Do you plan a week's meals?

"Is "planning" this stuff just for people who need another thing to make their life more difficult?" dethwatch/Reddit

I have just spent half an hour or so trawling a Reddit thread which began with the question posed above. And boy did the the poor guy or girl cop a lot of abuse along the way about what a privileged single person with time on their hands he or she must be. Everyone else planned their meals, and some prepped them too, because they were poor, pulled down by family needs, disabled, lived miles away from food stores, and so on. I suppose it was sort of enlightening in a way, but it actually wasn't where I started on today's post idea.

My intent, in fact, was to 'compare the pair' - Coles and Woolworths and their approach to planning weeknight meals. I followed the Reddit thread because I have never been one to plan out meals for the week and so I actually was going to pose the very same question - without the making life difficult addendum, although probably, now that I think about it that's sort of why I have never done it. I do make lists, but they are pretty disorganised lists, and I have always been a bit of a last minute person in every sphere of my life. Decisions are made on the spur of the moment, exams were swotted for the night before, and dinner is  mostly cooked after a look in the fridge.

The decision to 'compare the pair' was because the current two supermarket magazines did not inspire me hugely, recipe-wise that is, although I also recognised that the recipes on offer were perfectly fine, even mildly interesting here and there, but 'ordinary' in a way which would definitely have not been 'ordinary' in my younger days. So I decided to focus on the main sections in both magazines which focus on what a busy mother might make for her family each day, bearing in mind, budget, nutritional needs, dietary needs, simple, fast, and variety of cuisines. Not to mention, of course the number of their own products that they can push at the same time.

An associated topic - for another day - is meal prepping - epitomised in this snap from the net, and probably from Instagram, whereby you cook your entire week's meals on Sunday, so that you don't have to worry about what's for dinner all week. Now that, for me, is scary.

"meal prep is a simple concept: set aside a day of the week to prepare the bare bones of your meals for the following week, then store it in containers in your freezer or refrigerator until its allotted day. The theory is that it saves time in the busy midweek when the idea of cooking from scratch feels draining. It also saves money by encouraging home cooking and reduces food and packaging waste. It is favoured by those who wish to control portion size and calorie consumption and those following, say, a high-protein diet. In short, it is beloved by fitness fanatics, the financially thrifty, the environmentally minded, the nutritionally conscious and, of course, wellness bloggers." Laura Barton/The Guardian

I'm pretty sure that such a statement if posted on Reddit would attract the same amount of abuse as my original question poser got.

Let's just stick to planning today, and how the two supermarkets approach it. I have sort of done this before when I wrote two consecutive posts, on the two magazines - The small print - Coles Magazine and The small print of Woolworths, but they were a little more general.

Coles first because it was top of the pile. Coles has a whole section on Weeknights, which contains various sub-sections - some of which are unique to this particular edition - a promotion of one of their pasta brands and dinners for one; and also variations on budget meals, fast meals, cheating meals - which use a lot of their own pre-cooked and prepared options.

Today I'm focussing on the section which they call Clever Cooking and which makes direct reference to a plan, which includes a shopping list - shown here. At the end of the whole Weeknights section they offer a four week plan, but without the shopping list. And throughout the whole section they do make reference to using leftover ingredients from one dish in another featured dish.

For me, looking at the shopping list above, most of those items would be items that I would have in my pantry or fridge at all times - bacon, carrots, garlic, tinned beans, onions, pasta, cream, tomato paste, stock cubes, bread - of some kind, not necessarily the one featured here, and olive oil. If I was a different kind of cook I would probably have the Cantonese stir-fry sauce and the ramen as well. I would also have sausages in the freezer. So all that I would need to buy would be the mushrooms, the beans, the baby spinach - and possibly the thyme, depending on whether I had any in my garden and the scotch fillets, although I might have some of those in my freezer. All of these are fresh food items. So to me, if you really need to buy all of those items, then you are either a very poor shopper, have very little storage space or are very poor which of course is totally understandable.

And what do you cook with those items? Well you can see thumbnails down the side of the above page photo. I have to say that the pumpkin - which only ever comes in largeish chunks, gets a good workout in three of those dishes, as do the spinach leaves and the mushrooms. Indeed almost all of those ingredients make an appearance in more than one recipe - well that is the focus of this week's week of meals. So full marks for lessening wastage. The downside, especially for kids, might be pumpkin three times in one week, although it has to be said it is used in very different ways. Below are the three pumpkin recipes Steak with creamy pumpkin and mushrooms; Beef and pumpkin noodle stir-fry and Creamy pumpkin, mushroom and butter bean bake.

As to variety - well there's an inevitable pasta dish - Creamy tomato pasta with sausage and bacon a stir-fry, a tray-bake, a casserole - Quick pork and butter bean cassoulet, and some steak, with the list including one gluten free, one vegetarian and one dairy-free option. All boxes ticked. Now for me - I suppose a somewhat experienced and jaded cook - none of these are particularly exciting, although almost all of them are the kind of thing that I would whip up from what's in the fridge. However, for a not that interested cook who has to get a meal on the table for their family they are all very much doable and attractive. Not to mention quick and easy. Classy food styling and photography by the way.

What about Woolworths? They have no overall view of the week, although they do mention the four ingredients that repeat throughout - green beans, frozen peas, parsley and coriander on the introductory page - of which the frozen peas and parsly would be staples always on hand for me.

Then you get each day's dish - below is Friday's - well it's Friday today - Butter chicken skewers. As you can see the layout tells you what you need to buy, and then takes you through the process. This recipe is not online, but then it's hardly a recipe as the butter chicken skewers are already cut and marinaded, and couscous takes nothing to cook - just pour over boiling water. All you have to do is grill the skewers and add some grated lemon and trail mix to the couscous - the trail mix also being a Woolworths product. This recipe is actually the one which most heavily uses Woolworths prepared products. The only other ones are a rotisserie chicken and microwavable rice. Why would you suggest that? Speed I suppose and promotion of your product. They do provide cost estimates per serve however.

So what did they offer: Quick noodle carbonara (the obligatory pasta dish); Chilli pork and beans stir-fry (the equally obligatory stir-fry); Mushy pea and sausage vol au vents (sort of a casserole/pie or tart offering); Speedy laksa (a different ethnic dish - sometimes it's Mexican) and those Butter chicken skewers. Not quite as classily styled and photographed, but almost. I have to say the sausage and gravy vol au vents look revolting to me, but the rest are, except perhaps for the laksa, the kind of thing that I also would throw together with what's in the fridge.

Surely nobody actually follows a plan that somebody else has laid out for them? Although, to be fair to Coles, with their four week mix and match double spread make it a bit more of an individual choice.

As I said at the beginning of this post I have never been into this kind of planning, and one of the reasons is that the fresh component of the shop would be one of the most critical factors in deciding what to cook. It is surely foolish to plan a week's meals and then find that either a particular fresh ingredient is not available or is horrendously expensive that week. If you did the shopping on Saturday and then sat down on Sunday to plan what to do with it I suppose it might work. But do you really want to spend your precious weekend shopping for food and then planning? Does online shopping make the process easier? I guess so but it's surely more expensive.

I have to say that when I read through that Reddit thread I was astonished to see that the vast majority of responses to the question were from people who planned their weekly meals - almost all of them with some degree of detail. But then again I think that my daughter-in-law plans it all out. It's somehow obsessive though isn't it? Although when I think about it I guess when I was a child we had a sort of weekly routine, which began with the Sunday roast and almost ended with those egg or fish and chips. Monday was shepherd's pie I remember and I do remember regular appearances of a stew, a soup, maybe a mixed grill, a pie, but I don't remember the order in which they came, and they were more generic than specific. Are we in fact returning to those times asks Laura Barton of The Guardian

"there is something so curiously old-fashioned here – a return to the culture of the weekly shop, the rhythm of meal planning and home cooking – that it is hard not to view it as a reaction to the age of instant gratification; a rejection of the world in which every kind of cuisine is available to us at any hour of the day."

I do get it that a working mother, dealing with picky children and a husband who is not always there, or who comes home late, doesn't have the time or the energy to trawl the net or cookery books for interesting food to cook. She is probably not even allowed the time to sit down and plan a week's meals. Back in the day I too was guilty of the occasional takeaway, and thrown together pasta dishes from whatever was in the fridge. However, I don't think planning would have helped, because as chef Matthew Fort says:

“What seems a brilliant idea when you plan on a Sunday night might seem rather less desirable when you get to a damp, cold, wet Thursday. For me, part of the pleasure of cooking is the instinctive response to ingredients, of looking at something and thinking: ‘Ah! What shall I do with that?’" Matthew Fort

Me too. I plan in the morning what I am going to cook for dinner - sometimes the day before. And I am always conscious of what needs to be used up from the fridge. I plan ahead just long enough to remove anything I might need from the freezer in time for it to defrost. I am not so conscious of what needs to be used from the freezer, but that's a whole other story.

Back in my mother's day there were not the takeaway options there are today. Fish and chips was it. We didn't even have McDonalds or pizza. Today in addition to all those vast takeaway options, there are the various meal delivery for you to cook options. Which, as the CEO of Hello Fresh, Patrick Drake says

"it was “all the stuff before cooking” that put off people who felt they could not cook or did not like cooking. “It was the meal planning, the trudging to the supermarket, the buying ingredients in bulk that never get used up”

When your box arrives it comes with simple instructions. The planning is all done for you. But what if you don't fancy a stir-fry tonight? All too hard, for me - and all too expensive for many I would think. Maybe if you could order a surprise make it yourself meal once in a while I could be tempted. Though I think not. What if you don't fancy what the provider is offering.

No planning today - just the leftover tart, improvised from the frozen something in the freezer. I still have some of the crumbs - a pasta dish with a crunchy crumbed topping I think - either tomorrow or Sunday. The other day will be a beef stew that includes mushrooms because they need to be used up too - or maybe a stroganoff, or even a pie. I'll see how I feel on the day. And that's as far as my planning goes.

POSTSCRIPT

August 9th - a very much down day it seems over the years. I wonder why?

2023 - Not a lot doing in early August 2023.

2022 - Or 2022 either. August is indeed very wintry and therefore enervating.

2021 - Cajun popcorn

2020 - Choi

2019 - August must just be an uninspiring month

2018 - Nothing again

2017 - And again

2016 - The evolution of yoghurt