Simplify Meal Planning: Reduce Mental Stress!

How to Reduce Your Mental Stress 

1.  Repeat the same dishes, if not the same meals, that you know your family will enjoy each week. You don't have to eat Mexican every Tuesday, but I follow the same structure each week as I sit down to plan and shop. For my family, that means every week we have a Mexican, Italian, and Asian night, a pot or  pan  night, a BBQ night, and then two nights where we eat leftovers or hang out with friends. 

 Maintaining this structure makes it easier to create a menu quickly. Unless it's a Mexican recipe, research is a lot easier than starting from scratch and deciding what to look for.

1.  Follow and modify your favorite recipes. Chances are  my family eats enchiladas, tacos and taco salad, or tin nachos for Mexican night every week. Having a few tried-and-true recipes means it's not exactly the  same every week, but it makes meal planning that much easier. I use an old-fashioned folder to keep track of recipes, but you can use something like a Pinterest board for that too. 

 Having made my favorites so many times, I know what ingredients I need and how long it takes.It really reduces the mental energy I have to put into planning. 

1.  Stock your pantry with the ingredients you use most often. If you know the spaghetti and taco  recipes include ground beef, buy more to freeze while it's on sale. If your family is a big fan of fried foods and changes them frequently, make sure you have leftover rice, frozen veggies, and stir-fry. I know that for enchiladas I  need enchilada sauce, tortilla chips and maybe some black beans, so I always have some in my pantry.You'll always have the ingredients to hand for something you love to cook in no time at all. 
2.  Consider grocery shopping services like Instacart to save time and energy. As I said, I love grocery shopping, but sometimes the mental effort of figuring out when to fit it into our schedule is  too much. Instead of making a list and then going shopping, I can place an order in front of the TV at night. With services like Instacart, you can duplicate a previous order, effectively reducing your workload to zero.There is an additional cost to use the grocery service, but for me it's worth the extra time doing other things.
3. Use a spreadsheet to create a plan for the week and  keep track of missing ingredients. I stole this hack from my sister and it helped me a lot. Each week I write down what we eat each night, what snacks are in the pantry, and what I cook for the baby. In this way I create some mental freedom and can easily imagine what needs to be prepared and when. My husband also knows he can refer to the chalkboard instead of asking me what's for dinner for the twelfth time.During the week, if I notice we're missing something, I can write it on the board instead of trying to remember it. 

 I've done 180 ever since I thought being a "Taco Tuesday Mama" was a bad thing. That doesn't mean  life is boring or monotonous. It just means  moms need strategies to take the mental strain of eating off the table. And who knows?Getting rid of some of that work might mean they have some time to do something for themselves.