Meal Planning 1930's Style

Meal planning 1930's style. -The Happy Homemaker

There are so many different ways to figure out how to meal plan. I feel like there isn't just one plan that will work for you, but many different ones combined. This will lead to a meal plan being uniquely yours.

Hopefully you can find some ideas meal planning 1930's style. I have also included some of my own meal planning tips. Lets dive into the history and see what meal planning was like in 1931 specifically.

What's for dinner tonight? How often do you think we have said that. Daily at least. If we didn't say it outloud we for sure thought it.

Everyone has to eat and dinner is a meal people look forward to. Some people are more rushed for time and require quick to prepare meals. Where as some people have more time to put into making meals.

Whether your either of those people it will come in handy to have some extra meal planning tips.

Colors and texture

Its important when thinking about meal planning what flavors and textures will be in those meals. Something smooth and creamy like mac and cheese would go well with a side that is more colorful and differently textured. Some examples are fresh vegetables or a vibrant salad.

Think about the colorless plates of food and ways that you can make them pop. Something as simple as garnishing with parsley makes a huge difference.

Different colors and textures makes the meal more appetizing and appealing. Some say, we eat with our eyes first!

Collect recipes

Keep a book or a little box with recipes in it that you have made and loved. You can get recipe cards for cheap at the dollar store. Put the recipes in a recipe box, a shoe box, or a fancy little box. I got my recipe box from Winners.

You can also download apps to hold you recipes if you don't like the paper clutter. I use two apps actually, one is free and its called my recipe box. The second one is a paid subscription and its called recipe keeper.

You can also put your recipes in binders with dividers. Get as creative as you'd like!

When you do not have time to look up new recipes you can look through your own recipes.

If you are feeling a little more adventurous and have some extra time you can look for new recipes in:

• cookbooks
• Food blogs like this one
• Google
• Pinterest

If you don't have any recipes start off by finding some for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is usually a lot simpler as most people eat a quick and simple breakfast, unless its the weekend. Dinners on the other hand seems to have a little more variety.

Once you have a good collection for your main meals start branching off and looking for more recipes. This can include side dishes, desserts, salads and so on. No need to overwhelm yourself though.

Here on my site there are simple recipes to choose from. Recipes that have all been made over and over again.

Here is a list of some simple breakfasts:

• Pannukakku
• Crustless quiche
• White cranberry granola
• 1930's rice custard
• Creamy oatmeal
• Basic granola

Plan meals ahead of time

Whether you plan your meals a few days in advance, a week in advance or a month like some do...its important to have an idea of what sorts of meals you will be making. This will save you time and money.

I personally plan my meals 2 weeks in advance and I go to the grocery store once a week just to top up on fresh produce.

I make my meal plan, make the grocery list, then I shop and get to creating my masterpieces!

Try not to get overwhelmed with all the different varieties of foods to buy. Start with what you know first then slowly add on new items.

If you make a meal plan everyday for the next week with 3 new recipes a day for each meal, you will be overwhelmed and feel like you failed if you cant do all that.

Keep it simple. Easy recipes you know well first and slowly over time add on simple enough new recipes that wont overwhelm you.

Convenient Foods

Take advantage of frozen vegetables, frozen fruits and some canned items like canned tomatoes, pasta sauces and canned tuna. These items are cheap, saves time and can be used for many recipes.

Frozen fruit can be quickly turned into a smoothie for breakfast. Frozen vegetables can be boiled for a quick vegetable side dish. Canned tomatoes can be added to a soup. A jar of pasta sauce works wonders for a quick dinner with spaghetti and meat sauce. Canned tuna can quickly be turned into a sandwich with some bread, mayonnaise, salt and pepper.

Make your own ready made meals

You can make your own freezer meals ahead of time. This will save you from having to buy frozen dinners at the grocery store. It will also keep you from ordering out.

When making dinner, you can double the batch and freeze the one half for a later time. There is a lot of information online showing how to make freezer meals.

I personally like to bake items in advance that I can take out later to put into packed lunches. Its also great to take out quickly from the freezer if I know company will be coming over.

I LOVE having baking as an option for guests coming on short notice. Its nice being able to pull something out of the freezer like banana muffins or a baked blueberry lemon loaf.

I also make my own chicken and beef broth that I like to freeze as well and use to for making soups and sauces later.

I also freeze meats that I had previously cooked to later toss into a soup, chicken sandwich, or a quesadilla. You can also will toss some into some pasta sauce.

Meals don't have to be complicated

Meals don't have to be complicated and have a ton of different courses. It seems that in the 1930's people felt the pressure to have to have more than 1 or 2 courses served for dinner.

For dinner it was generally assumed that you would have meat, fish or a meat substitute, 2 vegetables with a dessert and sometimes even with a soup and salad as well.

A soup with bread is wonderful on its own or a simple casserole with a salad for example. Those meals do not require a bunch of other sides.

Dessert isn't always necessary after dinner either, especially after a filling dinner. A dessert also doesn't have to be sugary by the way, it can be a simple fruit salad or just a piece of fruit on its own.

Grabbing a piece of fruit is more nutritious and way less time consuming than making a dessert daily.

With limiting the amount of courses at each meal, this will save time and also money. Though having many courses is nice as well, its isn't always feasible so don't feel obligated to make things so complicated especially if you are just learning how to cook and meal plan.

Tips from the 1930's when meal planning

• Fresh fruit and veggies are a must
• Don't give children coffee or tea
• Avoid letting children have constant access to candy and constant snacking between meals. (Obviously a snack is fine but having constant access to snacks and treats whenever they want will make them too full to eat their meals).
• Pack the kids school lunch with them so they can see how to properly pack a lunch

Some suggestion for the children's packed lunch in 1931 are as followed:

• Sandwiches- Peanut butter sandwich, (if the school is nut free), cheese, lettuce and chopped egg sandwich, vegetable sandwiches and meat.
• Snack- Celery, a tomato, an orange, an apple or a ripe banana.
• Beverage- Milk in a thermos (I now pack the kids milk in their lunches since the last post I wrote about "Packed lunches from 1920's" I put their milk in a thermos that sat in the fridge over night and place it in their insulated lunch kit along with two freezer packs. Their milk at the end of the day is still ice cold when I am cleaning out their lunch kits. They LOVE having milk in their lunches now.
• Salad- Either a fruit or vegetable salad
• Dessert- Plain cake, 1 or 2 cookies, custard or dates. (Custard must stay cold in the insulated lunch kit with a freezer pack and it must had been chilled in the fridge fully before packing it).

Take Out

In the 1930s eating out at restaurants, tea rooms, and hotels was starting to increase over eating at home. It is suggested to make sure that wherever you are dining from is clean and that you are aware of what is in the food you are eating. Be mindful that you are choosing foods that are also good for your health!

Budgeting

• Keep track of your receipt's for the month and see how much you are spending on food, include the times you dine out or get munchies from the store
• At the end of the month add it all together, are you happy with the amount you're spending? If not, you may need to start a budget with how much you are willing to spend on food for the home, dining out, and on random munchies
• If you plan on decreasing your budget for food try looking for cheaper recipes to make that are simple. Make a meal plan with these recipes
• Check out the grocery store flyers and see what the sales are on for the week

Here is a list of some cheap recipes to make

• Chicken and rice casserole
• Pannukakku
• Baked rice custard
• Apple sauce
• Creamy oatmeal
• Banana bread
• Milk Jell-O
• Yorkshire pudding

Time saving tips

Make sure to plan ahead when making your meals. Make your meal plan at least 2-3 days at a time. Prepare what you can ahead of time first thing in the morning.

What foods can be prepared in the morning?

• Chop up the salad you'll be having for dinner (leave the dressing off until before serving)
• If you are making a cold dessert, you can also make that in the morning
• Make a fruit salad if wanted
• Bake any breads you will be making like homemade sandwich bread or dinner rolls (You can take these out of the freezer as well if you're not making it by hand)
• Make any sauces or salad dressings that can be made ahead of time. Make a batch of salad dressing that will be big enough to last for a few days so you won't have to make it every morning
• Any serving dishes that will be filled with relishes, or pickles or olives etc...may be added to bowls and placed in the fridge to be served later that evening
• Make the beverage for tonight's dinner in the morning as well so that it will be ready later.
• Take out meat from the freezer that needs to be thawed
• Start your crock pot recipe first thing in the morning if you don't have time to cook in the evening
• Soup can also be made in the morning and re-heated for dinner

Be productive

I am personally an early riser, I wake up anywhere between 4:30 and 5:20 a.m. every morning. I find the early morning hours to be the most productive as no one is awake yet, no one is calling me or texting me and I have time to just completely focus on my morning tasks without interruption.

I'm not telling you to wake up that early but waking up early does make a huge difference for the rest of your day. I find I can get most of the food prepared for the day in the early morning. This leaves me with a lot of time to focus on other things for the rest of the day.

Add beauty to the table

The table can be set ahead of time, make sure the table is clean and if you're adding the table cloth and napkins you can get that all set up.

Make sure the salt, pepper and sugar bowl is full and set at the table. You can add flowers to the table if you are wanting that or get a fake flower center piece to add a little more beauty to the table.

If you want to get fancier you can get a tea cart ( as suggested from the 1930's) and serve off of it or use it to cart over all of the dishes you'll be using to set the table.

You can serve lemonade and snacks off it, or dinner or have everything on the tea cart for a full on tea party with snacks and fancy plates.

Literally we are adults now and we can turn our dinner table into what we imagined as little girls when we had our tea parties with our Barbie's and stuffed animals.

And you know what? We are allowed to have a fancy set up and we are allowed to use the pretty china! It all is beautiful and there is nothing wrong with beauty at the table and there is certainly nothing wrong with keeping it simple either. However, now that I know what to do with the tea cart I am mildly considering purchasing one!

Get fancy for cheap

Can we make dining pretty again? I'd like to. I am so looking forward to going to garage sales this year for some fancy things at a low price for the dining room set up!

I think it would be so fun to have company over with a fancy table spread. This doesn't need to be expensive. There are second hand stores and garage sales you can pick things up from.

I would start off with a nice table cloth, some cloth napkins and maybe a flower center piece and a cheap candle.

More Tips

If you are a working mom try to keep meals simple and find recipes that are easy and quick to prepare. If you have the weekend off save those days for more elaborate cooking and experimenting.

The evenings can also be used for meal prepping. There are breakfast recipes you can find that you can make the night before or maybe if you have time you will want to bake something like muffins for the next morning.

Stay stocked up

Try to have pantry staples stocked up like flour, sugar, baking powder, canned tomatoes, pasta sauces, dried pastas, rice, beans etc...whatever items you regularly use. This will vary upon each household as everyone has different diets.

When you run out of a staple item put it on the grocery list right away so you can get it your next trip to the grocery store.

I always have an on going grocery list that both my husband and I have access to. We use the Flipp app (In Canada) and both him and I add to it when needed. The Flipp app also shows flyers as well so you can see the sales that are happening.

You can click the items you want and it adds it to the grocery list along with the exact picture of the item. My husband often takes care of the groceries as the list is always made ahead of time and he is close to the grocery store when he is on his way home from work.

Another app that works well for the two of us is Trello. You can both add to it and be on the same board together and make grocery lists there as well if you don't have access to the Flipp app where you are located.

Leftovers

Try to plan meals around your leftovers so there is no food waste. If for example you are roasting a chicken in your meal plan, plan to boil the bones for broth, make a chicken noodle soup and if there is anymore chicken left then you can make a simple chicken sandwich with mayonnaise, salt and pepper.

I love leftovers personally as it means less cooking for me!

I hope that you have learnt something new reading this and maybe you can start adding some of these tips to make meal planning easier for you.

If you have any comments or questions leave them down below or if you'd like me to go more in depth on a certain topic you can also let me know in the comments. Have a great day!

Happy planning!