Tips for Effective & Fun Meal Planning

Since we’ve had ample time during the pandemic to reassess how we’re functioning each day, my husband and I crafted an intentional meal planning routine. It has made absolutely all the difference in our health and level of stress throughout the work week. Here are the 5 Ws on meal planning at Chez Baker & Medina:

Who can meal plan.

You usually hear about the benefits of meal planning for big families of 4+. Meal planning is a beneficial tactic for any household number! I wish even when I was flying solo I’d had these tips at my disposal. We’re a 3-person home (my husband, our cat & me.) So really we’ve got just a couple mouths to feed. My husband and I used to come home ravenous and annoyed that we’d have to shop / order out / scavenge in the fridge. Our indecisive nature added an extra hurdle. Now planning together is a treat we look forward to each week!

What we use to plan.

Custom-made journal. A few weeks ago, I taught you how to decorate journals using produce. This would be the perfect opportunity to get some play in your life and create something useful. I took one of these example journals I made and filled the right side of the page with the days of the week and kept the left side blank to create a grocery list or write any notes. By each day of the week we put our planned meal. If you don’t have any blank journals lying around or you don’t feel like taking the time to fill out each page by hand - keep an eye out right here on Boundless! Soon, you’ll find printables to help with organization in our shop.

Cookbooks galore and, of course, the internet. Every Christmas and some birthdays we get tons of cookbooks. Our family & friends know of our deep love of food! Every year we say we will take advantage of the treasures within, but we lose inertia and never get to taste what I’m sure are super yummy dishes. NOW, on our planning night(s), I gather up our cookbooks and intentionally identify recipes that will work in our week. For example, I just purchased Nisha Vora’s The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook. It has me particularly enamored these days since we end up with tons of produce from Imperfect Foods and we’re always trying to eat a bit less meat. I’ve never made so many recipes out of a single book before. All because we are being deliberate with our planning! My favorite recipe so far, Thai Red Curry Soup, is available for free on her site. I LOVE dump and go recipes. It’s incredibly easy, fun to make, healthy, beautiful, delicious, and we end up with extra servings for the freezer.

If the cookbooks fail us, of course you’ve got the vast expanse of the internet. We trust Binging With Babish, Bon App, The NYT, Smitten Kitchen, Happy Foods Tube, Epicurious, Feasting At Home, Food & Wine, and then whatever else seems vetted by reviews after a Google search. Do you have any favorites we should check out??

Instant Pot. The Instant Pot is a truly glorious creation. It saves us so much time and money. This is such an important part of the routine we’ve got going because it makes cooking in bulk super easy. We’re big on soups, sauces, and rice dishes. If you aren’t really into that then it may not float your boat. I’m sure if you google “how to freeze (insert your favorite dish here)” the internet will have you covered.

Boxes for organization. I order a lot of envelopes for my art & stationery business, Foreignspell, so I end up with perfectly sized boxes that fit right into the fridge. I organize by meal instead of by ingredient. That way when I’m ready to cook I pull out a single box. It’s such a relief to avoid hunting for small items buried in the fridge.

When we map out our meals.

Our Imperfect Foods order is available for customization Thursdays - Saturdays at 12 PM. So we generally take Thursday and Friday evenings to plan together. Our delivery day is Monday evening. They determine that by your location in order to save resources and delivery to a specific area all at once. I love how thoughtful they are about their processes.

Fridays -Sundays are usually our take-out / splurge days. Last Sunday we ate at a restaurant for the first time since the pandemic started. Such a surreal experience. The Barn makes every effort to offer a safe and pleasant experience. They’ve got ample distance between all the tables, hand sanitizer available on every surface, a smart ordering & food pick-up system, and the seating is all outdoors with plenty of airflow.

We also spend Saturdays and Sundays cooking more time-consuming meals that we can freeze or put in the fridge to dig out later in the week. My favorite weekend meal is this comforting and sumptuous pozole. Louis adds dried arbol, New Mexico spice blend, and fresh roasted jalapenos. We tend to eat out of out freezer 2 - 3 times throughout the week - always accompanied by greenery of some sort.

Where we shop.

We base our nightly meals mostly around fresh vegetables that we couple with dishes from the freezer that we cooked in bulk on the weekends or calm weekday evenings. For our fresh produce, some snacks, a few staples, and occasional meat & dairy, we have fallen in love with Imperfect Foods. A few years ago when zillions of meal kit subscription boxes launched with super tempting deals, I gave in almost immediately. I’m an infomercial lover since childhood, so these definitely spoke my language. Cannot pass up a good deal or promise of ease! I tried Purple Carrot, Sun Basket, Good Eggs, Hello Fresh, Blue Apron. Typing them all out now, I see I really did go overboard. In theory, they made sense for our lifestyle and inability to make decisions, but our love of the process of cooking and our inclination toward honoring our food cravings made most of these unappealing in the end. Also, the packaging waste really bummed us out. Here’s why Imperfect Foods is a perfect match for us:

Here I am accidentally sneezing while showing off this enormous broccoli

• You make an impact with each box! This is my favorite part. You save ugly lil babes or overstock items from reaching the landfill. Even though you may get a silly looking tuber or intensely gigantic head of broccoli, they still taste just like the fancy guys who end up in the grocery store. We’ve been customers for only a few months and so far we’ve saved approximately: 151 pounds of food, 6,040 gallons of water, 515 pounds of CO2. So grateful to have opportunities to advocate by spending money on organizations with good intentions.

• You try new things! I’m a bigtime snacker. It’s been super fun trying new snacks I’ve never even heard of. They aren’t all winners and some aren’t always offered, but they are often on sale and very much worth the attempt. The most delicious item we had was a Tikka Masala Snack Mix. I think it tasted extra yummy because we also loved the story: A spice company ended up with too much tikka masala spice and a chip company ended up with too much snack mix so Imperfect Foods smashed them together to make a limited edition offering. It is sad we won’t get to have it again, but it was worth the time we had together.

• You get good deals! I love being able to rely on finding sale items- like I mentioned earlier - as I was transfixed by growing up watching infomercials like they were true entertainment & fact. For example, every week our favorite organic pizza crust is at least a dollar off! When PSL season started there was an overstock of some delicious pumpkin spice cans of cold brew for much cheaper than the coffee drink options at our local grocer. In general, their prices on all their fresh produce beat or match our local markets. Also, if you spend over $60 you get free shipping!

• You eat seasonal foods. We’ve tried so many fruits and vegetables we hadn’t before because we are at the whims of what is available seasonally. If we were shopping in-store we would instantly gravitate to our familiar comfort zone. Imperfect Foods kinda forces us to be more adventurous!

Be sure to double check your order at each delivery. We have had a few mix-ups and missing items, but they always make it right by refunding or discounting. We’ve also ended up with extra stuff that they just let us keep at no charge! I’ve had to bother the team at Imperfect Foods a few times and they are always incredibly patient, helpful, and kind!

When we eat meat, we shop at our local butcher shop, Barons Quality Meats & Seafood. If Imperfect Foods is missing an integral ingredient we shop at our local grocery store, Canyon Market. It feels good to still get the opportunity to support our local, small business ecosystem, but no longer have the huge bill, time suck or pressure to do so.

Meal planning doesn’t mean you have to starve yourself from getting take-out from local eateries you love. You just pencil them in! We usually allow for 1 -2 days of getting food from delicious places nearby. Our favorite restaurant in San Francisco is Beit Rima. It’s indescribably craveable and we make it affordable by stretching it over a dinner + a couple lunches. Eating out feels more special now that we have most of our meals at home.

Why we meal plan.

We’re both prone to decision fatigue, so it’s nice to sit down together on the weekend to do Future Louis & Niki a favor by planning out each night of food. Do you struggle with decision fatigue? I’ll write a more in-depth post on this later, but one way to combat decision fatigue is by implementing a process like this for making decisions. Having some sort of organizational tool to be used in advance before making decisions can be immensely helpful in releasing pressure felt when you’re in the throes of decision fatigue.

You’ll be healthier! We deliberately seek out recipes that rely heavily on veggies, whole grains, fish/poultry and legumes. We eat so many cashews now! This process has significantly curbed our careless intake of fast food, red meat and snacks.

We also meal plan because it truly does save us money. I would always justify eating out a ton by saying it’s not that much cheaper to shop at the local grocery store. In retrospect, I think that was an accidental lie. We simply weren’t buying intentionally or intelligently!

Do you feel like you don’t have the time? I did. Now that we’ve been working on this for a few months, I know that it actually saves time in the long run. What would I be doing otherwise on my Thursday or Friday evening? Probably playing video games or watching TV. Now I am actively interacting with my husband, doing something awesome for our family.

Finally, it’s real fun! As you know, we are huge proponents of mindset here at Boundless. You can see meal planning as a slog, if you’d like. You can honestly brand anything that takes a bit of effort as a slog, but that’s truly up to you! I make the conscious choice each week to approach this process with enthusiasm and optimism. I really enjoy the quality time being productive with Louis. It feels good for our well-being in general.

Share Your Bounty

Food insecurity is a devastating and growing issue in our country - and globally. If you have the means and/or time, please donate to or volunteer with Feeding America or the United Nations World Food Programme.

Tell us your meal planning tips & tricks! I’d love to know more about effective food storage options, delicious food blogs / cookbooks, and your favorite local shops and eateries!

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🌞 Nicole

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