what’s for dinner?
The most dreaded question of the day:
“What are we having for dinner?”
It causes so much stress in many relationships. It feels as if that question is either asking to be entertained (i.e., "What are YOU making?") or asking your partner to make a decision that you don’t want to make.
I’m not sure what it’s like in your house, but in ours, we can easily make two to three different meals at every seating. So that’s a lot of mental load. And with everyone being so picky, eating has gone from something fun to the biggest chore of each day.
I recently watched the show Lessons in Chemistry and was struck by the joy, creativity, and seriousness with which the main character made her meals. She placed such a presence and importance on each meal.
To help offset the mental load, we’re experimenting with doing more meal planning. Life and relationships can be tough enough, so why not take the pressure off the daily task of food decisions?!
Something that has worked really well for us is to designate certain days with certain types of meals.
Here’s a sample of what we’ve been doing:
Every Sunday, we make a bigger meal (leftovers for the week!)
Every Monday is Meatless (we always do a different soup with a salad)
Every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday (we rotate the types of filling to meat, veggies, or fish)
Every Wednesday is a little whacky (it’s usually a mish-mosh of leftovers)
Every Thursday, we typically order in
Every Friday, we typically eat out
Every Saturday varies, but often, eating out or ordering in
Here are some other ideas you could try:
Breakfast for Dinner
PGV: Protein/Grain/Veggies
Pasta or Pizza Fridays
The next step is to designate days of the week when you do the food shopping. For some, it might be once a week. For us, we do it twice a week on Mondays and Fridays.
The key is to systemize—it removes guesswork and adds more flow to your week.
I would love to hear if it’s helpful or what your favorite meal-planning resources are!
To letting the system support you,
