Meal Planning Derails the Meal Making

The path to my kitchen is paved with good intentions

Meal planning starts with the best of intentions. Every time I enter the kitchen I intend to create an amazing, nutritious meal my family will love. Unfortunately, the reality of meal-making squashes the fantasy of meal planning. Statistically, just 6% of the meals I prepare land on the table in their intended, unabridged form. The other 94% get derailed for a variety of reasons.

Failure to plan

I envy those people who excel at meal planning. They compile recipes, make shopping lists, and post calendars with their menus. With all that groundwork, their meal prep becomes a matter of assembling the right ingredients on the right days.

Sometimes I legitimately fail to plan. I am too busy, too uninspired or too tired to organize a week’s worth of entrees at one time. I also never know how many diners to expect at my kitchen table each night, which adds to the planning uncertainty.

Often I abort the full-assault approach to meal planning and decide each day’s dinner menu that morning. The notion of preparing a healthy, appetizing and visually appealing meal inspires me all day. But inevitably, I get home after work to discover I forgot to take the chicken breasts out of the freezer. Since I have an inexplicable aversion to thawing meat in the microwave, it’s omelets for dinner (again).

Lack of motivation

I’m suspicious of people who profess they love to cook. I do too – sometimes. On a productive day I can channel Betty Crocker or Rachael Ray with the best of them. I can chop, slice, dice, peel, tenderize, season and sauté as needed, all while monitoring three saucepans on the stove and a cake in the oven.

Other times it feels like Jekyll and Hyde have reported for KP duty. I go into the kitchen intending to prepare a healthy, tasty, home-cooked meal. I take my spices down from the cupboard, retrieve the proper bowls and utensils, and pull out my ingredients. Suddenly I’m swamped by the biggest wave of ennui and end up hating what I haven’t even started to cook. The recipe is too complicated, the water is taking forever to boil, and nobody likes mushrooms anyway. Why bother?

Failure to execute

There are nights my meal planning efforts become collateral damage. Usually this happens when I broadcast my intentions and solicit feedback from the family. For instance, I’ve been informed that cranberry-glazed roast pork, new potatoes, and asparagus with brown butter is not “acceptable” Friday night fare. And how can I plead my case with somebody who “just isn’t feeling the meatloaf vibe”? I question the reason for cooking at all when faced with such opposition.

Having the pizzeria on speed dial has jettisoned more than one well-intentioned dinner plan.

Freelance creativity

A large percentage of my fantasy meals don’t reflect reality because of freelance creativity. I often cook from scratch without using recipes. So the ideal in my head gets merged with the ingredients available in my pantry. No canned green beans? Use frozen peas instead. Swap Greek yogurt for sour cream. Out of bread crumbs? Substitute corn flakes, cracker crumbs or potato chips.

Some of those creations garner a 5-star thumbs-up from the family. The only problem with inventing a meal like that is remembering what you actually put in it so you can make it again.

Occasionally I plug a list of my ingredients on hand into Internet recipe sites and come up with new meal ideas. I’ve found a few keepers that way, as well as a number of clunkers.

Recently I discovered that Amazon’s Alexa is programmed to give meal-planning ideas. So I asked, “Alexa, what should I make for dinner?”

Her answer: “Seared duck breast with pomegranate sauce, Moroccan couscous and warm red beet salad. Shall I send the recipes to your phone?”

Umm. No thanks. I think maybe I’ll just make macaroni and cheese.

Is the path to your kitchen paved with good intentions, or are you a meal planning superstar? Share your secrets in the comments.

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