Month: February 2022

Meal Planning Week One Recap

Look at all the glorious colours.

Hi Everybody,

The first week of meal planning went well. I dipped my toes into the waters by selecting the main meal for the day and went shopping for the ingredients twice during the week, so things would be fresh. Nothing worse than opening a bag of vegetables and getting a glance of a new lifeform emerging from what used to be a zucchini. I can not handle another sentient being living with us. I am not ready for that kind of responsibility in my life.

A Rocky Start.

Things were difficult for half of the first week, as my husband and sister were on nightshift, and I was on dayshift, but we managed to make it work. I choose easy, quick meals to start with to help with the time constraints, because who has the energy to whip up a gourmet meal after 12 hours of work? Maybe chefs but in my experience, after cooking for other people all day the last thing you want to do is spend more time cooking for yourself. I remember a lot of two-minute noodles and toast from my days working in kitchens.

My first week’s menu looked something like this:

Monday: Roast Lamb with Cauliflower/Broccoli bake and rosemary potatoes.

Tuesday: Spaghetti

Wednesday: Veggie Bake

Thursday: Wraps

Friday: Stir-fry

Saturday: Steak Sandwiches

Sunday: Satay Curry.

Great Intentions

Monday went off without a hitch. I was off work, so I had plenty of time for making up a roast extravaganza. As previously stated, I am a vegetarian, but the rest of the family are omnivores, so I just ate the cauli/broccoli bake and had some potatoes. My husband took the leftovers to work with him for the next day, which turned in nightshift.

I was at work Tuesday, so Matt made beef spaghetti for my sister and himself and I ended up making the world famous Tik-Tok pasta: cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. It must be said that I love this pasta recipe, quick, easy and with some spices thrown in, delicious. There was enough leftover that it was tea for Wednesday night, so veggie bake got cancelled. It is the culture these days.

After dayshift Thursday I just wanted something light, so I just made a lettuce and coleslaw wrap with sweet potato zucchini bites that you get from the deli section in Woolworths. I love these things. They are perfect for salads and wraps, which I take to work with me. Plus, they have a couple different flavours so you can mix it up a bit. Part of the planning side of this, is keeping diverse selection of ingredients in the house so it is easy to whip something up instead of reaching for the frozen pizzas hidden in the freezer.

My sister decided to make us chilli con beans for tea Friday night, which was very tasty. I love a good chilli, with the cheese, sour cream and guac. Utter perfection. Not the healthiest with all the fixings but worth it for the taste. And considering our widely different interpretations of what is spicy or not, she did very well. It was my lunch for the next two days at work and all I can say is I am glad I do not share an office anymore.

Matt made us all steak sandwiches for tea Saturday night, mine sans steak but it had a nice gooey fried egg on it. Is there anything better than people cooking for you?

Sunday night’s dinner got changed because I decided that my weeks now end on Saturday instead of Sunday. I have a new diary, and this is how I set it up and besides, who needs all that existential dread that Mondays bring with them. though I cleverly get around this by not having a Monday-Friday job and by having an existential crisis all the time. It is called Self-care.

Leveling Up

The next step in this meal planning business is the prepping of ingredients the day or two before making the meal. This comes in handy for recipes that require a lot of chopping, dicing, slicing and other fancy words which mean breaking whole ingredients into smaller, more manageable components. What sounds easier to you? Tossing a couple of florets of cauliflower out of a container or having to break down the head to get the few you need every day? Hopefully, this will help on days where I want to make vegetable lasagne or pasta bakes. And have the side effect of keeping my fridge from looking like produce bag heaven, where you pull everything out to see what you have and what is still useable.

Honestly: fridge goals. No zombie zucchinis here.

So, for Sunday I made honey soy tofu stir-fry with fried rice. Once I had all the ingredients chopped and ready to go, it only took about 10 mins. Using microwave brown rice helped speed things along. Unfortunately, my husband and sister are not fans of tofu, which is strange to me because it is the same texture and consistency as scrambled egg, but hey, not everyone has good taste. The important thing is they ate it without complaining. Too loudly anyway. I quite like stir-fries. They are so easy and adaptable for every season, and you can use any ingredients, no recipe needed.

Monday was burrito night. Pork mince for the omnivores and textured soy protein for me, brown rice, avocado, tomato, capsicum, cucumber, onion, cheese, and taco sauce all combined and wrapped up in a blanket. Zambrero should watch out. From start to finish about 20 mins work, not bad.

Tonight’s culinary delight is apricot chicken with couscous. I meant to get in the slow cooker this morning but alas the day has gotten away from me. It is mid-afternoon and I am yet to get to the shops for the all-important apricot nectar and dried apricot. I have no idea what I am having. Probably couscous with more zucchini bites. Yes, that sounds good. It is a plan.

This week is going to be a short one, as I am going away for a couple days to see some family. Until next time, farewell.

Month 1 Week 1: Meal Planning

Failing to plan, planning to fail.

Welcome

For my first month I have decided to tackle my eating habits. To say I could eat healthier is an understatement. During my low periods lately, my diet has consisted of blocks of milk chocolate and multiple cans of Pepsi max a day. Tasty, yes. Good for me, not especially.  Water? What is this strange word you throw in my direction? The only time I drink water is in my herbal teas at work and occasionally a coconut water if I’m feeling adventurous. But now I’m taking control, but this is not another diet.

Backstory

To put things in context for you: for most of my life I have been overweight to morbidly obese. I had tried every diet, fad, exercise program I came across. I have shimmied my way through Zumba, pumped weights to Eye of the Tiger, ran like Mr Darcy was waiting for me at the finishing line and did my best to Zen my way through yoga. I have choked down weight loss smoothies, made my family suffer the consequences of the Cabbage soup diet in my teens (becoming a wind instrument is not what was advertised!) vilified carbs…no now its sugar…. dairy…the list is endless. I had developed unhealthy attitudes for food. I tried starving myself, became bulimic, starting a binge and purge cycle which got out of control. And that’s what it was all about control.

I was bullied by strangers, friends and family about my weight. I became so self-conscious in my teens, that anyone looking at me meant they were thinking about how disgusting I was. I still fight these thoughts today. I realise that rationally no one has the time and energy to spend thinking that much on another person’s physical attributes. When was the last time you spent more than five seconds thinking on a stranger’s body or even a friend? it is something I must unlearn, but this will be a subject for another month.

I finally decided to get weight-loss surgery 3 years ago after reaching 170+ kilos. I had put it off for years because I stupidly thought that it wouldn’t count, it was cheating, I just had to learn control. I was an idiot. I had seen family and friends go through with surgeries and manage amazing results, but instead of just being happy for their success and hard work, the whispers in the back of my head said I don’t need that, I can do it without help. It was a lie. Regardless of how much I worked out and watched what I ate, I was constantly starving. Like haven’t eaten in days, feeling shaky, would kill for a chocolate bar hungry.

I went in for a gastric sleeve and ended up losing roughly 74 kilos. An entire person! But in the three years since surgery, I have gained a little back. I started eating more. I wasn’t hungry, I don’t feel hungry most of the time. I hadn’t changed my relationship with food. I eat when I’m bored, stressed, and well, really any emotion. I’m working on this side of myself in conjunction with everything else.

Seeing the light and hoping it’s not a train.

I don’t believe in diets anymore. Studies have shown that dieting doesn’t work in the long run and that it has negative psychological effects. If you can do it and it works for you, more power to you. But it doesn’t work for me. I dislike the whole idea that foods should be categorised into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, I’ve stopped saying things like I’m being ‘naughty’ for having a scone or a lolly. Food shouldn’t be vilified or earned. Putting restrictions on foods just makes us feel like we are missing out. Like going low-carb and spending hours daydreaming of warm toast smothered in butter. Unless there is an allergy in play or ethical reasons, what’s the point? Saying that, I am a vegetarian, though my husband and sister are not so I cook meat for them with vegetarian sides for me.

What i am actually going to be doing:

Coming back to the main point, my new habit: healthy meal planning. I chose this area as I want to cook more at home, and to have quick, easy, healthy meals at home instead of having take away would be better, both health wise and financially. I am hoping it will cut down on the shopping bill as well, because now we are going to the shop every day and don’t walk out without spending $100+ because of the clever marketing people at the local Woolworths. I want to limit the trips to the shops to 2-3 times a week. Given that we live in a remote town in the middle of a desert, our shops can be very limited on variety, but they try to service the community the best they can.

 Everyone who lives at my house works different shifts, so it can be a challenge figuring out what to make. But my husband and my sister have given me control of the meals so I can go a little mad with power. Side bar: I don’t like frozen meals. I have tried meal prepping before and froze them for eating at work and for the times where you don’t feel like cooking after 12-hour shift. To me, it doesn’t taste right. I’m a snob I know, but I’m yet to find a frozen meal that taste better than a freshly prepared one.

So, parameters of experiment:

One meal a day is communal, normally dinner. Leftovers are fair game. Every other meal is up to the individual. If its not on the shopping list, it does not get brought. No food is off-limits but no takeaway for a month. If we get invited out by friends for a meal, of course we can make merry. Depending now the mood of the day we can swap meals around, because you can never tell what you will be craving day to day. Keeping a well-stocked kitchen with the staples for making the standards is always a great start.

That’s all I have for now. Join me in a couple days for an update.

Farewell for now,

Kaysia