Practical Meal Planning for the Average Woman

Good morning! Well, afternoon now, by like 40 minutes, but still. It has been a hot minute since I have written anything- like a year, honestly. I have wanted to get back into blogging, but honestly I told myself so many lies about it to keep excusing it. You don’t have time, Ashley... seriously, yes I do. I have time to Netflix bing five episodes of Glee, but I don’t have time to write a few words on a piece of paper. But, you’re an irrelevant force in the universe. Nobody will want to hear or much less read what you have to say. You know what? That’s bull. Over the last two weeks or so, I have discovered some things that have really helped me to start my personal growth journey again, and one of the big things is learning to identify the lies and excuses you give for not reaching for the best version of yourself and reject them. So all that to say, Hi again! Ashley is back and in full force, whether or not anybody else freaking cares.

A couple of days ago, I did a super long, awkward 8 minute video on the floor of my super messy closet ( a fact my compulsively organized self is somewhat ashamed to admit, as I am currently writing a blog about organizing) about how I organize my meal planning for the week. As much as i attempted to explain in that crazy video (totally laughing at myself) I though a blog might help lend some structure and clarity to that video.

So I’m going to break my meal planning down into three phases that all start with the same letter (look at me reverting back to my Southern Baptist upbringing).
Phase 1: Reset the kitchen
Phase 2: Recipes that make you happy
Phase 3: Replicate your system
Hey, I actually pulled that off! Pat on the back, Ash!

There’s your structure- clear and simple. Now to break it down and muddy the water a little.

Phase 1: Reset the kitchen:

Take a piece of paper- any piece of paper- if you’re sweating the paper, you’re gonna die at the next part— and write down every item of food that is in your kitchen (pantry, fridge- all of them, freezer and deep freezer). If you can categorize, it will make this process so much easier. Meats, veggies, dairy products, etc. You DO NOT need to write down the spices and baking supplies like baking powder and such.

Now just pair up those items. Put meat with a veggie and a starch and write it down as a meal on another blank sheet of paper. For the record, the reset meals can be super bland if you don’t go a little wild with the spice cabinet. Seriously the right amount of salt and oregano can make about anything taste like an authentic Italian chef made it. The point of this phase is to clean out the existing food in your house. This is super helpful if you are the type who doesn’t know what they have so they just constantly buy more, and now you have 45 cans of cream of mushroom soup.

If you can get 7 meals out of what you have in your house, congrats, you have just meal planned for the week. Once you have eaten all the combinations you can without buying food, then you look back at the list of foods, cross off the stuff you ate already and find meals you can combine by buying like 1-3 ingredients at the most. Eat that until its gone.

To be fair, you will probably still have food left over at the end of this phase, but the idea is to save some money and clean out what is already there- hence, reset the kitchen.


Phase 2: Recipes that make you happy.

Yay! We know what the heck is in our kitchens now. The next step, and honestly my favorite step is to find recipes. Seriously, take an hour and salivate over that crack chicken crock pot recipe on Facebook (totally dated myself right there) or (keep it together ladies) give yourself permission to scroll Pinterest for recipes. I have found so many freaking amazing recipes on Pinterest it’s not even funny. Don’t go wild. Find like 10 recipes that sound fantastic, and determine to give them a try. I like to print the recipes because I’m old fashioned but heck, if you can make the tech work for ya, go for it. You’ll save paper. Anyway, I print my recipes and store them in a $.15 folder from Walmart. I keep desserts and event foods on one side and normal food on the other.

Phase 3: Replicate your system!

Here’s the trick to this. My system may to work for you. I am a super organized human (except for my closet apparently), and a lot of people did my system as too much set up work. They want quick and easy. That’s great. You do you. The point here is to find a system, whatever that means, that works for YOU and the replicate that EVERY WEEK! Guys, it is really all about consistency. You will be a much more sane version of yourself if you will just establish some ORDER in your life. Pick a day and time period and try to stick to it. It will make your life so much easier. Here’s what that looks like for me:

On Friday morning, I get out my nifty blue folder and my new adorable little meal planning pad I got from World Market. Here’s the link: https://www.worldmarket.com/product/what-to-eat-menu-planner-notepad.do?searchTerm=Meal%20planner

I sit down and go through my recipes and pull out 5 delicious looking recipes and start filling in the dinners. Our breakfasts stay consistent, as do our lunches, so those are super simple. I then look at those recipes and I jot down all the ingredients I will need to make those recipes. Then I walk into my kitchen and start checking for those things in the pantry and fridge. If I have enough already, I mark it off the list. If not, I leave it for the next step. If necessary I may also put a number next to it to let me know how many I need.

And here’s the money-saving, life-saving, sanity-saving part. I open up my Walmart Grocery pickup app and I just stick all that stuff in the cart, pick my pickup time and pay. Then I pull up to walmart and I NEVER EVEN HAVE TO WALK IN THE FREAKING STORE! Guys, I’m gonna totally nerd out here for a sec... I have spent so much money doing the Walmart shuffle it’s unreal. And who the heck in their right mind really wants to walk into Walmart during the holiday season anyway, am I right?!?! Also, super cool perk, if there is any problem with your order, you can just request a refund on the app, and they will refund you without you having to waste your life standing in that always ridiculously long customer service line. I seriously cannot rave enough about how much time and money the pickup feature has saved me. And I don’t have to figure out how to navigate yet another new Walmart (we are in a long moving process right now). The only other thing I can suggest is set reminders on your phone to thaw meat and such when you need to.


Side note: You will probably move somewhat fluidly through these phases. For example, you’ll get tired of your 10 recipes in circulation and want to try something new. Do it! Rate your recipes so you know in a year which ones you loved and which ones you were okay with consuming that one time, but eh, probably not again. You may find that you accidentally forgot to plan for an event you were going to, so you skipped that meal. No prob. Just add it to next week, and don’t buy the ingredients for it or if that happens often enough and it gets away from you, go back to phase 1. No shame.

Anyway, this is my actually pretty complicated simple meal plan system. I think if I read this blog on a video it would take longer than 8 minutes but oh well.

This is the first blog but it is definitely not the last. If you loved it or even liked it, or you just like me and feel obligated to support my crazy ideas, subscribe to my blog and comment on content you’d like to hear about. This is just a lifestyle blog for normal women. I would love to hear from you. Alright, Ladies... 11 more days until 2020! Finish strong and let’s start the New Year off with a running start!!!