WHAT’S FOR DINNER?
It’s a question that’s and never-ending and often tedious. So much so that people often return to the same handful of basic meals just to avoid having to think about it.
Now there’s a cookbook that answers exactly that dilemma, and it’s written by a North Shore native. Don’t Think About Dinner not only serves up more than 125 recipes, but also tackles weekly grocery shopping, menu planning, and food prep in a way that’s healthy, delicious, budget friendly, and most importantly, easy.
“The book is meant to uncomplicate the entire process of weekly meal planning and meal prepping,” says the book’s author, Jenn Lueke. “It gives you all the tools to bring it all together.” While each of the recipes can be made on their own, they’re also grouped into weekly meal plans, each aiming to take the guesswork out of comprehensive meal planning.
“You get these meal plans directly in the book where there’s a grocery list and then all the recipes to follow a log or write in the book. You don’t have to go looking anywhere else,” she says. “You also get the tools to start from ground zero if you’ve really never taken any kind of dive into meal planning, meal prepping, and cooking in an efficient way.”
Lueke, who grew up in Danvers and recently moved back to the North Shore after living in Boston, says she was “not that great of a cook” when she started her Instagram account, @jenneatsgoood, as a “fun hobby” in 2018. “I was doing it on the side while I was working in finance,” she says. “I loved to share my recipes and create recipes.” Her followers loved it, too. Soon, her skills blossomed and her side hobby grew into something more, including a website with recipes and a food blog. Then, after five years of consistent work, Lueke went viral.
“I was sharing ways to cut down grocery costs, and then ultimately I started this series where I showed people how to make between $50 and $75 grocery lists and turn it into their week of dinners,” she says. “That was kind of like my viral moment, and I gained over a million followers in a year.” From there, “everything really took off,” and less than three years, later, Lueke was publishing her first cookbook, which used her popular videos about meal planning and creating a grocery list as a jumping off point.
“The ingredients overlap and you don’t waste any food at the end,” she says. “You’re saving money and it feels really satisfying.” Don’t Think About Dinner debuted in January and quickly rocketed to The New York Times bestseller list. The book is divided into two parts. Part one tackles an introduction to meal planning, including strategies for planning and prepping and learning how to shop for and prep and store ingredients, as well as 12 weeks of dinner plans with grocery lists.
Part two consists of recipes for every type of diet and preference, from one-pot meals to sauces and sides, to vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options, and lots more, as well as make-ahead instructions. Each recipe also includes storage and reheating instructions. Lueke also notes that even though the book is titled Don’t Think About Dinner, there are lots of other meals in it too, including breakfast, lunch, snacks, and desserts. The lunch chapter contains two of her favorite go-to midday meals: an herby quinoa salad with dates, carrots, cashews, and a turmeric vinaigrette. She also loves that chapter’s spicy tofu crunch bowls. “I love to do plant-based recipes as well because they’re super budget friendly,” she says.
Whether they follow the meal plans or not, Lueke wants people to use her cookbook to make great meals, from the one-pan Mediterranean orzo and salmon bake, which is one of her favorites, to fudgy sweet potato brownies. “I have over 125 recipes in the book that you could open to any page on any given day and cook it,” she says. “But if you’re somebody that wants all these tools and resources and really wants a holistic approach to changing the way you look at meal planning and cooking, you can do that too, just in the pages of the book.”