This is Week 1 of trialing different methods of choosing what to eat for lunch and/or dinner. I laid out some of my initial thoughts on this in a previous post. Essentially I’m very interested in how to decide rather than just a bunch of recipes (though of course a hefty recipe repertoire certainly helps matters). I’ll talk about different ways I try to decide throughout the series and probably leave some links to recipes, cookbooks, instagram accounts, restaurants and recipe sites along the way.
Interestingly, after I wrote the last post, I got advertised this book on Instagram (Recipe Therapy) – I have not bought the book or even had a chance to flip through it. Just thought it was fun and it certainly seems like an interesting book.
Anywho, without further prevarication, let’s look at Week 1.
Week 1 Decision methodology / framework
How did I start this week in terms of food – tired and back from a trip with a few bits of rotting food in the fridge and not a whole lot to go on in terms of material for something constituting even a passable dinner.
So this week was all about trying the muddle through. I WFH on Monday and so was able to head to the grocery store with the aim of picking a few extra bits out the make sure we had some actual fresh food that we could use as the bare bones for meals.
Haphazard
This weeks theme
Ultimately this week is sort of a wash in terms of this whole experiment as I didn’t really have a framework or methodology. I bought some ingredients without giving enough thought as to what I was actually going to cook and spent the week reaching a fever pitch of panic towards meal times and just going with my gut. We ate out, ordered and cooked this week given that lack of plan. Luckily I wasn’t so wiped out that this turned into a ‘every night ordering’ type of week and we managed some solid meals.
I would certainly not be recommending this approach as I think it’s basically what we all struggle with all the time.
Results
I’ve split the results by day, starting with Monday as that is typically when we have the main grocery shop delivered. Given the mood often plays a big role in how we eat, I put a column in for that to see how it effects things.
| Day | Meals | Method | Mood | Decision making |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Cocotte | Order | Tired | Advanced planning and necessity |
| Monday | Leftover chicken sandwich with guacamole Lomo with bravas sauce and salad | Cook | Energised/WFH | Using up food with a use by date and inspiration from a recent holiday |
| Tuesday | Scarpetta pasta Five guys | Eat Out/Order | Busy | Comfort food choices that keep you filled up |
| Wednesday | Bagels with lime chutney and fried eggs Griddled chicken with flatbreads, rice and sweet red pepper and veg salad | Cook | Energised/WFH | Used a combination of a recipe book (Jamie’s 5 Ingredient) and available ingredients in the house to come up with something everyone would enjoy. |
| Thursday | Sandwich lunch in the City Bagel with olive oil | Eat Out/Cook | Busy/Tired | Decision by someone else and necessity as I was out and need anything to keep me satiated |
| Friday | Deli Sandwich Pizza | Cook/Order | Happy/WFH | Desire – had a hankering for a good homemade sandwich and pizza with friends after work |
| Saturday | Pub lunch Mexican | Eat out | Happy/WFH | Driven by others |
Sisyphean Star Scale rating
Sisyphean Scale (* = decision made itself; ** = it helped; *** = still hard; **** = very hard; ***** = Sisyphean)
This week’s score:
Whilst it seems like a balanced choice, half of the days were pretty hard to actually decide and since we had just gotten back from being away there was a level of tiredness that permeated through the whole week and hence the decision making process.