Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to reduce the mental effort
Speaker 1: of answering the question what's for dinner. As the school
Speaker 1: year starts, lots of families find themselves with very full schedules.
Speaker 1: No one likes coming home from work or school and
Speaker 1: standing in front of a fridge of mismatched ingredients and
Speaker 1: making a decision when hungry about what to eat. While
Speaker 1: the easiest solution might be to get take out or
Speaker 1: delivery every night, I know a lot of families value
Speaker 1: home cooked meals, either because they tend to be healthier
Speaker 1: or because they tend to be cheaper. If it's the
Speaker 1: case that it's a family value, then I'm going to
Speaker 1: get up on my soapbox here and state that it
Speaker 1: should not be any one family members responsibility. Making dinner
Speaker 1: is a task that can be shared among any family
Speaker 1: members who are older than about twelve. That said, there
Speaker 1: are situations where the planning, prepping, and cooking fall to
Speaker 1: one family member. Today's episode is about how one family
Speaker 1: in such a situation reduced the mental load on the
Speaker 1: family cook our listener writes that the before Breakfast episode
Speaker 1: on Taco Tuesday, which first aired in April nineteen, caught
Speaker 1: her attention. I've been doing something similar for almost two
Speaker 1: years now, our listener rights, but with a twist, I
Speaker 1: call it the eight day rotation. The eight day rotation
Speaker 1: came to be because her husband is in the military
Speaker 1: and was deployed a few weeks after their fourth child
Speaker 1: was born. Neighbors and friends delivered meals for a while,
Speaker 1: but sadly meal trains don't continue forever. I needed a
Speaker 1: way to make the task seems smaller, more manageable, less daunting,
Speaker 1: our listener rights. Then she thought, I can think up
Speaker 1: four meals that's not so bad, and I'll make double
Speaker 1: so we can repeat them all that four nights. That's
Speaker 1: more than a week done. Her eight day plan tends
Speaker 1: to be a rotating journey of fish, chicken, beef for pork,
Speaker 1: and vegetarian. At the beginning of the month, she lays
Speaker 1: out the eight day rotation. She builds in off days
Speaker 1: to order pizza, have breakfast for dinner, or get carry
Speaker 1: out because life is happening and grocery shopping or cooking
Speaker 1: are not, she says. She tries to plan out leftover
Speaker 1: meals on the days she won't have time to cook,
Speaker 1: and cooking on the days when she does have extra time.
Speaker 1: Knowing what's for dinner, and that she only has to
Speaker 1: cook four out of every nine or ten days means
Speaker 1: my mental space is so much freer, she says. I
Speaker 1: think this could definitely work for a lot of families,
Speaker 1: particularly if each category in the eight day rotation is
Speaker 1: fairly set. You don't have to hunt through a library
Speaker 1: of chicken recipes. You only have to figure out two.
Speaker 1: Given the addition of takeout nights, this means that after
Speaker 1: eating the chicken recipe two nights in a row, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't see it again for about twenty days. That seems
Speaker 1: quite reasonable. While our listener says she sometimes cooks all
Speaker 1: four meals simultaneously and then freezes the parts she won't
Speaker 1: use until later in the rotation, I think people need
Speaker 1: to figure out in their individual situations if this is
Speaker 1: the best way to handle meal prep. I personally don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of giving up a chunk of my
Speaker 1: Sunday to cook for the week. However, if you've got
Speaker 1: four small children underfoot and your partners on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world for six months. Maybe it's more
Speaker 1: appealing to send them over to a neighbors for an
Speaker 1: hour or two and knock out everything you can at
Speaker 1: one time, rather than cooking with them around on any
Speaker 1: busy weeknight. Finally, I just add a note that I
Speaker 1: think we can be flexible about what's considered home cooking.
Speaker 1: Food doesn't have to be elaborate. A supermarket rotisserie chicken,
Speaker 1: a bagged salad, and a microwave in the bag package
Speaker 1: of green beans is totally meal and it can be
Speaker 1: on the table in less time than it takes to
Speaker 1: enter a delivery order on one of those apps. Angel
Speaker 1: hair pasta cooks in just a few minutes, which means
Speaker 1: adding a jar of sauce and one of those brilliant
Speaker 1: bagged salads also gets you dinner and under fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: including the time it takes your water to come to
Speaker 1: a boil. Pre chopped veggies, cooked and eggs is dinner
Speaker 1: in about ten minutes to or go with pre cooked
Speaker 1: shrimp in a dipping sauce in a microwavable bag of veggies.
Speaker 1: Convenient food is still food for most of us. The
Speaker 1: point is to eat together rather than to channel Julia Child.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at heart media dot com. That Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.