We may receive a portion of the sale if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
If you’re not already subscribed to my Substack, that’s where I get more personal—writing from the heart about self-care, motherhood, wellness, and everything in between. My community liked this post there, so I wanted to share a bit with you here.
It was 5 pm on a Tuesday. I’d pick up the kids from school, drop them off at golf, power through a bunch of emails (including the most important response that needed to go out that day), finish a blog post, write a snap on Instagram, and then go back to pick up golf. The second they got into the car, I heard:
What’s for dinner?
Here’s what was going through my head at the time: we had ordered take out the night before, so that sounded like a cop out. My suggestion of “breakfast for dinner” was met with a chorus of not again (good point). And the last thing I wanted to do was fight traffic to the grocery store and start eating from scratch.
Honestly, sometimes it feels like too much to think about what to do for dinner night and day and night (anyone else?). And here’s the thing: I LOVE to cook, and the kitchen is one of my happiest places. Putting it on a playlist, pouring a glass of wine, making something out of nothing. This is where I find my greatest inspiration and happiness. So the fact that I was sitting there annoying my kids with hunger felt like a problem that needed to be solved.
But I’ve come to realize: it’s not really about dinner. It’s about decision fatigue. The invisible mental burden of reinventing the wheel every night—counting different emotions, different preferences, whatever we do and don’t have in the fridge—on top of an already packed day. At 5 pm, my mind is affected, and sometimes the last thing I can handle is another open question.
SO, instead of screaming, see for yourself!! in space, I did something about it. I made a plan. I know, I know, “the plan” sounds rigid and unpleasant, so let me be clear: it’s really a simple framework for thinking ahead, so that when dinner rolls around, the decisions are already made. That way, you are freed to enjoy the creativity of putting together delicious food and enjoy it with your people.
It is not a meal prep program. It’s a rhythm—and once you have it, weeknight dinners start to feel less like a daily hassle and more like something you can actually enjoy again.
In this post, I pull back the curtain:
- Dinner recipes that are part of our current program
- How to shop, plan, and prepare them in a completely doable and stress-free way, even when life is busy
- It’s a simple filter that I use at night when I can’t make another decision
Check out the full post here for the system I use to take the stress out of weeknight eating. I break down a simple structure that helps me plan, shop, and answer “what’s for dinner?” without interruption at night.
!function(e,t,n,c,o,a,f){e.fbq||(o=e.fbq=function(){o.callMethod?o.callMethod.apply(o,arguments):o.queue.push(arguments)},e._fbq||(e._fbq=o),o.push=o,o.loaded=!0,o.version=”2.0″,o.queue=[],(a=t.createElement(n)).async=!0,a.src=”https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js”,(f=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0]).parentNode.insertBefore(a,f))}(window,document,”script”),fbq(“init”,”350624676535659″),fbq(“track”,”PageView”);
