I have a cousin, also a home cook, who enjoys meal planning and shopping for food. He would carefully list his ideas down. Like me, he too has only two mouths to feed.
Similarly, I adore making lists of meals that I am going to cook and maintaining a shopping list of things to buy and cook for those meals.
My phone is filled with such lists: menus of dinners that I have cooked (so that I don’t duplicate them), meal ideas including for abstinence meals on Fridays (when I am often stumped for what to cook), and ideas for using up stuff that I already have in my larder. Of course, there’s also a list of the stuff I already have in my freezer, which I go through every time I am doing the week’s menu, to use them up.
I do not find it a chore maintaining these lists. Like my cousin, it gives me a sense of satisfaction. It also helps me reduce food waste since I now only cook for two. It takes some re-thinking. Some people won’t cook in later years because they do not know how to adjust recipes to suit reduced portion sizes.
They don’t realize that they can simply cut the amount of every ingredient on the list by half and then adjust accordingly. For me, I offer only one dish for dinner. And if I need a vegetable item, instead of cooking another dish, I offer raw vegetables (i.e. ulam) for diners to help themselves. It’s easy enough to then cook up any leftover greens for future meals.
Those who don’t cook are intimidated by the idea of being left with large pots of leftover food which they would then have to eat for several days after. They lament they do not know how to cook for fewer people, now that the children have left the coop.
Advertisement
Different approaches to meal planning
I agree with them. In some ways.
Like my mother before me, food waste is a no-no. Our approach, however, differs. While she would studiously eat up leftovers over the next few days, I prefer preparing exactly how much we would eat in a meal.
And so I buy exactly five pieces — drumstick, thigh, breast, wing, and another — whenever I cook chicken. Three pieces for my husband and two for me.
Similarly, I will count the number of prawns, pieces of fish, sausages, and all else that I purchase. This is to make sure proportions are just adequate.
If I’m roasting a bird, I will keep the carcass to make stock. The leftover flesh goes into fried noodles, a soup, or salad. I’ll add a carbohydrate if I want to make a bigger meal out of it. (See how I turn one roast chicken into three meals).
Braises, however, are treated differently. I’ll proceed to make a huge pot, as I can freeze a portion or two for consumption later.
In that same vein, I also regularly make hearty soups. They are useful if you have vegetable scraps: a carrot or two, half a radish, or a handful of beans to add to the pot.
Soups make for an easy meal on the days you do not feel like cooking or for when you come home after a trip. There’s nothing quite like a hearty bowl to find comfort in upon returning home.
For that same reason, I also keep sliced bread in the freezer and cheese in the fridge. It’s then a breeze to assemble a cheese toast perfect for dipping into the soup – just in case you want a heftier meal.
Usually, I make Western style soups as these can better accommodate bits and pieces thrown into a pot. For Chinese style soups, usually a protein works better. You would then need a vegetable dish to make a balanced meal, which is the other consideration when food shopping.
Personal versus appropriate dietary needs
I have a husband who used to be vegetarian and so vegetables are top on his list of wants. I am more careful when shopping for vegetables as they are harder to keep, often wilting or browning after just a few days in the crisper.
My granny used to wrap leafy greens in newspapers before she stored them in the fridge. I’ve stopped this practice, but maybe I should return to it, as they do store well this way.
So I make sure to buy only the veggies I need for the menus I intend to serve that week. Ingredients for the full salad meal that we usually eat once a week can be bought on the day or just before.
But how much to buy? That question depends on your family. If my grandkids are coming for dinner, it’s just a couple of leaves more as they dislike vegetables. But there is no such thing as too much greens for my herbivore husband.
Thus the age-old principle of a Healthy Plate (as espoused by the Health Promotion Board) when apportioning food remains useful. For each person, you need about half a dinner plate of vegetables and fruit (excluding potatoes, as they cause blood sugar levels to jump), a quarter plate of protein, and a quarter plate of carbs, preferably whole carbs such as brown rice, wholemeal bread, or oats.
With this image in mind, the amount to buy when cooking family meals become much clearer.
My personal philosophy is that we do not need a lot of food, considering most of us are amply sized. But then my sister-in-law often tells me that underfed husbands resort to snacking, simply because their wives feed them too little!
Perhaps that’s something to bear in mind too. Portioning is sometimes both an art and a science. After all, only you know you and your family’s stomachs best.
