#105: Dinner Dilemmas: Managing Leftovers, Freezer Chaos, and Picky Eaters

In this episode, we dive into a seasonal favorite: spring cleaning! But instead of tackling closets and garages, we're talking about cleaning out your fridge, freezer, pantry, and even your Plan to Eat recipe book to freshen up your meal-planning routine.

Plus, we answer multiple Dinner Dilemmas! This week covers:

• How to reduce food waste and grocery costs by planning with what you already have
• Tips for cooking with chronic illness or unpredictable energy levels
• Easy ways to adjust meals for picky eaters without making two dinners
• How to organize multiple freezers 
• Making batch cooking easier and more approachable

Mentions:
Our pantry clean-out episode from 2022
Our new book club pick!

Want to ask us about your Dinner Dilemma? Head to this form and submit your question!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello and welcome back to the Plan to Eat podcast. Today, Riley and I are gonna dive into a good chunk of your dinner dilemmas because we haven't been answering very many of those at the end of our, uh, podcast where we've been breaking down our book club book. So since we're in between books right now, we're gonna focus on your dinner dilemmas, but we do have a few things that we wanted to talk about before we get started with that, because it's spring, we wanted to talk a little bit about spring cleaning.

Riley: When Roni first texted me this idea, I said, oh no, I'm terrible at spring cleaning, but it's good. I can talk about it and put some things into practice.

Roni: Well, the thing that made me think [00:01:00] about it is my refrigerator really needs to get cleaned out. There's like the little like onion papers in the drawers and you know, at a certain point in time you just realize it's been a while and I need to like, take everything out, clean, all the things.

So it just got me thinking this would be a great time to talk about it because I think a lot of people get into a mood for cleaning in the spring as like we change seasons. I personally do. So I haven't cleaned up my refrigerator yet, but, uh, I thought it would be interesting to talk about maybe some of the spring cleaning projects we're thinking about and how we might try to incorporate 'em into our schedules.

Riley: I mean, in some parts of the US this podcast is gonna be coming out really late because it's summer in some places. But here in Colorado, we have snow on the forecast in a couple of. Days of my house, so yes, it's still spring, so we've got time. You're, you're feeling like, wait, it's summer. [00:02:00] Why are you about spring cleaning?

Doesn't really matter. When you do these things, it's always a good time to consider them and maybe put some of these things into practice, even if it's not at the start of a season.

Roni: Yeah, I, I agree. Riley and I did a podcast, was it two years ago now, where we cleaned out our cupboards and talked about how, what that looked like. Was that three years ago?

Riley: I found a video on my phone recently and it was 2022.

Roni: Oh wow. That's crazy.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: So we cleaned out our cupboards and we kind of like documented our process of cleaning out our cupboards, cleaning out our pantry. So if you're interested in doing a pantry or cupboard clean out, go check out that episode. Um, I'll try to link it in the description of this video so you can find it easily.

That's also something I think I need to do 'cause I don't think I've done it since we recorded that podcast.

Riley: Same. And I know that I've gotten, things have gotten a little wonky in my pantry [00:03:00] and cupboards, and if my husband's listening to this podcast, he will be whole wholeheartedly agreeing. The thing that I think I need to clean out the most is my freezer. And I was thinking, uh, it's a really good time. As you know, we have cooler nights and warmer days.

Like you can still get away with eating some, like cold weather foods, like soups and stews and things at this time of year. And I, it's a good time to like go through your freezer, get all those things out, put 'em on your meal plan. And consume them because if you wait until next fall to eat them, they might get a little funky.

So if you froze something, now is the time to use up all those frozen leftovers, frozen recipes, all those things. Uh, and then it cleans out your freezer to be ready for whatever homemade ice cream and popsicles you might be making.

Roni: That's a really great tip. I actually did realize that I have some frozen tomatoes from last year's garden that I really need to. Thaw and turn into pasta sauce or something. And so what I did, so [00:04:00] while I haven't cleaned out my refrigerator yet, I have reorganized my freezer recently. This is the starting of my process.

And one thing that I did was I put the things that I need to use up now, right? Like some of these frozen recipes that are gonna be not great if I wait too long and put 'em in like their own bin in the freezer. So that way that's my like go-to spot. Like, okay, these are the things that need to get used up.

This other stuff can like hang out here for a little while longer. And at least for me personally, that's very helpful. 

Riley: Yes, putting eyes on it, remembering that it's there, like that is super helpful for me. I'll probably go through and make a list also, because then we're not eating something frozen every single night. You know, like we're not having a super stew every night. But I can integrate them into the meal plan and just cross them off the list.

And then that way I know we're moving in that direction. I have a lot of frozen, uh, peaches from last summer that I realized I never used up and I had every intention of making like a [00:05:00] peach pie or a peach cobbler. And my daughter was really wanting me to use them today. Uh, and I told her, I said, Hey, I'm gonna actually save those and we're gonna make our first batch of homemade ice cream this summer, and I'll use those for that.

Just, it's like we're gonna hold out for that, but it's a great way to use 'em up. So as we get back into the summer, it can be a great way to start the summer, so,

Roni: that sounds delicious. Invite me over please.

Riley: Done. Another thing that I thought of with spring cleaning, um, in regards to meal planning is it's a really good time to just freshen up. You know, I, we both have talked about so often on the podcast how we get into these meal planning ruts, and we are cooking the same kinds of things all the time.

So this as if we turn into a new season, it's a great time to go through your recipe book and maybe look for recipes that use seasonal ingredients, things that are coming into season now. Or it's a great time, just like all those soups and stews. Maybe you move them into a new category in your recipe book.

That's. Winter foods or something along those lines and just start pulling out all [00:06:00] those recipes for grilling and fresh vegetables and vegetable salads and all those, all those yummy springy, summery foods that I know at this point in the winter we're all craving. It's just a great time to consider going through recipe book and like swapping things up quite a bit.

Roni: So when we, when Riley and I first started talking about this. She gave me this idea and I thought, well, what a genius thing to do is to go into plan to eat and start curating your recipe book a little bit more for the season. So I, the way that I meal plan in general is I keep basically our family favorite recipes in my queue and over the winter, the ones that have accumulated in the queue have been like these yummy lasagna roll-ups or a tortellini soup or, 

Riley: in my pork green chili

Roni: Oh yeah. Or like a your Mississippi pot roast. That's so yummy. So it's like very like rich winter kind of heavy foods. And so, uh, what I [00:07:00] did last week actually was I went and uncured some of those recipes and went and looked back at what I was planning last year in the spring and early summer, and.

Queued up some different ones, so that way the things that I'm reaching towards as my go-tos are a little more aligned with the season.

Riley: Using the queue in that way is brilliant because you aren't pulling things out and moving them around your recipe book, and resaving them into different places, but you're just putting them in a holding area, and especially if we're looking at like four months at a time here, like the queue is a great a, it's a great way to to use it.

I think I probably will start using mine like that.

Roni: Yeah, I definitely feel like I could also make, a one or two menus that are a little more like spring, early summer specific. And that would save me a lot of time if I just took some of the things that are in my queue right now and made a couple menus with them, that'd probably be a really good idea too.

Riley: Well, and if you've been using Plan to eat for over a year or for around a [00:08:00] year, you don't even have to go in and make new menus. All you have to do is. I'm mostly saying that for people who don't use Plan to Eat regularly, all you do is go back in time to last May, last June and save those menus as they exist already.

'cause we don't delete those out. So if you, wanna, if you've been planning with us for a year, then just go back in time, save those menus. And then your last year self is planning for this summer, which is amazing. And it took, it would probably take about five minutes to do that. And you could potentially have the entire summer planned.

Roni: I think that's a really good idea. I don't tend to use menus as often as I feel like I should. But I'm feeling inspired right now to go and create some menus.

Riley: Well, it's just, it's helpful because. I think they're helpful because you've already thought about it. You know, I've, and I think for a lot of people, the barrier to entry is actually the planning process. Like we love having recipes and we love having an organized shopping list, but [00:09:00] thinking of, okay, what am, what are we going to eat?

Like that's the headache part of the whole process. And so going back time and just seeing what you made, if you don't wanna make a menu out of it, it'll just inspire you to say, oh, we really loved that pizza on the smoker, or, we really loved that sheet pan steak and peach salad from last summer. Like, those were so delicious.

Let's just move them into the queue. Or let's move them onto the meal plan now. So you don't have to make menus. It would save you time. But I just think for me, that that's the headache part is like thinking, what am I gonna make? Like that that part is the hardest. And so if I can get that some help with that, that's amazing.

Roni: Yeah. I think where I often get caught up is the wanting variety sort of a idea, which is silly because. We have our like 20 recipes that we eat and like 20 recipes is still a lot. You know, there's a lot of variety in 20 recipes. But I have so many recipes in my plan to eat account that I [00:10:00] often just like scroll through, you know, my main, what do I call it?

Like main meal course to find like, oh, a new recipe that maybe I haven't made this one in a long time, or I've never made this one. And I actually tend to like my meal plans more when I use more of the tried and true, which is why I try to make my cue a place that I go to when I'm planning. Because as much as I think I want variety, we actually just kind of like the recipes that we like.

Riley: Yeah, I, I mean, I think I often will accumulate new recipes that we love. By branching out, but then I forget about them. So I think the going back in time to look and see, because they aren't in our normal rotation, but they, we loved them, but they weren't in a normal rotation. So that going back and looking through past meal plans is really helpful because it reminds me of things like, oh, we really loved that, but it's not in our tried and true, like maybe our category of tried and true, or just in my memory, because I lose a lot of things outta my [00:11:00] memory sometimes.

Roni: And I think if you are trying to eat seasonally, this is probably the best way to maintain that because it can be, you know, obviously you could go and look up like what's in season right now. There are lists all over the place. We have lists on our own blog for what's in season. But if you already made the effort in previous years to try and eat seasonally, well then you can just, you really, you can use your own past knowledge to inform your current self of that.

Riley: Totally. Yeah. And I, I enjoy eating seasonally. The heavy rich, starchy foods of winter start to get really old. And so I always just like start to crave this time of year where berries taste amazing and avocados are really delicious and like produce, like the farmer's markets are opening.

And so I, I do find a lot of inspiration from going to farmer's markets, even just perusing the grocery store and seeing like what's starting to look really [00:12:00] good. Again, it doesn't always help me in the meal planning process 'cause by the time I'm at the store, my meal plan is done. But it does help inform the next meal plan that I make.

Oh, that looks okay. Okay. All those things are in season now. Kiwis are in season, so they're gonna taste way better than they tasted a month ago, that kind of thing.

Roni: My husband is very particular about like the type of food that we're eating pertaining to the weather.

Riley: Yes. Yeah.

Roni: yeah, he's like, I don't want to eat a soup or a stew if it's 70 degrees outside, you know? Or, but like he's, yeah, but he is also like, I don't also really want to eat like a cold salad if we're having like a chilly spring day.

So I'm always paying attention to the weather, particularly in the saddle seasons when it's different from day to day.

Riley: Yes. Yeah. Well, and I think that that is why I mentioned going through your freezer because you know that it's with something that's in your freezer, you've already cooked it. And so in theory, it's gonna be really easy to get it on the table for [00:13:00] dinner. If maybe the weather changes in the middle of the day.

'cause like in, we are in Colorado and it is beautiful and sunshiny, a little chilly, but beautiful and sunshiny. But by tonight it's gonna be pouring down rain and it's gonna be perfect to have some kind of stew or soup. Or chili, or even like a soup and grilled cheese kind of dinner. Like it's the perfect day for that kind of thing.

And if you know, things shift in the middle of the day, you've got an option by looking in your freezer and knowing what you've got. And you can kind of make adjustments in your meal plan because the days, I mean the forecast is the forecast, but things change real fast around here.

Roni: So true. And then you can free up some freezer space for your summer recipes. As we talked about last year in the summer, how the freezer is actually a really great summertime tool. So you're not like heating up the kitchen every single night when you're cooking and it's 90 degrees outside,

Okay, so one other thing that I wanted to talk about is an idea that's come up with a few of our dinner dilemmas that we've answered in the past few episodes related to [00:14:00] essentially finding recipes. So I wanted us to just talk a little bit about how we find recipes or maybe how we choose recipes. And then we'll dive into some actual dinner dilemmas.

So tell me a little bit about your finding recipe process. riley.

Riley: That's a really good question, and you're right, we have covered it quite a bit on the dinner dilemmas I don't do a ton of Googling for like, uh, like I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't go Google Spring recipes. Probably what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stumble upon them on Instagram. And be inspired by something I saw.

Maybe I don't make the exact recipe, but maybe I am inspired by an ingredient I see someone else using. And then maybe I'll go search my recipe book and plan to eat because I have a pretty extensive recipe book at this point. A lot of recipes are just living there rent free, in my Plan to Eat recipe book.

Um, but I would say I probably go in, I'm more an ingredient per, like, I wouldn't go search spring recipes, but I would say I really wanna go make something. Like [00:15:00] maybe I've got some lemons and I'm like, what's a spring? Like, what's a recipe I can make with lemons? Like maybe a pasta dish with a lemon sauce or, some kind of pasta salad with a lemon dressing.

Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go about it by ingredients. Like I want to make something with a specific ingredient. Um. Or I do have a lot of friends that share recipes with me. And so I find I get a lot of recipe inspiration from friends. I mean, I have a text thread that's literally titled Food Friends and people just send the recipes in there.

It's like seven people, eight people. You send me a ton of recipes, Roni. Uh, and so I would say that's the primary, primary places that I get recipes from. Yeah, I would say that's kind of how I go about recipes. What about you?

Roni: Okay, well I have a couple comments to make. First, I was thinking this, so I was just out of town over the weekend on a girl's trip and you know, recipes always seem to come up, you know, I don't think anybody in that group uses plan to eat. Um, but we were talking about different recipes and stuff [00:16:00] and I had the thought like, what do people do if they don't use plan to eat?

Like when people share these recipes, like I was like, I just don't even, you just end up with like random links and tabs and bookmarks and I'm like, unfortunately, I dunno if any of the recipes that I shared anybody is gonna make because how are they ever gonna find them again

Riley: totally. 

Roni: So like you, I have a pretty extensive recipe book and maybe this is why we don't do very much Google searching 'cause I also don't do very much Google searching because we both have like 2000 recipes in our plant eat account.

So I would say I'm pretty similar to you in that, uh, if I do something like clean out room refrigerator or clean out my freezer and I find like, oh, we still have, you know, like venison, backstrap from last year. I need to like, find maybe a new way to make this, that we haven't made it before. So this was actually like what happened in the last week.

So then I'll go and specifically search for a recipe for that ingredient. Well. First, I'll check my plan to eat account and make sure there isn't a recipe in [00:17:00] there that I've just completely forgotten about. And then if there isn't something there, I'll go do a Google search and find a recipe that I like.

But other than that, similar to you, I, if I'm scrolling somewhere on the internet, that's often where I find new recipes to add to the never ending collection of recipes. And a lot of times when I find a new recipe and I know you do a similar thing, when I find a new recipe, I'll like immediately put it on my planner for maybe next week's meal plan, so that way it doesn't get completely forgotten in the abyss of my recipe book.

Riley: A hundred percent or if we make it and love it, I move it into a, we have a category called recipes we love, and it just, it's kind of my catchall, like it's dessert to coffee, to breakfast. Like it's everything, but it is just because I know that they're amazing.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: While you were telling me, how you find recipes and like your specific example, another thing I thought of was restaurants.

We live in particular has a, uh, most restaurants have a rotating menu seasonally. [00:18:00] And so, or a lot of them, a lot of the local restaurants, that's the way that they operate. And so I'll, I'll also find recipes inspiration that way. I'll go eat something at a restaurant and I'm like, man, this is amazing.

And then I'll try to recreate it at home. Yeah.

Roni: I have a thought about recipes that I just wanna point out, which is that a lot of times the recipes in the title, they'll say like, easy something or other, you know, easy Chicken lo main, I don't know, I just made something up. You know, 

Riley: Pasta dish or something.

Roni: well, not quick. They just say easy. And I just wanna point out that I don't think that easy equates to fast. Right, easy and quick are not necessarily the same things. I had this experience, I sent you a recipe maybe like two weeks ago that was this really yummy chicken. You made this like yummy sauce with it and there, but there was a lot of chopping and [00:19:00] prep work involved in creating the whole recipe. It was like a A bowl situation and the title of the thing says Easy.

And like after the fact. I'm like, well, yeah, the recipe was easy to make, but I wouldn't say it was a fast recipe. So I just wanna caution everybody. If the recipe says easy, maybe dive a little deeper and see if it's actually gonna, do you want a easy recipe or do you want a quick recipe? Or do you want both?

'cause I'm learning that these are all separate things.

Riley: Now that you say that. That is another way that I cu recipes it, I'll skim through the ingredients and the directions, and if it's gonna take me two hours to make it, I often bypass it to find a different one. I'm like, well, that looks great, but I don't have two hours. And I have mentioned this on the podcast before, but there's a lot of times where I will prep things during my kids' nap times, or maybe while I'm making breakfast I'll make a sauce for the dinner recipe I've got planned.

But a lot of days I don't have that extra time. And [00:20:00] so I don't have two hours to make dinner every night. I don't know very many people who do. So I'm with you. Like I, somebody, I, I make, risotto quite a bit and we love it. I make it a variety of ways, but I'm, and somebody asked me like, how, how fast, how fast is it?

And I'm like, well, it's like at least 30 minutes.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: She was like, okay, so not 24 hours, like the way they make it in Italy. And I'm like, no, not like that. Not making 24 hour risotto. People we're like, quick hitters over here, like 30 minutes and usually it's great. 

Roni: but also somebody who's never made risotto before might not think it's an easy recipe, even if it's the 30 minute version, right? Like there's still some babying you gotta do with risotto. You gotta be attentive to your simmering pot and stuff.

Riley: IV is so much better than the word I was thinking. I was thinking fiddly. I know somebody who makes it in an instant pot and I think that that sounds pretty easy. I make mine on a stove, like, and I just add the liquid and continuously [00:21:00] for 30 minutes and, it turns out great.

Roni: Yeah, it sounds

Riley: Never made instant Pot.

So.

Roni: I feel like risotto is a really spring recipe actually. I, I feel like I often see risotto with like peas and asparagus, like very like springy, delicate vegetables that you put in risotto.

Riley: That sounds good. I should add that to my meal plan. Thanks for that.

Roni: You're welcome. All right. Do we have anything else to say related to spring cleaning or recipes before we move on to some dinner dilemmas?

Riley: my mind just keeps going to my closet where I need to take all of my jackets and put them away. Except I just told everyone that we have snow on the forecast, so I can't. Uh, but I don't, I mean, I just think looking at spring cleaning from a meal planning perspective is just a bit different and unique and, I know it's inspiring me to go and do things a little bit differently this spring.

Roni: Yeah. Well, and I think too, if you're looking at your fridge or your freezer or your pantry and you're doing some of these clean outs, it's also a really great time to save a little [00:22:00] bit of money at the grocery store because you're using up these things that are already purchased. You might end up with some like smorgasbord kind of a meals that maybe you're like, I never thought that, you know, macaroni and cheese was gonna go with, I don't know what macaroni and cheese doesn't go with.

Riley: Uh, shrimp skewers. Like, I feel like that's kind of a weird,

Roni: Okay. There you go. I didn't ever think macaroni and cheese and these grilled shrimp, shrimp,

Riley: you can't even say

Roni: I can't even say shrimp skewers. I never thought those would go together. But we're trying it out tonight 'cause we already paid for this food and we're not going to the grocery store until we've eaten it.

So if, if that's kind of where you're at right now as well. I feel like this is a really easy way to save some money at the grocery store.

Riley: I totally agree. My kids actually love meals like that. I just call 'em snacky lunch or snacky dinner, and, uh, it's a win. They, they're in. So

Roni: I

Riley: all I have to do is use the name of something and kids are into

Roni: And give it and make it like a fun peppy name. Oh, it's [00:23:00] a snacky lunch.

Riley: yeah, it's like broccoli if you're like, oh, little trees, like, they're usually way more into it. Maybe you can get 'em to do it, get 'em to eat it.

Roni: I think if I told my husband we were having snacky dinner, he would be like, so we're not eating a full dinner. He'd be really concerned.

Riley: My family just thinks that we're having like, um, my cousin calls 'em adult Lunchables, which is like where I'm, it's basically a charcuterie board, just little bit different of a name. So

Roni: I love it. All right. Let's transition over to some dinner dilemmas and start answering some questions. Oh my gosh.

Riley: No way.

Roni: No way. Okay. We, we legitimately did not look at the document until just now. Suzanne writes in saying she's trying to use what's in the cupboard so she doesn't overspend on groceries. We did not, stage this.

Riley: no seriously, I'm actually shocked. Yeah. Well, I think we covered your [00:24:00] question. Suzanne, do you have anything to add For covered, I mean, cooking, we also got the whole podcast. You're gonna link in the show notes.

Roni: That's, yeah, I, I will definitely link back to our, our podcast that we did where we cleaned out our cupboards. We talked about how we, in that episode, Riley and I talked about how we were gonna make our next meal plans with the things that were in our cupboards. So Suzanne, I highly recommend that episode if you haven't listened to it yet.

In general, I honestly think it's a lot of what we just said, which is that your meals might not be exactly what you picture when you have a normal meal. You know, you might be having pasta with your skewers or you might be having. I, I think a lot of the times it comes down to like, you have a little bit of something left over, right?

So it's like we have a cup of rice left over and so it's like, well just, just make it, make the rice, you know, add it to something else. One thing that I often find in my cupboard is we always have rice, but we often don't [00:25:00] have quinoa. My husband doesn't like quinoa very much, but I like it. And so it always ends up that we have like a little bit of quinoa left and so I'll cook some rice, I'll cook that little bit of quinoa and then I just mix 'em together.

And my husband likes it a little bit more that way when it's not just only quinoa. So I think you can just get kind of creative with the things that are in your cupboard to just use the stuff up. And then, you know, when you go to the grocery store you think like, well we don't need any, you know, grains or starches this week 'cause we're making our quinoa rice situation.

Riley: pilaf or risotto are also good ways to use up rice. Not to like harp on rice, but like we just talked about, I've got a half a bag of peas in my, in my pantry and some rice, like, you could probably make maybe some, uh, chicken broth, like you're using up three things in your cupboard that way, , to make some kind of pilaf

or like a bean salad. I'm thinking I have a ton of canned beans. Um, and like some kind of like bean salad with like a, like a, like literally if [00:26:00] you have a half a bottle of salad dressing and three cans of beans, that's a delicious side dish. Or a Main, yeah.

Roni: Totally. I have a recipe that I just transitioned into my spring queue of recipes, which is, like that Italian grinder salad that was really popular I think last summer, except it has canone beans in it. And so like, instead of like a lettuce salad, it's a bean salad. And that's a great one to use up stuff that's in your cupboards because it also uses, you know, like banana peppers 

and so it's like if you have these extra things, you could even put like black olives in there. Like, you know, you could just like toss some extra things into it and make just this, like, it's not a pasta salad, it's a bean salad instead. But you could also make pasta salad, pasta, salad's, a great way to use up stuff in your, uh, cupboards too.

Riley: Yeah, just this question of like how to not overspend on groceries, like, I mean, we've covered it. I don't think that we need to add a ton more, but the thing that I just keep thinking is just knowing what's there immediately helps me, because then I can meal plan [00:27:00] around it and actually use it up and not buy it again.

Like if I made this pasta salad, it's like, well, do I have the pasta at home? I don't know. I better just spend the extra dollar 50 on the box of pasta. That's fine, but also you don't have to spend that dollar 50 if you know you've got it at home. So just knowing what's there, putting eyes on it, going through it, like spring cleaning, kind of organization wise, like just go through it, see what's there, and then move everything you need to use to the front and just plan around it.

It's a huge, it's a hugely helpful to save money on groceries that way. And, and it's, I mean, I'm about to do it at my house. I gotta gotta get rid of some stuff, 

Roni: yeah, I think that, I think you really hit the nail on the head is like having kind of an inventory, even if it's just kind of a running inventory in your head of like, you know, you have these five essential things. But a lot of times what I do as well is I'll make a meal plan. Even if I haven't looked at the things in my cupboard, and then I'll kind of go back and be like, do I have any substitutions in here?

So like, I don't need to buy all of the [00:28:00] things that are for these recipes, but maybe I could substitute this type of pasta, this type of pasta that we have instead of buying a different kind of noodle. Or, I often swap out the meats in recipes. And so it's like, if this one calls for ground chicken, well we have some ground Turkey at my house.

It's like basically the same thing. So that's, that's often how I get around buying extra things at the store.

Riley: that's a, that's a great idea. 

Alright, next up in our dinner dilemmas. Sadly this was someone who's put their name as trying and failing. Hopefully we can do a good job of supporting you. So it says she has multiple chronic illnesses and disabilities. She plans and shops when she's having a good day, but it doesn't mean she'll be well enough to cook when it comes time to cook.

And then she wants. Or needs vegetables to last longer than two weeks so that she can feel well enough to cook them. Otherwise, she's throwing a lot of things away. Her, her entry is several, uh, paragraphs long. So, um, that's kind of the overview. What can, what do you think we could do to help? She loves to cook.

It's a matter of feeling well.

Roni: Yeah, and she [00:29:00] mentions in here that they, they've tried the meal kit subscription thing and that didn't, work because of the need to still cook. This one is definitely a challenge. I don't have a personal experience with having a chronic illness or a disability, so I can't speak to this from my own personal experience.

I do think that, uh, it was said in here that like everyone suggests that this person does batch cooking and that that hasn't necessarily worked because their illness is unpredictable. But I do think that things that can be frozen is probably gonna be the biggest help here. So like frozen vegetables instead of fresh vegetables.

We were just talking about canned beans and stuff, you know, utilizing these things that are the semi homemade option of stuff. So that cooking is very. Like, the time to cook is very low, and the things that you're buying are more stable and they're not gonna go bad [00:30:00] immediately. Another thing that's immediately coming to mind is there are a lot of services nowadays where they'll send you like pre-cooked meals.

I know this used to be a really popular thing for like bodybuilders who were concerned about their macros and like their, I don't remember what the, the company was called, like trifecta systems or something like that. Anyways. , and like literally like send you boxes of everything's pre-cooked and it meets a certain macronutrient profile or whatever.

You might not care that much about the macronutrient profile, but there's potentially that for an option. I'm not sure how cost prohibitive it is to do something like that, but you could get these meals that are already made, sent to your house, and then you could freeze the majority of them and pull them out.

Kind of like a frozen, frozen dinner situation. But it would be a lot healthier option than getting like the microwavable dinners at the grocery store. I,

Riley: Absolutely. I was looking, I was looking really quickly on Instagram 'cause someone I know is like [00:31:00] partnered with a company like what you're talking about. Another company like that is called Factor Meals. 

Um, 

Roni: heard of that recently too. Yeah.

Riley: proportioned. Um, you can freeze them or they can just be delivered like weekly, clear monthly.

And because this person loves to cook, I hate to give that as a suggestion, but the food, it would come in handy for those times when they just can't do it. Even to just have them like, 'cause the factory meals, you can freeze them. I don't think it's exactly recommended, but I've done it and it actually works great.

And it just could be something that's like pre-made, pre-done and pretty healthy that because she says this is a big, like being nutritious is a high value for her or for this person. And so something along those lines would be great. I know that batch cooking hasn't worked super well, but uh, my mind immediately went to the woman who works for YNAB Erin.

Um, she's, uh, single cooks for herself, but she does a lot of batch cooking and uses her freezer for it. So she's cooking and when she has leftovers, she immediately freezes them [00:32:00] pre-portioned. And that's a great option for the days when she's feeling really good, or sorry, this person is feeling really good.

They cook something that they love and they make a double batch. And then that way everything goes into the, everything they make maybe goes into the freezer so that they get a lot of variety on the days when they're feeling poorly, because they can just pull it out and thaw it out and it's precooked.

It's literally would just go from the freezer to thaw out to the microwave or stove topper oven to be heated up. And that might work really well. And it's batch cooking, but it's also like a long tail, like, because things can last in her freezer for months. I keep saying her, I apologize. I actually don't know who this person is.

That might be a good option. Just making larger batches of things when they, when they do feel well, and then freezing them in portion sized containers in the freezer, and then that would last them quite a bit longer.

Roni: Yeah, I think that's a great idea and. Hopefully there's not pushback from this person more about the batch [00:33:00] cooking idea. But I do think that that if the, if wanting to have home cooked meals is really important, I feel like that's gonna be the most consistent way to have a home cooked meal. And like you said, getting them pre-portioned into a single serving, so that way if you do take it out of the freezer and then you're not feeling well enough to eat it, you're only tossing one serving of a, of a meal instead of like a whole pan of something.

Riley: And you're not looking at thawing out like, you know, chicken breasts or a pork loin, and then you're stuck with, well, I've gotta cook it, or it's trash. It, it's not like that. It's pre-cooked, but you cooked it so it's got the nutritional value. And she mentioned sodium. It's like it's got all those things she wants. But it's just, um, portioned and it's pre-cooked. 

Roni: Yeah. Potentially relying on appliances like the instant pot or just a slow cooker. So that way, uh, maybe you could get things into their cooking mode. And then if you're not feeling very well, the things are cooked or they are [00:34:00] actively cooking and maybe then you're able to get them into the freezer like later in the day or something.

But it wouldn't require active cooking time at that point in time too.

Riley: Yeah. Another idea is potentially she says she's, or this person says they're planning and shopping when they have a good day. If the concern is. Like wasting less potentially is buying less or shopping for fewer days at a time. If you can get that freezer storage built up, then you could shop for fresher things, like for a few days at a time or for less things or totally to shift things around would be to just just shop for things that are hardy like apples.

Um, they last forever in the fridge. Uh, what are hardier vegetables? Potatoes are gonna last for a long time. Sweet potatoes are gonna last for a long time, a lot of winter squashes. Uh, and in that way those things are fresh vegetables. But they're not going bad as fast. And so I'm not sure what, like if, if what's going on with her is on a kinda a cyclical nature, if it's [00:35:00] like every few days she'll feel better.

Um, then that way she could cook on the day she's feeling well, but things didn't go bad. And then for things that wilt or, you know, go bad quickly, we look at the frozen options for that. So then we're looking at frozen berries to make smoothies and, frozen broccoli that we can steam and that kind of thing might work a little bit better.

So just shifting, shifting the purchases, to some things are frozen, some things are fresh.

Roni: Yeah, you mentioned smoothies right there, which was an idea that I had had was potentially keeping things on hand and probably in the freezer so that, uh. You could either make smo individual smoothie packs on a day when you're feeling well or just having those items so that way you're getting, you know, some fruits and vegetables in your diet.

I think I would also like to mention that, you know, if you're, if you're going through, you know, multiple chronic illnesses and disabilities, try not to be hard on yourself when there are days that don't go the way that you wanted them to. Particularly [00:36:00] when it comes to the things that you're eating.

Like you're navi, it sounds like you're navigating a lot and it's really challenging. And so, you know, getting, ordering d takeout or getting delivery, I would say just try not to be hard on yourself, like you're doing the best that you can to take care of yourself. And it sounds like a lot.

Riley: Yeah. Absolutely. And yeah, you, that's such a showing yourself grace, that's a good thing. 

Yeah.

Roni: All right. Peg M writes in to say, we have two upright freezers and small freezers in two refrigerators. Locating items is a never ending problem. I started organizing by categories, but if a shelf for chicken is full, I wind up putting chicken, chicken somewhere else, and then I have trouble finding it.

Riley: I am guilty of this problem too. So I'm grinning a little bit because I don't know if I have the best advice.

Roni: Well, tell us how you navigate it. If, if you have a, if, if you have a way.

Riley: I mean, I feel like I, I am literally saying the same things over and over, [00:37:00] but, I, I look and see, I check every place that I could have put it. Um, I don't have quite the extensive freezer selection and fridge selection that she has, so I have. Less places to check. But I will go check because occasionally I'll put something in my house refrigerator, and then my freezer is about a hundred yards away.

Um, and so I'll check in my house if I put it there and I'll go check in the freezer about a hundred yards away. But I, I just have to keep looking. And when I got, what I would say is like, when that chicken shelf has space, again, move all the chicken there. And it's an extra step, but it hopefully will lower that frustration so that she's not looking all over the place for these things.

Because once she's got space, once she's used up a bit of that chicken, then she can just move everything to that same place or use it up from all the other fridges first before she goes to the, the main chicken shelf for her chicken.

Roni: Yeah, I would recommend maybe, uh, having a, a tally, like a sheet of paper that you have a tally, a list of what's in [00:38:00] a particular freezer, and just like taping it on the outside of the freezer. So if you have one freezer that's majority beef products plus, frozen recipes or something like that. Like you could list some of those things out on the sheet of paper and then, you know, and people in your household know which freezer to go to, to locate some of these items.

And then if you happen to be like, oh, we don't have room in the chicken part for the chicken, you could write that, you know, it's easy to just like write that in pencil or whatever on the other freezer to be like, don't forget you have two packages of chicken breasts in this freezer. 'cause then it saves you from having to like, dig through the freezer for those things.

And you were just, you're just able to kind of like glance at your, at your sheet of paper. It's not, it's, I don't know if there's any way to do this. It's not clunky because freezer storage does get pretty overwhelming.

Riley: Well, another thing, another idea that's swirling around in my mind is using the Staples [00:39:00] list to list the amount of. Pounds that you have or something like that. But the hangup there is that if you're not the only person making adjustments to what's in the freezer, then it's not gonna be updated adequately.

And so finding the solution that works best for you, whether that's a digital list that is shared, everyone has a plan to get app, or everyone has an iPhone and they have a shared iPhone note and it says, Riley moved the chicken from fridge A to fridge B. You know, something along like, where you just can add a note that, that, that is, that specific.

I, I liked what you said about having a list that lives on the fridge or freezer. My mind immediately says laminate it and then have a magnetic pen that's on the fridge where you can cross stuff off. But then you can erase it all because it's maybe something that you keep adequately stocked. Or, and, or have a, a sticky pad that lives on the fridge on with a magnet that you can put a note, Hey, I. There's no more chicken in here. We need more, you know, however your family is, is keeping [00:40:00] track of what you have. You're gonna have to come up with some kind of organizational method, that everyone can be on board with. And just knowing my own family, probably the laminated list that lives on that freezer that keeps stock of what's in here, then you don't even have to open it just as listed and everyone is committed to, Hey, I'm gonna mark it off when I use it.

Something along those lines might work pretty well.

Roni: I love that idea. That's genius. A whiteboard could potentially work as well if it's not, if you're not keeping consistently the same items in each freezer. But yeah, those are great ideas.

Riley: My thought with a laminated list is just that it, it being typed out would be more legible than, than me writing it with a whiteboard, but something along those lines of work. Okay. Next up from Trish, from Philly. Hi Trish from Philly, uh, accounting for Leftovers Changes to the plan when my schedule changes and how to make batch cooking easier.

Roni: Well, I have to say that accounting for [00:41:00] leftovers can be tricky. If it's a new recipe that you've never made before, even if it says it makes four servings, or even if it says it makes eight servings, a lot of the time, in my experience, recipes make more, which can be great for some household. Which can be great for some households and not so great for other households.

If you have people who don't really like leftovers or maybe you're left with like an awkward amount of leftovers, that's like not enough for to feed everybody in the family.

Riley: Uh, my mind immediately goes to when you say accounting for leftovers, is how do I keep track of the fact that I had leftovers? The way that this works in my house is it depends on the amount of leftovers. If the leftovers leftover from a recipe are enormous. That was such an awkward sentence. But we're gonna go with it. If there's a tremendous amount of leftovers, I'm gonna, I'm gonna immediately freeze half of it. Um, because I just know our family, I'm pretty much the [00:42:00] only one who eats leftovers.

I know I can't consume that much food, whatever. I'm gonna freeze some of it and I'm gonna either portion it out in for a single serving for myself to have for lunch the next day, or I will keep enough for me and my family to have as a full meal the next night. And we will eat the same meal two nights in a row with no shame.

I'm like, everybody, I cooked this once and we're eating it again. Which goes great when everyone loved it. It doesn't go so well when everyone did not love it.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Freezing it or freezing a portion of it is helpful. I. You can use the plan to eat freezer, to keep track of what you have in your freezer.

So that's a way to account for leftovers. But what I, what I normally do is I either pack it for my own lunch the next day so that I know my lunch is covered. Or maybe there's multiple in your house who wanna eat that for a different meal. So if it depends on the quantity, if it's a lot, we'll have it for dinner the next night or the next night, like, you know, two nights following, or I'll pack it for a lunch and then that way I know as the primary [00:43:00] cook in my house, I know it's going to be consumed and I know who's gonna consume it and when, whether that's me or my whole family.

Roni: I think a good thing here too is I know people who their refrigerator is like an abyss, you know, like that's not really how me and my husband work with our refrigerator, but we have. People in our lives who the refrigerator is kind of an abyss. And so I think if that's your situation, you're having a hard time keeping track of the leftovers plan a leftover night in your house where it's like, whatever the leftovers are, we're eating it, and I would just say do it like consistently once a week, so that way by the time it happens, the leftovers for that week aren't bad.

And hopefully you have enough, hopefully you have enough little odds and ends to be able to like feed everybody. But you could definitely go through and, you know, grab out all of the leftovers, see if there's enough food for everybody. And if there's not, you know, like you make an extra side dish or something to go along with it, or if it's all side dishes that are leftovers, you make a, a main protein or something.

And that way you're [00:44:00] trying to like clear stuff out every single week rather than the leftovers are building and building and building.

Riley: Yeah, that's a great idea. And then even that, that kind of speaks to the second question, which is changes to the plan when my schedule changes. If you have a big schedule change, maybe that's left overnight. Okay. Hey guys, you know what? We've got a ton of food left over. I'm pulling it all out. We got a crazy night.

It's a make your own heat, your own, eat your own, and we're going kind of night. And we do that at our house. There's sometimes the leftovers build to a point where it has to happen, otherwise everything's gonna get thrown away. And I hate that. So, hey, you know what? I'm gonna push off the meal I was gonna make tonight and we're gonna have a leftover night instead.

And like, just like you said, like sometimes someone ends up with a sandwich because all the other things got taken or everyone just had a little bite of everything. So we all had a sandwich in addition to the little bites of those side dishes. But I think that's a really good idea. And when changes to your plan and schedule happen, this [00:45:00] is why I recommend planning a night that's easy. Or not planning every night. And that way you've got space to say, okay, you know what? Thursday night got crazy. That's gonna be our night. We're gonna get pizza, or that's the night we're gonna go eat out. Or that's the night we're gonna have charcuterie and snacky dinner just to bring it back around from earlier.

And then whatever you had planned, you can move to a different night. And that way you're not throwing away all those ingredients or they're not going bad. But just giving yourself breathing room by not planning everything out every night. I, I never plan every night of the week 'cause I know there's gonna be something that comes up.

But what I do is I have, usually I have a meal that I can throw together from what I have at home. It's something my family loves. It's like usually a pasta dish or like a taco soup. Something that comes together really quickly with a lot of canned things or, um, frozen ingredients. And that way if we're home and we don't have leftovers and I don't have a plan, I can still make something.

Yeah, that's one of the ways that I handle that. So [00:46:00] no one's going hungry, it's just that I don't plan every single night 

Roni: advice that I was gonna give. So I really don't have anything to add other than, yeah, plan maybe a little less or just have one or two staples meals that you just keep on hand all the time.

Riley: How would you make batch cooking easier? 

Roni: So I think for batch cooking, picking simple recipes is gonna make it easier. Batch cooking could either be that you're batch prepping individual ingredients, right? Or it could be that you're batch cooking recipes. I'm gonna focus on the recipes right now. So if you're batch cooking full recipes to then, you know, eat as leftovers the rest of the week, or to put in the freezer for later, I would say pick easy recipes that come together pretty quickly.

That's going to, that's gonna keep the time down for your batch cooking. And if you're cooking multiple recipes, try to coordinate those recipes, the ingredients in those recipes so that you're not chopping one onion for this recipe, but then you're chopping Lees for this other [00:47:00] recipe and then carrots and you like, right?

So it's like you could just chop only onions or only carrots. And it's not all of this, like back and forth switching between different things or using different utensils for stuff. That's what I got off the top of my head.

Riley: One of the ways that I may make batch cooking easier is by. Doubling or tripling a recipe so that way it does go into the freezer. Usually it goes into the freezer. Like usually I'm not planning on having the same recipe over and over again. I know I just said that we do that with leftovers. But that's usually what happens when I accidentally have a lot leftover and I wasn't expecting it.

But often if I'm intentionally making batch cooking, I, I will like make a double batch of a soup and half of it goes in the freezer, and that was the plan the whole time.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Another way that I make batch cooking easier for myself is that I, I do it while I'm already cooking. So maybe something is simmering on the stove, and I know the next night we're having like a Chipotle burger, but I've gotta make [00:48:00] the Chipotle sauce.

So, I'll be cooking whatever we're having for dinner that night, but while that's cooking or simmering or boiling, whatever it's gotta do, I'm making the Chipotle sauce, I pack it up, I put it in the fridge for the next day. I know I've mentioned that I do this, like I've done, I've, I'll make something for dinner at breakfast so that it's like some of that work is already done during nap time.

That's helpful for me. Another way, Roni, you kind of touched on this, but like, if we're gonna have grilled chicken more than one night in a row, I may go ahead and grill all the chicken with in one fell swoop. So, but I'll plan it that way. It's not an accident. It's not like oddly, you know, it's not like, oh, we have cold chicken.

It's like, well, tonight we're having grilled chicken with a lemon pasta, and tomorrow night we're having grilled chicken salads with fruit and veggies and all sorts of things on top. So. They go together. I did the work, but it was pre, it was prep. It was intentionally gonna be cold the next day. It's not like, I'm like, I, I think sometimes batch cooking can get [00:49:00] a bad wrap because it's like, well, it's gonna be gross by the time I go to eat it.

Well, no, like this way was supposed to be cold, but it's a cold salad.

Roni: I've seen a lot of things recently on social media about the, like dump dinners, which I hate that phrase. It sounds gross to me, but, so this could be a thing that you do for batch cooking is like you get out. Five gallon Ziploc bags, you know, and you fill each one of them with the ingredients for this dump dinner recipe.

And then you have five meals that are ready to go. All you do is you dump all this stuff into a crockpot and turn it on, and then your dinner is ready when you get home from work. And this would, this definitely saves a lot of time in the batch cooking because you're like, you know, if you're measuring out a tablespoon of salt in each bag, you just do it every single one at the same time.

Rather than like, oh, I'm making this one recipe and then I'm making this one recipe and this one recipe. You just do it all. You create like an assembly line essentially.

Riley: Yeah, that's a great idea too.

Roni: All right. Moving on to Nikki. [00:50:00] She says she has two 7-year-old twin boys who are extremely picky eaters. She said her and her fres, her and her husband get a little frustrated because they like to try new, exciting dishes as well as her 12-year-old daughter who will usually eat whatever she's served.

She's looking for suggestions for taking grownup meals and having a slight variation to part of the meal to make it kid friendly. She would really appreciate some suggested recipes that are adaptable. She just feels completely burned out, um, trying to make two meals every single night, and she's feeling some mom guilt about it.

Riley: This is a great question. I mean, I think it's complicated and. You get mom guilt from every angle. So I get it. I get the mom guilt thing, but I would say, do the best you can and then put the guilt away.

So I, this sounds a lot like you're describing my household. My husband and I like to cook exciting, interesting, tasteful, flavorful, spicy dishes. and our kids will mostly eat everything they're served. But plenty of times I've made [00:51:00] things that are way too spicy. Um, and, and also kids did have a harder time eating some foods that adults can eat.

I'm just saying, even thinking like something as simple as a taco that is falling apart while you're eating it. I, a kid just doesn't have the, like, dexterity. My kids are younger than yours. Like the kids just don't, they just don't have the dexterity to eat a taco that's also falling apart at the same time.

Honestly, who enjoys that? Nobody. Okay, I digress. But what I will do often is I will make one, I never make more than one meal, but I will make adjustments. So at one time I made spaghetti that was too spicy. Like it was like a, it was like a spicy marinara sauce. I added cottage cheese to it for my kids. So it like, brought the heat down, added some protein for them, and they like cottage cheese and so they actually liked that.

I know that sounds really bizarre. if we're having something like a, let's say like a, [00:52:00] some kind of like stack up like rice and all sorts, I think I mentioned this on the last podcast actually. It's got tons of ingredients, a spicy sauce on the on top. Like I won't serve my kids every ingredient.

They have the option to try them, but they will get all the things that they like and will eat. And maybe a couple things I want them to try. So if we're having some kind of, Asian rice stack up with like a pineapple and shrimp and um, a cabbage slaw, something like that, I'll let them build their own.

So like, they like rice, they like shrimp, they like pineapple. Awesome. Let's see what else we can maybe get them to eat. Maybe let's have some cilantro on it. Something like that. Getting them in. Getting them where they can, like choose their own, make their own. But like they, you're not making two different dinners, they're just building their own plate of it.

So like, maybe they don't have the sauce that was really spicy, or they don't have the, maybe they hate mushrooms. They don't have to eat the mushrooms. They're just, they're cooked for everyone. But it's like a build your own kind of situation.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: I make these like buffalo [00:53:00] chicken bites that my, that me and my husband love, but the buffalo sauce can be a little spicy for the kids.

So I make the chicken, it's basically like a chicken nugget and my kids love 'em. I just don't put the buffalo sauce on 'em. So I try to plan meals that can have an adaptation and, and maybe you would love some more recipes, I can think on that. But I actually do it quite a bit where like I make one meal and then just make a slight adjustment so that it's not as spicy or it's, doesn't have the ingredient that they didn't like on it.

Roni: Mm-hmm. I'm actually thinking, so I have two thoughts related to this, and the first one is, nikki asked for grownup meals that could have a slight variation. And I'm almost wondering if you flip the idea a little bit and you think about like, what's kind of like a kid focused meal that I could turn into a grownup meal.

So like I'm thinking my husband and I eat like a buffalo chicken salad a lot, which is very similar to this. Your idea of your, buffalo chicken bites gave me this idea. And so it's like we have, we, we take chicken tenders and we heat 'em up in the air fryer and [00:54:00] then like I make a buffalo chicken salad with like blue cheese and all sorts of stuff on it.

And so it's like maybe you start with like what are the things that you know your kids will reliably eat and how can you build that into a grownup recipe so that everybody else who likes the more like exciting flavorful meal can have that version of it and your, you know, more picky eater kids get their version of it too.

My other thought related to this is I don't have children and I don't have twins, but we have some really good friends who have twins and for our friends, there's one kid that's the more influential of the two. And so I'm wondering if in your situation, if you have that with your twin boys, if you have the more influential one.

And the other one is just a picky eater because his brother is a picky eater. And so if that's the case, maybe you try to like work on the influential one a little bit and trying to get him to try more foods and the other one will follow suit. I don't know. That's just a suggestion to throw out there.[00:55:00] 

Riley: I imagine wrangling two 7-year-old boys can be a task in and of itself, depending on their personality. But even getting that, I mean, you said influential twin, so we're gonna go with that, but like getting that twin in the kitchen to cook, 

Roni: Ooh, great idea.

Riley: Is getting them like, Hey, you don't have to eat the broccoli, but you're gonna chop the broccoli.

I mean, I cannot reference the Katie Kimball podcast enough, but her, her, her thing with picky eaters is get them engaged with the food in some way and give it time. So getting them in the super great way to do that, the build your own kind of meals is a great way to do it because they are saying, okay, I'm gonna scoop this myself.

I'm gonna get as much as I want to eat of it. I'm gonna look at that bowl of sauteed edamame and say, no thanks, but I saw it. I thought it was an option. I thought about it, and maybe next time I'll try a bite. But her, her advice with picky eaters is just, it's like getting reps in, you know, it's like literally sitting in front of them over and over [00:56:00] and over again.

Maybe sometimes we have rules where we say, Hey, we're gonna try a bite today. Or I'm thinking like the other day I made broccoli for my kids and my kids have grown to like broccoli, but it was a slog. Like it took time. But I put Parmesan all over the top of the broccoli and then suddenly it's like cheese, broccoli, and like, oh my goodness, mom added Parmesan.

Like maybe there's some things like that that you could do, like maybe they love cheese. So we start with some kind of something that they don't like with cheese on it. Like, can we get there? Can we, can we like, change their mind about this certain thing? But getting the kids in the kitchen might also be a really good way to get 'em there.

Just show 'em how it's made, have 'em be engaged with it. I don't know very many kids who will cook something and not be excited to try it at the end.

Roni: Yeah, that's a great tip. I love that you mentioned that.

Riley: A science experiment, maybe. Maybe your boys love science, maybe. Okay, today we're gonna bake. Okay, let's start with something that's like, you know, or maybe we're gonna make something in the air fryer. Like, how does it even work? You could press all the buttons, [00:57:00] like what kid doesn't love buttons? You know?

Those kinds of things, like make it exciting for them.

Roni: I love it. All right, I think we gotta wrap up this episode next week. We are, um, back with another meal planning themed episode and I guess in two weeks. And then we are starting our next book Club Breakdown in June. Riley and I made our book club pick last week and we posted it on Instagram. So if you wanna know what our book club pick is, head over to our Instagram and check out the reel that we made.

And if you wanna read along with us, grab your own copy of the book. Other than that, thank you so much for listening. You can support the Plan to eat podcast by sharing an episode or any episode, uh, with your friends, giving us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We really appreciate reading those and getting to know what you guys love about the podcast.

So thanks again and we'll talk to you in two weeks. [00:58:00]