with one side like crackers, a slice of pie, carrots and dip, etc. Sarah asked me what I do when it’s hot, spoken like a true Texan, and I told her…eat soup. We have air-conditioning.