#109: Dinner Dilemmas: Busy Schedules, New to Cooking, and Flexible Planning

This is a special bonus episode with answers to your Dinner Dilemmas! Check out this episode for answers to questions about getting started with the paleo diet, having different preferences than your spouse, cooking with busy after-work schedules, budgeting, and more!

Links & Resources:

• Plan to Eat Free Trial – Try the app that helps simplify grocery shopping, freezer tracking, and meal planning all in one.
• Paleo Blogs: PaleOMG and Nom Nom Paleo
• BudgetBytes.com – Budget-friendly recipes 

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Transcript

Dinner Dilemmas 2
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[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, welcome back to the Plan to Eat podcast. We are doing a special, extra special episode today that we are putting in between our book club episodes, 'cause the book club's long, we're having long episodes with that. So we're just doing some dinner dilemmas as an in-between episode, um, so that you guys can still get answers to some of your questions and we're not getting too far behind on your dinner dilemmas. So let's jump in.

Riley: Let me read this for us. I am trying to do a paleo diet and I can't seem to get recipes I can work with. I end up with ingredients that can't be used together or so it seems. I'm not supposed to eat bread. No starch foods, no fatty meats, no dairy, no grains and everything. I usually eat everything. I usually eat no [00:01:00] sugar.

I've not cooked in years and I don't know how to start.

Roni: This dinner dilemma is from Terry, Sue and Terry Sue. I think RI and I have both eaten Paleo in the past. I think RI probably did it for a longer period of time than I did, so I'm not gonna say that I have the most amazing advice. For this one, I would recommend going to the two different blogs, paleo, OMG, and Nom, nom Paleo, and just finding recipes from there that you like.

I would say. As far as the ingredients that can't be used together, I think a lot of times those blogs have, uh, recipes that you can fit together pretty easily because they are using similar ingredients, right? Like you pick a chicken recipe and one chicken recipe can easily go with the next chicken recipe kind of a thing.

Or they have search bars, right? So if you have a chicken recipe that has cilantro in it, type in cilantro into a search bar and find a different recipe with cilantro. And they also [00:02:00] include short videos with a lot of their recipes. So it's gonna help show you how they prepared the recipe, you know, might only be a three minute video, but that will help you with this feeling of like, you haven't cooked in years and you don't know how to start watching a video of somebody else.

Do the res, make the recipe is gonna g, I think give you a lot more confidence to get started.

Riley: Absolutely. Another thing I would say is before you even start making complicated paleo recipes, I would say do very simple things like, baked potatoes, maybe even like riced, cauliflower that you buy at the store. Riced pre rice and ready, grill a bunch of salmon or grill a bunch of, uh, beef or chicken, like kind of cook in bulk so that.

As you get into the habit of cooking again, you kind of do it like you do a bunch of chicken at one time. You do a bunch of rice at one time, or you know, right. Cauliflower rice. You maybe roast a bunch of vegetables together at the same time and then your meals can be those [00:03:00] pieces all put together.

Um, and then I know for sure there's paleo ways to make sauces and there's, you know, you can maybe add like. Make some kinda like shrimp bowl with fruit and different vegetables and the rice, cauliflower and like the kind of put these things together. But it's gonna build as you get used to cooking.

\ And doing a little bit of stuff in bulk. It's gonna probably help you get used to it. Um, it also make the like entry point a little easier because you're not having to think every time you go to eat, what in the world do I eat? You just know you've already got it prepped. Um, so I think meal prep is gonna be pretty helpful for you as you get started.

Roni: great advice. All right, let's move on to Missy. Missy says, husband and I eat very differently. Cooking for both of us is challenging. He prefers meat and potatoes, and I'm trying a more Mediterranean diet. He also cooks by sight and smell and taste, and I prefer to use a recipe. He does most of the cooking, but I want both of us to share the load.

Riley: Hmm, Missy, I am thinking that. [00:04:00] Sharing the load could look like you guys alternate who does dinner, who cooks it. And then 

Roni: if I were to have a follow up question for Missy, it would be, either of you willing to e experiment? I guess maybe with what the other person eats. It kind of sounds like maybe I. And Missy says she is trying a Mediterranean diet, so I'm guessing she previously probably ate more of the meat and potatoes way and is looking for, to branch out to something different.

Maybe it's for health reasons, maybe just for to add interest. And so I would just be interested in learning if your husband was, was open to the idea of trying some more Mediterranean style recipes. Because if that's the case, I then it could be like, well, maybe he makes. I like Riley's idea of alternating days, but it could also be like he makes part of the meal and I make part of the meal.

Like I make the main dish and he makes the side or vice versa. And then you [00:05:00] guys are having a meal where you, number one, you both contributed to it, but also it's hopefully satisfying the things that both of you like to eat. But that's just as long as both of you are willing to like have a little bit of give and take in that.

Riley: Yeah, that's a good idea. You know, the Mediterranean diet, like, you know, pasta and oats, quinoa, a lot of seafood. I'm thinking like if he, you know, if he was willing like to like grill, learn how to grill fish, and then you work on the salads or the sauces or. Even, even having a pasta dish, you know, like with like an olive oil dressing on it, like, I feel like you could probably do what you just said and mix and match things together.

Or like if he does the meat and you're willing to eat that, but you don't eat potatoes, then like maybe making two different side dishes or something along those lines, and then you're eating the majority of the meal together, but you just have two different sides.

Roni: Something that came to mind when you said grilling the fish is. Fish [00:06:00] is if fish is on the table, quote unquote. 'cause like my husband doesn't like fish a whole lot, so we don't eat very much of it. But if he's open to fish and likes to eat fish, you could grill fish and you could eat it on a salad or a pasta bowl or something and he could eat it as fish tacos.

So you could also figure out a way of like, how can we like make the same main course and we could just like make some variations of it based off of how we specifically like to eat.

Riley: Absolutely. It is tricky when two people at in the household eat very differently. It's very diff. It's very difficult to come up with. Kinda like, how are we gonna do this together? Uh, if, especially if there's not a lot of give and take, you know, if it's just like, I really don't wanna eat that. So figuring out maybe alternating or, or doing this thing of kind of piecemealing, like, I'll do this and you do that, and then we'll kind of like eat our different sides or at least together, um, might work.

Yeah. 

Roni: uh, 

So I think this next one is more of a plan to eat question maybe rather than a [00:07:00] specific demo dinner dilemma. Um, it says, how are folks doing a workaround for freezing grocery store prepared meats you have, or meals made without a recipe, so to speak. For example, I have a great butcher that makes to be cooked meats, and I usually grab one or two for the freezer.

Riley: So the way to do this right now with Plan to Eat is to create a recipe for it. Doesn't have to have ingredients and it doesn't have to have, directions. It literally only needs a title. And so what I'll do with things like this, is, I mean, I do this with things that I make without a recipe like you mentioned.

I'll say Riley's, I. World's best chicken noodle soup, you know, whatever it is. And then I just save it as a recipe. That's all. It's saved as I add it to my planner. Then it goes to the freezer. And that's the way, that's the workaround. It, it's not really a workaround. It, it works. Um, and it's a great way and then it allows you to have it on the planner.

Drag it where you want it, when you made it, when you bought it, whatever, however you wanna do that. It's very customizable.

Roni: Yep. So pretty easy. It's [00:08:00] pretty easy. And plan each to be able to keep track of things, individual things in your freezer.

Riley: Yeah. All right. Let me read the next one from Marie. Sorting, which groceries will come from which store? I typically shop at two to four different stores due to product availability or price. It's such a dilemma to spend a day going from store to store or arranging pickups, deliveries, and shopping every week.

I wish a meal planner app would know which foods we shop for and order from which store and automatically place it into separate grocery store lists. Oh my goodness. You should use Plan to Eat.

Roni: Yeah, Marie, I think you need to use Plan to eat. Um, so in the Plan to Eat app, when you say that you wanna buy milk from Kroger and you wanna buy your eggs from Whole Foods, the next time milk or eggs are added to your grocery store, it remembers that you wanna buy them from those specific stores. I'm sorry, I don't have any advice for you on how to avoid going to a bunch of different stores, but in Plan to Eat it is really easy to keep these things.

Separate, because the program is smart enough to [00:09:00] remember your last preference and just maintains that until you change it again.

Riley: And if you do delivery, which you mentioned here, all you have to do is or pick up. All you have to do is send your list to the store. From inside of Plante, you can do a specific store. Like a store list. So if you have everything in Kroger that you wanna buy from Kroger, you can send that specific list to Kroger.

You don't, it's not sending your entire list with every store because the stores are separated and so you can spend your specific, sorry, spend, you can send your specific list for a specific grocery store to that store for pickup. So it's actually very smooth and I, I think this would really help you a lot.

Roni: I think so too. Yep. All right. A different, Marie says, I'm a newlywed and new to homemaking. I'm still learning what's healthy and what's practical. I struggle with planning and shopping in a healthy and affordable way. I'm always over budget, and yet I still feel like we run out of the good stuff. Produce, produce, and healthy snacks before the end of the month.

I wanna keep my future family and husband well fed [00:10:00] and living the healthiest way they can. But am I possibly overcomplicating it?

Riley: Well, to get started. One, it's just a process of learning. So like, give yourself some grace as you learn. Um, you're gonna figure out that right around the time you figure out how much produce and healthy snacks to buy, you'll have a, a kid and then you'll need more. Or in my house, like, oh, we're gonna have strawberries this week.

Oh, all the strawberries are gone today. Okay, now we need more. And, or the next week I buy strawberries and they stay in the fridge all week. So that is a bit of an oscillating thing to figure out what's healthy and what's practical. Ways to, like what's healthy to you is something that we can't answer for you.

Whether you're eating the Mediterranean diet or Paleo, as we've already discussed in this call, um, you might have a specific thing that you're doing. As far as practicality goes, I would look at how long, like how long does this recipe take to cook? It's a 15 minute recipe with a 15 minute cook time, so it's a 30 minutes to dinner kind of meal.

[00:11:00] Well. I have three hours to cook dinner. So tonight let's have a more complicated dinner, or I only have five minutes to cook dinner, so let's have a simpler, you know, you have to decide the practicality of like what works with your schedule. But prac from a practical standpoint, look at the cook times.

Does the recipe include ingredients that you guys like? Awesome. Does it include ingredients you've never cooked before? Okay. Maybe that's not practical this time. If you don't know how to cook yet, um, doing the semi homemade thing, like, okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna use store-bought tomato sauce for this lasagna, but I'm gonna put the whole lasagna together myself.

Doing those kinds of things, like based on what your skill level is, those are ways you can kind of keep it a little more practical for you. But just being intentional to read a recipe, look at the cook times, what are the ingredients? Do we even like those things? And then using something like plan to eat and deleting recipes when you did not like them.

Or deleting recipes that took way too long. Or things that you just don't think are healthy for [00:12:00] your family. Delete 'em. Get rid of 'em and keep the things that you guys actually like. And if, you're starting from a, like a new place, like come up with 30 recipes that you guys like and just use those over and over.

It's okay. Mix 'em up, try different proteins, different sides, those kinds of things to kind of, keep it interesting. That's what I got for you. I think I.

Roni: Yeah, I, I mean it sounds like you're already meal planning 'cause you said, I struggle with planning, but typically that's my like, number one advice is like start creating a meal plan. Particularly when, since you're talking about you're going over budget. Start with a meal plan, start with a budget, start with a meal plan, make sure that they're aligning before you ever even go to the grocery store.

That is a challenge right now because grocery prices are kind of oscillating week to week. Um, especially with some like basic staple items. Like we all know what happened with eggs, so, so this, like, there are, like Riley said, this is kind of a, just an [00:13:00] area of learning I think. You're gonna make mistakes and some weeks it's not gonna go the way that you wanted it to go at all.

And then you're gonna learn from those mistakes and it's gonna get easier over time. I would recommend finding. A blogger or a website that you really like, somebody like Budget Bites, who specifically tailors their recipes around being budget friendly, and they're also in general pretty simple recipes.

So I would say find a blogger that you really like and try multiples of their recipes. See what you found was easy. See what was hard? What were the ones that you really liked? Like maybe you only stick with one website for. A whole month just trying out different recipes, figuring out what your skillset is before you actually branch out to the whole wide internet of recipes, because it can get super overwhelming.

Riley: I, I just to t tack on two little things. Using something like grocery delivery, a grocery store app to total up your [00:14:00] grocery cost before you go, even if you shop in the store, but you've got your list in plani, you can send it to the store app and see what your total is gonna be. And then you can say, oh dear, we're $50 over budget.

What can we cut? And so if that means, that. I'm thinking like meat sticks or beef jerky. Like, do we really need that this week? Let's cut that. It's a $15 cut right there, right? Or you wanted to do ground beef, but ground beef. There's no coupons, but there's coupons on ground chicken. Like can your recipe swap those two things?

, I, I'm kind of guilty of being like, when I buy cilantro, I sometimes buy two. 'cause sometimes like one will go bad fast. Do I need two this week? Probably not. Uh, we bought five apples are we gonna eat five apples. You know, like you're, look, you're like tweaking your list and just like pulling things off so that you can stay in budget.

'cause what, you know, what's really important to you right now if we're gonna to kind of figure out, okay, alright, we're going over budget but we run out of produce. Okay. Well the next week I'm not gonna cut the apples and the beef jerky, we're gonna actually just swap our proteins out because we would rather have that for snacks and [00:15:00] we would rather not have that for our meals, our main meals.

So things like that. But using the grocery store app can help you total up your cost, literally how much you're going to pay at the end. Um, which is super duper helpful with the budget.

Roni: And then you can also swap out between different brands. So it kind of can help you see like, okay, well this name brand that I normally buy is 5 99, but I can buy the store brand and it's 3 99. And those little. Making multiples of those little swaps really adds up to a lot of savings.

Riley: Yeah, absolutely. And like we talked, and, I mean this sounds a little silly 'cause we are literally on the Plan to Eat podcast right now, but listening to our show for the last three to four, how many years are we doing this? Three years.

Roni: Three, I think three years. Yeah.

Riley: Yeah. We have so many episodes where we talk about budgeting, so many episodes where we talk about how to save money at the grocery store, swaps for ingredients, things like that.

And as you're learning, like listening to a show like ours would be probably really helpful too, and help you stay in budget but have, still have great meals.

So Mel, uh, [00:16:00] the dilemma is training to create a healthy meal for active kids. When I work until five, leave for training at six, get home at nine. I struggle with what to cook, when to cook it, and I don't like the whole family eating so late. That is tricky. I am sorry that you're dealing with such a tight schedule.

Roni: Yeah, I think we answered a question really similar to this and maybe our first dinner dilemmas or second. Um. I think that this is a really common issue for parents, uh, especially parents of kids at a certain age. Kids' activities in sports can take up a lot of time in the evenings and the weekends. My recommendation would be to find sometime when you could batch cook for the whole week, batch cooking, easy handheld stuff like burritos, even sandwiches, stuff that the kids can like eat in the backseat of the car when they're on their way to practice.

In between that five and six time of the day. And then they're not eating so late, they're not eating at 9:00 PM and maybe that's, that is gonna be a [00:17:00] challenge to find some of that time. But I, I really think there are simple ways that you could do it. You know, you can utilize things like crockpots Instant pots to get like the bulk of the actual cooking done, and then it's just, you know, wrapping up.

Seven burritos and putting them in the freezer, putting half of them in the fridge, half of 'em in the freezer or something like that. So that way you have things that are easier to grab and go.

Riley: Yeah, my, my first thought was for sure the crockpot and starting something, uh, starting something in the morning that will not just feed you for that day, but another meal also. So, like you said, batch cooking, but this is like batch cooking for two nights in a row. And, you know, like I, I don't know what kind of food that you guys like to eat, but.

My mind immediately went to that crockpot pork roast or that crockpot roast that I always talk about. Because it is so versatile. I also make a pulled pork recipe that's super versatile. We cook it and it usually goes in burritos, kinda got Mexican flavors and [00:18:00] spices, but then it turns into pulled pork sandwiches, crazy easy.

Um, so doing some things like that. Like it could even be, it could be burritos one night. It could be pulled pork sandwiches one night, and then it could be like. On top of a baked potato. If I know some people have an oven that they can turn on with Bluetooth, uh, or set a timer to turn on. So I think my sister-in-law for sure has this.

I know they exist. And she'll do it where the food is in the oven, like, so I'm thinking a baked potato that is not gonna go bad or get weird. I'll usually is put it in the oven and then say like, turn on at four o'clock. And then you've got baked potatoes ready at five 15 roughly. You could do sweet potatoes that way.

You could do broccoli, like things that aren't gonna get weird, like no dairy, no meat, just like just a plate of roasted vegetables that are ready to cook. Um, now I don't know if you have an oven like that, but it's just the thought that came to mind. But if you have something in the crockpot,

that again, is gonna be a bulky enough thing that you can have for two meals, maybe three. And then sides that are easy to go air fryer. Like you can do [00:19:00] so many healthy foods in an air fryer. It's not just for chicken nuggets, you know. I do a lot of vegetables in our crockpot, I'm sorry, a lot of vegetables in our air fryer.

And that's another option too. I'm just thinking like, if you want to eat together as a family and not just eat on the go, um. Something's gonna have to be ready at like five 30 so you can eat together, then get in the car at six to leave. And so like Roni said, like the batch cooking is going to be a game changer, even if it's just like we've talked to that woman where she was like, oh, I make all my stuff on Sunday and I eat it different ways all week.

Um, and so like you roast a lot of vegetables, you cut a lot of fresh vegetables up and you've got like some kind of dip that hummus or ranch, ranch dip that you like. And then that way you can have. Grill a bunch of chicken or grill a bunch of burgers on the weekend and then that way you've got 'em for the whole week.

I think that's gonna be the best way to accommodate this, where you're not getting home and freaking out that you've got 25 minutes to make me a meal. And then also, um, you've done a little bit of pre-work so [00:20:00] that like you can have a few minutes to rest before you know, it all starts at six o'clock and you leave.

Roni: I like it. Great tips. All right, so Steve writes in and says. We curate a great plan across a whole month and bundle in some flexibility to move dinner recipes around. But some days we're both just so ex so exhausted that cooking for an hour isn't in the cards. Not sure if she, we should be more realistic with quicker recipes more often, or if there's just something else we could do to keep on track. Well, I

Riley: First, oh yeah. Go. No, no. I bet we're gonna say the same thing. Go

Roni: I mean, I feel like Steve already said it is like be more realistic with quicker recipes.

Riley: Yeah. Yeah.

Roni: were you gonna say? What, what? You thought we were gonna say the same thing?

Riley: Well. You already said flexibility to move dinner recipes around, but some days we're so exhausted. I, I would just say, like the way that I accom, like the way that I accommodate this in my own life, because I, this is me, I curate a lot of meal plans every single month. I have short meals [00:21:00] for nights when I don't feel like, you know, I, I know I need a faster thing.

I've got longer. Like, you know, longer cook time recipes for other nights of the week. I just, I just plan in, I don't plan every single night of the week. I plan in takeout. I plan in going out to eat or I plan in a leftovers night, or I plan in, uh, like I've got a couple recipes that I make that take me 15 minutes or less.

And it's, it's the semi-homemade idea, like, like a, like a chicken Caesar wrap with like a bag of Caesar salad kit and a frozen chicken tenders. Like I understand that that is not for everyone, and that's not like the healthiest choice all the time, but like every once in a while, you just need something fast.

Like I get this great microwaveable rice from Trader Joe's for nights like this. Microwave it for three minutes, and then I've got, I like cook some shrimp on the stove top, and that's a 15 minute meal with, you know, add some toppings to it. So I would just say, like you've already said, it just, just having in those times where like we know that at least one night this week we need to have a night of leftovers or we [00:22:00] just need to have one night of takeout.

And there's nothing wrong with that,

Roni: Yeah. And I think maybe part of this issue is coming with the. I'm guessing you're planning for a whole month at a time, and so you don't necessarily know what's going to come up. You know, when you're planning on the 31st, you don't know what's gonna happen on the 20th of the following month, which is totally understandable.

But I'm thinking of the idea that you throw out a lot of the time Riley, which is doing, making it a double batch, and so maybe. Once a week or once every two weeks, a recipe that you make makes a double batch. The second part of it goes into the freezer. And then when you have these like flexible days where you could move recipes around, you just say, I think tonight's a freezer meal night.

You know, like, we had this one recipe planned. I think we're gonna push it off till tomorrow and we're just gonna eat a freezer meal instead. And so then you're actually like not even cooking at all on the nights that you're really exhausted.

Riley: Yeah, absolutely. That's a, that's a great idea. I do that all the time. I'm surprised I didn't think about it, but, I took [00:23:00] lasagna to a neighbor not too long ago and it made so much and I just made two smaller pans of lasagna for our family. And those are kinds of things that do need to thaw out for a long time.

So by the time dinner comes, you might not be, like, oh no, it's gonna need a thaw for three hours before we cook it. But I do a lot of, I'll freeze a lot of things like cold pork or pot roast or, like even pre pattied hamburgers, I'll freeze those. There's this Salisbury steak recipe that we really love that, it usually just, like, I just end up with way too many of the Salisbury steaks and so like, I'll freeze those precooked or, or.

Precooked or post cooked. And then they're ready to go and then they, they thaw, they take way less time to thaw those kinds of like, meal maker things versus like, or like a pot of soup that doesn't take as long to thaw. But something like lasagna, it'd be in the oven for their hours if it wasn't at least somewhat thawed.

So thinking through that too, when you're freezing things is helpful.

Roni: There are some recipes that they just, you don't need to thaw them either, right? And it's like a, it's in [00:24:00] your casserole dish and then you just put it in the oven for a longer period of time. So you can also look for things like that if you feel like it's gonna be more spontaneous.

Riley: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Roni: Well, that was just a quick dinner dilemma episode since we didn't get to any of them last week. Next week we are going to be back talking about grocery shopping secrets. If you haven't grabbed your copy yet, we highly recommend it. Carol Ann has so much information in this book that I think is helpful for anybody who does grocery shopping, which I think is most everybody.

So if you wanna support the Plan, eat podcast, just share an episode with a friend or a family member, that is the best way to support the podcast and get the word out about us, and we really appreciate you doing that. So we will talk to you again next week. Thanks for listening. I.