Testing the Lenny Letter’s “Shop Like Your Mom” Meal Plan: Sunday and Monday

This week, I’m testing the Lenny Letter’s “Shop Like Your Mom” meal plan, as created by Sally Sampson. I already tested the grocery list and found that it came in under the estimated $75; now, I’m testing the recipes to see if they make sense within the constraints of a typical week.

Sunday

Recipe #1: Roasted Chicken Thighs with Green Beans and Sweet Potato

Prep and cook time: 59 minutes (plus extra time for the sweet potato)

Recipe adjustments: Chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs

Rating: NOPE

This is how I usually bake meat and vegetables: put thawed meat and veg in casserole dish. Salt and pepper liberally. Spritz with olive oil. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30ish minutes or until it smells done.

The olive oil might be what’s missing from this recipe. The chicken came out both dry and hard, and the green beans, which the recipe suggests to add just during the last 10 minutes, came out dry and barely cooked.

The sweet potato, on the other hand, was still raw in the center. I put it in the oven 10 minutes after I started the chicken, so it had a good 50 minutes to bake, but I had to leave it in for another 15 minutes after everything else was well past done.

I ate this meal with a side of bread and butter instead, and the bread was by far the best part.

Recipe #2: Basic Vinaigrette

Prep time: 5 minutes

Recipe adjustments: Lemon instead of vinegar

Rating: How much do you like olive oil?

Sampson said we could use either vinegar or lemon juice in this vinaigrette, and since I do not have any vinegar in my kitchen but I did buy a lemon for this week’s cooking, I ended up making a vinegarless vinaigrette. (A lemongrette?)

The first time you taste this, you will be struck by the interesting citrus flavor.

The second time you taste this, you’ll realize you’re pretty much consuming straight olive oil.

Whether or not you like it will depend on how you react to that last sentence.

Monday

Recipe #3: Fried-Egg Sandwich with Cheddar Cheese and Scallions

Prep and cook time: 12 minutes

Recipe adjustments: None

Rating: Fine, but not for Monday morning

Despite what you might think after seeing Sunday’s cooking disaster, the truth is that I can cook with aplomb, and if you want a pair of savory fried eggs on skillet-toasted bread, that is very much a thing I can make happen.

(Also? Fried eggs are not that easy. They’re one wobble away from becoming scrambled eggs. Which is not necessarily bad because scrambled eggs are delicious, but still.)

There’s a reason I don’t make myself fried eggs in the morning, though. The entire process took 12 minutes, and I’m not counting cleanup—because you’re going to end up dirtying a knife, a cutting board, a skillet, a plate, and a fork on this one.

And yes, you have to do some kind of cleanup right after you make this, otherwise you’re going to come back after your workday to a greasy oven and a cold skillet with stuck-on egg residue.

So if you want to do all of that on Monday morning, have at it because this recipe is a classic.

If you want to dump some muesli and yogurt into a bowl, that works too.

Recipe #4: Mesclun Salad with Shredded Chicken (left over from the night before), Cheddar Cheese, Tomatoes, and Avocado

Prep time: 7 minutes

Recipe adjustments: No tomatoes (I forgot that I had bought grape tomatoes as part of the shopping list)

Rating: Sorry, no.

I feel badly about this, because I love salads, but NO. This salad made my skin feel gross as I ate it, and it made my whole body feel gross afterwards.

Here’s the deal: this salad includes both liquid fat (olive oil dressing), solid fat (cheese) and semi-solid fruit fat (avocado).

I’m not anti-fat (I wrote that whole other piece about how much I love cheese), but this is way too much at once, and I think most of it was the olive oil dressing’s fault.

Did I put too much dressing on? I put on as much as I usually do, but “usually” isn’t “pours lemon-flavored olive oil directly on salad.”

I couldn’t finish the meal.

I also had to go wash my face afterwards.

Recipe #5: Sesame-Crusted Tofu with Steamed Rice and Snow Peas

Prep and cook time: 27 minutes, plus 45 minutes to let the tofu drain

Recipe adjustments: Tomatoes added, broccoli added, baked instead of fried

Rating: Best meal so far

So I hadn’t had a very good day, food-wise. I had a greasy fried egg for breakfast, an oily salad for lunch, and I was looking forward to… a fried tofu dinner? Nope.

(I don’t do greasy foods very well. In addition to the “I can feel the oil coming out of my skin” thing, too much fried food essentially fries my digestive system.)

It occurred to me, 24 hours into this project, that all of the worst parts of these meals have come from me not trusting my own instincts. I should have put the green beans in with the chicken right away, and cooked both of them for 30–40 minutes instead of nearly an hour. I should have used my own (store-bought) dressing on the salad instead of lemon-essence olive oil.

And I should bake this tofu with a bunch of vegetables instead of frying it.

It’s interesting the way everyone reacts differently to food, and the way we come to know “what works” in our kitchens, even if what works doesn’t always match the recipe.

And, if you know anything about cooking at all, you naturally start adapting recipes to make them fit your needs.

The sesame tofu with vegetables turned out as well as it did because I combined my own experience with Sampson’s expertise.

So, new rules going forward: I can adjust the recipes in a way that make sense to me.

I’ll let you know how tomorrow’s meals turn out. Until then: how do you think I did? What would you have done differently?

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