#107: Book Club Breakdown: Grocery Shopping Secrets

We’re kicking off a brand new Book Club Breakdown with Grocery Shopping Secrets by Carol Ann Kates!

In this first episode of our multi-part series, we’re delving into the early chapters, discussing grocery budgets, pantry clean-outs, sneaky food labels, and how a well-planned shopping trip can save you money!

We share what we learned, what surprised us, and the simple ways you can save money without overhauling your life. Let's learn how to spend less and shop smarter!

The book: Grocery Shopping Secrets by Carol Ann Kates

Follow along on Instagram @plantoeat_official for updates and behind-the-scenes.

Recipes shared:

Creamy Italian Sausage Pasta
Gluten-Free Naan Bread

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Transcript

Grocery Shopping Secrets #1

[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 starting our new book for our book Club Breakdown. We are reading Grocery Shopping Secrets by Carol Ann Kates, and we are just going over the first couple chapters. Today we're gonna do, I think, maybe a four part series on this book. It's not a super long book.

It's like less than 300 pages, but. It's dense. There's so much information in here, and Ri and I are probably gonna give mostly high level information. Here we were, we wanna talk about the things that we found interesting and maybe stuff that we didn't know that we learned, that we just wanna share with you.[00:01:00]

But in general, there's so much information in this book that if you find any of this interesting, we highly recommend grabbing your own copy because there's just a lot of nitty gritty details that, uh, you can learn about so many things about grocery stores and the the products that you buy. And there's a lot, there's a lot going on in here.

RIley: This book was published in 2024. So these suggestions, tips, um, secrets, uh, these are relevant. To us right now. You know, sometimes you see these books on shelves and bookstores and, the information could be outdated and things like that. But not with this one. This one is present. This is addressing our current concerns over grocery prices and how to select ingredients, labels, what they mean, et cetera.

This is present day information.

Roni: Yeah, this wasn't written in like 1986, so I feel like that's a lot of times the books that are like this, you're like, okay, well, it was written in like I wasn't born yet. Okay.[00:02:00]

RIley: yeah, and I mean, and things like on this topic change so quickly because, you know, prices change month to month sometimes, and so like that this information can get outdated pretty quickly. And so I feel like it was just important to highlight that this, now, this is relevant, this is helpful. And there's a lot of stuff in this book that is just, I mean, down to like using a digital coupon or like digital, um, like app for your grocery store.

Like we talk about that in this book. So it's definitely relevant and helpful.

Roni: So I want to take a moment to highlight Carol Ann. Okay, so Ri and I went to Barnes and Noble. If you are, follow us on Instagram, you saw that we have an Instagram post where we were like picking out our new book. We legitimately looked at all the different books in the cookbook. Uh, cooking section of Barnes and Noble.

This one caught our eye because it's different than everything else. You know, specifically talking about grocery shopping. Lots of tips and tricks, which we love. So we picked this book out and then when I went to go read it, [00:03:00] like the most ridiculous audio message about it because the author Carol Ann is actually from Northern Colorado.

So we live just outside of Fort Collins, Colorado. And Carol Ann grew up in this area. Her family had a multi-generational grocery store in Fort Collins, and we did not know that when we purchased this book, we had no idea. So that. That was really cool to have it be, uh, like local, locally relevant to us.

She talks in here about King Soopers specifically, which is our version of Kroger grocery stores here in this part of Colorado. So that was just really fun and she has this really adorable dedication in the beginning where she dedicates it to like seven different members of her family and how they all taught her things about the grocery store, like it was her dad who owned the grocery store, or like her mom who taught her about cooking and her aunt who taught her about this other thing.

Like it was just, it's so sweet.[00:04:00]

RIley: It's so sweet and it, okay, I've got two things to say. One is that it was published by a publishing company out of Windsor, which is another northern Colorado town. Roni purchased these books for us, and when I went to grab it from her house, I, I told her, I said, Roni, mine's a signed copy. And so it just, it, it feels even more fun that I somehow ended up with a signed copy. Maybe we can meet her one day. I kind of wish that we'd met her in our local store. But, the second thing is that. This just establishes her expertise on this topic because she has spent her life working in grocery stores.

Her fam, like her family heritage is grocery stores, grocery shopping prices produce like, just not only is it really cool that she's local and everybody, I mean, if you're from Northern Colorado, we love local around here. I'm surprised that at our local Barnes and Noble, there wasn't a little tag that said local, because if you go through any of our grocery stores here, everything that's a local product is highlighted.

It's put on the [00:05:00] end caps. It's on a big stand with a big sign that says local. And so we, we love that around here. And so I was surprised that it didn't have that. But her heritage, her her background, just being, having grown up in a grocery store, like it just establishes her expertise and like knowledge base on this topic.

And she knows so much more the ins and outs of even purchasing how, how product end up in a grocery store, how they get labeled in a grocery store. She deeply knows this information.

Roni: I went and looked her up after she, 'cause she doesn't specifically say Fort Collins in the book. She just says Northern Colorado. And so I went and looked up her website and I. The grocery store that her family owned was called Steels Market, and it closed in 2015. So I moved to Fort Collins a couple years before that, and I don't remember that grocery store, but also I was in my early twenties.

I wasn't thinking about grocery stores necessarily. So it's unfortunate that we can't go to the grocery store now because that would be a really cool connection. But hopefully we can connect with Carol Ann and maybe we'll try to get her on the [00:06:00] podcast and she can talk to us a little bit more about this stuff.

I also saw that she has multiple books, so she has a cookbook that she wrote all the recipes in, and then she's also currently writing a book about the closing of her family's grocery store. So that could be a really interesting book to read when that comes up too. Just to learn a little bit about what it's like to own a small local grocery store and competing against the big ones.

So yeah, I'm excited about Carol Ann and I don't even know.

RIley: Like I said, we get really excited about local. Around here.

Roni: All right, so we're gonna, like I said earlier, we're gonna go over the first few chapters. The chapter one of this book is 24 Strategies to Reduce Your Food Budget. So she acknowledges here that, you know, in the last couple years we've seen, as she calls it, gyrating food costs, which I really love the word gyrate.

RIley: Uh, it's a nice way to say it. It kind of [00:07:00] sounds, um, yes, we have escalating grocery costs. They are going higher and higher every time you go to the grocery store.

Roni: So Carol Ann is a lady after our own hearts. The second tip that she gives is to plan ahead in order to save money at the grocery store. She said, planning meals in advance, making a list of what's required for each recipe, and shopping from that list helps you re resist those impulse items that you don't need, but attempted to put in your cart.

How many times have we said that? Riley? I think almost every single podcast we talk about how helpful a grocery list is that's made from your recipes. It's like the best part about meal planning.

RIley: I mean, I just like get stressed out thinking about the times that I have grocery shopped, while simultaneously mentally meal planning. You know, okay, what are we gonna eat? I guess we need this. And then running all over the store because you remember, oh right, like if I'm gonna make lasagna, I need lasagna noodles, or [00:08:00] if I'm, you know, that kind of thing.

And it's so stressful. And so I totally agree with her planning to reduce foods costs. This is what we're all about, a plant to eat. Um. That's another reason why I use grocery pickup because it just adds to that layer of like, yes, I've got a list, but like I'm not looking at anything else in the store.

I'm not being tempted by a pretty food display or by the newest flavored honey that's on display next to the fancy cheeses at our grocery store. It just removes all of those, all those distractions that gets you focused on that list. And then it also kind of builds that running grocery total so you can kind of see where you're at, which is also super helpful in my opinion. One of the other ones on her list was an organized pantry, which is a place where I certainly fail. And so I highlighted this, going through your pantry, seeing what you have, knowing where it is when you actually need it. Food in and out that are, you know, if you've got a can of beans that you've had for a year and a half, like you wanna use that one first and another, the one you bought last week.

So kind of that first in, first out rule, organizing your pantry definitely was one on this list of 24 that [00:09:00] I was like, man, I really struggle with this, but I would do so much better if I actually went through and organized my pantry. So I'm inspired.

Roni: We talked about this a few podcast episodes ago, needing to go back through and reorganize our stuff and the times that I have done that, it's, it's a game changer really to be able to. I mean, she has this as a budgeting tip, and I totally agree that it's a budgeting tip because there's always stuff that just gets hidden behind other, behind the stuff,

that's complicated way to say it, but there's always stuff that gets, that gets hidden in your cupboards and you don't even know it's there, and so the cupboard clean out and keeping your pantry clean. It's a good, it's a good tip.

RIley: Right. I mean, let's bring up the lasagna example again. If you are in the grocery store and you don't remember if you have lasagna noodles in your pantry. You have to buy them again. Well then you got two packs. You know, like using what you have on hand reduces your week to week grocery budget.

I, I, it is so true and I, I needed to do a better [00:10:00] job of that personally. But, then you're not having to stress or worry. It's also why we say go shopping your house before you go to the grocery store. Go through and eliminate the things on your list that you already have because you've looked at it, you tangibly put your eyes on it.

I guess that's not really tangible, but you put your eyes on the package of lasagna noodles, you know, you don't need to add that on your list. It's just super helpful.

Roni: Another tip that she has here. By the way, we're not gonna go through all 24 tips 'cause that's a lot. But another tip that she has on here that we love is just getting creative with the things that you have. So after you maybe do a pantry clean out and you find you have some random things, she suggests getting creative and throwing kind of random ingredients together to make meals, to kind of fill in some of those days.

And I, I just like the way that she says it. She says, eat what you have and enjoy experimenting. And I really like that because I think it is, I think it is fun to experiment in the kitchen and sometimes having random ingredients can be the best way to experiment [00:11:00] because you're just like, well, okay, let's keep going with lasagna.

Well, we wanna have lasagna. We have lasagna noodles, and we have a couple cans of tomatoes. Like maybe I'll experiment with just like making some on my own tomato sauce for the lasagna rather than going and buying a jar of it.

RIley: Yeah. Or even just again, let's segue with this example is I don't have, I mean, maybe you, maybe you use jarred sauce. You don't have tomato-based sauce, you have an Alfredo sauce, you can make a white lasagna. Or if you don't have any, um, like meat to go in your lasagna, you can make a veggie lasagna. Even using canned or frozen vegetables, like it does kind of get exci, you know, you can come up with a really great recipe that way that your family actually is gonna want you to repeat just because you put a bunch of random stuff together.

Roni: Yeah.

RIley: Utilizing items that are slightly past their prime, I thought was another great suggestion. Taking banana bread and make, or sorry, taking bananas, old bananas and making banana bread. Yes, bananas are a pretty low cost [00:12:00] item, but you're still not throwing them away, like, which is just waste, you know? And so taking those old bananas, turning them into banana bread, then you've got breakfast or a breakfast item or a snack item, or whatever you eat whenever you eat banana bread.

It, I just love that she also suggested smoothies, um, with less than happy fruit or older spinach. Things were like. It being wilted or having, you know, being slightly mushier like, 'cause especially if texture is a big deal for you, um, turning it into a smoothie is a great option. You could even freeze all of those things and then put them into a smoothie.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Like Riley mentioned earlier, she talks about using coupons and um, I just wanted to mention that she talks about both paper and digital coupons. And I just wanted to mention that when I'm in the grocery store, I have both my Plan to Eat app and my King Soopers app open and I am literally toggling between the two of them to like clip the coupons in, in the, in the [00:13:00] Kroger app while I'm grocery shopping.

So, You can do it on the fly now, which is really nice.

RIley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, don't sleep on like the,

Roni: Yeah.

RIley: like local store cards. There's so many times where they are digital coupons when there are, like, you know, you might get mail, paper coupons, but there are so many digital coupons for things that you didn't know. Or sometimes in the apps they'll give you ones that are like, save $15 on a hundred dollars purchase.

If you clip the coupon, all you have to do is like. Have a little checkbox. Another thing that our store does, um, which is a Kroger store, is that there are QR codes sometimes that you just scan in the store, which really makes, just like utilizing the coupon so much easier 

Roni: Mm-hmm. 

RIley: there's a display, there's a sign, you can scan the little QR code and you immediately get the coupon added.

At this point, like every coupon helps, every single coupon helps. So these are just like super helpful ways and if you're not utilizing those, you could save quite a bit of money on your grocery order or your grocery pickup or your, like when you're in the store.[00:14:00]

Roni: Yeah. Uh, I don't know about you, but when I go to the grocery store, even if I put my paper coupons in my wallet, I've always, I still forget to use them.

RIley: I do too.

Roni: I literally, in my plan to eat. Shopping list in like the notes of an item. We'll write. You have a coupon, you know, if like there's like a coupon for cottage cheese or something that's a paper coupon and not the, and not the digital one.

I write it in my plan toe at so that I remember.

RIley: That's a great idea. I also forget, I'm so bad about that. Just to tag on, I, I know a lot of people have strong opinions about grocery delivery and grocery pickup. But every once in a while, if you have a week in your life where you're like, man, I really need to save some money this week, sometimes there are incentives for using those, um, incentives for using pickup or delivery.

Such as like $15 off a hundred dollars purchase. If you do, if you do pickup or delivery. And so even if you aren't someone who uses that regularly, it could be some, it could be a way to help you save [00:15:00] some extra money in a certain week or month of the year. Um, and so just like doing a little extra research, looking and seeing what the coupons are available to you, I just want everyone to know that that's an option.

And so it like incentivizes those features of your store, and can help you just save some extra money.

Roni: I love it. Another thing that she mentions in here is looking at the unit prices of items to find the best deals. And so this is obviously really important if you're looking at different sizes of items. Like sometimes I think often the assumption is like, oh, if I'm buying the larger size, it's a better price.

But you don't actually know unless you're looking at the unit price, which is usually like a price per ounce. And I find this really helpful, particularly when if I find something that's on sale.

And I'll look at the price of what the thing is that's on sale and see like, well is it actually a better unit price than this other one that's just normally priced lower? once again, is it the, is it the 12 pack versus the six [00:16:00] pack? But the six pack is actually the better be deal as far as the unit price is concerned.

You could buy two of the six pack and it would be less expensive than the 12 pack. It, it, it's really nitty gritty and a lot of times the, the price per ounce can be, you know, 13 cents versus 15 cents, which maybe doesn't make that big of a deal to a lot of people. But if being very specific about the budget is important to you, I think the unit pricing is really important.

And Riley I know you've talked about this before, like a long time ago on the podcast, I think we were talking, we had a budget episode and you mentioned that. There's a misconception about Costco that everybody thinks they're always getting the better deal when they go to, uh, one of the big stores bulk, big bulk stores like Costco or Sam's.

But really a lot of times you can find a better unit price at the local grocery store. It just takes some like super sleuthing to look at the different prices on the different apps.

RIley: Yeah, it's true. You just have to look at the label to make sure. [00:17:00] You're actually getting the right price instead of assuming you're getting the right price or getting the best price. And sometimes I don't want 45 granola bars. Sometimes it's a space issue, right? Sometimes it's just that I want, I don't need 45 granola bars 'cause my kids are gonna get burned out on that granola bar before we even get to the last 25.

But yeah, just making sure you're checking that unit price. I wanted to quickly say, if you don't know what we're talking about, here's how to find it. Um, so every time you're in the grocery store, you're gonna look at the price tag. At Costco in particular, it's like that big white sheet with the price on it.

And it also includes the unit price. In one of the bottom corners, it'll say per ounce, per pound. It'll usually, it'll say cents, you know, it'll have like a little amount per pound and that'll show you in the bottom corner. Um, in the grocery store, it's the little tag, same tag with the, price on it.

And usually in. It's to the left and it's yellow in our grocery store. It's yellow. It's like highlighted almost that it is, this much per ounce or per pound. And that's how you figure out [00:18:00] what we're talking about. That's the unit price. And usually it's, I feel like it's almost always displayed. I think sometimes it's not, but I feel like most of the time it is displayed. So pretty easy to see. It's kind of smaller than the price number, so you might have to look a little bit more, closely to the tag, but it's there.

Roni: Yeah. Sometimes I think when an item is on sale, at least at our King Soopers, when an item's on sale, sometimes they don't include the, the unit price. Especially if it's like a buy one, get one free or something. They don't necessarily include that, I think.

RIley: While we're on the topic of buy one, get one free, that's another tip. Um, doing a little extra research to see what's on sale and planning around it. This is tricky if you plan before you go to the store. It's not tricky if you use an app, like a grocery store app to see what's on sale before you go to the store.

You don't even have to do grocery pickup to do this. I just like wanna clarify because I know that everyone does it so differently. But, um, you can just literally open the app. Just like Roni said, she, she shops with the app open. You can actually open the app at your house and look at the prices of the things you're [00:19:00] buying before you go.

Um, you can look at sale ads in the app. You can look at sale ads that come to your house. Um, you can and plan your meals around those things. Uh, and then that way you can, you know, the only thing I would note is that sometimes the dates of the sale don't align with when I'm shopping and you have to look at the dates.

Costco often sends like their sale ad like two or three weeks in advance. And so it's ki it's like sometimes I have been bummed when I get to the store 'cause I thought, oh, I thought it was on sale. The sale didn't start for a week or two, so noting that, I often will do a buy one get one free, just to get them free and put in my freezer to use at a later time because it makes the price so much better to buy too.

Like often our grocery store will do this with meat products. Um, and if you, you know, if you're concerned about that, check the Best Buy date, check the sell, buy dates, check the expiration dates. But often they'll do buy and get one free on meat products in our, in that part of our store. And even if I'm not planning those things, I'll buy them because then I have 'em in the freezer.[00:20:00]

And then it's like having an organized pantry. I know it's in my freezer and I can plan around that. Saves a lot of money.

Roni: I do the exact same thing. Anytime I see a buy one get one free, particularly in the meat section, it literally doesn't matter what it is. I'm pretty much always gonna buy it.

RIley: Yeah. You can also layer coupons sometimes. I know, I remember down around the holidays our grocery store did. Prime rib that was on sale. Like let, I think it was like $250 for this prime rib. I think it was 20 pounds. But then in store there was a coupon that made it like, I don't know, a certain amount.

All I remember from it is that I had to add a coupon in my app and there was a coupon in store and I got the 20 pound prime rib for, for a hundred dollars instead of $250 because of all the layered coupons. And so keeping an eye on those things can save you so much money. So, so, so much money.

Roni: especially during the holidays when you're like already spending a bunch of money to feed a bunch of people.

RIley: exactly.

Yeah. And it, I mean, and that's another thing that if you [00:21:00] don't wanna eat it for your holiday meal, put it in the freezer if you have room and save it for later. Um, that's also something you can have cut or you could cut into your own steaks. And you don't have to cook it as a primary, but you could cut it into rib eyes, so it's big bang for your buck.

Roni: Mm-hmm. So I think we're gonna get more into the la the next chapter is about labels, but she does mention even in here for we're saving money to don't throw food out just because it's past the sell by date. So the sell by date is specifically for the supermarket, not necessarily for the consumer as far as like it could have a sell by date.

It could be pass the sell by date by one or two days and still be edible, right? Still taste good, still smell good. And so that could also be a way to save money. A lot of times the sell by date items, items that are getting close to the sell by date will go into like clearance sections. Last year I also had a conversation with, she's now the CEO, but a woman from an app called Flash Foods, and they specifically help.

[00:22:00] Consumers get items that are past the sell by date that otherwise would just go into the garbage. It's not available in all states, but you can look into the app, flash foods and see if you can, um, get some of those deals from there as well.

RIley: Sometimes the, the, this is not on her list, but let's just talk about sale items. Sometimes your grocery store will have a rack at the very back of the store. Somewhere in your store, sometimes it moves, that has clearance items on it. And, um, I, I mean, I found it to be pretty great. I need to find out what day our store does that.

Like when it like, like there's often the day of the week where they go through and they move everything to that section. Most often it's not things that are like, it's not produce, it's not bread, things like that. Uh, it's not deli products. Um, but it's a lot of other things that will end up in that section, but,

Roni: Yeah, I think it varies store to store as well, because there's a different King Soopers in town, it's closer to the university and they have a really big clearance section. And I'm [00:23:00] guessing that's just 'cause college students are always looking for a deal. But a lot of the stuff that's in there is stuff from the bakery.

So you could get two day old donuts or whatever that, tastes totally fine, I'm sure. Um, or like loaves of bread and stuff that it's not like it's moldy or anything, it's just really close to the sell by date.

RIley: Yeah, and I mean, that's another way to meal plan is going through and seeing, ours often will put like a yellow label on things. So like, I remember in the produce section, like bagged lettuces and stuff will sometimes end up with like a big yellow sticker on 'em that say it's like a sale price. It has some, it has some like catchy phrase on it.

Woo-hoo. I think it says, woo-hoo

Roni: I think it is. Woohoo. Yeah.

RIley: And so if it's a product that you know you're gonna eat that day or maybe the next day, those are great to look out for too, um, just to grab and use in your meal plan.

Roni: Yeah. So towards the end of her tips here, she also talks about planting a garden, uh, which is a tip that I really love. I plant a garden every year. And [00:24:00] one of the things that I actually have focused on. In the past, it's the thing that I focus on when I plant my garden that she mentions here is planting items in your garden that are expensive at the grocery store.

So she mentions tomatoes here specifically. Tomatoes can get pricey at the grocery store, especially when they're not in season. So you know, it's. I plant lots of different things in the garden. I plant things that are not expensive as well, like lettuce and cucumbers. I feel like those are always pretty inexpensive at the grocery store.

But if you find that there are items that you are constantly buying at the grocery store, whether they're expensive or not, you could even just plant one in a pot. And if you don't, you know, you can, take it outside during the, during the nice part of the day and bring it back inside If, you know, you don't have a very good climate for growing things, or even keep like an herb garden in your kitchen.

I, I feel like I always plant herbs in the summertime because I find just in general they're like cilantro and parsley and basil are things that I'm always buying from the grocery store. And even though they're [00:25:00] not very expensive, it's just better to have, it's nice to have 'em on hand, really. But yeah, planting a garden is not only rewarding, but can also save you quite a bit of money.

RIley: Yeah, that's a great tip. I love that one. Are you a store brand person or are you a brand specific person?

Roni: I don't adhere to brands. I don't think a lot of it's a Okay. Well, it's funny because there are certain things, like the thing that immediately comes to mind is like, I always buy just the Kroger brand, ibuprofen, right? Because I feel like ibuprofen is, ibuprofen is ibuprofen, whatever. But when it comes to, and this is not food that I'm talking about right now, but like my husband had a coworker who was like, oh, you should get this blue emu, cream.

It's like a muscle and joint cream. So it's like, it's like icy hot, except it doesn't have the menthol, menthol, whatever. It, it. He was like, you should get this. It's amazing. And so they had the brand, the name brand is Blue Emu and then they have a Kroger brand and they're [00:26:00] literally like $10 different.

Like the name brand was like $17 and the Kroger brand was like $8. And I couldn't bring myself to buy the Kroger brand because I was like, well, I looked at the ingredients and they looked really similar, but it's also one of those things where I'm like, but I don't know, like he told us to buy the blue emu one.

So there are definitely times when I do ha struggle to not buy the name brand item. But most of the time, unless there's like a name brand that I'm like, oh, I really love this one. thinking if your kids love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, other macaroni and cheese doesn't actually taste like Kraft Mac and cheese, you know?

So. You could be particular in those kinds of ways, but in general, I'm not really particular unless there is something that I specifically like about a brand, like it's a brand that is, high protein or organic or you know, something like that. But yeah, I wouldn't say I am. What about you,

RIley: I think I gravitate [00:27:00] towards brands, mostly because of like a flavor issue. Like if I, I don't know, let's use mayonnaise as an example. There's like one mayonnaise we use and like it's a brand name and if you get another one, it has a flavor, like a different flavor, which means if you use that to make things, like, let's say we're making like a chicken salad, like a mayonnaise based chicken salad, it's gonna have a very different flavor.

Or like deviled eggs, you put a little mayonnaise in your deviled egg, it's gonna end up with a different flavor. And I find that I, if it's something like that, like I don't find this to happen with like canned beans, like kind of the whatever store brand is fine for that. But there are certain brands that I gravitate towards, because the flavor is just different.

And like, I prefer the flavor of one, probably because I grew up eating it, not because it's necessarily better or worse, 

Roni: I totally agree with that. I will only buy like one type of Greek yogurt because I don't like the, it's the one Greek yogurt that I really like the texture of, and I don't like the texture of the other ones. Like, it's like these little [00:28:00] nuances of the way that they process their yogurt versus how the other ones process their yogurt.

Even though it's like the most expensive one in the grocery store. There's a part of me that's like, well, you get what you pay for, so.

RIley: yeah, I'm trying. I can't think at this moment. I wish I had written down some specifics, but, um, yeah, I, there's just some certain things that I like, so I go to brand name, but, but it is hard because there is usually a pretty vast price difference between store brand and otherwise.

Yeah. Sometimes you can find that they're processed in the same place and then you're like, oh,

Roni: Yes.

RIley: I'm gonna get this one.

'cause they're the same.

That's, you gotta do a lot of super sleuthing for that.

Roni: yeah. Well, according to this book, um, you know, we can move on to the next chapter if you are ready for it. She does talk about their, their, um, food manufacturers in the United States are required to label country of origin.

RIley: Oh, yeah.

Roni: So potentially, if nothing else, you could at least find out if they were manufactured in the same country, which could [00:29:00] probably mean that they were manufactured in the same facility.

RIley: Yeah. I mean, sometimes it does say like, it was manufactured in this, or manufactured for craft, manufactured for, and it's like, it'll tell you a little bit more. You, it's just a little, it's got a, do some reading. It's just got a do some sleuthing.

Roni: If you have the time, we don't always have the time into the grocery store to do this.

RIley: IYI don't, not in the store, you know, sometimes ahead of time I do, but u usually I got, I got two toddlers that I'm wrangling through the grocery store, so standing there to read a label is a. Wasting time. We got stuff to do, we gotta keep moving.

Roni: All right, so chapter two is Understanding food labels, and there is. Again, so much information here. If you are curious about food labels, she goes over, I wouldn't say that any of these she goes into super in depth with, but she does go over kind of like the nuances of the differences of what different, like stamps and labels could mean, different like USDA [00:30:00] certifications and whatever.

So if you're interested in food labels, get a copy of this book so you can read about them.

RIley: Some of the, some of the things that I found the most interesting in, in this section, was kind of the breakdown. If I think, Roni, you covered this, but I just wanna add that nutritional data is a part of what she just was talking about. So if you're curious what saturated fat versus fat versus trans fat, this book gives you a clear indication of those things and kind of breaks them down.

Also, breaks down like carbs and dietary fiber and how those things work together. But for every single part of the nutritional label that's listed here, um, but some there, like the claims on food labels I thought was more of a marketing tactic. Let me use, let me find an example.

There's many examples, but, like low calorie, low cholesterol, reduced, good source of excellent, those kinds of terms. I thought that those were more marketing related terms. Um, but it turns out there's actually very specific criteria for these things. Low calorie means 40 calories or less per serving.

Reduced [00:31:00] means the item has at least 25% less of a specific nutrient or calorie than the traditional product. Good source of means that the good the food product provides at least 10 to 19% of the daily value. Excellent source of means that the product provides 20% or more of the daily value. And so there's actually a breakdown that companies have to, like, adhere to for those kinds of terms.

Now, I did know that the, like dairy, let's use dairy as an example. Like fat free dairy mean that the food has a 0.5 grams of fat per serving. Low fat means three grams of fat. Reduced fat means 25% less fat, and light means 50% less fat. Like I did know that that was true, but I didn't realize that the terminology had a very specific breakdown for other foods too.

It can get tricky in a grocery store to know what's marketing and what is a guideline that a company has to adhere to. And it turns out there's a lot more guidelines than I realized.

Roni: Yeah, I agree and. I think that something that would be potentially [00:32:00] important for people in this is particularly like, particularly the language around sodium or sugar. You know, like if you're on a low sodium diet or, you need to like monitor your sugar intake. Knowing what these terms mean related to reduce sodium versus low sodium could be really helpful to help you find items in the grocery store that actually meet the requirements that you need for whatever, specific health diet that you're on.

RIley: Absolutely. Another one that I found to be interesting was the difference between dairy free and lactose free. And I'm gonna, I wanna clarify this because, I think it's helpful, especially for people who are on a dairy-free diet to know the difference. Dairy-free products do not contain any milk or milk products from cows, sheep, or goats, so that's great across the board.

Dairy-free will mean that lactose-free products contain milk but are free of lactose. A type of sugar found in milk that's difficult to digest. And so a lactose-free product for to, if you, [00:33:00] if you know you're a lac, if you can't do lactose, but you could do other dairy, that's just a helpful differentiation, to when you're in the grocery store.

Just helpful to know that it's just slightly different, but it does contain milk, so if you can't have any milk or any cow, sheep, or goat products, that's not for you.

Roni: Right. this chapter, like I said, goes over a lot of the specifics. Um, they break down what it means for things to be certified for specific diets like keto, paleo, vegan, what whole grains mean, what certified organic means. I thought that, so Riley and I mentioned this, uh, to each other before we started recording, but I didn't know that for something to be certified as kosher, that it was more than just that the food was, uh, processed.

That's the word I'm looking for under rabbinical supervision. It actually, if something is labeled as kosher, it's actually free range grain fed only and never given antibiotics. Now, I don't follow a kosher diet, so, uh, that is clear. Why? I wouldn't know that, but [00:34:00] that's just an interesting tidbit. So it's like, even if you're not trying to eat kosher, but those things are important to you, free range, no antibiotics, grain fed, then, you know, you might look for kosher items if that falls into something that's important to you.

RIley: Absolutely. I mean, it's like a more, you know, situation. Because if you can't find, let's just say you couldn't find fed only grain beef in your store. Like what if you couldn't find that and you, that's what, what you, what you wanted. It would be helpful to know that, and it might also carry that label on it, but sometimes just looking for the kosher things a little simpler.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

RIley: she, she, it's extensive the amount of diets and food labels that exist. I mean, I have never heard of the engine two diet, 

Roni: I was actually gonna ask you about the engine two diet. So Riley's husband is a firefighter, so when I read it I thought, oh, I need to ask Riley about that.

RIley: It's, a diet created by a former athlete and fireman, both pro focusing on unprocessed plant-based foods. I, yeah, I'd never heard of it, but I think when we were looking for a book to review in the store, I think I saw a book that was like a diet [00:35:00] built for firefighters, and I thought, I kinda like chuckled, like, oh, that's funny.

And I wonder if it was this, now that I think about it, but there's, I mean, it's extensive, the amount of labels, whole grain, whole whole grain diet versus Whole Foods diet certified organic, you already mentioned that one. Um, irradiation like all these things, uh, USDA inspection, like she, it goes into so many details of food labels.

Like I said, I think I have learned so much more about the, like what companies are required to put on their packaging.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

RIley: and this book is really helpful in teaching you all of those things.

Roni: Agreed. One thing I wanna mention here without going into too many specifics on these, is that the information that essentially I gathered from this is that unless it has a specific like certification stamp on it, if it just says, you know, all natural or free range or cage free without some sort of stamp of approval or stamp of a certification, those words [00:36:00] don't mean a whole lot, just in and of themselves.

There's not a whole lot of. What's the word that I'm looking for?

RIley: That's more of a marketing term. It's more of like, yeah.

Roni: there's not like a, so if they just say cage-free without any sort of cage-free certification, that nobody came and inspected the facility to make sure that it was actually cage-free. So if these things are important to you, if like animal welfare, um, is important to you when it comes to the products that you're buying, making sure that actually has the stamp and rather than just the wording is gonna be the thing that actually guarantees a certain, animal welfare practices.

RIley: Yeah. Another example is humanely raised her definition here. It says there's no legal definition or federal standard for this claim. If it has a certified humane raised and handled label, it'll look like a little like square, like. Like a little square, like sticker, like I got like a little stamp of approval on it.

From the certified humane raised and handled. It means it actually meets those [00:37:00] standards. They were inspected. That was just, I just wanted to add an example to what you're saying. But it's easy to see that and read it and think, oh, we're good. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Um, but without that stamp of approval, it wasn't, specifically inspected to know that for sure. 

Roni: Yeah. 

RIley: Chapter three,

how to select Fresh Produce.

Roni: So one of the, so you learn very quickly in this book that fresh quality produce is really important to Carol Ann. She talks, she says multiple times this phrase that her dad said, which was a garbage in, garbage out. Uh, essentially meaning that the quality of the produce that you select is going to affect your end product in your recipe.

RIley: You know, she talks about how produce has a limited shelf life, and this is something that you and I have talked about on the podcast before because we have said you even people who meal plan for an entire month at a time, there is a need to still go to the store. Maybe every two weeks if you can stretch that [00:38:00] far.

But I find that for me once a week is the most helpful because then I'm not throwing away produce and I hate throwing away produce. I hate when lettuce or something gets all wilty and sad in my fridge and I didn't use it. And so for me, I find buying produce once a week. I live a long way from the grocery store, but I'm willing to do that once a week.

But I know people who live closer to grocery stores will go every couple of days just for produce items. And so if you're planning that way, it really does save you a lot of like food waste, I think, because you just are gonna use it when it tastes the best, it's freshest and it doesn't get weird.

Roni: Honestly, I don't, I don't know where it's, what it's like in, uh, the rest of the United States, but actually going to the grocery store like once a week for fresh produce, I feel like is kind of an American thing. When I lived in Europe, a lot of people go to the grocery store almost every single day, and it, for most, most communities, they have a local grocery store that's, you know, like a three minute walk away.

And so it's really easy to pop [00:39:00] in and be like, oh, we need, you know, three bell peppers and an onion for dinner tonight, or something like that. And it's easy just like pick up those things and get them for the day. But, you know, having fresh produce so that you're not throwing things away is a really important thing in a lot of other cultures, is just like getting exactly what you need for today's recipe.

RIley: I mean, I personally love the idea of just like walking to a store once a day for the things that I need. But that I'm an American, right? So it's a different life for me. I'm not, I don't have a store that I can walk to. I think in practice, uh, it'd be really fun if I lived in Spain. But you know, it just, I, I feel like as the planner in me doesn't wanna do that, 'cause I'm like, that's too many trips to the grocery store. I'll spend way more money if I just went once a week.

Roni: Yeah.

So in general, Carol Ann's tips about selecting fresh produce relate to, she says basically like, shop with your senses. Use your eyes and your nose. Look for produce that has an appetizing shape and texture and [00:40:00] aroma. If you find things that are bruised or damaged, in her opinion, those are less desirable items because it can lead to the pro the produce spoiling faster.

You know, the opposite side of that is that sometimes you can get bruised or damaged produce for less. You know, sometimes that's the thing that ends up in the, the clearance section. So it, I would personally say that if you're going, if you know you are gonna be cooking it tonight, go with the thing that's bruised or damaged if you can get it on sale because you don't have to worry about it going bad before you're actually going to use it.

RIley: Another thing she talks about is the Dirty Dozen. Which if you're unfamiliar with that, it is a list of foods, um, that have been classified as like more important to buy organic because, certain foods retain a higher residue level of pesticide after they've been harvested. And so this list, it changes year to year.

It holds like a lot of them hold true year to year. And here she'd included the [00:41:00] 2023 list and I'm gonna read you guys the 2025 list, um, just so you can kinda be aware of what these items are. These are the mo, these are the ones that retain the most pesticides. Um, so strawberries, spinach, kale, collared, mustard, greens, grapes, peaches, pears, nectarines, apples, hot and bell peppers, cherries, blueberries and green beans, tomatoes, winter squash, and cherry tomatoes.

Um, and so if this is something that is highly important to you, then purchasing these organic, um, it's gonna eliminate pesticides used on these products. On the flip side, there's also the clean 15, and this list is, a made up of fruits and vegetables that have low levels of pesticides after harvesting them.

I'm gonna read you guys also that list. So, carrots, sweet potatoes, mangoes, mushrooms, watermelon, cabbage, kiwi, honeydew, asparagus, sweet peas, papaya, onions, pineapple, sweet corn, and avocados. And so those are like, if you purchase those [00:42:00] non-organically, those are gonna have lower levels of pesticides in them.

Roni: Some things on this list are the, the differences between the things on this list are interesting because you mentioned on the dirty dozen that nectarines and winter squash are on there, which I. I'm like, well, I'm not eating the peel of a nectarine, so is the inside of the nectarine. Okay. I'm not necessarily eating the outside of the winter squash.

So is the inside of the winter squash. Okay. I think that this is an area that I need to do a little more research on because I'm curious about like, why are nectarines on the dirty dozen dozen, but grapefruits are on the clean 15. Do you maybe need less pesticides for grapefruit to grow grapefruit than nectarines?

I'm all of a sudden really fascinated about this idea.

RIley: I mean, I feel like this is not a topic that you and I should speak on too much because we are not scientists. Um, we can't give super specific info. But things that are coming to mind is like, some of these things are grown where that night it gets super [00:43:00] cold and in the day it's warmer. And I'm curious, like, are there less bugs on those plants because it gets super cold at night?

I'm also thinking like. Is it, does it have to do with when they spray the pesticides? Because if you spray pesticides on a plant that is very young, does it get into the like inner parts of the, like I'm thinking like a winter squash, like, they're so hard. But if it's sprayed when it's very, are you very young plant?

Do those pesticides get into the, uh, the, the vegetable as it's growing? So with like deep embedded, you know, it's not just like they're sprayed on the outside. Once they're grown, um, often pesticides are sprayed at multiple points in the growing process. So I'm not, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe we can get a scientist on here to talk to us about it.

Roni: The last part of this chapter, Carol Ann talks about heirloom versus hybrid, and so she says that most of the produce that you find in your grocery store is hybrid, which means that. Over the years they've been bred, you know, we're gonna talk about like [00:44:00] tomato or something. The tomato has been bred to resist disease and pests naturally.

Right? Um, this isn't necessarily G-M-O-G-M-O is actually genetically modifying this, but hybrid is like, what was the, what's the thing that we did in high school biology where you had like the different alleles? Gene expression.

RIley: Hundred square is what I thought you were talking about.

Roni: What, that was the thing that I had in my brain was like looking at a punnet square with the alleles. Anyways, hybrid produce is, has essentially, like I said, been bred for. Certain conditions so that it is, heartier. Sometimes they do it for, you know, prettier colors. I think about this with like apples, I feel like apples have been bred, withstand conditions a little bit better to get ginormous.

Some of the apples in the grocery store are like the size of the softball but she says in here that hybrid fruit, fruit and vegetables, while they're hearty and beautiful, a [00:45:00] lot of times they lack flavor. So they're bred a little bit more for the, in the fitness world called like the mirror muscles, right.

And not so much for like the inner, but if you find heirloom varieties, those are bred for flavor. A lot of times heirlooms, like have a little bit different texture or look different. I'm thinking particularly tomatoes. I can think of what an heirloom tomato looks like. It has like really big striations on it. And they're often delicious. So good and so yummy.

RIley: Those are the tomatoes that I cannot leave at the grocery store.

Roni: I agree.

RIley: It doesn't even matter if I don't have a use for a tomato, I will find a reason to buy an heirloom tomato and take it home with me. They're so beautiful and often they're all, they're all sitting there with like the purple ones and the yellowy ones and the really deep red ones, and it just like, you just wanna take the whole flat home with you because they're just so beautiful.

These are the ones I look for when I'm at a farmer's market. Um, they make, if you're from the south, you probably add a tomato [00:46:00] sandwich and that they're the perfect tomato for that.

Roni: Yeah. Oh, here's the word I was looking for. Cross pollination.

RIley: Oh, okay. Yeah, that's not, I thought you were talking about a punnet square,

Roni: Well, I, I had a punnet square in my head, but a punnet square doesn't necessarily apply to, to produce. So yeah. Cross pollinated, cross pollinated to, um, withstand disease and pests. Right?

RIley: Yeah. I thought it was interesting that, um, hybrid varieties have, viable seeds, but their seeds don't reproduce. I thought that was a very interesting aspect of this. I, I didn't know that. But I'm not a gardener, so I don't have, like, that's not a, that's not a, a road that I've learned a lot about.

Roni: They're the, the mules of the produce world.

RIley: Well, that, on that note, that is the end of chapter three. Um, next time we'll come back and start talking about how to select fresh produce, fresh fruit, sorry, not fresh produce. We'll select fresh fruit, um, and a few of the next chapters. But I'm really [00:47:00] enjoying this book so far. I've learned a lot.

Roni: Just from these first, I mean, these first three chapters only take up the first 30 pages of the book and I already learned a lot. Yeah, chapters four and five are specific to selecting fruit, and then chapter five is vegetables. And it's literally, she lists, you know, we've got blueberries, we've got pears, we've got figs, we've got mangoes.

You like, every single item has its own way, has its own ways of like thinking about it. So I'm really excited to dig into this and I, I

RIley: and there's no way that you, well, and there's no way that you and I could cover all of them in this podcast. So if you're listening and you are excited about this, like go grab a book and read along with us. I'm excited to go through that

Roni: Me too. right. Well, uh, let's wrap up with answering a couple dinner dilemmas.

So to start off the dinner dilemmas today, I'm actually going to, we're actually gonna rewind a little bit because last [00:48:00] episode, our final dinner dilemma was from Tim and he was asking about estimated cook times and saying that recipes often take longer than what the recipe says.

And we had a very kind listener, Cynthia, write in and give her process for figuring out how long a recipe is gonna take. So she gave us this really expanded explanation of this, but I'm just gonna read a few sentences of it that might be helpful for Tim, but also anybody else who might be wondering how you would tactically go about estimating the cook time for a recipe.

So Cynthia writes, first I scan through the ingredient list and add one minute. For every three or four items I have to measure or cans, I have to dump one minute for every item I have to chop. One to five minutes for rinsing things like quinoa or beans and up to an extra five minutes. If I have to peel something, then I go to the directions and start adding five to 10 minutes.

If liquid needs to be brought to a boil, 10 to 15 [00:49:00] minutes for a pressure cooker to come to pressure, written, cooking times, altitude adjustment, standing time, and so forth. In the end, I have an estimate that generally tends to not be that far off. Of course, sometimes there are still surprises, but it's not very often naturally as I become an experienced cook, my timing estimates have gotten more accurate and my chopping and peeling has gone down.

On rare occasions, I actually time a recipe to get a true timing, but I usually only adjust if there's a big error either way in my estimate. I know that was kind of a lot of numbers to throw at you there, but, if you are interested in figuring out exactly how long recipes take, I think Cynthia's method, uh, is a really good one, just so that you have some numbers to go off of, you know, adding a minute for every thing that you have to do, adding 10 minutes here, five minutes there.

I'm guessing that's how a lot of recipe authors probably do it too, rather than timing themselves as they're making a recipe. They probably just have some sort of a process where they know [00:50:00] if I have to peel seven potatoes, it's probably gonna take me five whole minutes to do it.

RIley: Yeah, that's, uh, I love the detail. It's super helpful because I even ran into this last night with something that I was making. I looked at the cook time, I looked at the prep time, and we were on track to have dinner at the right time. And, and then at, in the very middle of the recipe, there was a 40 to 60 minute rise time on what I was making.

And it was not listed in the cook time, uh, or the prep time, like it wasn't even listed in total time. And so I was, a bit surprised and told my family, Hey, we ran into a snag. It's gonna be a minute because it was an important part of the recipe. I actually thought of this conversation when I ran into that issue because it's very, it's very frustrating when you get to that point because, I mean, you know, when you've got people who are yelling at you that they're hungry, hopefully nobody's yelling at you, but, you know, if someone's saying, I need a snack, and you're in the middle of making dinner, and, and then you run into a 40 to [00:51:00] 60 minute rise time, ah, it was my own fault.

I didn't read the full recipe before I got started. I would've seen it in the instructions, but I did not, I just glanced at the cook time, total time, and it wasn't listed there. Ah.

Roni: It's, it's really frustrating when you're like, oopsies, I need to start this resume three hours I go.

RIley: So, hey, it happens to the best of us. It happens to the planners of us. So,

Roni: right. Yeah. Not everything's gonna happen perfectly.

RIley: alright, I'm gonna jump in with Abigail's Di Dinner dilemma. I love making fun recipes to change it up. Often, but this means that I end up with leftover random ingredients and end up going to waste. For example, I have to buy an entire daon radish to make a Japanese dish, and I never use up the entire daon before it goes bad.

How do I keep the variety in my cooking while efficiently using all the unique ingredients I buy? Great question.

Roni: I love this question and I am not gonna say that I have a super simple answer for you. Because I have the same issue myself. I also [00:52:00] love making fun recipes from, you know, different flavors and different cuisines and it can get really challenging to figure out what to do with stuff. I don't know exactly how you would store a Dai Conrad, 'cause I've never used one before.

But the immediate thing that comes to my head is trying to figure out ways to freeze items that are specific to certain cuisines and certain cultures. I know that a lot of times with things like herbs, if you buy like a specific herb for a recipe, you can, you know, freeze that herb. You could make like a, like a oil, fr frozen oil herb mixture.

You know, like I've seen people do that in ice cube trays, put a little bit of oil or butter and then you put your leftover herbs in there and then in the future you could just like pop it out of the tray and heat it up. . What kind of, what kind of tips do you have? Riley

RIley: I'm trying not to get hung up on the dicon 

Roni: yeah. 

RIley: because that's not the issue, right? Because this is gonna vary by [00:53:00] the variety of recipe that you've chosen. Um, my mind immediately went to like, there's a recipe from, oh, I can't think of her name. Oh, spiralized. It's, it, there was a big, like spiralizing craze and like the.

2014 ish timeframe. And I remember making like a, like a spiralized dcon that you like, kind of flash fry, uh, made like a great side dish. So my mind went there, but this is gonna be one of those things that like, if you're making something with fish sauce, you've got a ton of fish sauce left over you, but you bought the fish sauce, you wanna use it, you know, that kind of thing.

It's gonna vary, you know? So something, and, and it is already hard to know whether you're gonna have leftover, right? Sometimes it's easy to know, I bought this gigantic head of cabbage, I'm gonna have cabbage leftover. And so if you can kind of anticipate it, I would say finding a recipe that's like gonna use up the rest of the daon for the next night.

Or if you're gonna use up the rest of your cabbage, what's something else? Oh, kale. I always have so much kale leftover. And so [00:54:00] like being able to say, okay, I know I'm gonna have kale leftover because I couldn't buy a small enough bunch of kale. I'm gonna use it for two recipes. So kind of planning as much as you can in advance.

Obviously some of the times you can't plan for this, but, just knowing like, okay, I'm gonna be home for lunch the next day. I'm gonna have leftover dicon googling a recipe. What can I use for this? As I don't plan every single night of our week out. And so I'm thinking that I can utilize my leftover ingredients on the nights that I didn't plan.

And so I, so I know, okay, I've got this leftover cabbage, what can I make with it? Well, let's have like some barbecue chicken. I can make like a cabbage slaw to go on the side. Or if you had it as a cabbage slaw, you could make it as like a filler for a shrimp taco. Can I get like a little taco cabbage, you know, taco cabbage on your shrimp?

Whatever. You know what I'm trying to say? Uh, and so kind of like trying to utilize the thing, like especially if you're at the grocery store and you see, whoa, I was not expecting this to be. This great of a quantity of something. Okay. There's not a head of [00:55:00] cabbage small enough for me to purchase. So taking that night that maybe you didn't plan, or that those lunch meals that you didn't plan something for and trying to utilize it in those spaces might be helpful.

Or saying, okay, let's say you've had that recipe on Thursday night, Monday, it's gotta be used by Monday. So then planning your meals for the next week around those leftover ingredients might be really helpful.

Roni: Yeah. Another thing that's coming to mind, and I'm thinking about this specifically 'cause of the daon and you mentioned cabbage, is you could also just find a different way to use that item. I'm thinking like you can pickle, I know like a daon radish. You could like pickle it. You could do the same, you could make your own sauerkraut.

Let's see. There was another thing I had in mind that I was thinking about related to this.

RIley: Red onions, you can pickle

Roni: That's exactly Red Onion was the other one I was thinking about. Like you could just quick pickle red onions and then those are so good as a garnish on a different meal. So I think that that might be a pretty simple way that obviously doesn't work [00:56:00] for everything.

That works a little bit more for some of these hardier items that we're talking about. But again, like if you have something like kale or, even cilantro, I know that I have had, I've heard of people being like, I always have this so much cilantro, whatever. I think you can just freeze the rest of it and it's not then gonna be something that you're gonna use fresh in something.

But you could use frozen cilantro in a, in a salsa that's just gonna get blended up anyways. So trying to reutilize it. But I think also using your freezer is a good way to have those little, like extra bits and things like if you're somebody who makes. Broths, bone broth, soup stock, things like a daikon radish you can add into that stock and it's going to just add to the nutrient profile, maybe give things a little bit different flavor.

So that's another way that you could use it up.

RIley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a good idea. Getting creative is like my best answer for this, unfortunately. 

Roni: Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. And I mean, a little bit of Googling can [00:57:00] help you find different recipes for how to pickle things or whatever.

RIley: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, if I know in advance, if I know even the slide bit in advance that I'm gonna have quite a bit of something left over, I try to plan the next night to include it. Um, or if it's just that I have a lot of leftovers, like last week I made.

Like, we had burritos with ground beef and like taco seasoned ground beef, and we had an exorbitant amount of leftovers to the point where I was like, even I'm done eating this as leftovers. And that's pretty rare. But I'm thinking like, I can turn this into a quiche. I could have turned this into omelets.

I could have turned this into like little like breakfast muffins, you know, like all these other things. And so if it's something like, if it's like a big batch of leftovers, what can you do with it? And I immediately thought of that woman that we interviewed who turned it all into hot pockets, like little like pockets, um, little like hand pies, but savory hand pies.

And so like, I know that's kind of getting a little wild, but it's pretty creative in a way, way to use it and not waste anything.

Roni: Mm-hmm. All right. Cindy's [00:58:00] question is cooking for two that is high protein, low carb. also don't wanna spend a lot of time in the kitchen and need a lot of ingredients and prep. Well, I would say. As a, as a cooking for two household that, you know, if, as long as you guys are okay with leftovers, I think doing sort of a meal prep situation is gonna be the easiest way to accomplish this. Um, not wanting to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, I think is just maybe like a relative, you know, if you're spending time in the kitchen on like a Sunday to meal prep for the week ahead, then the rest of the week you're not spending time in the kitchen.

You're just only heating something up, or, you know, transferring it from a container onto a plate. One thing that my husband and I have been really enjoying that I think fits this pro profile of high protein, low carb, is a buffalo chicken salad. So you can buy, you could make your own, you know, [00:59:00] breaded chicken fingers if you wanted to, but I just buy ones at the grocery store, in the freezer section.

There are certain brands that might be higher in protein than others. I know there's a brand that you like Riley from Costco. I think it's called Good Food. Real Foods

RIley: Real,

real 

Roni: good, real good food, real good,

maybe something like that. And in the breading there's actually like pea protein or something in the breading of the chicken.

So it's like even higher in protein than a regular chicken tender would be. And then like what I've been doing for my husband with lunch is like meal prepping lunches for the week where I just air fry all of the chicken at once, toss it in buffalo sauce, you know, prep. A salad, which I can basically prep the salad in the same time that it takes to air fry the chicken and then everything goes into containers and it's really easy for him to just take for lunch every day.

So I think situations like that where, you know, you're putting in a little bit of work upfront, but honestly, like I did that this week on Monday, I was making my own, [01:00:00] I was making my own self a buffalo chicken salad for lunch, and so I just prepped all of his lunches for the rest of the week at the same time because it takes essentially the same amount of work to make one salad as it does to make four salads.

So I think a situation like that is gonna definitely reduce your time in the kitchen.

RIley: All those tips are great. I think. I think that there, if, if you're cooking it, if you are eating food that you made and you're trying not to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, a batch cooking day is gonna be your best bet. Just like Roni you just said. My mind goes to things like boiling eggs, like boil a big batch of eggs at the beginning of the week and while you're doing that grill, a whole bunch of chicken, and like in like that one hour time span, you could actually get a lot of things prepped, all your chop up, all your green things, um, chop up all your fruit and berries if you eat those things.

Like give yourself one day with a couple of hours in it to do all your prep. And then it's really gonna be simple to like let the week, kind of roll because you did a lot of that [01:01:00] upfront. I, I, I really think that there's not gonna be a way out of cooking or out of prepping. Cooking for two, you might wanna also speak to, but not spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

If you like, have an air fryer, that's super helpful. You could buy things that are pre prepped at your grocery store for you. Um, rotisserie chickens. You could use a rotisserie chicken to make a big batch of like a chopped chicken salad like we talked about earlier in the episode, like with mayonnaise and egg boiled eggs and seasonings and things like that all mixed together.

And then that way you just either prep it and put it in containers that day, or you just serve it to yourself. Something like that. If you're gonna eat it in a lettuce wrap, then have all your lettuce pre-washed and packaged in your fridge so that it's just ready to grab and go. Having things like Greek yogurt, um, super easy to portion out and eat it's high protein.

That's, that's what I've got at this moment. Um, would you wanna speak to cooking for two?

Roni: I mean, I still go to the batch cooking idea for cooking for two, since you don't wanna spend a lot of time in the kitchen, a lot of times cooking for two, if you are adverse to [01:02:00] leftovers, it means you're probably gonna be cooking every night, you know, or pretty close to every night. So I would say embracing the idea of leftovers is gonna be the, the best way to not spend time in the kitchen every single day cooking a recipe.

Because, you know, most recipes are gonna make a minimum of four servings. And so you'll at least have leftovers for one day. And if you're okay with, you know, at least one set of leftovers, that does save you some time. 

Otherwise, I think it's really, you know, for when you're cooking for fewer people, it's really easy to get in the routine of like, we're just cooking every single night, 'cause there's just two of us, and if we don't wanna eat leftovers, that's just kind of how it has to be.

RIley: Mm-hmm. Um, the other idea that I just had is using a crockpot.

It can make a big batch of something that will last you for many days, or you just throw it all in at the beginning of the day and it's ready when you get home. Just like low effort

Roni: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, I think this is just going back to the [01:03:00] crockpot and the air fryer, is maybe utilizing some of these small kitchen appliances to minimize your time in the kitchen. we recently got an air fryer. We got one this past winter and it's like been a game changer. I know you got one like a year ago, Riley and it, like the air fryer is pretty phenomenal and ours can do like so many different things.

I don't even, I haven't used all of the functionality of ours either, but it just really cuts down on the amount of time that you're cooking stuff.

RIley: Yeah. Well, it turns off by itself. Like there's just a lot of, a lot of nice little perks to

Roni: it's really nice. Before we wrap up today, we wanted to bring back an older part of the podcast that we used to do, which was talking about a favorite recipe that we've had recently. So Riley, why don't you tell us about a recipe you've had recently that you loved?

RIley: Okay, so last night for the very first time, I made homemade gluten-free non bread to go with like a Greek meal situation. It was amazing. It turned out so [01:04:00] good. I can link to the recipe for the show notes. But I was so pleased with it. I served it with, grilled chicken that was marinated in like Greek seasonings and lemon juice.

And then I had made homemade tki, uh, which was very simple to make, uh, in this dinner. Like I feel like it took, except for like letting the bread rise. It was a really simple meal to come together. fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, olives, feta was so good.

Roni: Yeah, that sounds really good. I love making homemade bread. I feel like it's, it really elevates the experience when you make a homemade bread.

RIley: As a person who is a gluten-free, that is not always true. So I think that's why I was extra pleased with this because it turned out so good. I was, it was really good.

Roni: Yum. Well, we recently had this creamy Italian sausage pasta. It is really simple. It's not quite a one pot meal because you need to boil the pasta in a separate pot. Then you make everything else. But it's just like Italian sausage penne pasta. You put, some garlic [01:05:00] flakes in there and then you make this like creamy sauce with heavy cream and Parmesan and.

It's just really good. I always put like extra red pepper flakes in there, so it's really spicy and that's how we like it.

RIley: Yeah, and that sounds great. Yeah.

Roni: In two weeks, we will be back. Continuing to break down Grocery Shopping Secrets by Carol Ann Kates. If you haven't got your copy of this book yet, go get it so that you can follow along with us and get all of Carol Ann's amazing tips about the grocery store. And if you like to support, the Plan to Eat podcast, please share an episode with a friend or family member that is the best way to get the word out that you enjoy our show. Thank you for listening and we will talk to you again in two weeks. I.