#89: Month-Long Meal Planning with Rebecca Zipp

Rebecca lives in Colorado with her husband and two kids. Food has been an important part of her life since 2009, when she saw firsthand how it can be used to heal. Since then, she has strived to provide her family with nourishing meals using as many local ingredients as possible. She writes at her website, ahumbleplace.com, where she offers resources for homeschoolers and guides for food and meal planning.
This conversation with Rebecca centers around using Plan to Eat for her month-long meal-planning process! She has used Plan to Eat for 14 years and shares her simple system for planning four weeks of meals at a time.

Find Rebecca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahumbleplace/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Plan to Eat podcast, where I have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you save time in the kitchen, reduce your grocery bill stress less about food. And delight in dinner time.

Roni: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the PlantEat podcast. Welcome back from our little break. Today, I have an interview with Rebecca Zipp. Rebecca lives in Colorado with her husband and two kids. She has been using Plan Eat for the last 14 years, which means she's been using it from the very beginning, which is so special.

Today I have her on the podcast simply to talk about her meal planning process. She plans on a month to month basis, which means she plans out 28 meals at a time, and so I was really interested to hear her process for meal planning, how she decides on recipes, a little bit about how she includes her family in the process.

And this is just a great conversation, mostly focused around plan to eat. [00:01:00] So if you were interested in hearing somebody else's nitty gritty details of how they use the program, this episode will definitely teach you some things. And without further ado, here's my interview with Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.

Rebecca: Well, thanks for having me on.

Roni: Why don't we get started by just having you do a quick intro of who you are and what you do.

Rebecca: Okay. Um, well, I'm Rebecca. I live in Colorado. I have two kids. We homeschool and I guess because this is the plan to eat podcast, I can talk about plan to eat. I've been using it for 14 years. I just looked it up the other day. And, uh, my family tries to eat, uh, locally and seasonally, if we can. And, yeah, I run a website where I sell, um, homeschool resources, primarily for art.

I have a degree in art history. So, I appreciate being able to use that, for the homeschooling community, so, yeah.[00:02:00] 

Roni: That's wonderful. I did not realize you'd used Plan to Eat for so long. Did, are you, are you connected with Clint and his family at all? Is that how you heard about it so early?

Rebecca: no, it was through a blogger who I actually used to do, uh, virtual assisting, um, for bloggers. And she was the one who introduced me to it, it was Stephanie Langford of Keeper of the Home.

Roni: Oh, okay.

Rebecca: And, um, she was using it in 2010 and promoting it, and so that's how I originally heard about it.

Roni: That's amazing. Yeah. I, I mean, we have quite a few people who actually have used the program since the beginning, but I just don't get to talk to him very much. So this is really exciting.

Rebecca: I'm glad it's exciting. It's a good product, so yeah, it has longevity.

Roni: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, that is why I want to have you here is to talk about your meal planning process because I know that you, have a very detailed, interesting process. So why don't you just walk me through what it looks like to create a meal plan for you and your family?

Rebecca: Okay, so I do, [00:03:00] monthly meal planning. Um, I've done weekly in the past, but just recently, in recent years, actually, probably the last 10 years. Monthly has just worked better for us. So I do a monthly bulk order from a company, a bulk food order. And when that order is due, I sit down, with their catalog, with their sale catalog, and then all of my cookbooks and my laptop and, plan out my meals for the next four weeks.

So I have seven categories, one for each day of the week. And it's, Mostly related to protein. So, Monday is beef, Tuesday is a vegetarian dish, so usually we'll do, um, beans or eggs. Wednesday is pork, Thursday is chicken, Friday is fish, and then Saturday I do staples, so these are meals that I make at least once a month, so like a roast chicken or tacos or spaghetti or something like that.

And then, Sundays are soups. And I have my categories, and then I come up with four meals for each [00:04:00] category. And then that gives me 28 meals, for the next four weeks. And once I have my list, I pull up plan to eat. And that was another thing I checked. I have 2, 200 recipes in plan to eat, which I think means I have a problem.

But I pull them up and I put them into my calendar for the next four weeks and then I'm able to use that to generate a grocery list so that I can order what I need from the bulk food company, uh, for the next four weeks. And that's it. It's kind of simple, I guess, maybe, I hope.

Roni: Yeah, I really like that. I think it's awesome that you're able to plan for a month ahead of time. That's like a goal for me. I haven't, I think I'm at like the 10 day mark still and I can't seem to get over that. I always have to go back to the grocery store. Well, I guess how often do you actually grocery shop?

Is it just once a month?

Rebecca: No, usually I do have to go once a week to get things like, um, I use, we, we buy raw milk, but I use pasteurized milk, um, to make like yogurt and kefir and stuff. [00:05:00] Or if we need like sour cream or, or things that I don't order from the bulk food company, I'll get those like once a week, but usually depending on the time of year, my grocery list for the local grocery store is pretty small.

Roni: Oh, okay. And so the bulk ordering, do they, is it a wide range of products of, uh, like available? I'm just, um, wondering, are you only offered certain like cuts of meat at certain times of the year? And then you have, is that how you decide what the recipe is that you're choosing? Or is it just, we're having beef.

What are all of the things we can imagine with beef?

Rebecca: Well, we get, so we get a beef side once a year. So we get half a cow and we, we store that in our freezer. Most of the stuff we get from the bulk food company, it's called the Azure standard. I don't know if anybody else has mentioned it on your show. Andrea actually may have mentioned it. Um, it's, like I said, it's called Azure standard.

It's mostly what we get from them is either frozen stuff or, um, shelf stable stuff, [00:06:00] but we can buy it in bulk. And then they have their own brands, so, you know, it's just that sort of stuff. Usually if there's something on sale, I will plan that into the meal plan. But like I said, we tend to like to eat seasonally.

And then because we have the meat in the freezer, it's really just whatever we're in the mood for and what's available at that time.

Roni: Okay. And so then as your, so I also buy, beef from a local rancher and I feel like there's certain times where I'm like, okay, the only thing we have left is ground beef. And so we're eating ground beef for the next two months. Um, how do you, uh, keep some variety in your meals when it starts to dwindle like that?

Mm

Rebecca: well, I try to, I try to mix it up over the course of the year. So, you know, if I have, I know I have, you know, so many pounds of ground beef. Every month I'll plan like two, because I get mostly ground beef, two ground beef meals, and then maybe steaks, and then stew meat, or a roast, or whatever. [00:07:00] So I try to spread it out over the course of the year.

Um, I actually use up my roasts really fast because it's the easiest thing to just throw in the crock pot. I mean, I throw it in frozen solid in the morning and I have a meal at night. So, sometimes I go through those pretty quickly, but I try when I'm doing my meal planning, I try to take that into account, like, okay, I want to use different cuts through the month.

Roni: hmm. And then you mentioned eating seasonally. Um, can you tell me some of the ways that you are able to ensure that you're having seasonal ingredients? Do you use plan to eat for that or is it just like your own common knowledge of what's in season?

Rebecca: Well, I, we're part of a CSA. So, um, during the summer months when we get our, you know, our produce from the CSA, that kind of determines what our side dishes are going to be. certain recipes in plan to eat for produce that I know we're going to get a lot of. So right now, it's zucchini. We have so much zucchini.

I have, you know, zucchini recipes. And [00:08:00] so when I'm doing my monthly meal plan in the summer months and then early fall, I don't plan side dishes. So it just depends on what we get from the farmer. And then When I find out what we're getting, then I'll put in like, okay, then we'll have this side dish this day or, or whatever that determines what we're going to have during those months for the winter months.

I generally stick with like root vegetables, potatoes and carrots and onions and things like that stuff that I know would be available, um, locally. And if I can get it locally, I will. And sometimes that's not easy. So, especially here, cause we don't have all like what I've heard is that Colorado doesn't have a lot of like.

a lot of variety in produce, um, compared to other places. So I'm happy with what we, we can get.

Roni: Mm hmm. That's been my experience as well. I want to say that I've looked at a couple of different websites before related to seasonal eating where it'll tell you what's in based on your region. It'll tell [00:09:00] you what's in season in your area. And yeah, in Colorado, there's really not a whole lot, which makes sense.

Like the ground freezes for a lot of people for most of the winter. Um, so even having root vegetables and stuff is really impractical here. Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca: Yeah. And I think like the, the CSA that we're part of, they do have a winter share that you can get and it's stuff that stores well. So again, like potatoes, um, Winter squashes and things like that. I think what our big thing here is meat. I think that's just what we do well, really well here. So I'm thankful for that.

Roni: Yeah, I agree. So when you're making your meal plan, do you involve your family in that process at all of deciding recipes? Or is it a time when you just like enjoy doing it yourself?

Rebecca: I try. I do ask them before I sit down and just say, you know, Does anybody have any requests for the meal plan this coming month? If somebody has a birthday coming up, I'll ask them what they want on their birthday. But for the most part they just kind of, Let me go [00:10:00] to it and what they get is what they get.

So Maybe in the future, I'll sit down and if they have complaints and they can help me with it.

Roni: Yeah. And related to that with your, with homeschooling your kids, do you have them get involved in some of the cooking as part of their homeschooling education?

Rebecca: We've done it in the past A couple of years ago when they were old enough that I felt like they could do that sort of stuff We went through the nourishing traditions cookbook for children

Roni: Oh,

Rebecca: just read Each section, like over the course of a 12 week term, we just went through every section and then, um, made a meal or a snack or whatever from each section for that week.

And that worked really well. I think it gave them a really good basis for working in the kitchen. Um, for a while I was trying to schedule once a month that they would make a meal together on their own from that, that cookbook, but it just didn't work out really well for various reasons. So now recently, I have one night a [00:11:00] week where.

One of them helps me, cook supper. And so they're still learning, you know, basic kitchen skills, but they're also learning some of our rest of our favorite recipes that our family has and are on repeat. And my hope is that, you know, they can take those with them when they go out on their own and they'll have a love of cooking, but also hopefully some good memories of us spending that time together and cooking will be something that they enjoy.

Roni: yeah. I think that that's one of the most, Important things that I've heard from other people being on the podcast is saying that there's just such a powerful bonding moment to be had in the kitchen when you're able to get your family involved and to teach your kids skills. And I think, I mean, and I think that if you grew up in a household where your family did include you as a child in the cooking process, like I have those memories myself of being a kid and helping my mom.

And so that's really special.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. And now you're [00:12:00] promoting a product that helps with that. So that's, that's really neat.

Roni: Yeah, it is great. Yeah. One thing that, , when I talked to Andrea on the podcast, she talked a lot about food as a source of connection. And, um, I just think it's a really important thing that we should be reminded of and something that we often don't think about is just how we eat every single day, most of us and multiple times a day.

And so there's just so many opportunities there to involve other people in our lives in that process.

Rebecca: Yeah. And it, I mean, it, it can take time too. It takes a big chunk of my day to make a meal, you know, especially our evening meal. And if I can. Combine that time with teaching, you know, our values, like food values and stuff like that to my kids, but then also spending that time with them. It's kind of like I'm multitasking, so

Roni: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Rebecca: handy.

Roni: Yeah. So, do you primarily eat in a nourishing traditions style?

Rebecca: Yeah, [00:13:00] mostly. I'm sure that we might be considered cheating in some areas, but for the most part, yeah. Yeah, we, we cook everything, most of our stuff from scratch and, we eat meats and we soak our grains and consume fermented, things and yeah.

Roni: Are there, specific features in plan to eat that you feel like help with that, that style of eating?

Rebecca: Yeah, your, your prep feature, I think I can't, I don't know if I have the exact terminology, but where you can add the, you know, X number of days before soak this or whatever. So I use that for when I know we're going to have rice or something, I'll add that and then. you know, on the calendar adds a little note

Roni: Mm hmm.

Rebecca: take your rice out.

Or if I'm going to have, like, yesterday, as a matter of fact, the little notice popped up that I needed to take my whole chicken out of the freezer because I'm going to be having that in a few days. So yeah, that has definitely helped a [00:14:00] lot.

Roni: Mm hmm. I think Andrea mentioned that in her episode as well. And that, that was actually really enlightening to me. I, I, uh, subscribe to some of the ideas of nourishing traditions, but don't incorporate all of them in the way that I eat. And, soaking grains is one thing that I'm trying to do more of.

And so. Hat like talking about that and being like, Oh yeah, this is, this is the way that I think I'm going to enable myself to make this happen instead of relying on my brain to remember, Oh yeah, we're going to have rice tomorrow. You know?

Rebecca: right. You can always do it, like, sometimes I cheat and I do it in the morning and then, you know, try to do it as early as possible. But, yeah.

Roni: So with a month long meal plan, I imagine that there are times that. Like things just don't quite work out because it's a whole, because

Rebecca: much every month.

Roni: yeah, because that's a while to plan ahead for in life is often very unpredictable. So what are, what are, do you have any tips, like if somebody else is trying to learn how to plan ahead for a month at a [00:15:00] time, do you have any tips to help them navigate the unexpected?

Rebecca: I think just be flexible, expect that things are going to pop up. One of the other features that I really like on Plan to Eat is the freezer option. It's actually really satisfying to be able to put a meal into my little freezer count list on there. One of the things that I, I do when I'm laying out my meal plan is look for meals that freeze well, and I'll plan to make two, um, batches of that for that evening.

And so I'll just duplicate it and put it on the, the two of them for that day on the schedule. And then, the, the half that I have frozen, if there's a day that pops up where. We're gonna be out all day and maybe I didn't have that originally planned when I made the list or a day I just don't feel like cooking because that happens I can just pull something out of the freezer And you can always rearrange things.

So like [00:16:00] sometimes I'll have leftovers, and so I'll use the leftovers in a, in a secondary dish that week. And so I'll have two of the same kind of protein that week. And so I can take whatever I was going to make that day and make it later in the week or make it the next week. So it's, it's really like assigning it, assigning the 28 meals to specific days helps me kind of have it all laid out, but they don't necessarily have to go on those days.

It's just so that I have. what I need in place to make sure that I don't have to think about meal planning for four weeks.

Roni: And so how often do you feel like you're normally doing this? looking at your meal plan and maybe making revisions. Is that like a, do you do that on a weekly basis? Is it like every couple of days?

Rebecca: It's usually once a week when I sit down to make my grocery list. So I'll look over the next week and say like, oh, you know, we're, we have dentist appointments and I didn't remember that or whatever this day. Um, so I'll have to rearrange things for that day, [00:17:00] but it doesn't take long at all just to switch things around.

Roni: So in my meal planning, I often plan fewer recipes. you listed that you plan like six recipes a week, which to me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that feels like a lot because. We almost always every single recipe that I feel like I make, I end up with some sort of leftovers.

And so if I were to plan six recipes in a week, we would end up wasting a lot of food. So how do you deal with some of that food waste, particularly when it comes to either unexpected leftovers or a night when your kids are like, I'm not into this, whatever the case may be. Mm

Rebecca: Well, we use leftovers. So when I'm laying out the meal plan, there's certain meals that I know we're going to have leftover. So if I make a big roast, we're going to have leftover beef. If I make a whole chicken, we're going to have leftover chicken. And so maybe, in the days after that, I'll plan a cottage pie to use up the leftover meat, or we have a fish dish that uses leftover mashed potatoes.

So I'll plan that after that. Or. For [00:18:00] chicken, I'll make like a soup or something. Um, we definitely use a lot of it for lunches, which is really handy. Even if I'm the only one who eats it if my kids don't like it. But it's just nice to, actually I love leftovers because it takes care of, of that sort of stuff.

We don't often have them just because of the portions that I make. I'm just used to, you know, how much we normally eat. yeah, like I said, it's nice when we have them.

Roni: I like leftovers for lunch as well. It's it beats just having like a sandwich or

Rebecca: Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Roni: And then when it comes to, so, you know, some of these more traditional foods, traditional dishes, uh, you mentioned that they can take a long time to prepare, uh, do you do any sort of meal prep to make some of this easier?

I know, like you could consider like soaking your grains and stuff as a form of meal prep, but is there anything else that, that you Speed up that process at all. Or maybe you don't like to speed up the process. I don't know.

Rebecca: Well I would, I would love to speed up the process if I could.[00:19:00] 

Roni: Yeah.

Rebecca: Um, you know, a long time ago I read about somebody who did all of her chopping on Sundays, like she chopped up all her veggies and stuff, and I've never been that person. I don't think I ever will be. So most of it I do the night of. You know, there's certain things like for breakfast, we have muffins every morning, so I'll make a big batch of them like once a week and freeze them.

So that takes care of that, or I'll make a big batch of oatmeal one day and then just store it in the fridge and reheat it when we need it. But for suppers, usually it's, I know that it's going to take time. There are some that take longer than others. yeah, I guess I've just accepted that it's going to take, it's going to take some time

Roni: Mm hmm. Mm

Rebecca: just kind of how it is.

So. It's in ways it can be cathartic. Sometimes I'll listen to an audiobook while I'm cooking. Or, you know, if my kids are helping me, we talk about other stuff. So, it's, it's nice. But there are definitely days where I'm like, Okay, this is taking a long time. Gotta get through it. 

Roni: This is not [00:20:00] really related to that, but another thing I wanted to ask you is do, does anybody in your family have to be on a special diet or have any dietary restrictions you have to work around?

Rebecca: yeah, so we're all gluten free. Um, my husband and I were, we're, found to have a gluten sensitivity, in 2009. So we've been gluten free since then and when our kids came along, we just stayed that way because, you know, it's easier for everybody if we're all eating the same. My daughter has a shellfish and an egg white allergy.

So, really the only thing that affects, sometimes I'll make crab cakes and in those cakes, cases, I'll make something else for her. And if I make something that calls for eggs, um, I'll either leave out the whites and just kind of try my best. Or, I'll make her an alternative. So, it's, it's adaptable.

It's not, we've been doing it for so long that it's just kind of second nature now.

Roni: Right. Yeah. Particularly living in the area that we do finding alternatives for gluten free things [00:21:00] is super easy.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I've found too.

Roni: Yeah. And I think it has only gotten easier as time has gone on.

Rebecca: Yeah, especially the gluten free stuff.

Roni: It's just, uh, I don't think that this is probably the same in other parts of the United States. I think that some people still really struggle to find gluten free alternatives to things, but in Colorado, we, uh, we have a pretty good food culture here, I think.

Rebecca: I think so, especially closer to where you are, like Boulder. I remember when we first started eating this way. We would go to Boulder because it was one of the few places where we could find, like, restaurants where we could actually eat and, and things, so we were, we were thankful for that.

Roni: Mm hmm.

Rebecca: We're, we're further away from it now, so it's not quite as easy, but it's, it is easier, like you said, overall now.

Roni: Mm hmm. Oh, I'm sure then with your bulk purchasing, some of the, that would be a place where you would be able to really take advantage of buying gluten free things as well. Right?

Rebecca: Yeah, I mean, we don't, we don't normally buy, like, the very [00:22:00] specific things that we buy are gluten free would be, like, noodles, like pasta noodles. But otherwise, just because we're making so much from scratch, we just use alternative grains. So like, I'll use buckwheat or oats to bake things, or almond flour.

So I don't necessarily have to buy, like, specifically gluten free stuff, which has made it easier in the long run.

But it's nice to have that option when we want something fast or we want to eat out.

Roni: Mm hmm. Well, I feel like I asked all the questions that I was thinking about for you. Did you have anything else that you wanted to mention or talk about before we go?

Rebecca: I don't think so, it's been fun chatting with you, especially about plan to eat. Cause like I said, I've been using it for such a long time and it's something that I share with a lot of people, so it's neat to be able to talk to you about it.

Roni: Yeah. This has been great. Do you want to just share your website in case anybody wants to learn more about your homeschooling resources?

Rebecca: Yeah. It's a humble place. com. And I do have some food related content on [00:23:00] there. I have the list of things that we buy from our bulk food club. I have some meal plan ideas on their monthly meal plan ideas. And then I also just recently posted how I go through this, my monthly meal plan process. So those are all on there.

Roni: Oh, perfect. That'd be great. Cool. Well, thanks again for joining me today. This has been so nice.

Rebecca: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Roni: Thank you for listening to this episode. I will have a link in the show notes to Rebecca's website as well as her Instagram handle in case you want to go follow her. She posts a lot about art history. So if that's something that you're interested in, you should definitely give her a follow over there.

If you like the Plan to Eat podcast, I would really appreciate it. If you subscribed, wherever you get your podcast, the more subscriptions we have, the more our podcast gets promoted to other people so that they can find us. And next week I will be back with an episode with Riley. So I hope you look forward to that and I'll talk to you [00:24:00] then.