No pain, all gain: how I make weeknight meal-planning easy – and fun

My husband and I had very different upbringings. I grew up above my family’s Greek-Cypriot taverna in north London, with food front and centre of everything. He grew up in a village in Lancashire with his mother, Heather, preparing the same weekly menu his entire childhood. When he first told me this, it blew my mind. Monday was bangers and mash, Tuesday was hotpot, always a Viennetta for pudding on Saturday, and so forth. Every. Single. Week. For years I didn’t understand. Where was the diversity, the fun? Then I had children.

However much you love your kitchen and your family, cooking for them can often feel like playing Russian roulette several times a day, every day. You slave over something for hours, a dish you assume your child will love (or they once claimed to enjoy), only to have it rejected at meal time. (They turned down a simple sausage and broccoli pasta last week, but if you asked them they’d tell you it’s their “favourite thing ever”. The mind boggles.) It’s a daily test of will, patience and everything in between.

Here are three tips to save your sanity:

First: As my mother-in-law would tell you, the best strategy is to plan, plan, plan. A set weekly meal plan might not be for you, but each of us has a repertoire. Over a fortnightly meal cycle I will include a few dishes I know the girls will definitely enjoy. A dish we affectionately call “monster pasta”, not dissimilar to Meera Sodha’s delicious quick green pasta, is a regular. Or pan-fried salmon and sticky rice, a bit like this simple but calming recipe from Nigel Slater, with the addition of greens on the side. These sorts of quick, easy recipes are staples in our house.

Then there is the meal prep for the week ahead. On a Sunday afternoon, I will have a double batch of Rachel Roddy’s braised beef ragu ticking away. It can be eaten later with pasta, used in a lasagne, or even frozen for another day. Another prep-ahead game-changer is mashed potato. Bangers and mash is perfect to feed an army of kids, and if I am going to the effort of peeling, boiling and mashing potatoes, I always prep more than I need to save for a second meal. I’ll siphon off some of the boiled potatoes and attentively follow Felicity Cloake’s rules on how to make a fishcake for the following day.

Finally, I will include a few quick and easy options for the week, such as Rukmini Iyer’s chicken, lime and coriander quesadilla or Alice Zaslavsky’s cauliflower and asparagus mac ’n’ cheese. A balance of these three types of meals keeps me excited to cook, while keeping the girls both intrigued and comforted by a sense of familiarity.

Second: Organise. Reusable containers, pens, stickers and so forth are your friends. My freezer used to be where almost-out-of-date-food went to die. Now it is organised, useful and, quite frankly, a life saver. Making a pasta sauce? Make double and freeze half. Your future self will love you.

Third: Leave room for leftovers. Cooking from scratch is great, but chances are you will accumulate various leftovers throughout the week. I like to serve a pot-luck dinner, usually on a Friday, and get all the various leftovers out and let everyone pick what they want. They find it fun, you help reduce food waste – win-win.

In the past I would affectionately tease my mother-in-law about her weekly menu. But I wholeheartedly get it now. I enjoy the Sunday organisation of making a meal plan, knowing that I won’t be pulling my hair out at 4pm every day, walking aimlessly around a supermarket for inspiration. Heather was being efficient, frugal and ahead of the game. I’ve done a full 180. Long live the weekly menu.

The best meal I ate | I visited my dear friend Tarunima Sinha for chai and a chat, but it’s impossible to be in Tarunima’s presence without her feeding you – she is the most generous person. And though she is known for her incredible bakes, she is also a wonderful cook. She fed me chaat with homemade tamarind sauce, followed by warm moong dal halwa and it was, hands down, the best thing I have eaten in weeks.

A book to devour | When I was on my book tour earlier this year, one title that seemed to be front and centre of every display was Butter by Asako Yuzuki. Booksellers were raving about it, so I bought a copy that has been taunting me on my nightstand ever since. This week I was finally able to dive in. It’s a tantalising story about food, trauma and misogyny, all based on the true story of a woman convicted for the murder of three men. I am hooked.

Basquerading | I had the privilege of attending a friend’s wedding in the south-west of France, in a lush, green part of the countryside I hadn’t explored before. Biarritz was particularly charming, and great for a weekend jaunt – if only to indulge in my new favourite bake, a buttery, custard-filled gâteau basque.