Kyler has been working more hours, I am in school and he tends to get a lot of evening shifts. It is pretty tricky to plan dinners with Kyler’s crazy evenings, too. With no consistent schedule.
There have been a nice line of nights where we get maybe 3 or 4 evenings together for dinner. We have a quiet evening, relaxing and yada yada yada. Other nights, between school, work and keeping up around the house and this blog, dinner plans can sometimes not fly out the window and are forgotten until it is like 4 PM and too late for anything to defrost in time.
Despite the crazy, inconsistent schedule and the undeniably irritable obstacle to satisfy our picky tastes, purse strings, health and schedule, I somehow do manage to find things that we love, and keep him happy. And mostly me, since I am the one who needs to eat healthy the most.
List out MEATS. I have been learning that just writing down on the ‘weekly menu’ and pulling out the meat the morning of or the night before is really helpful. You don’t need to fret about the rest of the course until later in the day. Just add a healthy vegetable, and a starch to complete the meal and viola! Keep a simple list of 5-7 of the meats you want that week, and the sort of meal you want to cook with it. When you start at the beginning of the week, with your notepad, pen and coupons, try not to keep it so strict.
‘Cheap’ Meats. Kyler and I tend to stick to hamburger meat, pork and chicken as our go to meat when we go grocery shopping. When I got grocery shopping… Every now and then - very, very rarely!- Kyler will choose a nice steak for us to share (since I don’t eat much of it) and we will make a nice date-dinner out of it. There are other sorts of beef, chicken and pork that you can get…..And I guess, well, I just haven’t ventured off too far from these meats yet. Plus, our purse strings are happy for that. Side note: Kyler and I sometimes go to Costco, get a package of ground beef that is no more than $20 and then when we get home, I take a baking roller and separate servings for our dinners and roll them flat into individual plastic bags. Then they defrost super fast- like a half hour tops!
Do not limit your resources. I am always scouring Pinterest in the morning anyhow, but when I am looking for a quick and easy read or inspiration for dinner, I go to Pinterest. I do also go to family- I text my mom all the time for my favorite recipes while growing up. And I also use the dusty recipe books in my kitchen every now and again.
Start a Pin Board or Two. Start a Pinterest board, or two, or four. Either way you will have oodles of recipes, tips and tricks from all sorts of viewpoints on cooking and having a good diet!
Don’t keep Dinners on a Strict Schedule. This hasn’t worked well for me whatsoever. I had tried many times to tell myself: “WEDNESDAY IS A DAY FOR LEFTOVERS”. “FRIDAY is Italian Night”. You end up sorta falling off the bandwagon and then the week’s meal plan doesn’t go so well. There is also the off chance that you are called in for work, or skip dinner because you worked later than you thought you would that night.
Remember Vegetables & ‘Pasta’. Growing up, we always had ‘3’ things on our plate for dinner and lunches. 1) Meat 2) Produce 3) Starch: Ham Sandwich and a cup of fruit. A delicious dinner of breaded drumsticks, fresh and steamed green beans, and alfredo pasta. Yummm. Top it off with a glass of water or milk, and for me, it’s a done deal.
Keep an Idea of Vegetables & Starches in Mind. Or just in the kitchen all the time. It’s a good thing to keep a good amount of produce in your house- enough that you can gobble it all down without it going bad…. And then when it’s time to make dinner, Kyler and I just list out the things that are in the house, and what sounds good to have with the star of the show: meat.
Leave Room for Leftovers. There will be nights where there are a lot of leftovers in the fridge. And before you dial that pizza number, consider going to your fridge- if you haven’t already- and pick out some leftovers. Chicken can be shredded and used in a simple pot pie recipe or a salad, loaded with veggies and bacon. Soup or spaghetti can be reheated and so on.
Thanks for reading The Tiny Twenty~Something everyone!
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