Random Rant aka Meal Planning Blog


I don't care for cooking.  I like my own cooking better than anything else but my husband isn't a fan.  Due to lots of circumstances, we have taken to eating out almost every night and it is spoiling my husband for restaurant food and I am getting tired of it.  So, I have been giving a lot of thought to both of these situations and have come to a couple of conclusions.

First, my husband needs to get over it.  He is diabetic.  The restaurant food isn't good for him.  He has been eating my food for almost 42 years.  Zip it, Hubs and sit down and eat.  Plus, I just have to accept the fact that he is never going to enjoy broccolli. 

Second, I need to get a grip and face the resident evil head on.  When I think about meal planning I morph back into Home Ec at Mark Twain Junior High School.  I think "meat, a starch, two veggies and fruit".  I try to plan meals around that paradigm and therein lies the problem -- we just don't eat like that anymore.  I can make a mean roast with potatoes and carrots but that generates leftovers -- Hubs won't eat leftovers.  I blame that on living with his mother who actually cooks for leftovers -- a weeks worth of yellow squash.  I can see the problem.  He doesn't care for fish and he isn't a a fan of chicken, especially boneless, skinless chicken breasts that come in large bags with several pieces --you know the ones, you get them in the freezer section at the store.  Yep.  Not his thing.

He says I need to plan meals which is great except he can't tell me anything to put on the list.  I thought about why we can't plan a weeks worth of meals and it dawned on me that I am planning meals which are fine but they aren't what we eat.  If I want to plan meals, I need to look at what we actually eat.

Ok, so here is what I want to do -- I want to plan meals for home, that I cook, like the ones we eat out.  There, I have said it.  I think this is the only way I am going to solve the issue.  If I do that then maybe we can quit asking each other " what do you want to eat" -- and I will spend less money at the store because half of what I buy we don't want to eat.  I am trying to be good about it but I think I have to face the fact that our eating habits aren't great but maybe I could make it better by doing it at home but in the same vein as what we eat out.  Maybe I am just bored.

So, I sat about trying to figure out the best way to plan the meals which was going to result in the purchase of a notebook, page protectors, paper and the time to pour over books, magazines, etc.

Then I ditched that idea.  I have a little white board on the side of my fridge with a section divided off for each day.  I am assigning a "theme" to each day - i.e.  if you ever went to public school in Texas and ate in the cafeteria, you ate Mexican food.  Since that was our life for twelve years, we are stuck in the "if it's Wednesday, you eat Mexican food" mindset.  So, Wednesday will be Mexican food day.  See where I am going with this?

Then, I am going to have to figure out what I can do in the crockpot as we are gone every day of the week and what I can cook ahead and freeze, if I need to.  Bread, cornbread, biscuits, etc. come to mnd.  I am thinking about making a tossed salad at the beginning of the week for several days or as long as I can keep it fresh and then fill in with REALLY simple food. (Steamed yellow squash?) I think I can do it.

So, that is what has been playing in my mind for the last 48 hours.  I don't like to cook but I don't think I like to eat out so much anymore either.  It has become a chore in and of itself.  Besides, I like my own cooking such as it is.

I have to ask -- how do you eat?  How do you plan?  I need hints and tips!