Hello and welcome to week in our series: Ekonomia: Home Management Toward Heaven. This week we are mastering meals. Three weeks ago we introduced this new series, Ekonomia: Home Management toward Heaven. If you missed that article or video, check it out here. Then we started building our home management system by Simplifying. And last week we built a firm foundation of home management.
If you want to watch the video, check it out below. Otherwise, continue reading for this content in blog article format.
Mastering Meals
Now it is pretty funny for me to be talking about anything in the kitchen. When I got married, I didn’t even know how to cook hot dogs! And now, here I am, talking about menu planning. God works in mysterious and miraculous ways!
And mastering meals is an important part of home management for several reasons. First, if meal planning isn’t in order, it is nearly impossible to stick to a budget unless you are incredibly wealthy and can afford to waste food and eat out all the time. Which, even if you could do that, probably wouldn’t be the best for family life. The next reason mastering meals is important is its relevance to our faith. Sin entered the world through a misplaced snack – and the mode of our salvation is taking part in a meal – the Mystical Supper. And another name for this Divine Feast is called communion. God unites us to Himself, and He unites us to each other in the Church through the Eucharist. In a small way, eating meals together in our homes also unites us to each other as a family. God emphasized the importance of sharing meals together in the Bible, and so we should take that as a sign of the importance of sharing meals together in our homes.
What Do You Eat?
So the first step to mastering meals is coming up with a list of things you like to eat. When I first learned to cook, my friend asked me what I wanted to learn how to make. And I didn’t have an answer! Uh, something with meat? This brainstorming phase can be a hard part of menu planning. Ask members of your family what their favourite meals are. Check the menu of your favourite restaurant for some ideas. Don’t forget to put down leftovers as an option!
Organize that List
Once you have a list of meals it is time to sort them out. Check out our Ekonomia printable set for how to do this. With this printable you can select your meals for the week, without committing to any particular day. Plan to have 2 to 3 breakfast options available for week, 2 to 4 lunches, and about 6 suppers. Sometimes less if you know you are going to be out or if you plan for leftovers or to use a back up meal – but more about that soon.
There are also options to list a number of sides, and snacks or desserts to have available. By having a list of all the meal options, you are always going to have some idea of what to make.
Although, some days don’t go according to plan. And that is why it is important to have back up meals. Meals you can have ready quickly and with almost no effort. Frozen pizza, canned soup or pasta, or a frozen casserole all fall into this category. If I don’t have the time or energy to make a meal, I know I can fall back on these instead of needing to order in food.
Food Inventory
So, we have made a list of meals we like, and organized it into categories. Next we need to make an inventory list of what we need to make these meals. Put together a list of all the ingredients you would use to make all the meals on your list. Then go back through your list and highlight all the most important items. Things you want to have stocked in your home at all times no matter what, which guarantees you would be able to feed your family. Put these highlighted items under the word Essential on your Ekonomia Printable Grocery List.
Next go through and add the other items necessary for feeding your family on monthly basis. These go under staples. You could live without them for a week of meal planning, but generally these are used often.
Finally, there is a place for non-essential or luxury items. I put things like desserts here, as we only buy them for feast days. Fancy cuts of meat, or other rare items go on this list. My husband knows if I send him shopping for groceries and there is a danger of going over budget, that he can cut out items from the luxury side of the shopping list, and I will still able to make all the meals anticipated on the meal plan. He also knows if it is an item under essential and it isn’t in stock where he is shopping, that it is important enough to stop somewhere else on the way home to pick up that item.
And every week I can refer back to the master meals list, see what we have in stock, and use this ultimate grocery list to meal plan or shop accordingly.
The Benefits of Mastering Meals
With this system we are able to avoid food going bad as well. If something needs to be used up I prioritize it in the meal plan. And if the item isn’t being used anyway, it is placed on the luxury list because I know we aren’t choosing to eat it regularly right now so we don’t need to keep it in stock for this season of family life.
Now, a couple other tips for mastering meals.
Go Bulk
First of all, batch cook your meat. I never freeze raw meat anymore, except for things like breaded fish that cook easily from raw + frozen. I avoid freezing raw meat because it takes so much time to cook from frozen! Instead, I batch cook large amount of raw meat at once, such as a whole bunch of chicken breasts. And then serve some chicken breasts whole that day, and cube or shred the rest of the meat, which I then freeze in useable portions.
It is so easy to use a batch of shredded chicken in any meal. And with the chicken pre-cooked, it really saves time preparing meals during the week. (Tacos, wraps, pastas, salads… everything goes with shredded chicken).
I also freeze cooked ground beef or cooked ground pork.
One New Thing at a Time
The second strategy for mastering meals is to only try one new thing at a time. This way if you don’t like the new ingredient or meal, you don’t have a lot of ingredients (and money) going to waste at one time. Also cooking something new can be overwhelming. You don’t want everything on your meal plan to be overwhelming! That kind of pressure encourages relance on back up meals and eating out, and prevents mastery of meals at home.
Keep It Simple
The third and final strategy is to keep it simple. You don’t get extra points for adding more ingredients or spending more time making meals. You can always try more complicated recipes in a different season of your life, where you have more spare time. If you have young children, now probably isn’t the time . Unless maybe you have lots of energy for including your children in the meal preparation with you. But still, keep it simple. Really.
The Byzantine Life
Thank you for tuning in to this week of Ekonomia: Home Management Toward Heaven. Let me know in the comments below, what is your favourite simple family meal? Make your own taco salad with cheesy chips is one of my favourite. And Little Badger always asks for spaghetti. So how about you? Tell me in the comments!
For the free printable set that goes along with this video series, click here!
Thank you for checking out this week’s article. If you haven’t already, you can read our article about the Three Holy Hierarchs (Jan 30th) Or on the Encounter of Our Lord.(Feb 2nd).
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