Genuine question because I feel like I’m missing something obvious.
I don’t actually hate cooking and I’m not trying to eat perfectly. What gets me is the constant thinking about food. Planning, re-planning, changing my mind, feeling annoyed that I have to decide again.
Meal prep never stuck for me long term and collecting more recipes just made it worse. What helped a little was doing the opposite and limiting choices instead of adding more. Same breakfast most days, two lunch options, and very simple dinners on repeat.
It’s not exciting but it reduced the mental noise more than anything else I’ve tried.
I’m curious how other people handle this long term without turning food into a full-time project. Do you repeat meals? Rotate weeks? Ignore planning altogether?
Would love to hear what actually works for real people.
by FirmSense8623
1 Comment
Well, first thing my thought with meal “prep” is that your prep will be there if your pantry and fridge are stocked properly. Once you know what you mostly use and need for the meals you cook, your prep becomes less important, because you are ready to go.
Of course vegetables go bad, so they need to be used in a timely fashion.
It takes practice, but with many years 🤣, it all comes together.
My dinner pretty much always begins with sauté of onion and garlic. I always have carrots and celery. Usually sweet, hot, and green peppers. I buy Better than Bouillon, kept in fridge and made into broths. Half & half and cream come into play often.
For instance tonight, I have a bunch of fresh asparagus I need to use. Plus in my freezer I have beautiful shrimp. I also have tenderloin steaks, I cut up and wrapped.
I will sit down in a minute and look at cookbooks and internet for BEST SHRIMP/ASPARAGUS RECIPE…..read a few, then make my call on what to cook. We just finished making a delish chicken spaghetti (kinda Mexican with rotel), so I will not be using pasta most likely.
I recently bought an acorn squash, I plan on stuffing with farro (or other grain) this week. Prolly go good with pork chops.
It gets easier with practice, let me say. Read recipes. Watch cooking shows (I am binging old Top Chef’s now). Have your stand by meals you make every month. Keep that meat in the freezer if possible. I made the BEST baked chicken wings last week for a party (dredged in rice flour), so bought more yesterday to make down the road. Good luck!!