#113: Final Tips from Grocery Shopping Secrets: Seafood, Lamb, and the Deli Counter

In this episode, we share a mix of surprising facts and practical grocery tips from the final chapters of Grocery Shopping Secrets. 

We dive into the seafood section! Learn how to pick the freshest fish and the difference between wild-caught and farm-raised salmon. We also explore the deli counter, which isn't just about deli meat! Carol Ann provides a great breakdown of how to create your own veggie and fruit trays, plus extensive info on how to self-cater a party!

Don't miss our final episode of this book club breakdown!

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Transcript

Grocery Secrets #5
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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. 

Hello and welcome back to the plan to eat podcast. Today we are finishing up Grocery Shopping Secrets by Carol Ann Kates. We have just the last three sections to go over, starting with lamb. Then we're moving on to seafood and finishing up with deli foods. I was gonna just say deli meats, but it's deli foods of all kind.

It is. And she is extensive in her deli food section. Yeah. It's clearly something that she cared about when she worked at the grocery store, I think. Mm-hmm. Have you ever purchased lamb at a grocery store? No, I don't. I have never cooked lamb. I have very rarely eaten lamb. I'll be honest. Yeah. I felt like this section was really helpful, but it's because I have no practice.

Yeah. Like I, I have no hands-on experience doing this. Yeah. So, I don't know. I [00:01:00] don't think my mom prefers lamb and since she was the main cook in our household growing up, I don't think we ever really had it. I think I can remember like one or two times even ordering it at, at. A restaurant, like it just is not something I would choose necessarily.

Mm-hmm. It does feel a bit more like a cultural food. Yeah. And I know that probably makes me sound very like dumb American, but I just feel like it's in Indian. Like you ordered at an Indian place or you ordered at a Greek place. Mm-hmm. Um, and people I know from other countries or who are very extensively traveled eat way more lamb Yeah.

Than people who aren't. Yeah. Well I would also, in the American south, nobody's eating lamb in the south. Right. Like you don't, people, there aren't ranchers that have sheep in lamb are there. That's funny that you bring that up. 'cause my little brother has lamb. Oh. Or he has sheep. He raises sheep at his house.

Oh. And so I actually reached out to him for some info, which I'll sprinkle in here a little bit. Okay. Interesting. Alright. Well some of the things that we learned where I learned about lamb, is that the lamb that you find at the grocery store is called [00:02:00] regular lamb.

So because there's also baby lamb, spring lamb. Uh, yearlings and mutton and which are all just different ages of when the, the lamb or the sheep happened to be slaughtered. Yeah. So regular lamb is the meat from a young sheep that are, or from young sheep that are slaughtered when less than 1-year-old.

Yeah. Um, and that's what people are gonna find in most grocery stores, right? Yeah. And mutton, which I think a lot of people have heard about mutton, even if in the United States we don't eat it. That's from an older sheep that's over two years old and it's often tougher and has a stronger flavor. Well, you've probably heard of mutton, buston.

Yeah. If you go to the rodeo, you have, if you go to the rodeo, and for anyone listening who doesn't know what that is, it's when little kids ride on sheep and whoever lasts the longest wins. But they wear like helmets and like, like little like protective vests. It's adorable. Awesome. It's adorable. My daughter wants to do it.

Yeah, I bet she would be great at [00:03:00] it. She, but I think mutton is what they use more like in, I'm thinking the UK when they have, shepherd's pie and stuff. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's one of the ways that my brother says he really enjoys lamb is his wife makes a shepherd's pie. Um, they also do leg of lamb every Christmas dinner at their house.

Oh. And then the butcher where he gets his lamb processed also makes like a bratwurst out of it, which he says is good. Hmm. I bet that would be good.

All right. So similar to the other meat products that we talked about two weeks ago, she has the sections in here about how you would select lamb, how lamb is graded. It is similar to beef in that it's prime choice, good utility and cull. And she said that utility and cull are not things that you would find in the grocery store.

Those are not grades of lamb you would find in the grocery store, and particularly not in the United States. Yeah. Yeah.

So my little brother has sheep, and so I reached out to him to ask him some questions. The last time I saw him, one of his sheep was pregnant and they did not know. Oh. And so [00:04:00] she ended up having a baby. Uh, they ended up bringing it inside, putting a diaper on it, bottle feeding it, because she had not chosen to care for it.

Oh. And so I met that little lamb and it was so cute, and I never thought I'd want a lamb until I look at this baby. They named it. And if you just call it Ed, my brother would correct you. No, no. It's not Ed. It's Ed. Even in his text to me yesterday, he was texting me with E-E-E-E-E-D, D, DDDD, because that's his name.

It's not Ed, it's said properly. So I asked him some random facts about lamb and sheep. And so he said that they actually do come when he calls them. Wow. Like they actually know him and they go to him. And my sister-in-law, she was sick for a while, and so she hadn't been around them because they move their lamb, sorry.

They move their sheep around their yard in a pen consistently. They move it every couple of days or maybe a week. Um, and so they're with them a lot and they're moving [00:05:00] the pen, moving all the sheep. And so she had been sick for a while and had not been with him, and they had forgotten her, basically. Oh.

And so they were just, would do what my brother asked them to do. So their sheep, um, they call, he called it intensive rotational grazing. Hmm. And so they move them around their property, which he said has many benefits. It lowers the parasite load with minimal pharmaceutical intervention because they're moving all the time.

Um, it helps the pasture 'cause it allows it to recover. There's no overgrazing. Some other fun facts is that they make anti-venom with lamb blood. Oh, really? Um, yes. And then, one reason that they love the sheep is that the Omega-3, omega six ratio of grass raised, finished lamb is as close to salmon as you can get on land.

Oh, interesting. So it's one of the way, it's one of the reasons why they love it for its health benefit. S Well that makes sense in here too. 'cause she talks a, I think she mentions it a couple different times in here that a lot of lamb in the United States is grass fed and then grain finished. Mm-hmm.

Which helps pro, like [00:06:00] it gets, it lessens that gamey flavor. Mm-hmm. And it's the part of the gamey flavor is because of the high Omega-3 content in the meat. Mm-hmm. So that would make sense. Yeah. They finished theirs on grass. Mm-hmm. So there's grass fed, grass finished. Mm-hmm. He, I asked him, I said, don't you don't they double as lawnmowers?

And he said, yes, they're lawnmowers. Sometimes he still cuts some of the grass, but they graze 'em all over their property and it helps, just helps him take care of all the property that they have. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Wow. Thanks for reaching out to him. Yeah. Little tidbits of information. Yep. Shout out little brother.

Okay. I thought, uh, we don't have to talk too much about lamb anymore. Be since Riley and I are clearly not lamb experts since we don't eat much of it. But I just thought it was really funny that, so she says one of the labels for lamb is organic and organic lamb, um, cannot be cloned, which I just thought was funny and it's the only animal that she mentioned that she mentioned that with.

But it also makes sense 'cause I think Dolly the lamb, you know, is the first Oh right. Cloned [00:07:00] animal. Mm-hmm. So lamb is potentially the only animal that you would have cloning as an issue. Uh, Dolly, uh, she's from Northern Colorado. Really the geneticist who. Created her is he lives here. Oh, I didn't know that.

That's awesome. Wow. Shout out Colorado. Okay. So I have a question for you. All right. Over and over. She talks about thawing meat. So just, we're gonna include lamb here. She talks about it with chicken. She talks about it with everything we've talked about so far. She says to defrost in cold water, you're gonna put the package into like an airtight, like your frozen meat is probably in an airtight container, so you can put it directly into water.

So she says, place the frozen product into a bowl and fill it with cold water, and to change the cold water frequently to ensure that it stays cold. Mm-hmm. But if your, if your food product is frozen, won't the water stay cold? Why would you have to keep changing the water? [00:08:00] That's a great question. I think, you know, I don't know exactly the science behind this, because clearly this was not how I was thawing my meat. Yeah. We discussed that last week. However, my guess is that you don't want, it's like, it's like you don't wanna like put the cold meat into hot water.

And so, I don't know. I don't know. You're, you're stumping me a little bit on this. I feel like I don't have the scientific knowledge to answer your question, but I do feel like at a certain point you reach a tipping point where your food is not totally frozen yet and your ambient temperature of your air.

Mm-hmm. Right. Is warming the water more than the food is cooling the water. Sure. I just was thinking the whole time, like if I put a frozen roast into cold water, the water's gonna stay cold for a substantial amount of time before that meat starts to actually thaw. That's true. But also the water is, I mean the water will stay cool, but the water is not frozen, so it's going to thaw the [00:09:00] meat eventually.

Yeah. But it's like putting ice into a cup of room temperature water and the ice melts and the water. Right. Which is how it works. It's how it thaws it. Right. But I just thought it was an interesting Yeah, and she's just said it over and over and she does say, 'cause she says in the, she does say, I don't know if you said this specifically, like you think you just said to change the water frequently, she says like, change the water every 30 minutes to keep it cold.

Yeah. And that does seem a little excessive because I would guess, like you're saying, the water, the water would probably actually get colder, right? Mm-hmm. If you're doing just tap water. Yeah. And you're putting ice essentially into it. I mean, this is a book review, so I'm sure there's like an an element of like, she has to be very aware of what she tells people, has to be very, um, protective of them.

Right? Yeah. So like she's probably doing the most safe practices in the book. Yeah. Because she doesn't want someone to follow her guidance and then end up eating something that has spoiled or like True, yeah. Gotten some kind of. Whatever, foodborne illness or whatever, because they thought it the wrong way.

Mm-hmm. Um, I just kept reading that and I kept thinking like, wouldn't the water stay cool [00:10:00] for a lot longer than that? But yeah, you're probably right. Well, on that note, I think we can probably transition over to talking about how to select and store fish and seafood, which is chapter 15. I love fish, but I don't cook it all that often. Do you? I never cook fish because my husband doesn't really prefer it. So I actually can't tell you the last time I cooked any fish or seafood.

I very am, I'm very unskilled at that because mm-hmm. My husband doesn't really like it and I don't like it enough to stink up my house with it just for myself. Mm-hmm. I eat like tuna fish out of a can, you know? Mm-hmm. Or sometimes I'll buy like the smoked salmon at the grocery store. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But that's pretty much it.

We do live in Colorado, so there is an element of like any fresh fish takes a really long time to get here. Yeah. And it has to be overnighted flown here, high quality fish places. It's very expensive because of those things. Yeah. I grew up in the south, so a lot of fish, a lot of it's just quick to get seafood.

Mm-hmm. And [00:11:00] I dunno, it was a lot more readily available, I feel like. Yeah. I mean, this whole seafood chapter, she, it's not just about fish. Like she talks about clams and muss and oysters. I've literally never eaten those things because I, I don't prefer shellfish overall. I think I've eaten it one oyster in my life and I did not like it.

I don't, it's a texture thing, you know? So, but I don't know what clams and mussels even taste like, because if, even if I go to the, even though I would go to someplace closer to the ocean, I would rather just order fish than, like a shellfish. Mm-hmm. So, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Have you ever had clam chowder?

Yeah, I've had clam chowder. Okay. Yeah. I've just never eaten clam. Like, she talks here about like how you prepare your clams, like, you know, get the sand out of 'em and all this stuff, and I'm like, I would never do that. Yeah. I think some, I think that's another, this is another geographical Yeah. Like section Totally.

Where like, where you grew up really, really matters when it comes to seafood. Yeah. 'cause I'm sure there are people who live on the ocean who like, they're like, oh yeah, we go harvest our own clams. Exactly. [00:12:00] My, stepdad has, uh, access to like a family beach house sort of a thing on the Oregon coast.

And anytime that we've gone there, we tend to go deep sea fishing, and then we, they do like crab pots off the boat. Mm-hmm. So we'll have like the fresh dungeness crab and stuff, which is so delicious. I usually make myself sick with how much crab I eat. But that's, yeah. My seafood experiences are kind of limited, honestly.

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So, uh, we're, we can, we can start with fish and when you're at the grocery store and you're selecting fish, I thought an important thing to note here is that she says the skin of the fish should be shiny and almost metallic. Mm-hmm. She says that the coloring becomes less distinct as the she she says decomposed as the fish decomposes.

Yeah. Which is, I mean, that is what it's doing. It just sounds kind of gross. But so I just thought like that was kind of an important thing. If you're selecting fish, like don't go for the dull ones. You want it to be shiny and like opalescent. Yeah. Another thought, another aspect of this that I thought was interesting is like [00:13:00] so many other sections, she says to shop with your sense of smell.

And I feel like that's a pretty hard thing to do in the grocery, most grocery stores. Because it's already packaged, so it's very difficult to shop. I'm sure if it was smelly enough like fish because she over and over says, if it smells like fish, it's not good. Right. It should smell like the ocean, but not the not fish.

And I think that's a very important distinction because they do smell different. Yeah. And as soon as someone says ocean, I feel like it almost like helps your brain process. Like this doesn't smell like fish. It smells like the ocean. Yeah. But we almost associate those two smells together. Mm-hmm. Um, and but she, but I think it's interesting 'cause if I'm shopping, let's just say I'm at Costco and I'm gonna buy some salmon.

It's prepackaged. Yeah. I can't smell it unless it was very strong. Right. Um, in which case you wouldn't buy it, in which case I wouldn't buy it. Right. Uh, but I thought that was just another important thing. Like she over and over again says, shop with your eyes and with your sense of smell. Which I think is important, especially if you're at like, I'm thinking like Seattle, like Pikes Place, market.

Like the fish is there in front of you and you can almost, like it's not [00:14:00] packaged. It's right there. It's right in front of you. Yeah. In like an ice. An ice like display. Yeah. So which is a great time to use your sense of smell. Yeah. One of the, this is, maybe I shouldn't be calling this out so directly, but every time I go into our Whole Foods here in town, it smells bad like fish.

It, uh, that is the only smell that I smell in our whole foods and it like, like it overpowers the whole store. Mm-hmm. I, I would probably never buy fish there if I was gonna buy fish. Yeah. It's, sorry, whole Foods. Well, it's just ours and it is concerning and it is very pungent in there. Yeah. It's not the ocean.

Not the ocean. It's definitely not ocean smell. Mm-hmm. All right. So she spends a good amount of time here talking about salmon since she said salmon is one of the most popular fish that we eat in the United States. And there's essentially two different kinds of salmon. Um, you have wild salmon and farm raised salmon, wild salmon is most often Pacific salmon, so somewhere off the coast.

Oregon, Washington, usually Alaska and [00:15:00] the rivers of Alaska. Um, and then Atlantic salmon is usually farm raised salmon because there are very few wild Atlantic salmon in the existence anymore. Yeah. On that note, I actually found this very interesting. She said that Lan Atlantic salmon has a milder flavor than Pacific salmon and is often larger in size because it's fed a diet at a farm.

You know, that's very specific. Mm-hmm. And then like fish that's like wild caught is often leaner because they're so active and they're swimming upstream and they're doing all the things that they do. Their life is a little bit more, how a fish is life normally would be. Mm-hmm. And so they're much leaner.

But I thought, this is an interesting note. I'm gonna say it again. Atlantic salmon has a milder flavor than Pacific Salmon. Because if you love salmon but you feed someone in your home who does not like fish very much. Yeah. It might be a note to choose Atlantic salmon over Pacific salmon, um, as a gateway of like, um, a lot of people like salmon, even if they don't like fish.

But if you are trying to help encourage people or if you have little kids who are super picky, [00:16:00] it might be a good note. Like, I'm gonna pick this one. 'cause it has a milder flavor, as an intro to fish. Yeah, that's a really good note. So I'm very spoiled to salmon. I, my grandparents would live in Alaska, like 50% of uh, a little over 50% of the year every year.

And they would ship us fresh caught salmon, flash frozen into like an ice, like a dry ice cooler. Mm-hmm. Ev almost every year I feel like. And so I grew up eating incredibly good salmon, from Alaska. So I'm very spoiled in that way. And then when they would come back, they would bring canned salmon and all the filets, everything fr like they, they, their house is a very salmon rich environment, even though it was the middle of Georgia.

And so very spoiled, to that. And I didn't realize like how spoiled I was to that. 'cause you know, as a kid you just don't realize those kinds of things. But as I've grown up and one, I look at the price of, of salmon in the grocery store and, two, as I like am married to someone who ate very little fish growing up, but he is from Colorado, so we'll give him a [00:17:00] break.

I just realized how spoiled I was to that. Yeah. Was there a fish? Did you eat? You, did you, you didn't eat any fish growing up? No, we ate, uh, the most fish, the most often that we ate was trout. Because we would go fishing. Yeah. And we would eat the fish that we caught. Yeah. Yeah. Trout's really good. So like when we would go camping and stuff, we would then like cook our trout on the fire kind of a thing.

Mm-hmm. So like I have really good memories of that. I love that. But yeah, my mom doesn't really like salmon, so I didn't grow up eating a lot of salmon. Probably the first time I ate salmon when I was like a teenager. Yeah. And yeah. So I wouldn't say that I grew up eating zero fish, but uh, I also didn't go to the ocean for the first time until I was like 14.

So Yeah. Like I just didn't have as much exposure to fresh seafood. Yeah. When I was 16, I went to Alaska with my cousin who's the same age as I am. Mm-hmm. And we got to stay with my grandparents for 10 days, I think. And we did a variety of fishing methods, which I'm going to talk to you about now. One of them was beer fishing.

Beer fishing. Yeah. Tell me what you think that is. Mm. [00:18:00] Like you're drinking a beer while you're fishing, like what most people do, like what most, like what fishing looks like for most people. Yeah. No. So we went to the grocery, or we went to like a gas station and we got cases, like huge cases of beer. And then we got on a boat, went out to a commercial fishing boat and traded the commercial fishermen, the cases of beer for those gigantic trash cans full of fresh salmon.

Wow. Like, um, like a 55 gallon, like a 55 gallon, like multiples of them. Whoa. Yeah. So we traded them. Then we took all that back to the beach and it was immediately cleaned, and immediately cooked. And the, I cannot tell you, like, obviously we've talked about this before, that like food tastes better like nostalgia to makes food taste good.

So good. Yeah. But it was one of the coolest experiences. Me and my cousin were both given a job in the cleaning process. So that was kind of a whole new thing. But we were sitting literally standing there on a beach. And I'm not kidding when I tell you, like a flock of eagles was there with us, like there to get [00:19:00] all the remnants of the salmon.

A flock, like a huge amount of eagles, like bald eagles. Wow. It's crazy. Wow. But sitting there on the beach and like, like tons of people came, I don't know exactly the context for who those people were, but we all just like cooked it and ate it. It was really cool. That's awesome. Yeah. That sounds super cool.

Yeah. So the other way we caught fish was, um, wheel fishing. Someone that they know, um, had one of those wheels set up in the river and so it would scoop. It was continuously scooping fish out of the river. And you just went and you got it from the wheel, like it did all the work for you. Mm-hmm. But so we went with someone who had that set up in a river's super cool, and went and caught salmon that way too.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it was very cool. That's super cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, technically right now it's like Prime Alaska fishing time. Mm-hmm. Right. Like the, this is when all of the, uh, the fish come to spawn and the rivers in Alaska is like middle, middle summer. So right now would be the time. Yeah. We were there over July 4th, so it was prime, it was prime time.

That's [00:20:00] awesome. Yeah. So I wanted to mention, episode 78 of the podcast. I talked to a lady named Cena Wheeler. Wheeler, not Wheeler, Cena Wheeler. And she. It, her and her family run a fishing boat and they, , they live most of their time in Washington state and then her husband and a couple of her kids go up to Alaska in the summertime and they fish commercially.

And they fish for salmon, they fish for Copper River salmon specifically, which in Alaska, like the na, if it's, if it's Copper River Salmon, like it came from the Copper River, right. So like there are certain fish, certain species, I guess of salmon that, that come with a specific name because that's the name of the river that they're fished from.

And I'm bringing this up because in the book. Carol Ann talks about like the difference between wild caught and farm raised and kind of like some of the pros and cons of both of them. And it was really interesting though to have a conversation with somebody who their family does wild caught fishing.

Yeah. Because her argument against farmed [00:21:00] fish is that they are kept in pens and enclosures. Mm-hmm. And it's not just that it's like overcrowded and they get disease, they can get diseased more easily. But the waste byproduct from those farms, they like, once they harvest all of the fish, they just like open the pen and all of the waste byproduct like goes out into the ocean and it's like overly concentrated.

Mm-hmm. And can actually cause a lot of die off of different species in the like perimeter, you know, like the closest area in the ocean to that because it's just like so densely concentrated from all of the fish being in that pen. So I thought that was super fascinating. Something that like you really don't know about, particularly if you don't live close to the ocean.

Whereas like a salmon, like in a river, it's the eco, it's a natural ecosystem. Yeah. And also there's like a fil like a natural filtration system Yeah. Of a river and a natural, like it's always moving. Yeah. And like there's all those aspects, which is really Right. Yeah. Really important. Because one of the reasons that people will make an argument for farmed salmon [00:22:00] is the sustainability aspect of it.

Of, you know, there's a, and she says that, she says it in this book, is that there's a higher demand for salmon than there are populations of salmon currently. However, one of the things that Sena said in the podcast is that now fishing has become built into those ecosystems. Mm-hmm. And so if they, if they prevented, um, you know, fisher people from coming into the rivers and actually fishing, the populations of the fish would grow too large, be to be, to be sustainable in that area.

Because fishing, they have now. Managed the populations well enough that fishing is just a part of that ecosystem. Right? Like we have to remember that there's like biologists and stuff who do this for their full-time job. Right. Like managing the fish, pop fish populations. Yeah. And she also said that because these fish are so like coveted and they make so much money for the area that the conservation of wild land area is like, is very high.

Yeah. Like the conservation efforts are huge. They're not putting in mining there and they're not doing [00:23:00] fracking there, you know? Mm-hmm. Like, it's very protected. So like there are other benefits to the wild caught salmon just than like higher, higher omega threes and whatever the like health benefits could be.

So yeah. She says that king salmon is found along the coast of central California all the way to Alaska. When caught in a prestigious river like the Columbia or the Copper King salmon can be very pricey. But it makes sense for why. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think every state. And region of the country probably has something that they are very aware mm-hmm.

Is protected. Like where we live, elk, like elk hunting is very protected, elk are very protected. There's a lot of efforts towards protecting that population. Yeah. Just in general, hunting in Colorado is very, very, regulated. Regulated, great word. A very regulated part of our, just part of our ecosystem here, right?

Mm-hmm. Um, and so in places like por, uh, not Portland in places like Oregon, Washington, Alaska, like I'm, I'm sure that like what we feel about hunting, they feel about fishery. Yeah, totally. [00:24:00] Yeah. So anyways, that's interesting. If you wanna learn more about wild caught fishing goes into episode 78. Love that.

All right. What else you gotta say about seafood? Because I have never eaten a lot of these things, so I don't have a lot to say. Well, you already answered my question about oysters. Yeah. Don't like 'em. Sorry. I guess. If you were gonna go to the store right now and choose a fish to eat, what would it be?

Probably salmon. Okay. Yeah. Or maybe like a white fish. Mm-hmm. Um, I can't even think of a name of a white fish, like a cod or something, maybe. Mm-hmm. Um, like if you're gonna do like fish tacos. Yeah. I don't have anywhere to tell you to eat this locally, but scallops I think are very good. I've had scallops when I've gone to Mexico, like we had like fresh scallops in Mexico.

I, I've eaten fish. In lots of different places of the world actually. Like had some of the best fish I've ever had in South America. Yeah. And, really good fish in Portugal. So like spoiled. Yeah. So like, I, I would say that I'm kind of spoiled, and I think I mentioned last time on the podcast actually when we were talking about the tender meat, that like, [00:25:00] some of the best salmon I've ever had was actually here in Fort Collins at a sushi restaurant.

They had Copper River salmon on special. Mm-hmm. And I like, I kind of hate that I didn't go back like three days in a row to eat more of it. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about and where you're talking about it's so, they are, they, salmon is usually very good. They do such a good job. They did a great job.

So I really like scallops. I like, you know mm-hmm. Wanted to recommend them to you if you're not a big fish eater. Yeah. Um, but I think you, I, this is why I couldn't recommend a restaurant locally to have them. Mm-hmm. Because I feel like you do have to have them cooked very well, but if you do have them cooked very well, they're very buttery and mm-hmm.

Yeah. But they're not chewy or Right. You know, they're, they're perfect. But yeah. Do you like crawfish? That was another big section of the book. She gives a big, like tons of information about how to order them. Mm-hmm. How to select the live crawfish. So if that is something that you cook in your region of the world, I really highly recommend this book 'cause she has some really great practices.

Or if you're new to it and you want to do it, there's some really great tips in here. So I [00:26:00] have had like crawfish etuffee and I think I like it like that. Our former coworker, Shelby, had a crawfish broil for her husband mm-hmm. This last year for his birthday. And I tried like a, a whole crawfish at that point in time and it was fine.

I wouldn't say that it would be something that I would be seeking out. So again, but again, I'm not somebody who would naturally order lobster at a restaurant. Not that I have anything against lobster. It's just not something I would order. And maybe that's also just 'cause I live in Colorado. If I went to Maine, I'd probably eat tons of lobster, you know?

But I love lobster here in Colorado. I'm just not like, eager to eat lobster. Sure, I understand. Yeah. I really enjoy lobster. I, um, so I went to college in Mississippi and it's amazing. Um, this is like a, just speaking to like geographical regions of the country. Mm-hmm. Um, I grew up in Alabama and we never, I never had crawfish, not one time, but then I went to Mississippi for college and there was a crawfish broil like every other week.

Oh yeah. And it was a totally new experience for me. One I'm still very hesitant about, but it's a fun [00:27:00] experience. So with a bunch of these different shellfish in here, she does mention that when you find 'em at the grocery store, if they've been soaked in sodium triple phosphates, you should pass on that version of the grocery store.

I don't. Recall her saying exactly why. But again, in general, she doesn't recommend buying meat products that have been soaked in any sort of liquid. Mm-hmm. Because just I think it's that absorption factor. Mm-hmm. Of like they absorb the liquid and then when you cook it, uh, you it's gonna release that liquid, you're not gonna get a good sear on it.

And then potentially, particularly actually if you're buying something based on weight, if it's absorbed that liquid, you're gonna pay more for something that's not actually, the density of it isn't actually the meat. Exactly. It's partially the liquid. Yeah. So I don't know that I have much else to say on the section of sea fit a seafood, but I just wanna say she goes into squid, octopus, how to select fish for sushi, making a seafood stock.

Mm-hmm. I just [00:28:00] feel incredibly impressed by her. Yeah. Like that she has inform like that she's telling people, here's how you prepare squid. Right. I have never prepared squid. Nope. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't know that I ever will. I probably will, not either, but I am very grateful to have her knowledge shared with the world unless I like went somebo somewhere, you know, had amazing squid and I wanted to try to replicate it.

But again, it's so hard to find those things fresh in Colorado. Mm-hmm. I would be hesitant to, and once again, we don't really do a lot of fish in my house. I did wanna mention one thing in here. If you're somebody who wants to make sushi at your house and you wanna use fish for it, just know that sushi fish, fish for sushi, has previously been frozen.

It, they're actually specific, uh, FDA guidelines where the fish for sushi has to be frozen at negative 31 degrees fahrenheit or lower. And this is to kill any parasites that could be in the fish. So also, if you're somebody who is leery [00:29:00] of sushi for. You know, potential parasites or whatever. This is the one of the reasons why fish is safe to eat raw as sushi because it's already gone through this freezing process no matter where you get your sushi.

Mm-hmm. Um, it has been frozen, whether you're getting it, you know, on the coast or here in Colorado, it was frozen before it became sushi. That's a great note. Let's move into how to select and store deli products. Oh yeah. And this is not just deli meat. We're talking macaroni salad and everything. I love it.

That's, that's the one you clued in on. It's not just meat, it's also macaroni salad. I was trying to think of other things you might see in the cold case. And the only other thing that came too was like, frogeye salad, but I don't know if our grocery store has frogeye salad. But that would, it would make sense.

That's such a Midwest thing. A lot. I bet a lot of people don't even know what frogeye salad. Well, I had never heard a frogeye salad until I moved here and my husband's family cooks it or makes it. Yeah. I don't think you really cook [00:30:00] anything about that. I don't. Um, the pasta. The pasta, yeah. But if you're wondering, I can give you a recipe real quick while you start talking about deli products.

I'll make up a recipe. Well, I was gonna say it's like a CII to Pepe. The bii to pepo. How do you say that? I'm not really sure how you say the type. They're like little noodles that look like little grains, right? Yes. And then it's, and then there's marshmallows often in it. There's mandarin oranges, maybe coconut pineapple, or is it jello instead of marshmallows?

I don't really remember. My grandma grew up in Kansas and so it's, it's more of a Midwest thing, but she would always make it, my husband's family is Colorado born and raised. So they do it. Yeah. Pineapple tidbits. Crushed pineapple, pineapple juice, sugar, egg yolks, salt corn starch, athe de pepe.

There it is. Noodles, mandarin, oranges, shredded coconut mini marshmallows, banana heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar whipping cream. I was, yeah. And for the record, it is considered a side dish, not a dessert. Right, very [00:31:00] true. Yep, yep. And I'm sure all these, I'm sure all these Midwest moms are like, heck yeah, that's on the dinner every time we have a cookout that we're always making frogeye salad.

That and the Hawaiian roll sliders totally. Actually just made some of those last week and they're really, I saw a recipe on Instagram and I was like, that looks really good. Super good. And so easy dinner was Tell tell us about 'em in case people listening. Don't dinner was, dinner was ready in like 15 minutes.

Yeah. So you buy the Hawaiian rolls. At the grocery store. This one called for the ones that were like pretzel bun Hawaiian rolls. So like a Hawaiian roll is like a sweet roll naturally. But then because it's the pretzel bun, it had like a little bit more, it's like a sweet and savory, which that's my fave.

And then this one called for, I think it was like Swiss cheese. And so you cut the whole Hawaiian roll thing in half so that it's like you have like two big sheets of Hawaiian roll. Uh, you put your cheese on it, you broil it in the oven until the cheese melts. And then this one was fried [00:32:00] chicken, so you like chopped up fried chicken and put it on there.

And then honey mustard dressing, Ooh. And tomatoes. And there might have been something else that I'm forgetting, but it was really good. Wow. Super good. That is a very non-traditional Hawaiian roll sandwich. Yeah. Typically, I think a Hawaiian roll sandwich is more like Italian sub, isn't it? Like Italian meats?

No. Or is it ham and cheese? It's ham Swiss. Um, I, I don't remember. I've never actually made it, but my friend growing up, her mom would make it a lot. Okay, cut in half. Swiss is the Hawaiian rolls ham Swiss, and it's like a brown sugar. Oh, butter mixture is poured over the entire thing. Okay. Poppy seeds baked in the oven.

Okay. I didn't know that one. Oh yeah. Wow. You're missing out on, I guess it's another like, shout out to our Midwestern listeners because I feel like that's also another very Midwestern dish. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.

Whole deli meats refer to a section of meat or poultry that has been cooked and flavored with salt, spices, or sugars. It's an all meat product. Sectioned and formed. Deli meats are [00:33:00] prepared from several chunks of meat and are bonded together using a non-meat additive. Processed deli meats include any type of meat that is chopped, seasoned, and formed into a symmetrical shape like bologna.

Mm-hmm. And I just felt like this was super helpful because I feel like if you don't know, like if you go to the deli and you get something like you don't know maybe what you're buying. Yeah. Um, if you're buying a processed meat or if you're buying a whole meat product, your supermarket's gonna sell deli meats in two different locations.

The deli and then like the meat and dairy department, like you're very familiar with this, right? Yeah. You go to the deli and you get it cut versus if you go to, or they've prepackaged it for you. Yeah. Or you go to where there's like prepackaged cheese slices, right. And then you're gonna find lunch meat there too.

And like Tyson brand lunch meat. Yeah. Yeah. I'm interested about the sectioned and formed deli meat because she doesn't give an example of that. But do you think it's just like, it's still chicken, right? Like it's still all chicken. It's just not the chicken breast specifically. It's like, it could be some chicken breast meat, some chicken thigh meat and they just kinda [00:34:00] like put the extras together.

That's kind of what I'm thinking also. It's just, so like it, so like it's bonded together with a non-meat additive, which I think is the important thing to note about that is like, it might be a bunch of meat pro, a bunch of chicken products. Mm-hmm. Like together. Mm-hmm. But then they're, they're made into Right.

With a non-meat additive, which I think is really, like, she even says later, I personally prefer purchasing boards head, and having an, uh, having her meat cut to order because there's no additives to it. Right. Yeah. Nothing like non meat in it. Yeah. Yeah. I was just trying to figure out like, what's the difference between the sectioned informed deli meat versus the processed, like what's the difference between baloney and the other one, because I'm, that's why I'm just thinking like the other one is like, it's not just a single chicken breast that's being sliced.

Right, right. It's potentially multiple chicken parts, which sounds bad, but Yeah.

Yeah. So section form deli meat refers to meat products made by combining smaller pieces or chunks of meat to create a larger product. Okay. Yeah, so that's kind of what I was thinking. A common [00:35:00] example is a multi-part Turkey breast, where various pieces of Turkey are put together Oh, okay. And then sliced.

Okay. So I would guess so. Yeah. I would say that's probably the more budget friendly option compared to the, to the whole deli meat. Right. Because there's only, so there's only two chicken, there's only two chicken breasts on a chicken. Right. And so if you're slicing just the chicken breast, that's gonna, you're gonna run out of it a lot faster, you know?

Versus if you're able to put parts from all of the chicken together mm-hmm. To create your deli meat, it's gonna be a little more cost effective. Yep.

So one of the things that I really appreciated about this section, um, and we will go into this more a little bit later, but she does a really good job of telling you how much to purchase mm-hmm. For the serving sizes that you need. Which I think for the most part in my life, I've literally just made a guess.

Totally. I'm hopeful that this pound will cover our lunches all week, but if, you know, my family of four has two sandwiches each, that's eight sandwiches, which means the pound of meat is gone. [00:36:00] Totally. Um, she says that, she says one pound of deli meat will make three to five sandwiches depending upon the amount of meat you put on a sandwich.

She typically puts a quarter of a pound of meat on a sandwich, which I feel like is substantial, but when you actually start like actually weighing that out, I bet it's not as much as it sounds like I tend to make pretty meaty sandwiches. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I would say our one pound of deli meat probably would get us Yeah.

Closer to the three range. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's super helpful. And then she also mentions here for charcuterie boards, if you're doing, so, if you're serving it for a charcuterie board, you could do three ounces of meat and cheese per person if it's an appetizer, and six ounces if you're planning on having it as your entree.

Mm-hmm. And she, we we're gonna go, she goes a lot more into these food tray situations here in a minute. Yeah. One quick thing to note, if you're purchasing your deli meat from a deli counter, there's a lot of very strict rules about how things should be going behind the counter. Mm-hmm. They should be changing their gloves between every customer.[00:37:00] 

They should be changing their gloves between meat and cheese. They should be cutting your meat on a particular slicer and then your cheese on a different slicer. And then everything should be cleaned in between each, order or every time they slice something different. Um, and if you notice that these things aren't happening, you might wanna purchase.

At a different deli or you might wanna purchase like a prepackaged meat. Mm-hmm. But I thought that those were really, uh, helpful things mm-hmm. To just know, just to watch out for using that sense of eyesight in the grocery store again. Yeah. And just kind of monitoring what's happening, and yeah.

Just making a different choice. Yeah. Or even asking to talk to the store manager and being like, look, I was not impressed by the deli practices. Yeah. And, and like that is more of a risk of illness, right? Like there's a risk of illness with that. Right. Because then things can get like, icky on a slicer.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so potentially if you wanna tell somebody Yeah, but you might need to, but it's more of like just a health practice. Right. Again, as with almost everything you can freeze your deli meat and cheese. She [00:38:00] mentions that if you want to make the thawing process easier, you could place a piece of wax paper in between each slice.

Which might be a little bit too much work, but I could see how that would make it easier. Also, if you were like buying a pound of deli meat, but you didn't think you would thaw it all at the same time, you could maybe put a piece of wax paper in between every, like four slices or something, so then you could easily pull four slices out to thaw.

Yeah. I think that's actually a really great suggestion for someone who, maybe cooks like for one a lot, you might have a great deal on lunch meat or deli meat or whatever your situation is, maybe a coupon and you buy two pounds of meat. Mm-hmm. And you're not gonna consume that in one week. Or you might, if you do great, but if you're not going to just like that idea of just like buying those little, like even pre-cut parchment sheets to just have an easier time freezing it.

I feel like it's a great suggestion for someone especially who's gonna be just like, I need lunch meat for this week. I'm gonna pull out this amount. Yeah. To thaw. Mm-hmm. All right. So as I mentioned before, the deli is not [00:39:00] just deli meat. There's also the hot food, which might be, um, you know, like the fried chicken, things like that.

She says that when it comes to rotisserie chickens, fried chicken, anything like that, make sure you're getting it from a place where it's hot. And then her overarching recommendation for pretty much all of this stuff is that if it's not gonna go into the refrigerator, right, right away, when you get home, you wanna eat it within like two hours.

Mm-hmm. So another suggestion is to put it in a 200 degree oven, until you're gonna consume it, which is gonna keep it at the right temperature and also be hot when you're ready to eat it. Right? Essentially simulating the environment. It'd be like at the grocery store under the heating lamps. Yeah.

Again, using your eyes to shop those products. Mm-hmm. Um, making sure you're buying things that don't look dried out or like they have some kind of icky stuff on them. Yeah. Or that maybe they got warm. Mm-hmm. Um, any of those things, using your eyes to look for those things. Yeah. So when it comes to the prepared entrees and side dishes that you can get from the deli [00:40:00] counter, she says it's, it's an.

Just an interesting thing to know. She's not saying that one is better than the other, but some of the things are made in house at the deli by the people who work there. And some of them are actually like made at a separate facility and then frozen and shipped to the different grocery stores where they're then thawed and put into the deli counter.

So if you prefer something that was made in-house, she says it should be labeled as chef prepared. Mm-hmm. So if that's something that matters to you, if you want something that was for sure freshly made look for that label. I think that's actually really helpful because, uh, I don't think that we always consider where our food came from.

Totally. Um, especially because we do shop at a grocery store in our connection to the food we eat is a little disjointed from the past, right? Mm-hmm. And how we used to make everything and very connected to the animals we raised and our own gardens and things along those lines. But, I think it's just a helpful note to say like, sometimes food is prepared at like a.

Like a facility in your, in your geographical area, like it might not even be that [00:41:00] close and then it's shipped to your store. Yeah. And again, just that length of time between preparation and consumption can get kind of iffy. Mm-hmm. Um, and so, but if it says chef prepared, it was made in your store. Yep.

And so I think that's just a helpful thing to kind of keep clue in on. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she also brings up, deli trays, either sandwich trays or fruit Fruit platters, veggie platters. And she says, you know, with the cost of food nowadays, you might prefer to make these things yourself instead of buying them from the grocery store if you have the time.

Mm-hmm. And I thought this was a really great section. If you're feeling like, I have no idea. How to make a veggie tray or a fruit tray As nice as they make it at the grocery store. Yeah. And because she's worked in a grocery, I appreciate her perspective here because she says, I know this is more expensive Yeah.

To buy it pre-made, but I'm gonna give you the secret. Right. The book is called Grocery Store Secrets. Yeah. Like, she's literally given us the, the tea mm-hmm. On how they do it in the store. And so she said a lot of the time they like put lettuce down underneath the tray so that it looks nice. She [00:42:00] suggests using kale underneath your fruit because it helps keep the juices from running together.

And it's like also very pretty. Yeah. Kale. So beautiful, curly and I loved that advice. Yes. Because I really don't, I'm, I'm not somebody who doesn't want any of my food to touch ever. But I really don't like mingling juices. Especially if they're like different things. It's fine if it's like a pineapple next to a watermelon, whatever.

It's fruit. It's fruit. But if you were having like both vegetables and fruit on the tray. Mm. I don't really want my carrots to taste like pineapple juice. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. That's a great point. Another like insider tip I felt like she gave here, with a veggie tray. Is to soak your celery and carrots in ice water for 30 minutes to make them more crisp.

Mm. And I don't know, I love celery. I know. I'm like an I know. I'm like the only person in the world who really like love celery too. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. I just am surrounded by people who think it's disgusting. Oh. But I really like it and I just also really like it at restaurants.

Yeah. And I never knew what made it so much better. Yeah. Other than that, somebody else made it for me. So [00:43:00] food tastes better sometimes at a restaurant. Totally. But I love this tip and it like, it was like that light bulb moment where I'm like, oh, this is why it's better, because it's way more crisp and super cold.

Yeah. Yeah. She also mentions that, for vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, and pea, like peas in their pod, you can blanch them really quickly in order to like, make them more vibrant. And so blanching is just, you like dip 'em in boiling water and then you'll put 'em, and then you put 'em in like an ice water bath after the fact.

So if you're looking for that really, like, pretty, like if you're like, like, I don't wanna put these peas out, they're all like dull and I don't know, you can just blanch 'em really quick and then they'll be bright green. I love that. My, uh, last favorite tip from this section, or I guess there's probably a few more, but one of my other favorite tips is that she suggests hollowing out a red bell pepper or a colorful pepper for your dip.

Yeah. And I loved that. Yeah. I can't believe I've never thought of it. I mean, it's such a, like, obvious thing. Mm-hmm. But it's a perfect bowl. It's the perfect size for like, usually you can buy them very large. Yeah. And you can put [00:44:00] a lot of dip and then surround it with all, I feel like what a pretty addition to a veggie tray.

Mm-hmm. It makes me think about last year there was a really, in the fall there was the, like a trend that I remember seeing on social media of all these people who were making like pumpkin soup and they were hollowing out a pumpkin to serve the pumpkin soup in, or maybe it was like a pumpkin dip or something.

I don't remember, but like using pumpkins as like the cute little holder for their stuff. Yeah. And then it's also just like really easy to clean up. Yeah. You can just toss it, chunk it. Yep. Chunk it, chunk it. So super cool thing that she does in here. Is that she, she has this whole list for if you're catering, self-catering, a large gathering.

She gives you like approximate servings. So she gives, she lists all the different food. She says like, what the approximate serving size would be and how much you should buy if you're having 25 people at your house. I thought this was genius. So awesome. Yeah. So give you, and so it's all sorts of stuff.

It's not just, it's not just like fruit and veggies. Yep. I'll just give you a couple of items on [00:45:00] the list to give you an idea, but if you are someone who hosts and are always feeling unsure about how much to buy, this is such a great guide. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm thinking this is such a great purchase before the holidays.

Yeah. uh, coffee soup, mint mints. Mince like mints. I know she has, she has both pillow mints and wafer. Mints. Yes. And then ice cream. Mm-hmm. Fruit charts. Just how, how many like. Servings of meat or fish for the amount of people, like based on if you're having, boneless meat or meat with the Bone Inn, like, it's amazing.

Yeah. One thing I disagree with though is that she, for coffee, she gives every person one six ounce serving of coffee. Yeah. And there is no way that that would last at my gathering. I love, I love also ice cream. Yeah. One half cup serving, one half cup serving or punch. Punch is one also one six ounce serving.

Yeah. I'm like, one kid's gonna drink like a half a gallon. Let's be real. Yeah. But one, one thing I'll say is [00:46:00] that this is such a great estimate because that's assuming that all 25 of your guests are eating it. Right. And so this does allow for some wiggle room without a lot of leftover waste. Yeah.

Which I, there's nothing worse than having just like mm-hmm. A single. Like, well, or like having the ice cream in the, and the party like melt on your counter. Totally. 'cause it didn't get consumed. Like, I think this is helpful because it does account for that. Yeah. Um, I was just mostly making a joke about the ice cream and coffee because in my house, those two, no one eats the serving size of those two things.

So True. That's so true. She does also mention that if you plan to serve it buffet style instead of like, you know, serving plates of food that you should increase your, the portions that she gives here by about 10% because people are gonna, you know, do a little more when they have their own control.

Yeah. Yeah. Love that. This book has been so good. I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed this book. I, I think we've recommended it in every episode. I can't recommend it enough because I thought it was super helpful. Carol Ann was also so sweet and sent Riley and [00:47:00] I, a copy of her cookbook.

Secret recipes from the corner market. And that also, if you're looking for a more condensed version of grocery Shopping Secrets, that also includes an incredible amount of recipes, incredible amount of recipes. Uh, I would recommend Secrets From the Corner Market, secret Recipes from the Corner Market, because she does have a whole section in the back.

Mm-hmm. That is clearly what inspired Grocery Shopping Secrets. It's a whole section on selecting fruit and vegetables and different things. Yeah, she does even have a section on the vegetable platters, like we just talked about. Mm-hmm. There are so many yummy looking recipes in here. I can't wait to try some, um, maybe we'll put a picture in the Instagram or in our Instagram account so that you can see, but like the, the, the recipe book is.

Huge. Oh yeah. And it's beautiful. Yeah. Like it's huge. It's like so easy to read. Yeah. The recipes are clear, it's well organized. And then grocery shopping secret's a little bit more portable. Yeah. So if you're looking for something that's a little bit more like a, I need to put this in my car. Yeah. So I can reference it when I walk into the store, which I think [00:48:00] I'll do.

I mean, honestly, like there's so many things in here that, uh, I wanna reference. Like, or maybe I'll reference it with my grocery list before I go. Mm-hmm. So I'm reminded of how to select something in particular. But just that, you know, like one's for your counter, the recipe book is for your counter so you can look at it.

So pretty. And the other one's a little more portable. Yeah. We've loved this book though. Highly recommend it. So many good tips and tricks in here. All right. Let's move on to some dinner dilemmas. What do you say? Let's do it.

All right. Book. Mom says her dinner. Dinner dilemma is having everyone be happy with the meal at the same time. Oh, this is so relatable. I don't have a lot of good tips for this one because I only have two people to feed and my husband's not a complainer. So, you know, I think that this is where, like my assumption right now is kids are the ones that are not happy with the meal at the same time.

And I could be wrong, but I'm gonna go with the, I'm gonna go with the advice I'm like, kind of thinking of right now because I think it [00:49:00] applies even if it's not kids. But, I know I reference Katie Kimball all the time, but having. Your children or your picky eater be a part of the meal planning process.

Not to blame them when the food isn't what they like, but to help them feel included and they're picking like they're picking something, that they enjoy. Maybe if everyone is very picky at your house and not, and no one's literally ever gonna be happy, then maybe having like, instead of doing casserole, doing dishes with a bunch of sides so that there's options, everyone's presented with the same options, but you can maybe get a larger serving of the what something everyone likes, like tater tots.

Mm-hmm. Um, and a smaller serving of the black eyed peas or whatever your per people don't like. But so there's like a pick and choose situation and also like a portion thing. Like you're not just serving an enchilada of casserole and being like, this is the only thing I made. Um, but having meals that have parts so that there you can get a larger serving of what you like and a smaller serving of what you don't.

Having people be a part of the meal planning process is a way to help with that. Having them be a part of the [00:50:00] cooking process. And also I feel like, just like knowing the people in your family sometimes like, the way I've kind of gone about it at my own house is like, I know not everyone's gonna be happy all the time.

But like I know tomorrow night they'll enjoy dinner, but the next night they might not. And just being like that is kind of how life works, unfortunately. Yeah. Like, we're not always thrilled with the options in front of us. And that, that, like, while that sounds really insensitive, as I say it out loud, it's also created, like, my kids are really not very picky because day to day they're not really getting a lot of, like, they get choices like, don't get me wrong, like lunch, they get a choice.

Breakfast they get a choice, but dinner is like really, like, I planned it, I cooked it, they are going to eat it. And sometimes they love it and sometimes they don't. But just like putting that food in front of them all the time has kind of created like less picky children. And, and, and I didn't come up with that on my own.

It was a Katie Kimball recommendation and just like a thing that we've put into practice and it's really helped. I don't know if this is great advice, because it's a really [00:51:00] hard one to make everybody happy. It is hard. But yeah, I mean, I think Katie Kimball's advice is always good on this. Having the people in your house have their own ownership of a meal.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Whether they helped with the planning or with the cooking. I think that that's a big one because. Oh, psychologically it's the thing that makes sense, you know? Yeah. There's an investment level, Uhhuh. Yeah. Yep. Good luck book Mom. You got this.

Alright. Leah says, as a single person who loaves leftovers, I have trouble meal planning for just one. Cooking for friends is easy, but cooking much less planning for one is hard. Please help. I tend to go back to the, if you're not a leftovers person, really utilizing the freezer. Mm-hmm. And. U unfortunately, I think when you don't like leftovers sometimes that means that there's a little more cooking involved.

But also, I'm thinking actually similar advice to this since is in, if you don't like leftovers, instead of cooking a casserole or a soup or something where it's the exact same meal every time, [00:52:00] every single time you eat it. Cooking more of these like pick and choose, like you do more of a meal prep for your cooking.

And so you have rice and you have a protein and you have some veggies and you can kind of mix and match, make a, a different sauce or put it in a tortilla one day and then you're making a rice bowl and next day mm-hmm. Something like that. So it feels like there's variety. And then you're not cooking every single night necessarily.

You're just kind of like assembling the things that you've already cooked on different nights. And then again, just like utilizing the freezer, if you do make something like a casserole or soup or something like proportioning things into single serving sizes, putting 'em in your freezer and maybe you don't mind eating something the same thing on Monday and Friday.

Mm-hmm. Um, or even two weeks from now, you're, it's okay to eat that same thing. Mm-hmm. You know, we've talked about this a bit. The, one of the things that comes to mind with people who don't like leftovers, is that potentially the way you reheat your food is not like the, the way that helps the food kind of maintain.

Its like [00:53:00] deliciousness from the first time you ate it. Yeah. So maybe looking into a different, like, heating method, like maybe you use the microwave. The microwave almost always makes food taste weird. Yeah. I think, um, weird textures and, but using like an air fryer, especially as someone who is like a single, like you're cooking for yourself, like an air fryer is such, I mean, I love an air fryer.

Me too. Like, I'm gonna sing the praises of an air fryer like forever. But for one, like you can really reheat food in it too, and it works great. Yeah. And it's faster than the oven. But it's similar to the oven. And so maybe like switching your reheating method might allow you to like, like leftovers more.

But if you can reframe your thinking into the meal prep of like, I made all these pieces that I can turn into different foods and I already know what those are gonna be. It's like one of the things that I did this week is, I made like taco, ground taco meat, and I made that viral, like cottage cheese, taco meat, sweet potatoes, avocado, hot honey bowl, which everyone in my family loved everyone.

I was shocked, like even my kids loved it. But I took all that leftover taco meat and I made breakfast burritos with it [00:54:00] and like, it didn't feel like we were eating leftovers. Mm-hmm. And my kids were like, oh my goodness, this meat is so good. I'm like, we've already had it before. Mm-hmm. But I don't think they even realized that we'd already eaten it one time this week.

Yeah. So if you can kind of change, like if you can literally change the life of your leftover to be a totally different meal, I'm not sure if it would help you, but I'm thinking. It might. Yeah, it really might. Oh, I made a big pork shoulder roast in the crockpot, uh, maybe it's two weeks ago. And it was like one night we had pulled pork barbecue, pulled pork sandwiches with it.

Another night we had burrito bowls with it. Another night we had it in ramen, and then the last night we had is chilaquiles. Nice. And so it's like literally, I mean, I, I cooked the main thing and we ate it the entire week and then I just had to kind of, you know, make the extra things to go along with it.

Mm-hmm. So. I think there are things like that that can be, and I mean like a whole pork shoulder roast for a single person would go even longer. You would definitely wanna freeze some of it, but like, just ideas like that that I think are [00:55:00] in Yeah, like you're saying kind of like instead of looking at that as like leftovers, it's just like, I'm just like using it in a different way.

Yeah. The other thing that I keep thinking about is it is pretty difficult to cook a single portion of something, but using plan to eat and using the serving size feature to literally change a recipe from serving eight to serving one. Yeah. Um, it's gonna totally change the dynamic of cooking 'cause you're gonna need way smaller, like measuring tools.

You're gonna probably end up like. Taking like a can of diced tomatoes, you don't need the whole thing of diced tomatoes, but you can freeze those leftovers too. Mm-hmm. And so just knowing that, like, you're gonna cook a little more, but you are going to, and you're gonna have all these pieces in your freezer, you're probably actually gonna have to shop a lot less.

Oh yeah. But maybe looking at, okay, I'm gonna plan foods that like two different recipes, call for those diced tomatoes so that they're very different recipes. Like maybe one's Mexican and one's Italian. But you know, like you're gonna use that one can of diced tomatoes and you're gonna use it up the whole week.

It's just, you're gonna keep it kinda in the freezer and in between. And then I'm thinking like, they have like rice, [00:56:00] like they do have microwavable rice. Things that are like more like one to two serving sizes. Mm-hmm. And so instead of just cooking a tiny little pot of rice, maybe buying those, it might cost you a bit more in the long run, but you're gonna be, it's gonna be a little bit simpler of a cooking process.

So kind of leaning into these like, overlapping your planning so your ingredients are overlapping and you're not overbuying, and then like leaning into some things that are made for one. Yeah. 'Cause then you're, it is gonna make your cooking a little bit less like time consuming. Yeah. Yeah. Even you saying that, I'm thinking about like buying frozen vegetables instead of buying fresh vegetables.

Because frozen vegetables you can literally just portion out like a half a cup Totally. Of your frozen vegetables rather than cutting up a zucchini and being like, oh my gosh, I have to eat the whole zucchini. Totally. Yep. Absolutely. That's a great idea.

Alright, Sam says we often have to leave right at or right before dinner getting stuck in the rut of crock pottery and only have a few recipes that actually work for my 3-year-old and 6-year-old. Anything beyond roast or pulled pork chicken tortilla [00:57:00] soup. The sheet pans, the sheet pan work ish. Work ish.

But those require a lot of prep. Would love to find some prep the night before for several dishes that vary. Wow. We, she obviously knows, he, she obviously knows that we talk about our roast and pulled pork a lot. Chicken tortilla soup. Yeah. I mean, we're never trying to be redundant. It's just like, those are good examples.

Right? Yeah. So one thing that I've been making a lot recently that is different from these things that makes a good portion is this, I found it on Instagram probably towards the beginning of the year, and it's these lasagna roll-ups. So instead of making like a lasagna casserole, you're filling each lasagna noodle.

You're like putting your, you're filling on it and then you're rolling it up. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, you, you put those into a casserole dish and you bake it. And so, like, what I typically do is I will make a big enough portion of all of the things that I'll bake half of it right away and save the other half and like put it in the freezer mm-hmm.

So that I [00:58:00] have some in the freezer. I feel like it's a, it's a meal that kids would probably really like and you can portion size the thing small enough since it's just like an individual rolled up lasagna noodle. That like, it would be a good serving size for a three year-old or a 6-year-old.

And, you know, you could use the type of seasonings that your family likes or lack of seasoning that your family likes maybe. And so I think that type of prep could help you quite a bit. Uh, I'll make sure that we link that recipe in the show notes 'cause it's a really great recipe and makes a lot of food.

Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking things like that are awesome to prep the night before for several dishes that vary. The very, the several dishes that vary part is, is tricky, right? Because, I mean, honestly my example of the taco meat in that bowl is like, or like you could take the taco meat, cook it early in the week and then have it, um, as a variety of different things.

And we've said this a lot on the podcast, but like sheet pans of veggies, the time you have, like when you have the time mm-hmm. Do the sheet pan of ve. Tr chop it all, bake, cook it, all the sheet pan, and then it's like there and prepped and ready. Then it could be a [00:59:00] pita, it could be a sandwich, it could be just like a bowl with some kind of meat and sauce, maybe a rice if you have it.

But a lot of things like chicken enchiladas, like if you had a rotisserie chicken, you could take their rotisserie chicken and I'm thinking for a time saving aspect, make chicken enchiladas and then maybe make like a chicken alfredo bake. Those are very different meals, but with the same chicken. Yeah.

Or even like a broccoli Chicken. Cheese, like rice. Yeah. Casserole. What is that thing called? Yeah. Or like a, or I'm even thinking chicken or rotisserie chicken was on my mind too. Like the, like, you know, $4 rot, Chis history chickens at Costco. Yeah. You know, are a great deal. And you could get two of 'em.

Mm-hmm. You could shred the chicken and Yeah. You could make some of those things that Riley mentioned. You could also make just like chicken salad. Yep. You could, I mean. A lot of our recommendations might all be similar. It's just like, maybe like a different Main. Yeah. But the, but the ideas of like putting into a sandwich, putting it into a burrito, putting it into a, a bowl.

Mm-hmm. Um, I think that's like the best way to get a variety Yeah. [01:00:00] Is to just kind of like change the vehicles that you're eating the food with. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Another thing is like a breakfast casserole. Like my kids love a breakfast casserole. You mentioned you have 3-year-old and 6-year-old. Like, my kids love a breakfast casserole and I'll make half of it and then just pour the eggs on right before I cook it.

I mean, and honestly you can cook it and freeze it or you can freeze it with the egg being raw and then it's just, or even I give the suggestion a lot, but like, making something and freezing half and then you're just pulling it out, thawing it, and then putting in, you know, you're pulling it outta the freezer, thawing it, and then putting it in the oven to heat or to cook.

These are ideas that are gonna save you a lot of time and do require a little bit of prep. But it's that idea of like, my future self is gonna thank me for doing this thing. I mean, I freeze stuff all the time and I am like amazed sometimes when I open my freezer and I'm like, oh my goodness, I made Salisbury steaks.

Heck yeah. We're gonna have that for dinner this week. Yeah. Like, because I did that work already and it's just such a, like really low hanging fruit. Yeah. And I'm thinking here too, the, that idea, the sheet pans where you're saying they work ish, but they do require a lot of prep [01:01:00] work. Again, the frozen veggies situation is a really good option for that.

Mm-hmm. I know that there's a, I can't remember what the brand is, but there's a humongous bag that you can buy at Costco that are, they're like fire roasted vegetables. That you can get in the freezer section and they're delicious. Mm-hmm. They're super good. Mm-hmm. So, you know, you could do something like that where it's like you're not really the one who's doing the prep work.

You're just taking it from the freezer and putting it in the oven. Yeah. Yeah. One last idea, like meal idea is I, one night a couple of weeks ago, I grilled a tremendous amount of chicken thighs, and then turned quite a bit of it into like a teriyaki chicken with veggies and rice bowl. And then I turned it into like, I chopped all that chicken and put it on a salad.

And then we also had it in wraps. So it was like, again, it's like one thing, it's just changing how you're eating it and changing the flavor profile, honestly. Mm-hmm. Because like it pretty simple grilled chicken, but it worked in all of those recipes and none of those things took very long to make.

Yeah. I like it.

All right. I think that wraps us up for this [01:02:00] week. Next time we are gonna be back just talking about a meal planning topic. There is actually a survey about the podcast, that we would really appreciate you giving us some of your feedback on so that we know what do you wanna listen to, what do you want us to talk about on the podcast.

So If you haven't gone through and answered that survey for us, uh, if you take just about 30 seconds, it's four quick questions. We would really appreciate that. And as always, we thank you for listening and we'll talk to you in two weeks.