Doable Meal Planning + some of my favorite meals

here's a simple guide to cooking more + some top meal ideas we've shared so far

Hello! In this month focusing on Self-Care and Priorities, we can’t not talk about how the preparation of good food can feel like a huge burden. If you’re stuck in a rut with your cooking, you can plan meals right here and now with this easy step: figure out six kick-butt meals.

Maybe aim for one breakfast, one lunch, four dinners. You want them to be easy but also nutritious, and mostly actual food. What are six meals that you know how to make—or that you think you could figure out how to make—that don’t take too much work and that make you feel really good after?

You can type them in a Note on your phone real quick or print this out and put them on here. Maybe jot down some basic instructions in the left column and ingredients in the right.

My Favorite Meals

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Isn’t that an accomplishment? If you know that you have six meals you love, the planning isn’t quite so intimidating. Even if you cooked every meal every week, there are probably ways that you can adjust each dish so you don’t get tired of it until you can grow your list.

Next think about your schedule and which meals work when. The most complicated meals should be on your slower days, and leftovers/shortcut meals should probably be on your craziest days. (Remember to guard your schedule against overstimulation.)

Also, when you have people over for dinner, you’ll want to cook meals that you’ve made a million times and that you know will turn out right. (I’ve made that mistake too many times.)

Here’s what it looks like for our family of 7:

• We like to have a Leftover Buffet on days that are really busy (and the day before we go grocery shopping.)

• On grocery day, I like to make a more fancy meal since all the ingredients are so fresh and inspiring 🤩

• Instant Pot meals are perfect for when we’re out in the afternoon.

• On our day of rest, we typically have an indulgent feast to kick off the evening, then the next day we have a tasty breakfast (that I don’t really clean up from 😉), then we eat Chipotle for lunch and the leftovers for dinner to keep things simple.

• I’ve been making coconut chicken curry (similar to this recipe) nearly every week since April, and we’re still not tired of it. It’s obviously on my list of six favorites and it’s what I now make for guests.

Keep the meal plan list in your kitchen and maybe take a picture so you have it on your phone, too. I use a Family Plan Calendar that hangs in my kitchen because it’s enormous and has my shopping list, to-do-list, meal plan, calendar, and other reminders all in one place.

Because I know how much of a pain meal planning can be, almost every Thursday we send out about six meal inspiration ideas here on Family Scripts. You can see the archives here. Here are some re-shares of some recipes that I make often and keep coming back to.

Mango-Spinach Smoothie

Shout-out to Panera’s Green Passion smoothie for teaching us that spinach and mangoes taste (and look) great together. But this version—with only three ingredients and no fillers or added sugar—is just better.

Simply combine frozen mango, fresh spinach, and some orange juice in a blender. If you don’t have a high-power blender, you can always use defrosted mangoes, blend it, and then freeze for a little while before serving to give it a thicker texture.

Go ahead, be generous with the spinach. (In the batch above, we used more than half the bag.) It’s so creamy and sweet that it doesn’t taste like spinach. You might be surprised by how much your kids love this!

Bacon, Egg, Brie, and Jam Sandwich

Do you have access to a good bakery? Pick up some English muffins or bread that was made by humans. Get some eggs and bacon that were grown in farms, not factories. And get some good cheese that is labeled “cheese,” not “cheese product.” (Muenster and Brie melt gloriously.) Throw in some farmer’s market strawberry or raspberry jam, and this might be the very best breakfast sandwich you’ve had, and you can easily make it ahead in batches 😎

Here’s my process for making these, usually six at a time: sauté bacon in a pan. Remove the bacon to a plate and drain most of the fat, but leave some of the fat in the pan for the next step. Fry or scramble eggs, adding a little salt or pepper. Add those to the plate. Now it’s time to assemble! (I like to hold the jam until it’s ready to eat.) If you’re making these ahead, wrap them in aluminum foil and keep them in your fridge or freezer.

When ready to eat, microwave your sandwich or throw it in the toaster oven until everything is heated up and the cheese melts. Add jam and enjoy this amazing sandwich.

“Groundhog in the Forest”

We came up with that silly name as an excuse to share this on Groundhog Day, because you start off by sautéing “ground hog” (crumbled sausage.) Drain most of the fat, then stir in some broccoli and/or cauliflower (which resemble trees) and you’ve got a whole forest setting for your ground hog. The way the rendered fat flavors and sears the vegetables is just wondrous. (Don’t forget to add salt and pepper too, and maybe something like herbed pepper. Sage goes quite well with sausage.) Make sure you cook everything long enough so that the sausage is dark and crispy, and the veggies are vibrant and well-roasted.

Change-Your-Life Chicken

This recipe adapted from The Lazy Genius is SO good that you’ll probably want to add it to your regular rotation. The brilliant part is that the fat from the chicken thighs ends up frying the vegetables, and you can cook thighs for almost forever because they never seem to dry out.

1. Preheat oven to 500 F.

2. Cut up whatever vegetables you want. (Make it colorful! 🌈) Keep in mind that carrots take a bit longer to cook, so you might want to slice them more thinly. Here we used Les Petite’s carrots from Trader Joes and didn't have to cut them or anything.

3. Season with more salt and spices than you’ll think you need and drizzle with olive oil. You can either mix all the veggies together or keep them separate so you can try different seasonings depending on the vegetables.

4. Optional: mix together some flour, salt, pepper, and whatever seasonings you want on a paper plate. (Herbes de Provence are great.) Coat your chicken thighs with the flour mixture for a super yum crispy coating.

5. Place the chicken thighs on top of the veggies. Adding some lemon helps too.

Bake for about 45 minutes, stirring and flipping once or twice. Add some olive oil if it all seems to need help. Enjoy 😋

Frozen Grapes

We’ll close with one of the easiest desserts ever.
Wash green grapes. Pat them dry a little. Freeze them. (I keep them on the stems and simply put them in their serving bowl to freeze.) You might want to let them thaw a little. Slice them into smaller pieces beforehand for kids under 4. And there you have it! Each bite is super sweet and refreshing.

I particularly love the recipes we shared on Feb 14, April 14, and June 9. We also shared some suggestions for Creativity in the Kitchen and tips for Helping Picky Eaters.

Oh, and multiple readers said they really like making Yogurt Custard Toast. It really is so yum, especially given how simple it is to make.

Hopefully this helps you in your cooking endeavors. Seasons exist. If you’re in a major work push, a rough first trimester of pregnancy, having a bad autoimmune day, etc., kudos to you if you can manage even manage microwaved hot dogs. (I speak from experience! Those are hard times. Again, seasons.)

Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts