Simplifying “What’s for Dinner?” | Meal Planning Workshop

Tired of the daily question “What’s for dinner?”

Are you wasting food, spending extra money, or grabbing unhealthy takeout because everyone is hungry and there’s nothing ready to cook?

In this interactive workshop, Betty Rodriguez-Hakes, cooking instructor, speaker, and founder of GourmetBetty, will show you how to make meal planning simple, realistic, and sustainable.

This isn’t another session selling you tools, technologies, or pre-fabricated menus. You’ll learn how to think differently about planning meals using free or low-cost strategies and easy tech tools that help you build a system that fits your life.

Betty has been teaching people how to meal plan for years, and the foundations have never changed.

Then along came generative AI tools promising to make life easier. But let’s be honest, without a plan, AI can create more chaos than clarity—endless recipes, meals you’ll never make, and grocery lists full of things you don’t need.

Betty created this workshop to simplify the process and help families come together around the dinner table with simple, wholesome, and delicious meals.

In only 60 minutes, you’ll learn how to simplify meal planning in a way that works for your brain, your schedule, and your family’s real needs. You will walk away with having planned your dinners for the next 3 - 5 days!

This isn’t about another app or a complicated system. It’s about learning to think like a meal planner and using modern tools, including free Generative AI tools you already have access in order to support your style of cooking instead of overwhelm it.

You’ll Learn

• How to design a flexible meal plan that fits your week, not someone else’s plan
• Holiday Planning: Thanksgiving Dinner and easy ideas for Holiday dinner parties
• Strategies tailored to how you think — whether you love structure or wing it nightly
• How to effectively use free, low-cost, or AI-powered tools (like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) to plan smarter
• How to select processed foods that are actually good for you
• Practical, real-life tips to make cooking easier and adaptable for picky eaters and different diets within the same household.

You’ll Receive

• A step-by-step workbook and editable meal-planning template

• Access to Betty’s Think Like a Planner framework, prompting tool & resources for continued meal planning use.
• Live Q&A to address your specific questions

• Betty’s e-Book, Simplifying: What’s For Dinner? That includes Family Favorite meals and techniques that worked to feed picky eaters. (a $20 Value)
• Bonus: Register by November 8 and receive a free 30-minute 1:1 consultation with Betty (a $150 value)

Who It’s For

• Parents and professionals tired of the nightly “what’s for dinner?” question
• People who want to simplify meals without giving up flexibility or flavor
• Anyone who’s tried meal-prepping or planning apps but couldn’t make them stick
• Families juggling different eating styles or picky eaters

Why This Workshop Is Different

This isn’t another recipe class or meal prep marathon.

You can’t meal prep until you meal plan — and that’s the foundation we’ll build together.

You’ll walk away with a clear system to plan your meals the way you think — using smart, accessible tools that make sense for your life.

AI isn’t here to replace your planning — it’s here to support it, and I’ll show you how.

I’m Betty Rodriguez-Hakes, a cooking instructor and meal-planning advocate with over 30 years of real-world experience balancing family, work, and home cooking. As a wife and mother, I understand the daily challenge of getting meals on the table while juggling busy schedules. But I also know that home-cooked meals don’t have to be complicated—they can be simple, satisfying, and a powerful way to bring people together. In a world where fast food and processed meals have become the norm, I believe that cooking at home can transform not just our health but also our connections with loved ones.

My mission is to bring families back around the dinner table with wholesome foods – avoiding processed and fast foods.