Meal Planning for People Who Don't Want to Meal Plan:
Mexican Menu Week
El Molino Central, Sonoma. Best Mexican in N. Cal IMO
July's Substack is up, on how I meal plan, & why you should give it a try even if the words meal plan make your eyes glaze over. The rest of the month I'll be getting into the nuts and bolts of technique & recipes I use on a weekly basis.
I have about 10 rotating menus I use. Today I'm sharing an example of one of my weekly themes, which happens to be one of my favorite cuisines, Mexican.
Along with Japanese food, Mexican food is one of the worlds great cuisines. I've had my own journeys in Mexican cooking. My love affair with Mexican food started young. The most beloved restaurant in my hometown is a Mexican American place called Tito's tacos. LA has a great variety of Mexican restaurants, markets, food trucks and street vendors.
In my 20's, I spent a week in Oaxaca at a cooking school in my 20's wandering the amazing central market there & learning to cook regional specialties like giant tlayudas & moletes from a 5th generation Oaxaquena. I tried chapulines with tequila (cripsy spicy grasshoppers), discovered Mexican street corn, and most important, was introduced to smoked Oaxacan pasillas, the secret to my killer salsa.
After college I dated a lovely man from Michoacan. Michoacanos are known for their beauty. He grew up tending watermelon fields and could choose the best watermelon by slapping it hard once. His mom was an extraordinary cook, she taught me how to make tortillas and her revered fish in salsa.
Growing up and going to college in Southern California, there were opportunities to experience stellar Mexican food north of the border. Cuatro Milpas in San Diego, La Super-Rica in Santa Barbara and El Molino Central in Boyes Springs (Sonoma) are my favorite Mexican spots in the State.
I have so much reverence for Mexican culture. One of the world's great cuisines, with one of the best traditions: Day of the Dead. The family values, the humor, the humility, the zest for live, the colors.
But the traditional Mexican plate doesn't exactly do it for me, health-wise anymore. In a special moment I go for it, but at home I need my meals to fit my taste AND health standards.
I am doing a lot with these menus: fusing the most flavorful and simplest techniques with everything I know about nutrition. Combining the most in pleasure with peak nutrient dense foods, and foods geared towards supporting gut health. And making it work for a family of diverse eaters.
You can read the full breakdown in Substack, but generally speaking, I do prep on Sundays and then prepare dinner 3 nights a week. This gets us lunches for the week and meals for 6 nights, with about 4 total hours work throughout the week (not including shopping).
I prepare four proteins (one for lunch all week), 3 sides- including some type of sauteed green, and a big batch of salads to eat for lunch all week.
The nice thing about sticking to one theme is that the leftovers mix and match well, so you get a lot of variety of meals and flavors even though you are only preparing enough for 3 dinners and weekday lunch.
In terms of gut health, I'm trying to eat 30-40 unique plants each week, and make each plate about 50% veg, a combo of cooked and raw. Having a structure and plan means I don't need to overthink this.I'll also buy (or sometimes make) a saurkraut that goes with the theme to bump up with vegetables & add some fermented foods. The Salvadorian Curtido inpired krauts go well with Mexican food.
By loading up lunch salads with variety like dandelion and other greens, sprouts, radicchio, radishes, cucumber, I get a dozen or so plants in one meal I eat 5x.
Lastly, if you want more carbs, it's easy to add some Mexican rice to the list which I sometimes do.
A lot of my favorite veg prep has two steps. Boil first, sear second. Potatoes, Corn, and Greens all get a variation of this treatment. You can use different greens. Hearty ones like kale and mustard greens need the blanching first. Softer ones like chard get sauteed only.
Ingredients: 2 heads Lacinto kale, de-stemmed, torn into big pieces
1 head rainbow chard, de-stemmed, cut into big pieces
3 cloves garlic, sliced 2 tablespoons avocado oil. Sea Salt lemon, lime or some type of acid
Chili flakes, optional
Directions:
Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Add the kale. Set a timer for 5 minutes.
While the kale in in the water, saute the garlic and oil in a big saute pan. Cook until it begins to get tan colored. Then add a glug of the kale water and pull it off the heat to keep it from burning.
After 5 minutes, add the kale and chard to the saute pan on medium heat. Set a timer for 5 minutes.
After the second 5 minute timer, taste the greens. Are they tender enough? If no, cook a couple of minutes more. Add more salt as needed.
Once the texture is to your satisfaction, add half a lemon or lime juice and some chile flakes.
If I'm making Asian food I might add soy sauce instead of more salt, and korean chile flakes. If it's middle eastern, I'll use Marash chile, if it's Mexican, I use lime juice.
I keep these greens on hand all week and add a bit to my dinners each night to round out my plates with ample plant foods.
Ready to make changes, but not sure what's right for you? Let's talk..if I think you are a good fit, I can share more about how my program works. If not, I'll send you on your way with some resources of where to go next.
