Years ago I was asked by a family member (who shall remain nameless) if I would teach her how to grocery shop and plan meals for the week. She asked me this because she noticed that every time she came to my house my fridge appeared to be almost empty and yet I always had food for everyone. She also noticed that her fridge was constantly stuffed to the gills and that much of the food was going bad. I see a similar thing with many of my clients. They will be tired and overwhelmed after a long day and when they get home they find that they don’t have the creative energy to figure out what they can make with the (many!!) ingredients that are sitting in their fridge. So, instead, they choose to order food or make a box of macaroni and cheese. I get it. I really do! It is hard to come up with new ideas every. single. night. It is also hard start from scratch each night and feel motivated to do that over, and over, and over again. And this leads to a vicious and wasteful cycle where we don’t use the food that we have bought and then it starts to look unappetizing to us, so then we go out and buy more food.
So here is one of my techniques that helps to keep me sane: I cook once and then I repurpose numerous times in ways that require little or no cooking. Last week I did this with chicken. …
