Starving Foodie

Growing up, I remember my mother would plan meals for the week.  We would then check what ingredients we had, often frozen or canned, and then go the super market to get the missing ingredients. The lists were specific.  A bag of frozen corn, 1lb ground beef, etc.

I suspect this is how many people look at meal planning.  You figure out what your family is going to eat that week, see what your missing, and build a detailed list.  You then head out to the grocery store like you are on a scavenger hunt.

Great Food Starts with Freshness

If you ever see interviews with top chefs (not the egomaniacs that are on the reality shows), you will see one common item.  Start with the freshest, best ingredients you can find.

Now here’s a simple question?

If you plan exactly what you are going to eat before you go to the store, how do you buy the freshest ingredients?

Simple. You don’t.

Here’s a simple meal ….

Chicken Breast

Mixed Green Salad w/ tomatoes

Broccoli

Wild Grain Rice

That’s a pretty nice meal.  But consider what happens if you go to the store and find limp broccoli, aging salad, and under-ripe tomatoes? No matter how great your technique, the meal will still taste poorly.

I find many cooks, both professional and home, often compensate for poor ingredients by dumping on the oil, salt and other spices.

I’ve been to many restaurants where you cannot taste the food. You simply taste oil and salt.

Big Picture Meal Planning

Take our meal above, what if we re-wrote that meal like this:

Lean Protein

Salad

Green Vegetable

Starch/Grain

Now when we go to the store and find that tilapia is on sale and moving quickly.  It looks very fresh.  Meanwhile, the chicken breast are nearing the expiration date.  The broccoli is limp but the green beans are great.  Couscous is on sale.  The mixed green salads are looking poor but the baby spinach looks great.  Now look at our meal:

Talapia

Spinach Salad

Green Beans

Couscous

Now, here’s the best part.  Fresher ingredients are more forgiving to the novice cook.  Also, you don’t have to do as much to get the food to taste good.  This means less handling, less thought and less cooking.

Drive-by Meal Planning

When I shop for meals, I have rough ideas in mind. The number of days I need to cook, is it breakfast, lunch or dinner, and a rough idea of what I have on hand.  I then spend 10+ minutes simply looking.  I often make 2-3 trips back to the produce area.  Perhaps I intend to have one meal but find something on sale or much fresher, so I have to re-plan on the fly.  As a result I end up with great ingredients and more tasty food.

Tastier food means you eat less as satiety come quicker.  Also, those 2-3 trips back to the produce area burn more calories.