#92: A Less is More Approach to Meal Planning with Roni and Riley

Join Roni and Riley for a conversation about "less is more" when it comes to meal planning. This conversation gives many practical tips for simplifying your meal planning and creating minimalist meal plans! Tune in for some recipe inspiration and practical planning methods. Enjoy!

Tiny Rhythms Wall Magnets

Get 50% off your Plan to Eat subscription from November 29th - December 2nd! More info here: https://app.plantoeat.com/annual-sale

Sign up for a free trial + get 20% off your first annual subscription: plantoeat.com/PTEPOD

Contact us: podcast@plantoeat.com

Connect with Plan to Eat online:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest

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, welcome to another episode of the Plan to eat podcast. Back with Riley.

Riley: Hi. Happy to be here.

Roni: Today we are covering the topic of less being more. And why less can be more related to meal planning. when I think about the idea of less is more, I think about kind of like minimalism, you know, you can give them a people who do minimalism in their house, kind of like a Marie Kondo method of less clutter, just having the essentials, uh, minimalist, like a minimalist schedule.

It's just kind of like a. A less busy schedule, you don't do things just because they're keeping you busy. You're doing things with intentionality. You have fewer distractions in your [00:01:00] life. I think that kind of the point of the less is more is to be able to focus on. The things that matter to you most.

That's the, that's the general impression that I get when people talk about using a less is more quote unquote mindset. But I think it's really interesting to talk about it in the, in the aspect of meal planning. We have so many things to go over today related to it. Uh, but I just want to start by saying we don't necessarily have to think of a simple less is more meal plan as just like what the meal plan looks like.

It could be what the recipes are, what the ingredients are. Like there's lots of different ways in here where you could think of less is more. It could be like the, the macro to the micro.

Riley: Yeah, I love that. Uh, I like to look at it and break it up into all those different things because everyone's going to think about a simple meal plan in a very different way. But that simple word, it's gonna mean something different to everyone. Because what's simple to you might not be simple to me, or it might be [00:02:00] even more simple to me than it is to you.

So

Roni: Yeah, so I think that we can just, jump right on in. We unfortunately did a lot of great talking on this topic right before we hit record. So we need to remember to talk about all the things that we mentioned right before we started. In general, I think, It's good to start with the benefits of why we would even want to have, a simpler meal plan, a, a less is more type of a meal plan.

And the very first thing that comes right off the bat is just reducing decisions, making it less stressful, kind of streamlining everything so that there's a lot less to think about in your meal planning process.

Riley: I think it's also a lot more attainable. Um, you know, it's also, especially if you're making a new habit of meal planning, I'm going to talk a lot about habits today, I think. And if you're making a new habit, you don't want to overcomplicate it so that you've never completely, you never actually make it a habit.

So starting with a baseline that you [00:03:00] can, you know, a good foundation that you can build on, Is a really important place to start, especially if meal planning is a very new habit for you. Um, we talk about, we've talked about this a lot over the years of the podcast of just, you know, if, if planning for two days is what you need to do, then start there.

If planning for five dinners a week, because that's what you're already home for. Is what you need to do. Then do that. You know, if, if you don't even need to worry about breakfast and lunches, because those kind of take care of themselves, then leave that out. Um, you kind of, kind of pick and choose which parts of a meal plan work for you.

And, and if you're getting started and you've never meal planned before, and it's the most daunting task in your life, like think about it in terms of making it, , simple in that it works for you. Um, build it in a way that works for you. Don't look at what other people are doing. Don't look at meal plans online.

Like, think about, okay, when am I home? Well, I'm always home for dinner. Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays. We're always home. We have activities every other night, or we're out with friends on the weekend or whatever. And just plan for those [00:04:00] nights. You're already home. Or if you're only ever home for breakfast and maybe a weird work schedule and you're gone for dinner every night, then plan for breakfast and lunches.

There's things like that. And, and I mean this, I could go on and on and on about how to customize this for you, but I think, um, just kind of sitting down with your schedule and thinking, okay, when am I home? Okay. I'm going to plan two meals, like keep it that simple.

Roni: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Riley: And then don't pick a meal that takes four hours to cook on the first week you meal plan.

Roni: right. Yeah. I mean, what you said, you kind of just went through all of those things. Like you have a simple meal plan, potentially have simple ingredients or simple recipes that contain simple ingredients. All of those things kind of go together in that situation. And particularly for certain phases of life.

You need all of those things to match up. Sometimes you could have a simple meal plan, you know, maybe only plan a couple of recipes a week and those, but those recipes could be kind of like long and complicated because the thing that you're valuing is maybe learning a new style of cooking, or you just enjoy [00:05:00] a long, elaborate meal process.

Like I said earlier, it's kind of like the macro to the micro. Sometimes the, the overall meal plan might be simple, but the implementation of it could be a little bit more complicated, just depending on what works for you and your situation. I would say that's actually kind of more how.

Roni: I meal plan. A lot of the times is like my meal plan itself is super simple, but I'm, I like to try new recipes. And a lot of times that means that the recipe takes a little bit longer to cook because I'm unfamiliar with it, but I have the time, you know, I choose nights where I know that I have the time to be able to make that maybe a little bit more complicated or new recipe.

Uh, so they don't have to, I guess the thing that I'm trying to say is like, they don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. You can, you can do like a little bit of both in there.

Riley: Absolutely. A mix and match I think is important, to really make it the most customizable for you and your family and, and what, you like to do, you know, like I tend to have a more complicated meal plan, [00:06:00] because I really like to cook. I, I like to create in the kitchen. You know, I pair that with having two kids who, you know, really like to have dinner at a specific time every night, and that doesn't always go how I want it to go, you know?

And so then I think, okay, I have got to do this faster. I can't just be toodling around in the kitchen creating dinner, for an hour. Like, it needs to be like a half an hour or 20 minutes, because While I love to do this thing, it's not really working in the season of life that I'm in. Um, and so instead of just getting super frustrated at meal planning, I just say, okay, the, the part of this problem that's not working is how long dinner takes.

So I've just got to make faster meals. So what does that mean? We can talk about more that more a little bit later, but just finding more simple recipes and being intentional to look at the, how long something takes to cook. Not a lot of things are more frustrating than when you put something in the oven and it says now bake for one hour.

And you're like, shoot, I did not see that at the beginning of this recipe. [00:07:00] Um, and so here I am, and I've got an hour now. And I didn't start it in time or whatever. So just, you know, being intentional to notice like, what's the pain point for me and my family and, and my prep time. Or my food choices that I've made or ingredients that I've chosen to make.

It's not necessarily the meal plan is the problem. It's that there are pieces of it that might not be working. So kind of finding the pain point and solving that pain point for your family is

Roni: Mm hmm. Yeah. I like that a lot, too. That makes me think I have a. I have two different beef stroganoff recipes in my Plan to Eat account, and I always end up planning the wrong one. They have just like very slightly different ingredients. And the one that I end up planning, I don't know why it's the, maybe it has a prettier picture or something.

I always plan it and it calls for you to put everything in your Dutch oven for like three hours or something before you eat the meal. I'm always like, dang it. I just, I planned the wrong one. I end up, you know, improvising and making the [00:08:00] faster recipe. It's like I said, the ingredients are just slightly different.

I think the, the longer cooking one obviously has more liquid in it. So that kind of like cook down and simmer. I need to just delete that from my, from my Plan to Eat account. But I have that experience every time where I'm like, gee, dang it. This is supposed to be a fast recipe. It's supposed to be three hours.

Riley: You know, I, what I have done to resolve that because there's so many customization options and plan to eat is I've made a category called recipes. We love a course category, but it's recipes we love. And you, there's anything from tacos to chicken nuggets, to, you know, like dessert options, like breakfast bakes.

It's not, it is not, meal specific or, you know, like sides or whatever. It's just, do we love it? And I put it there. And then that helps me because then I don't delete really good recipes. I just kind of converge them into one place where like, these are our go tos.

Roni: Yeah, I like that. I ended up just giving the one that I don't want to make a one star.

Riley: Oh, good. Yeah, that works

Roni: So now I see [00:09:00] the one star on it and I'm like, don't plan that one. Okay.

Riley: Yeah. I would say that in general, simple meal planning is probably what the majority of people are going for in life right now. Yeah. And then the more complicated meal planning is, Probably the more outlier like the, like, you know, there's a specific group of people who do that, who are making the recipes they got from a cooking class in Italy, homemade pasta, et cetera.

But I would say simple, like this idea of simple, basic meal planning. One, it doesn't have to be, I hate the word basic and I actually don't like the word simple because it makes it sound bland and boring. It doesn't have to be those things. but I would say simple is probably what the majority of people are going for in their day to day life.

Roni: Yeah. Maybe we could call it minimalist. Minimalist meal planning. Yeah. I mean, I think that there, there's also a subset here of people who potentially are working around food allergies or, you know, like restrictions within their household that can make meal planning feel a [00:10:00] lot more challenging. I don't, I don't think that that means that you have to think You don't have to not have a minimalist meal plan in that sort of a situation, but it might require a little more intentionality.

I'm thinking of people who email us who are like, have one child that can't eat the same things as everybody else. So we have to make them a special meal. And I know that that gets a lot more complicated. We might not be able to, solve that problem in this podcast today, but I don't, I think that even if that those kinds are the kinds of restrictions that you're working with, I think you can still work, find a way to make a minimalist meal plan.

Because in my vision of it, a lot of times it does work. It does involve these like fewer ingredients. You're trying to plan recipes that maybe use the same ingredients. If you have fewer ingredients, I think it's easier to coordinate your ingredients. In which case, you know, you can either focus on leftovers or you're just able to have like meal [00:11:00] combinations within your week where you use the same ingredients, you're wasting food.

And just like doing that kind of like reusing idea and potentially You know, if you have some, if you have somebody in your family who maybe has, they can't have gluten or maybe they can't have dairy or eggs, something like that, but they're fine with poultry. And so, like, maybe you can have chicken for everybody.

And for most of the family, it goes into a casserole. For this one specific family member, you just make them, like, You know, roast chicken and green beans or something. I feel like there's a way to make it so that you're not spending so much extra time and effort making multiple meals for people. And your meal plan also then is able to still be simple because you're not buying so many extra ingredients to accommodate, you know, our specific person with their needs.

Riley: Yeah. And that is, you know, that does become the, you know, Tetris kind of meal planning. But like the, I would say like baseline is what everyone is eating and then the [00:12:00] extras are what some people are eating. Like it's kind of a helpful way to look at it. Um, if it's possible to do batch cooking or meal prepping, whatever you call it on the weekends or.

On a day when you're home from work or I utilize nap time quite a bit to prep food ingredients. Um, and that is something that I'm able to do, but not every day I'm able to do that. And so, you know, I try to think, okay, today's the day when I've got some time I'm going to make, something I make often is green chili and I freeze it.

And I mean, I might just make it and we don't even eat it. I try not to do that because. If I make it and we eat some of it and I freeze the rest of it, it's a much more, like, simple, friendly, weak, friendly, I'm trying to think, like, less stress, like I'm doing the work once and it, you know, it's feeding us that moment and I'm having to do double work for that night's dinner or whatever.

But I'll make it during nap time one day and then just, you know, divide it up for freezing for different meals. And, you know, that, that kind of thing can help when [00:13:00] everyone's eating this, but then that person can't have the side dish or everyone else needs this extra thing. And I can, you know, like once you've made some things and you've prepped them and frozen them, or you've got Some like aids, like, okay, I've got a box of this.

I can put together for these people, but I don't have it for this. And that mix and match aspect of things can become a little simpler when you've done some prepping, when you've got some extra time in your schedule, which I say with a grin, because I know that that's, you know, extra time in your schedule is a hard thing to come by sometimes.

Roni: Yeah, definitely. One thing I wanted to mention with this minimalist style of meal planning is the fact that I think it allows for more flexibility. Um, you know, and so kind of some of the things that you're talking about here is like, maybe you are able to make some of your things ahead of time and you're able to like get ahead of your week a little bit.

And it's because you planned kind of simple meals with simple ingredients that when you do that meal prep, so [00:14:00] much of that work is going into multiple meals for the rest of your week. Which I think just then allows you the flexibility to be like, okay, I have all this prepped. Like maybe we had enchiladas planned for this night, but it's not exactly what we're feeling.

Like we'll save our enchilada sauce for later. Cause the kids want tacos instead, but it's all the same basic ingredients and, you know, can go into a different meal. So. I know a big problem that people can have with meal planning is just the idea of like, we like to be spontaneous. We like to, you know, choose what we're eating on a day by day basis because I don't know what I'm going to be in the mood for on Thursday when I'm meal planning on Sunday.

And so there, there's a little bit more of this flexibility aspect in that too, where when you kind of start, you mentioned earlier a foundation. And that foundation could just be your simple ingredients that then go into whatever the recipes are that sound good and feel good to everybody later in the week.

Riley: Yeah. But what that what that makes me think of is how I tend to meal [00:15:00] plan. And, you know, I'll put a meal on every night's dinner for five nights a week or four nights a week, depending on the week. But then usually at breakfast, I'll ask, what do you guys think for dinner? And half the time people say they don't know, or they don't care.

And I have to just decide, which is fine. Cause I'll just pick whatever I put that night. But then that allows me to think, okay, well, if we're having chicken and the chicken's frozen, I need to thaw it all day or. Um, most often it's, I ask at breakfast because of that thawing aspect, um, that I do need it to be thawing all day before dinner, or, you know, maybe, you know, we'll have a pizza night and that means I'm just picking up pizza for dinner, but that could have been Friday or it could have been Monday.

And it's just a, whenever we decided the night that we're doing it, then that tells me I actually don't need to thaw anything out because tonight's pizza night, but because it's. It's planned, you know, and it's budgeted for, um, it's not like, it doesn't feel like a, Oh, a desperate attempt at dinner. It feels like a, a choice, you know, it [00:16:00] feels like I had like, um, like an intentional part of making that decision instead of having to do something because people have to eat, you know?

Um, nothing is worse than getting to five 30 and being and thinking, Oh man, what are we going to have for dinner? One, I didn't thaw anything, we lived too far from a pickup plate, you know, whatever, um, and feeling like, man, I've got to come up with something in that, like, little, like, dinnertime panic. That is not a fun thing to navigate, but, habits, you know, this is where I'm going to tie in some of the habit thing.

I was reading about habits in preparation for this and habits can follow a, it's called a habit loop and it's like a cue, a routine and a behavior. And it's kind of like you get up in the morning, you start your coffee pot. So getting up, maybe the cue you start your coffee pot is the routine and then you drink your coffee.

That's the behavior. Um, but all of those things build to the actual habit, which is drinking your coffee every morning. So, you know, this is kind of along those same lines. Like I, Wake up in the morning. We have breakfast. Okay. What are we going to have for dinner? Okay. It's breakfast. I'm going to ask about dinner.

Cause I've got to [00:17:00] thaw something, you know, like these are the cues and then the routine thawing it out and then making the dinner. And all these things are really hard to build, but when you start to do them in your everyday, it becomes a much simpler process. And I don't remember how we got on this topic, but you were talking about, um, the flack of flexibility, but I actually think.

That when you have a meal plan and it gives you more flexibility and more freedom because one, I think of freedom in regards to budgeting and how, like, if I have made a plan that we're going to pick up dinner for dinner, pick up pizza for dinner, then that's an intentional choice that I planned for instead of, oh man, we didn't plan for dinner.

We didn't plan for dinner out at pizza or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. And then it's outside of the budget that we'd set. So then it's like, then it's. Less freedom to me, you know, but kind of when you build these things into being a habit, it does actually feel like something you want to do. You get to choose to do. And that feels like freedom and flexibility to me. But I'm, I'm a very habit oriented person.

My days look very similar. There's a lot of beats to them that [00:18:00] are the same. And so I like to look at this like a habit because I like to form new habits, especially ones that are positive. So

Roni: Yeah. One of the examples that I wanted to give today is from a recent podcast episode. It was with Diana Rice, episode 86, if you guys haven't listened to it and Diana talks about her process for meal planning, which is just, I was going to talk about this in kind of like the practical ways that you can implement a simple meal plan, but I think it fits really well here since you were talking about, habits.

And, uh, so she kind of does like a capsule idea where she has a, she said, she based it off of the capsule wardrobe idea where you have, you know, 10 blouses and, you know, five pairs of pants, and those are the only things that you own and you do the like, you know, mix and match. Kind of thing. And, you know, maybe everything kind of has like a similar color palette and it just is very simple.

And the point of it is the, to reduce decision fatigue about like, what am I going to put on today to look [00:19:00] presentable, which I should really implement because I

Riley: Yeah, I love the idea. I love it. Yeah.

Roni: And so, so she talks about like literally only putting a maximum of like 30 recipes into your plan to eat account.

So that way you are not overwhelmed by looking at 2000 recipes. Like it was in my plan to you account. And, and so then you just have this smaller rotation of meals and, you're able to just like pick, you know, like Okay. Well, you know, we only have so many recipes to choose from, and you do end up eating meals kind of on repeat, but it's not like, you know, every single week you're eating the exact same meals.

You still have 30 meals to choose from. That means technically you could have six weeks, you know, of meals if you needed. But one of the things that she mentioned related to that was that, you know, She said that it's actually can be really comforting for kids to have this sort of like repeat repeated recipes because there's like a predictability to that.

And so, and so this is how I feel about habits [00:20:00] is like habits are very comforting to me. And I think that's probably how they are for you because there's, it's just like a predictability to it. And you don't, You're no longer thinking about the process so much because it's just become a habit for you. And, and anyways, and so she mentioned that in reference to her kids, cause she's had a lot of children thrive on habitual things, repeatability.

It gives them kind of like an ease in their life. So that's a practical way that you can incorporate in this into your meal planning. But also ties back into habits of just having that, having that predictability in your life is really helpful and can make you feel so much less stressed when it comes to meal planning.

Riley: Yeah, I mean, I have so many ideas on this topic. My mind is just reeling because that's such a good way to look at it. A great way to meal plan. Especially for people who are trying to form a new habit, who've not, who are not meal planners, who don't think that they are meal planners. One, you get really good at cooking those things and then it becomes more autopilot, which automatically lowers stress.

If you [00:21:00] know what you're making, you're not even glance at a recipe cause you kind of just know. But I wonder what Katie Kimball would say about that. In a positive way about, picky eating, because then, then kids are exposed to, especially if your meal plan, if those 30 recipes are very well rounded, very well, like very colorful, a lot of variety of ingredients, variety of flavors, things like that, then you're introducing your kids to a lot of things.

And, you know, if a kid thinks they don't like something, they're going to see it. Once a week or once every two weeks, you know, and it, that repetition is really good for them from a, Oh, okay. Broccoli is not scary. I can eat broccoli. And I see it all the time because, you know, Katie talked about how it takes like 18 interactions with a food for a kid to be excited or interested in trying and actually putting it in their mouth to eat it.

And so like that kind of gives them that repetition to know, okay, this is a, this is a safe food. Okay. I've seen it a almost, I'm going to try it now. Which is awesome. I think that routines are really good for my kids. I even have this thing on my [00:22:00] fridge and maybe I'm creating tiny planners. But it's called tiny rhythms and I can put it, we can put a link in the show notes for it, but it's little magnets for our fridge.

And so I, every day I change up the, what we're doing every day. Some of it stays the same, but it's little magnets that say things like school. Reading, outside play, screen time, lunch, nap time, like every one of them is different. So I can rearrange it every day, but then my four year old can go to the fridge and say, okay, here's what my day looks like.

And she likes to know. Um, she likes to know what we're doing, likes to know what we're eating, likes to know what's for dinner. Likes to know what the next thing that she gets to do that day is. And a lot of her days look the same, but that schedule is kind of our anchor point. I'm like, okay, well. If I told you you could have screen time today and it's on the schedule like you get to do that and then that's a really exciting thing for her because it's not an everyday activity, you know, or if it says like, we're going to go to the park.

Well, we don't go to the park that often. We don't live close to park. So, um, that's a big, you know, like she gets her an idea of what we're doing that day. And that [00:23:00] feels like the 30 recipes thing. Like it gives you kind of an anchor of like, this is what we're doing. This is what we do. We can do something outside of it if we want to, but we've got this solid thing that gives us a really good foundation for what our meals are going to be, what we're cooking.

That means that, you know, if mom's the primary cook, then dad could step in cause he knows or, or whatever, you know, or if dad's the primary cook, mom could step in cause she knows. And, um, the flavors, you know, she can get it right. Cause she knows what it's supposed to taste like and things like that. And I just think.

These kinds of things. I mean, you and I just talked about habits and these kind of things are very comforting to us. But I do think it's good for everyone in the family to kind of have a sense of, of knowing what's coming or, knowing what foods they like and dinners that they like and things like that.

It kind of feels like a safe place. I mean, comforting safe place, all these things. I don't know. They feel really good and my kids thrive in that kind of schedule. And so I think that they would probably really like that. I probably do that. I just call it ruts. We get into ruts. Um, and then I go and I go rogue and make [00:24:00] a new meal plan, but

Roni: So that makes me think about, I can't, it's. It's not coming to me who talked about this on the podcast, but I think somebody earlier in the summer talked about this on the podcast of the benefit of posting your meal plan. In your kitchen on your refrigerator, like printing out your meal plan from plan to eat posting it on the refrigerator so that everybody's aware of what's for dinner.

And she talked about it in the way of reducing the amount of like pushback that you might get from your kids or like negotiation that you have with your children, because she was like. It's almost like when your kids are in school and there's the hot lunch menu, they might look at what's on the hot lunch menu for that day and be like, Ooh, sloppy Joes.

I'm not really into sloppy Joes, but it's what's for lunch. You're like, there's some mental, you know, psychology principle that happens there where it's like, it's, it's written down, which means it's like set in stone. I

Riley: Yeah, already decided.

Roni: argue with it. And so, and so she said, it kind of works that same way in [00:25:00] her household where it's like, she's created the meal plan.

Number one, it's amazing. Cause nobody's being like, what's for dinner tonight. Because it's listed on the fridge, but number two, the kids aren't like, well, I didn't want to have spaghetti tonight. Instead. They're just like, okay, it's spaghetti tonight, but tomorrow is, you know, mac and cheese, which is my favorite.

It kind of like gives them that. I mean, it's part of that predictability aspect as well, where they're able to see like, okay, my favorite meal is coming up sometime this week, but then it reduces that like back and forth of when If you say, if they ask what's for dinner and you say, I don't know, I haven't really decided yet.

They're like, well, what if we had hot dogs?

Riley: You and I are both children of the nineties. And when you think about your childhood, you probably think of like 10 different recipes,

Roni: Totally.

Riley: Maybe five. Like I don't think back and think, wow, we eat something different every night. I'm like, man, my mom's favorite five things she made. And I'm sure she made other foods, but in my mind, she has these staples, you know, like this is what we had loved these things.

Yeah, sure. Whatever it is for your household. They were things you [00:26:00] loved. And I was thinking, I was laughing to myself when you were talking about, Oh yeah, mac and cheese is for dinner tomorrow night. It's like, it gives your kid a future hope.

Roni: Yeah. Yeah.

Riley: the broccoli thing I don't like, but tomorrow night's mac and cheese.

Like I can get there. Yeah, I think it, I think it isn't, it also probably reduces the, uh, what's for dinner question, which can be very annoying. My children can't read, so I just tell them what's for dinner and you really, I mean, I might get pushed back, but also it's like, I'm the one cooking it. So, but you can help me.

You can help me do

Roni: Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so we've talked a little bit about what Diana's process is. Why don't you give us your process for what a simple meal plan might look for you and your family?

Riley: Well, like I mentioned earlier, I can tend to overcomplicate it. And that's just because I really like to be creative in the kitchen and I, I get tired of making the same things and I like, you know, want to try new things or whatever. So I tend to have a complicated meal plan. My mom was here over the summer and she said, you probably need to like reign this in a little [00:27:00] bit, like you're because I was very stressed and I had a lot on my plate.

And, But I was holding out hope for this like creative time, you know, like, Oh, this creativity, like I get to be creative in the kitchen. Like that's me time, like jokes on me. It's not me time, you know, like it's not me time at this point in my life, you know, um, sometimes it is, but most of the time it's not.

So I've been really trying to actively. Choose more simple meal plans. Things that don't take as long to cook. Uh, like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't need to take an hour. Some of the things that I do is I just look at protein, carb, vegetable, and try to like dip you put different things in those categories.

Okay. We've had chicken this week already. Let's have. Okay. B for, mushroom burgers or, um, uh, turkey, something, you know, like I kind of try to pick a different protein and then kind of build sides around it. I also just try to use really simple things like a protein in a carb with an interesting sauce and a side salad, you know, like try to make a sauce, be the interesting thing that kind of makes the meal [00:28:00] different that time.

You know, one of our favorite things that we have is ribeye steaks, with French fries. And either green beans or salad, some kind of green side squash, But we, I love to make this basil aioli to go with that meal. And my husband was like, okay, I'm done with the basil aioli. We gotta be done. I love it. I put it on because to me, it's like, it goes on sandwiches.

It goes on a salad. It goes on, it's a dipping sauce. It's a burger topping. Like it can be so many things. So when I make it, I'll build my meal plan around that thing. And it kind of makes itself because of all the things I just told you. Like it goes so well on all these different recipes. Um, but he was said, let's have chimichurri next time.

Okay, well, that's another great thing. So let's have chimichurri on the steaks. And then the next day we can have some kind of rice bowl chimichurri chicken rice bowl or something. So then utilizing that ingredient, throughout, I'm not really telling you how I meal plan, but I'm giving you some ideas here. Well, I'll backtrack to my process, but, I was just thinking another way that I do that as like [00:29:00] sauerkraut, like I'll buy sauerkraut and then, or I'll make sauerkraut and then I'll think, okay, this is too much for us to eat in one night. So we're going to have it on brats or hot dogs, or then we're going to have it on, um, like a Reuben or then I'm going to make, like a kraut burger.

Like you kind of like can use that one thing. So it's not going to waste or it's not. Next week we'll have it on something, but it's very different in all of those meals. So I guess, let me backtrack for you. I usually just look at the week and think, okay, we're not going to be home for dinner Friday.

We're not going to be home for dinner Saturday. We'll be home for dinner all the rest of the nights that week, Monday through Thursday or Sunday through Thursday. And we're going to have friends over this night. So I kind of get an idea of like, what's the week look like as far as dinners go, because I don't do a lot of planning for breakfast and lunches because.

I have staple ingredients that I buy, eggs, a variety of breakfast meats, a lot of fruit, a lot of yogurt, cottage cheese, those kinds of things. Toast, you know, we have a variety of those kinds of things for breakfast. And then lunches are either leftovers or sandwiches. My four year old loves [00:30:00] a sandwich.

And so It can be hard to get her to want to eat anything else for lunch because that is one of her favorite foods. And so, and she actually is starting to be able to make it herself. And so go for it, girl, like make your own sandwich. We got this. But so there, so dinners is what I primarily focus on.

And then I just, Think about what we haven't had much lately. And like I said, this is kind of where I try to be creative, even if it's simple. Um, okay. We haven't had any fish. Let's have some salmon or something. Um, we have a lot of chicken, so let's back away from the chicken and let's have something different pork or something along those lines.

And then. I do kind of run through. Okay. Like we could have something Italian. Okay. So what's an Italian recipe with pork or something along those lines? It kind of runs. Okay. What can I, how can I flavor this in a certain way? And then what kind of sides go well with that or what do we need to eat at home that we already have?

Because I've been really trying to go through some of our freezer food storage and like make sure that we're not wasting that because it's been in there too long. And so sometimes I'll think. [00:31:00] I'll not think sometimes I'll add just a freezer recipe to the meal plan. And so, I think, okay, like I mentioned earlier, I've got green chili frozen.

So I'm going to, what are we going to have with that? Because it's often not just that by itself. It's a burrito smothered in green chili or it's, like a breakfast nacho thing we have called chilaquiles with green chili on top of it. And so I'm utilizing things from my freezer, planning around things from my freezer, but then kind of giving it a flair of something kind of new.

So we're not eating the same things all the time. Cause that's not my favorite thing, even though I do get into ruts because I, certain things I just like some, um, simple meal plans. Here's just an idea of what one looks like for us. Salmon teriyaki, frozen mixed vegetables, coconut rice. That's like a 20 minute meal at our house, beef burritos with beans and like all the good toppings like chopped tomatoes or Pico guacamole, sour cream, things like that.

Like it can make a really exciting meal, but it takes you 20 minutes or less to cook it. Breakfast for dinner is always a winner and that's on repeat a lot in our simple meal [00:32:00] planning era, because it's fast and because everyone likes it and, Usually it's pretty high protein going into bedtime.

So my kids sleep a long time 'cause they're full . Um, uh, some kind of spaghetti bake or spaghetti and meatballs or, some kind of pasta dish that kind of can rotate through. We don't actually eat a lot of pasta here. We eat a lot more rice at our past than pasta, but, I'm trying to mix it up by adding some pasta in.

, so the, that's kind of an idea how our meal plan and some of like what our meals look like. Um, a really large salad with fruit and a protein of some kind. And those are things that we just really like, but I, I would, I just, I try, I've been really trying to not overdo it. So I've been really trying to lean into a hot sandwich can be a good dinner option.

It doesn't have to be fan air quotes, fancy, you know? And so I've been really trying to lean into like, like, This thing I think is a lunch item can be a simple dinner. It's okay. And then also leaning into like these aids, I've talked about this before. Like I tend to buy marinara [00:33:00] sauce and then use it in a variety of ways with like 90 percent of the meal being homemade.

But, um, or like I just said, like frozen mixed vegetables, I didn't have to chop it. Didn't have, like, I just bought a one little mixed bag of things and used that. It's a great item to keep in your freezer for things like that, where you just pull it out and you can add it to a meal. But I definitely lean on those kinds of things as a tool for making meals easier and more simple, because you can look at them like as like, Oh, it's like frozen processed, but like, it's just frozen vegetables or it's just frozen fruit or it's, you know, it's like, it's got good ingredients.

You can still get good ingredient items that just make that make your meal planning life simpler.

Roni: Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure that they have done. Nutritional value studies on frozen vegetables and stuff. And they're actually really high in nutritional content because they're flash frozen more immediately after they're harvested, then a lot of times what you get in the grocery store, a lot of times what you get in the grocery store spent weeks getting to you, you know, and so the frozen vegetables actually sometimes can have, they have really [00:34:00] high nutrition content.

And it's all, I mean, it's just really convenient to have those things.

Riley: this is not a pain point. I didn't even intend to like say that as like a negative, like these are things, these are, I use the word tool on purpose because like, I'm not trying to say that those things are bad. I'm actively using them as tools in my meal plan to make life easier for myself. Because that's the season of life I'm in.

I don't feel a bit bad about it. And like, I think that's a good place for me to be. Cause I can get like, Oh, I want to make it all from scratch or I want to do this or that or whatever. And it's just not where I'm at right now. And so. Just giving myself permission to like make my life a little simpler by buying those things that are like you just said, just as good.

Roni: Yeah, absolutely. think for my own meal planning, I mean, we're kind of similar in a lot of ways where the main focus for me is planning dinners, putting dinners on the meal plan and the wheat leftovers a lot for both lunch. And then sometimes for dinner, Uh, like last night was just a leftover. So what, what do we have that's leftover in the fridge?

Eat that thing. And then, yeah. [00:35:00] And then doing just kind of like staples things for breakfast. I don't ever put breakfast on my meal plan because we don't need it. We just eat things like, you know, cottage cheese or eggs and toast. And so I don't need to plan a recipe for those kinds of things. Um, lunch is

Riley: It's a big deal if my breakfast is something other than that. It's like a, it's like a big, it's like a big day. It's like one Saturday a month. I'll make a real breakfast. Like 

Roni: I always have staples items for breakfast, like hanging around my house anyways. And so if we wanted to do like French toast or something, all I need to do is go buy like a nice loaf of challah bread at the grocery store. And it's like, cool. Now we got amazing French toast.

Cause we definitely already have the eggs and the milk and the maple syrup, you know, so, so those kinds of things are just, yeah, they're very automatic at our house. I would say similar to you, some of our like really some of our simple minimalist meals are things like a burrito bowl. Just like charred broccoli, you know, charring broccoli in the [00:36:00] oven with a protein as a side.

I would like to focus more on sauces like you do. I feel like sauces are. Hard for me to remember to make, but like our all time favorite sauce, honestly, is just Greek yogurt with Sriracha in it. My husband just could just eat like a bowl of that. He loves that so much. And it's like high in protein, Greek yogurt, it's delicious.

Let's see some of the things I'm really in a tortellini phase of my life right now. And so usually when I go to Costco. This is something else I'm going to bring up is like bulk shopping, but usually when I go to Costco, I'll buy like the bulk option for frozen tortellinis. And I think it's like maybe two bags of frozen tortellinis.

I'll usually buy two of them. So I have four bags of tortellinis in my freezer because there's so many things you can do with tortellini. You can either just have a regular pasta dish. Like, uh, I have a, recipe in my account. That's called like meaty tortellini, adorable name. And, you know, it's just like ground beef and marinara sauce and [00:37:00] tortellinis in a skillet, or you can make like a really yummy like pasta salad.

I love pasta salad with tortellini. Um, you can make yummy soups with tortellini. I feel like it's so versatile. It's like as versatile as any other pasta, but it just tastes delicious because it's cheese inside.

Riley: kind of like this too. Like it's a really, like very versatile thing you can throw into

Roni: exactly. Yeah. And so, yeah, so I just do things like that. That, and a lot of these, even though I mentioned earlier, a lot of the times my meal plan might look really simple, but the application is a little more complicated. That's not all the time, you know, like that meat tortellini skillet is like a 20 minute meal.

But. I do at like you are, Riley. I do like to cook. And so I and because I don't have Children, I can spend more time in the kitchen on an evening. I can start cooking at five p. m. And it's okay that we don't eat till seven. That rarely ever happens. I do not spend two hours cooking.

Anyways, one of the things that I wanted to mention about my process is you've, I'm sure if you listen to [00:38:00] the podcast, you've heard me mention that I don't have much room for bulk shopping in my kitchen. I have a very small kitchen, but, but I do find that when I create a simple meal plan, it is an opportunity to do, to do some of that bulk shopping.

Like I said, buying the tortellinis in bulk, and then maybe we have four different tortellini recipes over the course of a month. I just think that when you're able to create more of this minimal, simple meal plan and you try to coordinate your recipes to go along with each other, you have the ability to buy things in bulk more frequently.

You know, if you know that this week you're having three recipes and they all have chicken in them, buy the chicken in bulk and, you know, freeze the things for later in the week or later in the month. One thing that, that comes to mind with this kind of simple meal planning is it can be. Also easier to create a longer meal plan, a meal plan that goes out for longer in the month, because you can create maybe one week of simple recipes, even if you may say you created two weeks of simple recipes, like copying [00:39:00] those to the second two weeks of the month.

And then having a whole month planned is like, there's probably enough variety in there. Nobody's going to notice that you're eating the same recipes, but then you're able to really strategically plan those bulk shopping trips so that you're like, We're getting, we're buying chicken for the whole month or we're buying our tortellinis for the whole month, rather than, you know, buying so many separate ingredients because everything is one night you're eating Asian and the next night you're eating Mexican and then you're eating Italian, you're able to coordinate those things a little bit more.

And to your point, eating a meal, that's just kind of like a protein, a carb. And a vegetable, can make that really eat a lot easier as well, rather than sticking within like cuisine types, doing just kind of like a simple plate setup can make, that, that bulk buying process a lot easier because you're like, well, we're just grilling a bunch of chicken and then we're eating grilled chicken for four days.

And some days it's just going to be grilled chicken with some vegetables. Another day, I'm going to put it into a casserole. [00:40:00] This is, I feel like where the idea of creating kind of like a. Creating your own meal planning system. So like Diana Rice's system was creating her capsule menus. I feel like creating your own meal planning system.

In this can make us creating a minimalist meal plan easier because you can kind of plan things around protein type, or you can plan things around cuisine. And so, you know, we talked a really long time ago with Amy Udell, who talked about having anchors in your, for your meal planning. And so for a long time, hers was their budget and she had to plan for an entire month ahead of time because they only got paid once a month.

And so that was the anchor for her entire meal plan was like, how do I only spend X number of dollars on on my food for the entire month, you know, but yours might be your anchor might be that maybe somebody has a food allergy. And so you anchor your things around accommodating that food allergy. Or maybe, you know, there are only two types of protein that your [00:41:00] kids like to eat chicken and beef, chicken and pork.

And so you anchor your entire meal plan around those things to try and make it less, try and make the decision process less with those things. I really loved that idea of creating an anchor for your meal plan. You know, whether it's like budget or your schedule. Schedule I feel like is like the most common for people to lean on and they might not even realize that that's their anchor for their meal plan.

It's like looking at their calendar, making a meal plan for busy night, but you know, to work around busy nights. But I just really love that idea and it can be so dynamic for literally anything that you have going on in your life. Maybe the bulk shopping is the thing that's the anchor for your meal plan.

I don't know.

Riley: I would say that also doing that kind of shopping and planning helps you waste less. Cause you know, there's certain things you buy. I mean, I'm just thinking like my basil aioli, I'll talk about that. Like I buy basil to go in my spaghetti so that there's fresh basil on the top, but then I've got all this basil leftover.

Maybe you grow it in your garden and you've got a ridiculous amount of basil. Cause basil is [00:42:00] one of those things that goes crazy in a garden, you know? And, Like, so then making a basil aioli helps use a lot of that up. You put it on your spaghetti and then maybe you, put it on a breakfast. Um, one of those things called the, with the hollandaise.

And

Roni: Oh, a Benedict.

Riley: uh, Benedict, then you've got some basil on a Benedict. Like that is one thing that is throughout the meal plan, but then you're using it up, you know, you're not wasting it. I hate when vegetables go bad. I hate when herbs go bad in my. fridge and so or like I mentioned with sauerkraut that I gave you three ideas to use sauerkraut up and maybe by the end of the week, depending on your family size, then it's all gone.

And I don't mind that I, I, I really like to use things up. If I bought them, I like to use them because then I know that I'm just not throwing away money. And so kind of planning around that is. A good way to waste less food planning in general, waste less food, but this also is another way. I would say that what feels like my anchor in my meal plan is that I do it the same every week.

So [00:43:00] Sunday night, I meal plan Monday. I shop and I don't shop again until the next week rolls around. I very rarely shop, for more than one week at a time, just from, like I said, food waste. Like I don't want vegetables to go bad and things. And that's what I do. Even if I was able to plan around bulk shopping or chose to plan around bulk shopping, I would still go back for vegetables.

And so, I would say my anchor is that I do it like on a, I do it the same way all the time. Sunday night, I plan Monday, I shop and we're done. And it's a very, like, it's just a very cyclical thing every week that I do. And that feels like my anchor. What would you say is your anchor? Yeah.

Roni: The thing that first comes to mind, cause I don't, it's not like ding, ding, ding for me is, but it is leftovers. Plan fewer recipes during the week on purpose because most of the recipes, since there's only two of us, most of the recipes we eat have leftovers. And so whether we're eating those leftovers, some leftovers don't work well for lunch for my husband because he doesn't have a microwave to be able to heat things up in.

[00:44:00] So, a lot of times he just ends up taking a sandwich. Instead, but having those leftovers for dinner, I don't like over planning recipes. And then it's like, Oh my gosh, we have so many leftovers in our fridge because I cooked every single night this week and every single recipe included leftovers in them.

So I would say leftovers is more my anchor than anything else is just trying to be strategic about. Maybe only planning recipe every other night on the meal planner. So that way it's like, okay, we've got things covered for leftovers. And then if a recipe doesn't have leftovers, it's not necessarily that big of a deal.

I can either make a recipe from something that we have, you know, in the cupboards. We always have one or two kind of like staples recipes on hands, or we can just go out to eat. My husband really likes to go out to eat. And so going out to eat once or twice a week is not like a big deal. So yeah, that's probably the thing for me.

Riley: Last month we talked about our last podcast that I was on. We talked about how leftovers is kind of like a bad word for a lot of people. But reframing that as like, what [00:45:00] you're doing is essentially meal prepping your week by cooking just a few recipes. And I mean, I know people who that's the way they plan.

They say, okay, we are going to have halibut and we are going to have pork. And we're going to have roasted vegetables and we're going to have a loaf of French bread that we can toast. And like, that is literally, or we're gonna have a huge side salad. And then every single night of the week that they cook once and eat all week.

And. Like, I think that's really great for some people. I think that that makes it super like, think about how much less brain space that takes up because they just picked it, they cooked it and they ate it. And then there was never another choice made in that. I think in my family situation, my husband does not love meal prepped food.

I would say that instead of leftovers. And so he would not enjoy that. He likes the very like different every night of the week, kind of meal plan. And so that's what works well for us. And, and I'll eat the leftovers for lunch, you know, and, I don't mind eating it every day. But I [00:46:00] know some people who do that and it does seem like a very like low mental strain way to plan.

I don't know how well that would work for kids. I don't think my kids would like that. I think that, I mean, obviously if you grew up in a house that that was the habit, then it probably wouldn't be a thing for those kids. But, I think that my kids are so used to having something different all the time that they would be like, I am not eating another bite of halibut lady.

Like, but I think that's another way that people meal plan that is valuable to add to this conversation because. Especially I think for somebody like you and your husband, like, I feel like that would be a really great way to do it. And it's kind of how you do it. It's just with a few more recipes. But I know people who cook that way and eat all week and it's done.

And it's, um, like they just have a lot of, you know, meal prepped containers, everything's portioned and they just heat it or whatever, and. They're good to go.

Roni: there's certainly pros and cons to it because a lot of the time so I'll give enchiladas as example because when I make enchiladas, there's always like two full Pyrex pans of enchiladas when I make them. It seems like there's like so many [00:47:00] enchiladas, and I like it because then maybe we enchiladas three nights in a row.

But the problem with that is that then I don't want to eat enchiladas for like another month, you know, enchiladas are like one of our favorite meals, but then sometimes when there's too many leftovers of it, you're like, yeah, I'm really tired of this now. And I don't want to eat it for a while. So I think there's like a balance to find there between eating something for leftovers for the convenience factor of it and then eating it too much.

And then you don't like that recipe anymore.

Riley: Yeah. One of the things that we haven't talked about yet that I wanted to talk about was finding the right system for you. I, I see a lot of Instagram social media content of people talking about how meal planning is like the bane of their existence and it is literally the most miserable part of their life and they hate cooking.

They're ready to like, they just never want to cook again. I actually find that content unrelatable because I'm like, really, like, how is it 2024 and you haven't found a way to do this. That's [00:48:00] not stressful. Like, I think because I, I like to find things that work better for, like, I don't like to just sit in the, this is miserable, you know, and I, I like to find, like, Let me backtrack.

Okay. I will laugh out loud at the content. That's like, Oh, adulting is just planning meals over and over and over until the day that you die. Like that's funny. But I think that I, I struggle with the like, agonizing content about meal planning because I have a system that works well for me, but I also hate that they are sitting in something that's so miserable and they haven't found a system that works for them, you know?

Because we just talked about so many different methods of meal planning. That could work for a variety of people in whatever their situation is. And I think that maybe the ultimately the issue is that they have, like, like they just aren't trying systems and, they haven't found like we talked about this earlier, like, oh, this is the pain point.

Let me solve that pain point. It's like, okay, well, meal planning is the pain point. There's so many tools out there for meal planning. I mean, you could just do pen and paper, but that's not. [00:49:00] Like, honestly, it's not the most streamlined way to do it anymore. You know, um, it doesn't give you a bank of recipes to pull from that automatically makes you a shopping list.

And like, that's a plan to eat does. And that's amazing. I would say that my pain point for meal planning is the taking the meal plan. Cause I like that part to the shopping list, the getting the shopping list ingredients put together as a pain point. And so plant eats a tool that works really well for me to like, it gives me a shopping list.

I just add my extra staples and I'm done. And it takes away. That like hardship, that frustration, that part, you know, and I would just say like, continue to try like new habits are formed like 18 days is like the earliest a new habit would be formed. And so just like if a habit, if something's not working well for you, give it a little more time, maybe, or try a new system.

Maybe you're the person that needs the meal delivery kit because that pain point is so strong. Um, It's not, it didn't work for me. I tried it to give it a, give it a go. Cause it was being really, it was really popular. And it just doesn't, it's not the thing that solves my [00:50:00] problem. But my encouragement to people out there who find meal planning just so terrible is to just keep looking for a system that works well for you and fits into your schedule and your life, because they exist, these, these, these situations, these, like there is a solution to your problem, I promise.

Yeah.

Roni: Rebecca Zipp last month on the podcast, and she actually is somebody who does not enjoy meal planning. She is, but she has a very extensive meal plan. She plans a month ahead of time. And actually, I think this is kind of one of those things. That's like a little bit of a misnomer is that like planning a month ahead of time is only for people who are like planner personalities, like how could you plan for a month ahead of time?

If you hate meal planning, but she plans for a month ahead of time because she hates meal planning. So she only wants to think about it once every four weeks. And within her meal plan, she's able to be flexible. She's able to move, you know, move things around a little bit. She says, basically at the beginning of every week, she reassesses what she planned [00:51:00] for that week.

And it's like, maybe it takes her five minutes to just be like, is this going to work for us this week? Is this not going to work for us? You know, cool. We're good to go. And. I think that that's a really interesting idea for people who are like meal planning is the worst. How do you decide what to eat every day of your life?

And people are asking you what's for dinner and what's for breakfast and what's for lunch. And you get these questions every single day. Actually, instead of only planning three days ahead of time, which sometimes we're like, if you need to meal planning plan for three days ahead of time, like just get a little bit ahead.

Well, maybe we flip the script and we say, actually plan ahead for an entire month, because if you dislike meal planning so much, do it less.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: Which means only meal plan for a month. And, you know, gave the example earlier of like, create two unique weeks of meal plans and just double that up. And then you have a meal plan for an entire month and yeah, then you can go back and look on Sunday night and be like, does this actually work for our week, you know, do we have like parent teacher conferences and we need to move something around or just X day [00:52:00] recipe.

And we all go, go out to eat after that or something. I just think that like, that's the thing that came to mind when you talked about that is just like some people. It's true. Some people don't like meal planning. I actually think people like you and me who are planners and like to plan, we're probably more inclined to plan every week or every like seven, you know, every seven to 10 days.

Cause it's like, I like planning. It makes me feel very accomplished for my week. You know, I'm just like, Ooh, I made my meal plan. We're going to the grocery store. But if you don't like that, I actually think that you should probably try to figure out how you can plan less, which means just like. Plant it in a chunk, sit down for an hour, plan out your whole month.

You spent one hour and you have like 28 recipes to go. That sounds awesome. Actually.

Riley: Yeah. It does. I mean, that actually does sound great. And then, you know, you don't even have to have a two week meal plan. You duplicate, you have a four week meal plan, you duplicate and the next month's done too. Or you have the 30 recipe cycle, like Diana Rice does, and then you have 30 recipes and then that's done too.

You know, it's just like every month is done for itself. I mean, [00:53:00] there are definitely ways. To like make this thing that's so painful be much more simple.

Roni: I agree. So one thing that I wanted to mention before we wrap up is, is I thought about this related to Diana Rice's idea for her capsule menus and only starting with a small number of recipes. If you're like me and Riley and you've been using Plan to Eat for multiple years, you probably have like a thousand to two thousand recipes in your Plan to Eat account.

And what if you did this really fun, I'm saying it's fun, I don't know if it's actually fun, but I had this idea of just like, maybe it's time to declutter your Planteat recipe book. We all have those recipes in our recipe books that are like this delicious looking chocolate cake recipe. And it's like chocolate molten lava, something, you know, but it takes like two days to make that recipe.

And when you really think about your life, you're like, I'm never going to make that recipe. I'm not even that good of a baker. I'm not, I'm never going to make this recipe. Or you [00:54:00] have the like sous vide method for making a steak or, you know,

Riley: don't even have a sous vide.

Roni: Yeah, but you don't have a sous vide. So what do you mean you're going to make that recipe?

Or I have my stupid stroganoff recipe that is still in my plan to eat account that I accidentally plan. I think it could just be an interesting exercise. If you are looking to de stress your meal planning to, you know, maybe the idea is just, you go through and you kind of bulk edit your recipes. You create a new category.

In your recipe book where you're like, these are the recipes that we love. You can even call it your capsule recipes or something. And that's where you do the bulk of your meal planning from is from that course. So maybe it's more just like bulk editing, but I like the idea of like deleting and purging and getting rid of things.

So I think this is the next exercise I'm going to do myself. And it's probably going to take a little while, because I think I have 1800 recipes in my plan to eat account.

Riley: have two thousand four hundred and twelve.

Roni: Yeah, see, this

Riley: looked.

Roni: oh, man, recipe hoarders, um, cause you see things all over the place and they sound good, but I [00:55:00] literally I make, in all honesty, I probably don't ever make more than 30 recipes in a rotation, you know, in any sort of like a year long rotation. So I should probably have fewer recipes in my account.

But I just think that this could be a great way of reducing the clutter in your recipe book. So you can just focus a little bit more on the, the, the point is to make the task of meal planning easier, not necessarily to correct, collect all the recipes across the internet. So it's like. Make your meal plan, get your food on the table, and then go do the other things in your life. Stop worrying about the meal planning part of it.

Riley: You started this podcast and you mentioned Marie Kondo. So it's funny that we're ending on this note, but I would say, you know, look at your recipes and what does she say? Does this bring me joy? Does this spark joy? I mean, go through your recipe book, delete them. I need to do it too. It's a, it's a good, it's a good reminder, especially, as we're, you know, school's back.

It's a new season. It's about to be holidays. Like. All these things are converging on us at one time. So it's an encouragement to clean it out, clean house, make a simple meal plan and simplify [00:56:00] this process even more. Uh, and I think our future selves are going to thank us.

Roni: I agree. I like it. All right. Well, I think that's it for this week. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Plan to Eat podcast. We will be back. I will be back with an interview in two weeks and, uh, we'll see Riley again at the end of next month.

So thanks for listening.