In this week’s installation of will Rosana ever be able to feed herself, I try to make only meals I found on Pinterest. I may never be a Pinterest mom (shocking, I know), but did I at least learn a new recipe? Maybe.
This was not my first attempt at meal planning. I have a long history of not being able to put together a meal plan and execute it, but this summer I finally hit my groove. Multiple weeks of creating and following these plans, I was feeling confident enough to take on the big leagues of pinterest.
After months of browsing endless pins to find just the right combination of new recipes, I put together my plan. Every day needed a new recipe for every meal, and all of them had to be healthy. Even though I had been making meal plans and cooking, I was eating the same meals week after week. I wanted to learn a bunch of new recipes.
I conducted this experiment before going vegan in September.
The Plan
In trying to follow my rules, I created an ambitious plan.
21 new meals in 7 days meant I needed a lot of new ingredients. I spent over $200 in the grocery store, and offset this cost by feeding my friends. In the endless piles of pins, there were barely any recipes portioned for one so feeding friends made it much easier.
Turns out that when you only know how to make 5 meals, you don’t have most of the spices and grains needed to make most recipes. I’d been borrowing these (read: cinnamon) from friends in the building.
Cooking
My old meal plans consisted primarily of “recipes” that involved blending yogurt and berries to make smoothies or scooping hummus and carrots into tupperware.
It was a harsh wake up call to actually have to budget time to make the meals. On Monday, I spent three hours cooking just trying to get through the meals.
Even this smoothie bowl took me half an hour before work (and it wasn’t as sweet as my normal smoothie). That night, I made sheet pan steak fajitas, which were incredible. They were so easy to make, and I made them 3 more times over the following weeks.
On Wednesday, I had a bunch of friends over to cook. We made chicken thighs with butternut squash.
It was odd to have real breakfast rather than the protein shakes and granola bars I had grown accustomed to bringing. I didn’t have the appetite for it after my workout, so I would end up eating it for lunch later in the day.
I Never Wanted Food Again
By Wednesday night, I was eating so much more than I was accustomed to that the idea of making some of the recipes was upsetting. I only had a bite of most of the salads because I couldn’t bring myself to eat them.
On Thursday, I made a banana protein shake and that was the last meal I “cooked” that week.
Mistakes Were Made
The greatest flaw in my plan was trying a new recipe for every meal rather than eating leftovers. If I had eaten the meals for lunch the next day, it would have been easier to stick to it.
I also should’ve done a better job of matching meal sizes to my current caloric intake. Endless hours with food are made infinitely worse if you don’t want to eat the food you’re making.
When I failed to make it through the week, my mom said that I’m never going to be the kind of person that loves cooking, and I think she’s right. The lack of cooking involved with most vegan meals is part of the reason that I think the lifestyle works for me now.
Have you tried Pinterest meals before? Do you want to learn more about my current vegan lifestyle?
Let me know on Instagram @xoxorosana.blog! Follow my Pinterest adventures here!
Good Luck!
Xoxo, Rosana
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