Dinner Thoughts: A Meal Planning Newsletter
Back Pocket Dinners
Welcome! I’m Megan Scott, co-author of the 2019 Joy of Cooking, and this is Dinner Thoughts, an often-as-I-can-manage-it newsletter about meal planning. In it, I share my weekly meal plans and thoughts about how to cook sustainably. Read on for specific guidance and tips, galaxy-brained thoughts about intuitive cooking, and literal meal plans that mirror how my household eats every week.
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This and next week’s meal planning newsletters are going to be wonky (and not punctual). We spent the first part of this week at a cabin in a remote part of Oregon enjoying the antics of bighorn sheep and a lack of internet. Next week, my sister is visiting so we’ll likely eat out more. However, home cooking is still a necessity in these busier times, so I’m going to keep it real by sharing what we cook and eat when we have even less time than normal to think about dinner.
This week’s meal plan doesn’t include what we ate at our cabin adventure, but I’m pleased to share that John made a big batch of chili con carne for Frito pies (he added beans to the chili because I insisted, and we didn’t have any Texans to appease). When we were at the grocery store buying Fritos, the cashier asked what we had planned and I was able to introduce her to the glory that is the Frito pie (a.k.a. Walking taco). I love to share news of delicious things and was a little jealous that I wasn’t the one learning about Frito pie for the first time.
Our travel day dinner was chili leftovers, and yesterday I made a simple chicken stir fry that I modeled after a recipe in The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young. It was this stir fry that made me think about dinners I keep in the back of my mind for really busy days. These are dishes I can pull together with fridge dregs, pantry fodder, and my squirrel’s cache of freezer odds and ends.
Stir fry as practiced by me in my kitchen is often lacking the wok hay or “wok breath” as described by Grace Young in her cookbook. Wok hay is the concentrated and slightly smoky but still-fresh flavor of a properly cooked stir fry. It requires very high heat, fresh vegetables, and a seasoned wok. My stove is gas, but the burners are ill-shaped for wok-cooking. The flame scorches the sides of the wok but leaves the bottom merely warm, so most often I use a carbon steel skillet instead.
Apart from this limitation, I still think of stir fries right away when I need to make dinner magic with limited ingredients, time, and energy. With a few veggie nubbins and a little bit of meat or tofu, the bulk of your dinner is solved.
Tonight’s dinner is cod boulangère, which sounds fancy but only requires five ingredients (fish, potatoes, onion, butter, and thyme) and is one of those recipes that sticks in your brain after making it once.
Friday features another back pocket dinner: hot pot! We made hot pot months ago and stashed the leftover spicy broth in the freezer. We’ll need to add some stock as it is very concentrated, but all hot pot requires is cutting up some vegetables and whatever protein you desire (if you’re lucky to live near an Asian supermarket, you’ll likely find thinly sliced meat specifically intended for hot pot) and then cooking some rice or noodles to serve alongside.
If you don’t have your very own “hot pot mother,” you can grab one while you’re picking up the thinly sliced meat.
This Week’s Meal Plan
Notes:
It’s an unusual week when I don’t pull from the pantry, but that’s just how it happened. Tostadas, though, are another great back pocket dinner, and one I might make next week. In fact, I’ll probably just transfer my “pantry” list over to next week as-is.
All the vegetables are checked because between hot pot and stir fry I’m using a little bit of everything this week.
Links!
This week’s podcast is all about casseroles, and it was such a delight to chat with our friend Nicole, who tested recipes for Joy’s 2019 edition.
The story of “Big Potato,” a tale of collusion, price fixing, and why your French fries (and tots and steak fries and waffle fries) are more expensive than ever.
Ahhh.... Frito Chili Pie - having grown up in Oklahoma, Frito Chili Pie is a staple. If you go to a Sonic Drive-In anywhere in Oklahoma, it is part of their "Local Favorites" menu and any respectful coney establishment always has the Frito Chili Pie on their menu. When we are visiting home in Tulsa, we always get Coney I-Lander and my husband never forgets to order a Frito Chili Pie when there. He also never lets me serve chili unless Fritos accompany it so he can make his own Frito Chili Pie. Good stuff!
Wok hay is something I aspire to so much and have had better luck on my big green egg than on my electric stovetop! Your week sounds so cozy and delicious!