In Out of the Pantry the author mentions her mother cooked the same meals every week, her entire childhood. One night was meatloaf night (of course). One was casserole. One was tacos (not really, but I can’t remember the meals). Repeat on the same day the next week. You get the idea. The author was a picky eater and didn’t care for all the meals, and was excited when she learned how to make other recipes, and have more variety, as an adult.
I’ve been thinking about this and it sounds amazing, IF it’s meals we both like, and can be flexible when the other person wants something else. We kind of have this going on for a couple of days now – on Fridays we often get takeout (El Famous!) for dinner, and on Sunday we usually grill for lunch and make pasta Alfredo for dinner. I eat oatmeal for breakfast and salad for lunch nearly every day. I love to eat, but don’t enjoy planning it or cooking it AT ALL, so, same meals on certain nights? I can be even lazier? Less thinking?! Sign me up.
Or wait. Is that what we are doing now, with “meal planning” some weeks, but kind of making the same things over and over, and just changing the nights we eat them on? Hmmm.
The closest “name” for this I could find (via a very lazy internet search) is “meal template approach” in this article (<— I very much agree with the logic in that article – it’s recipes you know you like, they’re easy to make, it makes shopping easier, and you save fun/new meals for the weekend).
Did anyone grow up eating this way? Do you think you’d like to eat this way now? Take my poll!
[poll id=”26″]
If I was left to my own devices, every night would be pasta night. Oops.
We sort of did meal templates growing up. Our breakfasts followed a schedule (cereal M/W/F, eggs + toast T/TH, pancakes OR waffles OR French toast OR aebelskivers (a Danish “pancake”…it’s not really a traditional pancake like you’d envision, but they are delicious!) Saturday, scrambled eggs + pastry Sunday) and our weekday lunches followed an outline (sandwich + fruit + small dessert (cookie or brownie, cut “Mom sized” – aka usually one square inch. My friends would make fun of me for how small my mom cut our brownies or bar cookies, haha. But in retrospect, it was great portion control!). We always had pizza for dinner on Saturdays, we always had a meat + potatoes + vegetable meal after church at lunch time on Sundays (called Sunday dinner) and either tuna melts or ham and cheese melts + fruit + an aforementioned Mom sized dessert at dinner time on Sundays (called Sunday supper). But our weekday dinners never followed any sort of schedule. The only predictable thing about them is that we only had macaroni and cheese on a night Mom was working, because she doesn’t like mac and cheese (I KNOW. Incomprehensible. Especially since my dad didn’t just throw together Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or anything like that – he made a totally homemade, baked version.). Looking back, I think my parents had a good approach to meal planning. Having a few meals established required less work on their part to come up with ideas every week, but we also had plenty of variety on weekday dinners. I definitely see the appeal of a template approach, but I think it could get boring/pigeon hole-y after a while. I like the idea of a looser template like what my parents did–and really, what we do now. Our breakfasts are very predictable, as are our weekday lunches, and we’ve gotten in the habit of getting takeout on Friday and Saturday nights. But our weekday dinners are different every week. Planned, but different. Though we have had a lot of Taco Tuesdays recently, which I wouldn’t be opposed to making a permanent part of our rotation!
Do your parents still eat this way? And did your siblings end up with a similar template like you – planned breakfast and lunch and more variety for dinner? How interesting!
Mom sized! Ha! I agreed that your parents had a good approach and were smart to teach you portion control with sweets!
Does your Mom still not like mac n cheese? Does she like other creamy pastas? I live for non-red sauce pasta so I am curious!
I actually have no idea how my parents typically eat anymore! I don’t think they still do a big Sunday dinner since it’s just the two of them. Whenever I’m home, they tend to eat like we always did growing up, but I don’t know if that’s just to indulge my nostalgia or if it’s because it’s what they normally do.
You know, I bet my mom doesn’t really like creamy pasta sauces. I’ve never asked, but we NEVER had creamy pasta sauce at home growing up. It was always a tomato-based sauce. I don’t think I had fettuccine alfredo until I was, like, 13, and even then I know it was at a restaurant (and I ordered it because someone on a TV show I liked mentioned it was their favorite food. Ha! But thank goodness she did – opened my eyes to a whole new world of pasta sauce!). I never once had a creamy pasta sauce outside of a restaurant until I was out of college. Though it’s weird, reflecting on it, because we had oodles of casseroles growing up that always used a Cream of Fill-in-the-Blank soup as a base (mushroom, chicken, etc.), so clearly there wasn’t a strong cream aversion. I don’t know! Things I’ve never really thought about before!
I wonder if it’s for nostalgia or it’s because that’s how they eat now too! You must find out 😉
So do you tend to make red sauce at home now or make creamy sauces?! I am glad you heard about fetucine Alfredo and got to try it! I feel like the creaminess of those casseroles is somehow a bit different than a sauce on a pasta. Maybe since the casseroles are a bit more solid? Ha, now I want a casserole. I think we are making lasagna for dinner though, yum! (one of the few red sauce things I like!)
Well, to say we “make sauces” would be a bit generous, ha. We buy jars of sauce and open them, but that’s about the extent of our sauce making 😛 We have red sauce on everything except “our pasta.” When we started dating, pretty much the only meal we ever ate at home was gnocchi and white sauce with meatballs and garlic bread. It is every bit as delicious as it sounds, but also every bit as unhealthy as it sounds, so when I moved in we were like 1) we need to eat out less and 2) we need to eat things at home that aren’t our pasta. Ha. So now that’s mostly a treat when we’re feeling extra lazy (and we usually have vegetables on the side instead of garlic bread, because I’m a buzzkill and insisted on having something healthy with it), but I still love it!
Ahh gotcha 😉 I need to follow your lead and eat less pasta. I always have a veggie on the side but I could totally eat it every night. GARLIC BREAD? Yes please! Ugh, adulting sucks 😉
My mom loves to eat a variety of foods, so we definitely didn’t do a meal template growing up. Now I struggle to even have the same type of food more than once in a week. Already had tacos? No WAY we could also fajitas in the same week! This is ridiculous, I know. For years we did tacos on Tuesdays but now I’m trying to be more flexible and have tacos once a week, but maybe not always on Tuesdays. In fact, working from home is giving me more flexibility because I don’t feel as rushed to get dinner on the table. I’m more willing to move meals around. I still come up with a list for the week, but I don’t feel as stressed to make the meals on a specific day. I do typically make the same 15-20 things over and over again, though. And I ate the same thing for breakfast for years. But, again, being home means I can switch it up now and then!
I don’t think that is ridiculous – it shows you have a big palette of foods you enjoy – and that is good! Its awesome that working at home is allowing more flexibility and making cooking less stressful. What a wonderful silver lining, right? Is your office being cool about you continuing to work at home?
Yes, thankfully my office is being very cool about continuing to work from home. If anyone wants to return right now it’s completely voluntary (we have people who didn’t have work issued laptops or any kind of good work from home setup who have been asking to go back!). I actually just finished building our “office re-entry” training for staff! But if you don’t want to go in, you don’t have to. I appreciate their flexibility right now.
That’s great! I’m so glad to hear they’re flexible. I bet putting that training together was interesting – the information we have is constantly changing, so you have to be ready to constantly update whatever you are doing (training for you, floor plans for me, lol).
Fascinating article and also reading about everyone’s experiences here! My mom was definitely not a meal planner – she really did not like cooking, so I have no memories of weekly meal routines, except for through high school when we had a weekly pizza night at a local pizzeria.
I am a planner so I often try to plan our meals out ahead of time, but we don’t really have set-in-stone days for certain meals. I started up Friday night pizza night when the kids were in high school as kind of a nostalgic nod to how it was when I was a kid, and as a way to gather everyone together. But we have had to shift that now that schedules have changed as they become fully fledged adults, so we no longer have a fixed pizza night. We do still get together most weekends for one meal all together, which is great!
I don’t see myself embracing a meal template approach but will probably adjust my cooking habits again this fall when it is just me and Stefaan at home during the week, probably making simpler meals than I do now.
Isn’t it funny how we think back to what our moms cooked and not our dads? Total sidebar here. Ha. If we had kids, it would be “what Dad cooked.” Hopefully they would remember that “Mom” made the list, got the groceries, prepped the food, and was the sous chef. Ha.
Was your weekly pizza night on Friday as a kid? I think it’s fun you do that now with your kids and the date is flexible and everyone comes together. Did you ever get take out with them, or always make it? (Is pizza big there?!)
Oh gosh, yeah, I didn’t even think about how it will change throughout the year depending on if kids are home. You have to think about what everyone wants to eat!
Yes, pizza night was always on Friday – it was my dad’s idea actually, and it was always at a local Greek pizzeria so it also included Greek salads. Anyone who was in town was invited, and we were welcome to bring friends along. It was great!
Here, I always make the pizza dough myself and prep all the ingredients, and then a big part of the ritual is the kids (usually Florian and Charlotte) putting the pizzas together to go in the oven. We definitely could get takeout (we even have Domino’s here and they do a vegan pizza!) and very rarely we do (if the weather is too hot, for example) but honestly we prefer homemade.
And yes, the prep work that you do is just as important as the actual cooking!
Oh fun! Is there anything that’s “different” about a Greek pizza?
I am jealous you have vegan Domino’s. It’s funny what they have available vegan at chain restaurants overseas, first.
No, I don’t think so – we just happened to have a pizzeria owned by a Greek family in our town, the pizzas were good!
I am stunned that your Domino’s doesn’t offer vegan pizza!
Ooh, man, I have been STRUGGLING with meal planning lately and I wonder if considering a template like this would be helpful! Right now, I just sort of lightly plan out my meals but it’s not a system that’s really working for me, ha, and I am finding myself so bored with my eating habits lately. I like this idea, but it would need to be more of a “theme” night, as I cannot eat the same things again and again and again. (I literally can’t even stomach the idea of avocado toast after eating it for breakfast every day for two months.) You’ve got my wheels turning!
Let me know what you come up with! Would a theme be like “Mexican food” and one week you’d have tacos and the next week maybe fajitas? Or pasta night drooooooool
Growing up my mom basically followed that plan. My dad was very picky and we also didn’t have a large budget for food so my mom made a lot of dishes that used ground beef. We didn’t eat things on the same nights each week but it was a rotation of spaghetti, chili, hamburgers/hotdogs, sloppy joes, hunter stew, ‘lasagna’ (more like meat sauce with egg noodles baked with mozzarella on top). We’d occasionally have other things but not often. They we went out to (fast food usually) dinner on Friday night and got take out pizza on Saturdays. Sundays we had dinner at my grandma’s house.
We do not have the same meals regularly here. We don’t often follow recipes so even if we repeat a meal it will be slightly different each time we make it. We trade off cooking duties and my husband probably cooks dinners more often than I do.
I have friends who decided to do that template approach but decided to switch out meals each season based on what produce is in season and different tastes as the weather changes.
Your comment is reminding me of all the ground beef based meals I had as a kid – did you guys have goulash, too?
That is how Steven usually cooks too – doesn’t follow a recipe, except for a few creamy pasta sauce dishes. That is awesome you and your husband both cook!
How smart to change produce based on what is in season. I always think I want to do that, but am too lazy, and just make things like chili less often when it’s hot out. Ha.