Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 104. Simplify your kid-friendly weeknight dinners with Madison Wetherill

Transcript

104. Simplify your kid-friendly weeknight dinners with Madison Wetherill · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the All Figured Out Podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Andrea Barr. Thanks again for joining me this
• 0:05
  week. OK, so I had an experience that
• 0:10
  I talked about in this episode this weekend where I looked in
• 0:14
  the fridge and there was there was so little.
• 0:17
  Like I'm not gonna say there's nothing cause there was
• 0:19
  condiments and like Pickles and things like that.
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  But I swear there was just nothing in there that could
• 0:26
  create sustenance for my family. And I started to kind of
• 0:30
  question my ability as a parent. I was like, am I not mature
• 0:33
  enough to just stay on top of the fact that we always need
• 0:36
  food in this house? And anyways, it was funny that
• 0:39
  this just happened to happen this past weekend and I was
• 0:42
  questioning all things in life when this week when they all
• 0:45
  figured out podcast, I am going to be joined or I was joined by
• 0:49
  the wonderful Madison Wetherell of Cook at Home Mom.
• 0:53
  She's a Blogger. She has a really big following
• 0:56
  on Instagram and she creates absolutely fantastic recipes
• 1:00
  that are so digestible and easy for families of all different
• 1:05
  food preferences and needs. And we dove head first into the
• 1:09
  wild world of food parenting, feeding ourselves, feeding
• 1:12
  little ones, all that stuff. So like I said, she's a food
• 1:16
  Blogger, she's a mom, three boys, and she is really the
• 1:19
  queen of realistic meal planning.
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  And we really don't talk about these like really stereotypical
• 1:26
  things that we're told to like cook all your food on Sundays.
• 1:30
  Like Madison's approach is very much like choose your own
• 1:33
  adventure, like figure out what works for you and your family.
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  And I just so loved our conversation.
• 1:39
  So we talk about the shame spiral that can come with the
• 1:42
  empty fridge. Like I talked about.
• 1:44
  We talk about how to shift from feeding your family equal stress
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  into something that actually feels good, like truly nourishes
• 1:50
  you in your body that's doable for different preferences in the
• 1:54
  house and why ingredient prepping is way better than meal
• 1:58
  prepping and what exactly that entails.
• 2:00
  We get really nitty gritty in this.
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  I actually just have her walk us through the entire process from
• 2:06
  even preparing to meal plan. Like not even like sitting down
• 2:10
  to plan your meals, but like what do you have to do in order
• 2:12
  to even get to the point where you can meal plan all the way
• 2:16
  through to what the cooking process looks like?
• 2:18
  It is such an awesome conversation.
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  I really enjoyed speaking with her.
• 2:22
  So many good sound bites and Nuggets from this that you can
• 2:25
  walk away and absolutely feel more empowered and excited to
• 2:28
  like stretch that muscle of feeding your family.
• 2:31
  I'm not talking cooking. If you don't even like cooking,
• 2:33
  it doesn't matter. This is just about how can you
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  actually feed yourself, feed your family if you were the cook
• 2:39
  in your household. If you're not the cook in the
• 2:40
  household, you can still listen to this but send it to the
• 2:43
  person who cooks in your house, if you know what I mean.
• 2:46
  Anyways, this is such a fun, fun episode and I hope you enjoy.
• 2:53
  You're listening to the All Figured Out podcast.
• 2:55
  I'm your host, Andrea Barr. I'm a career coach for parents,
• 3:01
  mom of two, and a self-proclaimed expert at
• 3:03
  winging it. After 10 years in the corporate
• 3:06
  world, two major career pivots, and navigating life with kids,
• 3:10
  I've learned one thing. No parent has it all figured
• 3:13
  out, and that's OK. Here, we're all about growing
• 3:16
  personally and professionally while keeping family time
• 3:19
  sacred. You'll get practical tips,
• 3:22
  career strategies and musings on life, plus guest experts to help
• 3:25
  us fill in the gaps. So grab a coffee or hide in your
• 3:29
  car for some me time. We're about to figure out this
• 3:31
  work, life and parenting stuff out together.
• 3:36
  Madison Wetherell, thank you. So did I pronounce that right?
• 3:39
  Yes, you did. OK, I really second guessed
• 3:42
  myself there. Madison Wetherill, thank you so
• 3:44
  much for joining me on the I'll Figure Out Potato.
• 3:47
  Oh my gosh, all figured out podcast.
• 3:49
  Can you tell this is my second recording today?
• 3:52
  You've got this. I'm here to cheer you on for me.
• 3:56
  I'm so excited to chat with you and your audience today.
• 3:58
  Thanks. Maybe I haven't been nourished
• 4:00
  enough today. I just shoved down some like
• 4:03
  apricot toast. Here in Canada we have this
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  beautiful bakery called Cobbs the chain, but like they make
• 4:09
  everything fresh in house and they have this apricot Raisin
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  toast that. Sounds delicious.
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  I grew up on my kids, now eat it.
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  It's like it's so good. It's so good.
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  And let me just plug them for a second because they also have a
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  beautiful program where I'm pretty sure they take leftover
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  breads at the end of the day and they distribute them to shelters
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  and things like that because it's always fresh bread.
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  And like, they're one of those people.
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  I'm just here for it. So I love.
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  That. Well, thanks again for coming
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  on. I'm so excited to chat with you
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  today about food. What a topic in parenting world.
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  The second you get pregnant, it's like a theme, right?
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  Like you're hungry and then the baby comes out and you're like,
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  Oh my gosh, you need to be nourished.
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  And then the toddlers come out and you're like, Oh my God, now
• 4:57
  you need like, it's such a thing, is it not?
• 4:59
  Yeah, it totally is. And it's so funny because I feel
• 5:02
  like it's so not that big of a thing growing up or even like in
• 5:06
  your early adulthood. And then like you said, as soon
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  as there's like another person in the mix.
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  I mean, for me, that was even like after I got married, then
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  it was like my husband was in the mix.
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  And all of a sudden, like the things that maybe I would have
• 5:17
  like taken shortcuts on or done for just myself, all of a sudden
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  I'm like, wait a minute, is that should I do that?
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  Like. And so, yeah, it totally like
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  changes the dynamic once you have multiple people involved.
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  And then you add in like all of the other complications of
• 5:32
  parenthood. And yeah, I think food is one of
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  those things that it's like so much of our daily life is
• 5:38
  surrounded around food, and yet I feel like the average person
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  spends like very little time thinking about it or planning
• 5:44
  it. And we'll get into all of that.
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  But yes, it like food is such a huge thing in all of our lives
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  that I don't think we all realize.
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  It's so true. It's always such an
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  afterthought. Like even this.
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  Like I know that I have to eat during the day.
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  I know I have two podcasts back-to-back.
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  I feed my children and I make them little lunch boxes.
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  But like, I think about this every week.
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  Why do I not make myself a Bento box?
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  Why do I not pack? I have do very cute little lunch
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  bags that are like for adults. Why don't I pack myself a lunch
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  in the morning? What is it that?
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  We think you should. Well, I think honestly, it's,
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  it's a lot easier, I think as parents to like put the needs of
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  our kids, you know, first above all things.
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  And then it's like, if I have time to take care of myself
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  after that, then like, maybe I'll do that.
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  But yes, you are not alone in that at all.
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  I talked to so many people who like forget to eat lunch or
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  forget to pack something for lunch.
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  I mean, I was actually in that camp myself today where I was
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  like, I need to go to the grocery store.
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  That's what I'm doing after my work day today.
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  And so I have very little to eat in the fridge.
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  And it was like, OK, I guess I'm gonna get like, we've got this
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  really cool like to go salad place in Arizona.
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  And so I like grabbed one of those salads.
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  It's like kind of one of my favorite work day treats.
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  And so I'm like, at least I know I'm going to have that.
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  But had I not, I would have been like staring at the fridge like,
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  I guess I'm having an apple today.
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  Actually, we're out of apple. So I don't even know what I
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  would have had. When there's nothing fresh in
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  the fridge, it is OK. This is so funny.
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  We're having this conversation today because we had it sounds
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  like your fridge. Like our fridge for pushing
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  three days, it was like 2 to three.
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  It was really pushing it. I was like, I looked in the
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  fridge. I opened it up and I was like,
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  this is that moment where I'm like, I'm not mature enough to
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  be a parent. Like why am I allowed to be a
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  parent? There is nothing in this fridge.
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  And based on our division of labour, the food is my
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  responsibility. I was just telling you this
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  before my husband. It's laundry.
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  It's like so many other things for me.
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  It's the food. That's my job.
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  And there was nothing in the house.
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  And I felt so much shame around it.
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  I really did. I was like, I don't know where
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  this comes from. Like, to me, being a parent is
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  like having a fridge full of fresh food.
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  It's chopped up, it's ready to go.
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  Like, what is that? What I mean you're, you talk
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  about and you're surrounded by food like all the time for your
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  profession. Like what is that feeling?
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  What is that like shame that's attached to it?
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  I think it comes down to like our maybe innate nature, like
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  the way that we're designed to be caretakers.
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  And I think specifically speaking to the moms like there,
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  and we were talking about this before we hopped on, like it has
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  shifted a lot nowadays. And there's like kind of in
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  modern parenting, there's a lot of, you know, dads who are in
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  charge of the cooking or the prepping or the whatever.
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  But just like historically speaking, like if we go back
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  into, you know, way, way back in time, into like Cavemen time,
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  the women were the ones who were like the caregivers, the ones
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  cooking, doing all of that stuff.
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  And so I think regardless of kind of like how modern worlds
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  have kind of shifted that responsibility, I think it's
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  like ingrained in our DNA to be the caregivers in some way.
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  And so I think when we feel like we're not doing a good job at
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  that, or I mean, not that it's not a good job that there's like
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  not food in the fridge, but that's kind of like a in your
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  face representation of like, oh, I didn't do my job because
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  there's not food in my fridge, right?
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  I think we just feel the weight of that a lot more.
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  And, you know, then you add in like some of our other maybe
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  goals for like, you know, spending money on food or eating
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  a certain way. And then when there's nothing in
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  the fridge, it's like, well, now I'm failing in multiple areas
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  and it's just hard. But I think like, just to give
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  you a little bit of grace, like everyone has those moments.
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  And we can kind of talk about like how to maybe limit how many
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  of those moments kind of pop up throughout the day or the week.
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  But it's totally normal to like, have that response.
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  And I think it ultimately just comes down to that like
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  biological response to like physically care for our
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  children, you know, been thinking about like when they're
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  born, you're physically carrying them, you're physically feeding
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  them, whether that's breastfeeding or bottle feeding
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  or whatever. But like you are doing that
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  work. And so that just carries on
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  through your, you know, your children aging even through like
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  becoming adults and coming back to your house.
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  Like you're going to immediately be like, what am I going to make
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  my kids because they're coming home and I need to feed them,
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  you know? That's so true.
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  It's so true. And there's a lot of, I would
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  love to talk to like, I don't know, psychologists or
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  neuroscience about like the, what is, I guess like your
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  memories around food. I feel like food can be a
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  really, um, what's the word? Like, like I can, I can
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  associate some like beautiful for me, like I have a, a
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  beautiful relationship in history with food.
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  So maybe it's not for everybody, but like our family always, it's
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  like, always sat down together to eat dinner and like our big
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  family occasion centred around food and like making food
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  together and like craziness in the kitchen.
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  Like, so I have like a lot of memories that are like attached
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  to and associated with food. And so maybe that's part of it,
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  too, where I'm like, yeah, like, food is like, like the Raisin
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  toast I was just telling you about.
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  I like, lit up as I'm telling you about this, like, stupid
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  apricot toast from this, like, chain bakery here.
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  But my sister used to put cheddar cheese on it.
• 10:52
  And I thought that was so cool. And she'd give it to me after
• 10:54
  school for a snack. And I was like, oh, my gosh,
• 10:56
  this is the best thing ever. And then I'm telling my daughter
• 10:58
  about it yesterday. Like, there is, it's food is so
• 11:02
  interesting. And I'm very it's.
• 11:04
  Its own language, really. Like, you were just describing
• 11:06
  this, like this way that this food made you feel.
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  And so, yeah, we all have stories of that, whether it's
• 11:12
  good, bad or indifferent, you know, But we all have those
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  stories. So I think that's why food is
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  just so intertwined into not just like the physicality of
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  it's like putting gas in a car where it's like, cool, I checked
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  the box, I did the thing. It's like, it's so much more
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  than that. And it has all of these
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  emotional ties involved in it. So yeah, it's a lot more
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  complicated than I think people make it out to be.
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  And then they're like annoyed at themselves that they didn't, you
• 11:35
  know, do the grocery planning or they didn't do the cooking or
• 11:38
  whatever. And it's like, maybe we all just
• 11:39
  need to kind of step back and like survey, you know, what's
• 11:42
  actually involved in this and realize like, it's actually way
• 11:46
  bigger than we're making it out to be.
• 11:47
  But there are some things you can do to like make it easier
• 11:50
  for sure. Yes, like any good project, you
• 11:52
  got to break it down. So but Speaking of breaking
• 11:54
  things down, I want to hear your story.
• 11:56
  How did you get it? You've got a big following on
• 11:58
  Instagram. You share recipes and tips for
• 12:04
  the the cooker at home. Typically moms is who you
• 12:08
  target, of course, but take it back like how did you get into
• 12:11
  the work that you're doing today?
• 12:13
  Sure. So yeah, it's been fun to tell
• 12:14
  this story on a few of the podcasts that I've been on
• 12:16
  recently. And just like, I think when you
• 12:19
  look backwards and you start to like, see all of the threads of
• 12:22
  everything, you're like, wow, it's not as random as maybe it
• 12:25
  feels like it is. But if I kind of like hit the
• 12:28
  high level of kind of my journey, I have a very similar,
• 12:31
  like, upbringing, I guess, in terms of my relationship with
• 12:34
  food, as you did. I remember growing up, my family
• 12:36
  would always be at, you know, the dinner table together
• 12:38
  probably 6 out of seven nights of the week at a minimum.
• 12:42
  Like, if not every night, I remember like if my dad was
• 12:45
  working, we would still all like eat dinner together or we'd wait
• 12:48
  for him. Like it was very just ingrained
• 12:51
  into our family culture. And however, even though I
• 12:55
  remember that, I do also like have very deep memories of being
• 12:58
  a very picky eater and watching my mom try to navigate like
• 13:02
  making multiple meals for our family.
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  And one thing for my dad on some diet, one thing for me and my
• 13:07
  brother because we were really picky.
• 13:09
  And then she'd either eat what we were eating or he was eating
• 13:12
  or something else completely. And so I remember that dynamic
• 13:16
  and just kind of watching her or I guess maybe looking back and
• 13:19
  remembering just the struggle that she had with cooking.
• 13:22
  And then Fast forward to when I was in college, all of a sudden
• 13:25
  I had a dorm room where I was able, I had a, you know, a stove
• 13:28
  and could make simple meals. But I suddenly realized, like, I
• 13:32
  didn't really have a lot of those skills.
• 13:34
  And I knew how to like make some box Mac and cheese or, you know,
• 13:38
  things like that, but I didn't really know how to cook.
• 13:40
  And then when my husband and I got married, that became even
• 13:43
  more apparent to me because he grew up in a home where his mom
• 13:47
  cooked just like mine did. And so that like dynamic kind of
• 13:50
  fell on me just to be the one who did the cooking.
• 13:53
  And so I started to realize I didn't have a lot of those
• 13:56
  skills. And in my first and only
• 13:58
  corporate job, I worked in kind of more of like a warehouse type
• 14:02
  vibe. And so when I would get home
• 14:05
  from that job, I was just so excited to kind of like put the
• 14:08
  computer away and make something with my hands.
• 14:10
  Like I just wanted to create something and of course enjoy
• 14:13
  like the actual eating of that food too.
• 14:16
  And so that's kind of where like my desire and passion for
• 14:19
  cooking started. And then over time, as I have
• 14:22
  grown those skills, as I've had kids, I have three boys, it's
• 14:27
  turned into like a lifeline for me.
• 14:29
  And it's like literally the thing that I do.
• 14:31
  If I have nothing else to do, I just like go cook in my kitchen
• 14:34
  or go bake something. And it's just something that
• 14:36
  brings me so much joy. But through the years of having,
• 14:40
  you know, my food blog, Cook at Home mom, I've also found that
• 14:44
  that's not usually the story for a lot of people.
• 14:46
  And a lot of people's food is a, or cooking, I should say, is a
• 14:50
  survival mechanism. It's not something that they
• 14:52
  enjoy. It's something that feels hard.
• 14:54
  It feels like they can never get ahead of it or on top of it.
• 14:58
  And so it's really become a passion in the last probably a
• 15:01
  year or two for me to be able to just simplify this process of
• 15:05
  eating for people and sort of take away, I don't know, all
• 15:09
  these labels and this shame and this guilt that we have around
• 15:12
  food. And just help people to realize,
• 15:15
  like, it's not about eating the right way or the wrong way or
• 15:18
  healthy or unhealthy. But it's really about making
• 15:20
  better choices for your family and figuring out like, what fits
• 15:24
  your family dynamic and what is sustainable for you as the
• 15:27
  person doing the cooking or the shopping or the planning, Like
• 15:30
  what is sustainable for you long term?
• 15:32
  Because ultimately, like, if it's not sustainable, it's not
• 15:35
  going to stick anyway and it's not going to become, you know,
• 15:37
  part of that fabric of your family dynamic.
• 15:40
  And there's something to be said about that in like, I always
• 15:43
  talk about intentionality and kind of what you sounds like
• 15:45
  you're describing is just the round of the intentionality
• 15:48
  around making a plan that's actually going to work.
• 15:51
  Like you have to be, if you're, if you decide January 1st, you
• 15:55
  want to be intentional with your food that year or this school
• 15:58
  year, we're going to have packed lunches every day and they're
• 16:00
  going to be well-rounded and our kids are going to have food in
• 16:03
  there. They enjoy whatever it looks
• 16:04
  like. But there's got to be like
• 16:06
  intent. You have to really understand
• 16:07
  why you're doing it. It's not just like, Oh, we're on
• 16:09
  this new fad diet and I hope with people sitting aren't so
• 16:13
  let's just like we know that type of stuff doesn't work
• 16:16
  right. And so it sounds like you're
• 16:17
  kind of saying like, Hey, there's got to be like a kind of
• 16:19
  like you. Like there was the motivation
• 16:21
  for you to start cooking was like, I enjoyed this.
• 16:24
  And I imagine a lot of people listening if they clicked on
• 16:26
  this episode, they're like, I want to start creating.
• 16:29
  Like the intention would be creating less chaos around food,
• 16:32
  having it be less last minute, less annoying, less hassle and
• 16:38
  like more more fulfillment out of the not just being like, OK,
• 16:42
  we're going to have salads day, but also enjoying the food too
• 16:44
  and creating an intention around that.
• 16:46
  Yeah, 100%. And there's something that I
• 16:48
  want to just like touch on with the the whole concept of like
• 16:51
  the fad diets, because and we were talking about this right
• 16:54
  before we started, but there's a lot of like diet specific
• 16:57
  recipes that you'll find on cook at Home mom and there's a lot of
• 17:00
  like whole 30 stuff and just different types of diets.
• 17:03
  But part of the reason for that is, I guess part of the reason
• 17:06
  for that shift into what we're doing now, which is a little bit
• 17:09
  more like well-rounded, is that I don't really believe that
• 17:12
  those types of diets are sustainable for life.
• 17:15
  I think they're meant to be a short period of time for the
• 17:19
  most part. You know, I'm, I'm speaking in
• 17:21
  general terms in terms of like not having some sort of medical
• 17:24
  need for something like dairy free, gluten free.
• 17:26
  Obviously that is different. But what whole 30 actually did
• 17:30
  for me is it helped me to really understand that relationship
• 17:33
  that I had with food and also understand the things that my
• 17:36
  body maybe did in response to food.
• 17:38
  And so I feel like tools like that and there's, there's all
• 17:42
  kinds of different kind of like short, some cleanses, for lack
• 17:45
  of a better word, that can teach you like how your body responds
• 17:48
  to certain foods. And they can also really help
• 17:50
  you to develop some of the cooking skills because in whole
• 17:53
  30, like you're cooking every single meal every single day
• 17:56
  because you can't eat. Yeah, you can eat out, but it's
• 17:59
  hard to so most people don't. And so one of the things that
• 18:02
  that type of diet can do is actually help you to learn to
• 18:05
  cook, which is really cool. And so I wanted, I wanted to
• 18:08
  just point that out because I don't, there's nothing wrong
• 18:11
  with those types of diets, but what they do is like create
• 18:14
  usually some sort of unsustainable, like lifetime
• 18:18
  type of response to food, especially some of the other
• 18:21
  like fat diets, Whole 30. I feel like it's one of the ones
• 18:23
  that you could do for a really long time, but it's really
• 18:27
  intense and it's intense for a reason.
• 18:28
  And so like it doesn't have to be that or eating unhealthy all
• 18:33
  the time. Like there is so much room in
• 18:35
  between and such a spectrum of what it looks like.
• 18:37
  And it's all about just discovering like what that is
• 18:40
  for you and your family. I love that so much.
• 18:43
  I was like hitting the marker on my app here because I think
• 18:47
  that's, uh, I think this just conversation needs to be had
• 18:50
  more. I'm such a person.
• 18:52
  I always talk about how much of A Gemini I am.
• 18:54
  Like I can really see two sides of things, but I what I really,
• 18:58
  really dislike is black and white anything like the world is
• 19:03
  a spectrum. I just unless like you said,
• 19:07
  unless we're really talking about like you, some people have
• 19:10
  to have hard and fast rules. Obviously, if you have diabetes,
• 19:12
  of course they're hard and fast rules for you.
• 19:14
  Like that's a survival thing. If you have an allergy, of
• 19:17
  course there's a hard and fast rule.
• 19:18
  But like, yeah, just the like, I don't know.
• 19:21
  I find it, I get kind of and it's, I know you're being very
• 19:24
  like kind, but it's my show. So I can be like, I get really
• 19:29
  frustrated about really black and white.
• 19:32
  I don't want to say diets, but just like ways of eating when
• 19:34
  it's like like when there's food rules.
• 19:37
  And I remember helping a friend of mine who had who's creating a
• 19:40
  court, who created a course for, she's a dietitian and she
• 19:44
  created a course for ADHD nutrition.
• 19:46
  She specializes in working with people with ADHD.
• 19:48
  And I actually didn't know that having food rules in general
• 19:54
  when they're not tied to medical reasons is a disordered pattern.
• 19:58
  And I actually didn't know that. So when you're like, oh, I don't
• 20:00
  eat until I don't eat after 8 or I don't eat this thing.
• 20:03
  I don't eat this thing. You know whether it actually
• 20:06
  really impacts you negatively or positively.
• 20:08
  Doesn't matter, but like that's a food rule and that's actually
• 20:10
  not a really healthy way of looking at food and I was blown
• 20:15
  away by that. I didn't realize like not that I
• 20:18
  have wild food rules, but there's just things that we've
• 20:20
  subscribed to or like, you know, believe like, you know, I would
• 20:24
  have a snack at in the evening and be like, oh, this is bad.
• 20:27
  And then we would label it because we've been told that
• 20:29
  that's like something or like, oh, I don't eat keto.
• 20:32
  I'm eating bread like this apricot toast like ooh, how
• 20:36
  naughty of me Like what? Like why?
• 20:38
  You know, when really bread sits well with me, I like.
• 20:41
  Bread. Well, and that's the point that
• 20:43
  I was going to make that it all comes down to like, how does
• 20:46
  your body feel with this? Like I, I use this example when
• 20:49
  I talk a lot. Like my family, we don't do a
• 20:51
  lot of pasta. And it's not because pasta is
• 20:53
  bad, but it's because a few years ago my husband started
• 20:56
  having like reactions to having gluten and things like that.
• 20:59
  He's not celiac, but it just didn't sit well with him.
• 21:02
  And so I always tell people like, if there's things that my
• 21:04
  family doesn't eat, most of the time it's because it doesn't
• 21:07
  feel good to us. But that doesn't mean that it's
• 21:10
  like a bad food or if you're bad or unhealthy if you eat those
• 21:14
  foods. I think it's all about that
• 21:16
  balance. And it's, it's hard because I
• 21:18
  want to also like be a person who can say like, if you want to
• 21:22
  eat healthy, you should eat more of these things.
• 21:24
  But I usually try to tell people like, instead of having that
• 21:27
  mental like that mindset of like, what can't I eat?
• 21:30
  Think about it of like, what can I eat?
• 21:32
  What do I want more of in my diet or more of in my cooking?
• 21:36
  And if you reframe it that way, all of a sudden it feels like
• 21:40
  this life giving thing to you instead of being, being
• 21:43
  something that's like handcuffs. And it's just like have to go
• 21:46
  eat a salad again. Like I will tell you, I am
• 21:48
  someone who like, not only was I a picky eater, but I was also
• 21:51
  like the girl who hated salads. And right now I am in a season
• 21:54
  where I like crave them because they just make me feel good.
• 21:57
  It feels light. I feel nourish eating it.
• 22:00
  And so but that's not because I'm telling myself like I have
• 22:03
  to eat a salad if I want to be healthy.
• 22:05
  Like it's not that at all. It's just like this is what my
• 22:07
  body's telling me I need. And sometimes you have to go
• 22:10
  through those like elimination type of diets or things like
• 22:14
  that in order to discover those things.
• 22:16
  But once you do, you can totally reframe like why you're doing
• 22:19
  it. And it's not because you're
• 22:21
  being good or you're being bad because food is neutral.
• 22:24
  And we a lot of the time our society puts labels on foods,
• 22:27
  but they really are neutral things.
• 22:30
  And if we instead look at it as like, what fuels my body the
• 22:33
  best, what helps me to reach my goals, whether those are fitness
• 22:37
  or just life goals of like, being a happy parent or taking
• 22:41
  care of my kids, whatever it is, I feel like it just takes the
• 22:44
  pressure off of it and makes it something that, like, all of us
• 22:48
  could be like, well, of course I want to do that rather than
• 22:50
  being like, I don't know if I want to eat healthy.
• 22:52
  That sounds kind of awful, you know?
• 22:54
  It's so true and you're making me think of like when you when I
• 22:58
  went to school for coaching and we were talking about how do you
• 23:00
  reframe negative patterns or habits or behaviors and things
• 23:03
  like that. We always talk.
• 23:04
  It's a very the type of coaching that I learned was it's all it's
• 23:07
  very like positive psychology based.
• 23:09
  And so it was always talking about like if you put more of
• 23:11
  something in your tank, it doesn't leave room or if
• 23:14
  anything, it pushes out the quote UN quote bat.
• 23:17
  So it's like, if you're fueling your body and being full through
• 23:20
  nourishing foods first, then you might want like the one ice
• 23:24
  cream bar, not the three. And maybe you will create have
• 23:27
  less cravings like, and it's not about like, you know, sugar.
• 23:30
  We're not really talking about that, but it's like feeling
• 23:32
  yourself and filling it with filling your tank with like the
• 23:36
  fun stuff, like the stuff that you enjoy, not just having this
• 23:38
  salad cause that's what you think you should.
• 23:39
  And I a picture the salad that you're having is not what we all
• 23:42
  grew up with, which was like the romaine lettuce with the chopped
• 23:45
  tomato and the two cucumbers and then some like creamy, gross
• 23:49
  dress. Like you're probably having
• 23:50
  these like more bold experiences that might not even have lettuce
• 23:53
  in it with like lots of like yummy stuff.
• 23:56
  And then I want to ask you so with your husband's not feeling
• 23:59
  great when he had pasta, pasta, pasta and you're you said our
• 24:04
  family doesn't eat a lot of pasta.
• 24:05
  What? I kind of I was reading between
• 24:07
  the lines there. So it sounds like you're like,
• 24:08
  well, I'm not gonna just make pasta for half of us and not for
• 24:12
  you. Like it sounds like you're
• 24:13
  probably of the mind where you're like, no, I'm cooking one
• 24:15
  meal for everyone. Is that true?
• 24:17
  Oh, 100% and I, we could do a whole, the whole rest of the
• 24:20
  podcast just talking about that and I'm happy too, if that's you
• 24:22
  want to talk about. But yes, from the beginning,
• 24:25
  like, I mean, I was very lucky that my first son, he is a great
• 24:29
  eater. He will eat anything that we put
• 24:31
  in front of him, even if half the time he eats and he's like,
• 24:33
  that wasn't my favorite. I'm like, cool, well, you ate it
• 24:36
  anyway. But Even so, from the very
• 24:38
  beginning, like we did baby led weaning, we which, you know,
• 24:42
  helped him to eat the exact same foods that we were eating.
• 24:45
  But yes, I've been of the mindset like we don't make
• 24:48
  multiple meals. This is not like a short, I'm
• 24:50
  not a short order cook and this is not a restaurant and this is
• 24:53
  what we're going to make. That being said, like I also
• 24:56
  provide kind of ways for it to be like customized without it
• 25:00
  being like we're all eating different things.
• 25:02
  Sometimes that might be like everybody, is there any toppings
• 25:05
  on? And so I can put jalapenos on my
• 25:07
  salad and my, you know, son can skip that or things like that,
• 25:11
  that help it feel kind of, I guess like safe for my kids for
• 25:15
  whatever they enjoy. But for the most part, we're
• 25:19
  eating the same thing. And if my kids want something
• 25:21
  like pasta, maybe that's something they're having for
• 25:23
  lunch, but it's rarely something we're going to eat for dinner
• 25:26
  because again, it doesn't make us all feel good.
• 25:29
  But yes, I'm a huge, huge believer.
• 25:31
  And like, we serve one meal at dinner.
• 25:33
  We all eat that meal, but it's also not forced either.
• 25:36
  It's just like this is what's for dinner.
• 25:38
  You are the one who gets to choose whether you eat it or
• 25:40
  not. But there's no like other option
• 25:43
  type of thing. I like that a lot.
• 25:45
  And I think that is such a hack with the having food.
• 25:49
  It kind of sounds like you're saying it's like having like a
• 25:51
  deconstructed meal, which is what we totally do in our
• 25:54
  family. Only recently my daughter is
• 25:56
  like your first son, like she'll eat anything.
• 25:58
  And now we're getting to that point.
• 26:00
  And I remember this phase of being a kid and she's at the
• 26:02
  point where she got her food touching, which I was like,
• 26:04
  we'll never get there with her. She'll she'll will, she'll take
• 26:07
  down anything. But we're at that point, she
• 26:09
  doesn't want the sauce on top, but she'll eat the sauce if it's
• 26:11
  like in a little, you know, those silicone muffin tins,
• 26:15
  actually like put those on our kids plates now because like
• 26:18
  they want to have like they find them colourful and cute and like
• 26:21
  I'll put her like meatball in there and then her pasta on the
• 26:24
  plate. She doesn't want them together.
• 26:25
  And I'm like, OK, we're all still eating the same thing, but
• 26:28
  she just wants it like framed in a different way.
• 26:30
  And I'm OK with that. But I totally like you.
• 26:32
  Like we don't cook separate meals.
• 26:34
  Maybe they'll be like, OK, if there's no vegetables being had,
• 26:37
  we'll add in a squeezy pouch or like, or a piece of toast or
• 26:41
  something if it's like someone doesn't feel well.
• 26:43
  But I think that's great. But how does So how if someone's
• 26:47
  listening and they're like, we want to sit down to eat together
• 26:50
  every night. This audience are typically
• 26:52
  working parents. So either one or two of the
• 26:54
  parents in the house are working, busy activities,
• 26:57
  probably multiple kids happening.
• 26:59
  They want to sit down to eat. I hear that a lot in the work I
• 27:02
  do as a career coach. How do you even it it might feel
• 27:07
  if someone's not sitting down to eat together, maybe maybe
• 27:10
  they're getting one in on a weekend.
• 27:12
  Like what could, what could a family do?
• 27:14
  Like what is their first step to even try to make that a reality
• 27:18
  even a couple times a week? Sure, I have two thoughts that
• 27:21
  come to mind 1st and the 1st is actually like, take the pressure
• 27:25
  off of yourself again in the all or nothing.
• 27:27
  Because first of all, if you're already eating together as a
• 27:30
  family one night a week, like that's amazing.
• 27:32
  Maybe can you make it too? Like we don't have to go from
• 27:35
  one to all seven nights. Like maybe that's the dream goal
• 27:37
  in 10 years or five years or whatever.
• 27:39
  But if you just want more of that, how can you pick like one
• 27:42
  other night a week that that can happen?
• 27:45
  And then the second kind of like from a practical perspective is
• 27:48
  my question would just be like, are you doing any sort of meal
• 27:51
  planning? Because I find that most people
• 27:54
  are not or most people would say like I would like to meal plan
• 27:57
  more often. And it is the thing that I think
• 28:00
  will change everything for people if they are able to just
• 28:03
  make that meal plan for the week.
• 28:05
  And again, that can also be just like, can you plan that one
• 28:08
  extra meal for the week? Like if you're doing 0 meal
• 28:11
  planning right now, can you do one or two meals for the week?
• 28:14
  You don't have to do all seven. I'll be honest, I don't always
• 28:17
  do all 7, but it's because I don't have to because I know I
• 28:20
  can throw together something easily because I'm used to
• 28:22
  cooking multiple times a day, every single day.
• 28:26
  So I would say that first step of like, let's decide what night
• 28:29
  a week would be the easiest for us to come together, to have
• 28:32
  dinner together. What's the night you don't have
• 28:34
  activities or a night where maybe it's Sunday night before
• 28:37
  the week starts when you know, you can kind of be slow and take
• 28:40
  your time. And then how can you incorporate
• 28:42
  meal planning? And I can talk about like
• 28:44
  specifically what that looks like, but that's another just
• 28:47
  huge part that can make it a lot easier to make that happen.
• 28:51
  If you have a plan for it that you can follow that way when you
• 28:54
  get home from work at 5:30 and you have an activity at 7 or
• 28:58
  whatever it is like it's a lot easier for you to follow the
• 29:01
  plan than to come up with everything from scratch kind of
• 29:03
  on that spot. It's so true because instead of
• 29:06
  having to go through the process of thinking about what you're
• 29:09
  going to have, acting on it, like there's a lot of steps that
• 29:13
  would have to come, I guess, before even whipping it
• 29:16
  together. I mean, I love to like look at a
• 29:18
  fridge and have like three ingredients and be like, what
• 29:19
  could I make? But not everyone's like that.
• 29:21
  And do I want to do that at 5:30 on a Tuesday?
• 29:23
  No, I don't want to do that. So I get that.
• 29:25
  OK, let's go into meal planning. What?
• 29:28
  What do you mean by a meal plan? We've all got these like
• 29:32
  Pinterest, like graphs and infographics probably coming up
• 29:36
  in our brains and it feels very overwhelming.
• 29:38
  But how do you define a meal plan?
• 29:40
  Sure. Well, I think first recognizing
• 29:42
  that like there's a big difference between meal planning
• 29:44
  and meal prepping and meal planning is literally just like
• 29:48
  the ideas or like the actual recipes that you're going to
• 29:51
  make. And kind of like my framework,
• 29:54
  if you will, for this is to 1st pick a day every week that you
• 29:58
  can commit to doing this. For me, that's usually Saturday
• 30:01
  or Sunday that I'm sitting down, usually during quiet time.
• 30:04
  So my kids are a little bit less needy during that time and I sit
• 30:08
  down. And the thing that I actually
• 30:10
  reference is not like Pinterest and Google and websites and
• 30:13
  things like that, but it's a family favorites meal doc that
• 30:16
  we have. It's a shared document between
• 30:18
  me and my husband. And whenever we have a new meal
• 30:21
  that we try and we really love, we add it to that list.
• 30:23
  And so I have a from a reference point.
• 30:26
  I also have a website with tons of recipes too that I.
• 30:28
  Can go to. And you're also blogged there
• 30:30
  too. But, but I say that even to say
• 30:33
  like, even as somebody who has this like gigantic collection of
• 30:36
  recipes on the Internet, like I still have my tried and true
• 30:39
  like 25 recipes that I go to and at least I'm picking maybe two
• 30:43
  or three for the week from that list.
• 30:46
  Then after that I can go and find other things that I want to
• 30:48
  make. Or I can say like, oh, I have,
• 30:51
  you know, this protein in the fridge that I need to use up and
• 30:53
  things like that. And that's another huge part of
• 30:56
  that process for me is looking at my pantry, looking at my
• 30:58
  fridge and my freezer and saying, like, what do I have
• 31:01
  that I need to use? Because if I can plan one or two
• 31:04
  meals from those ingredients I already have, it cuts down on my
• 31:07
  budget for the week. And it also helps me to not
• 31:09
  waste food because I'm using things I already have that, you
• 31:12
  know, might go bad in that next week instead.
• 31:14
  So those kind of highlights are kind of my process for meal
• 31:18
  planning. And I only really plan dinners.
• 31:20
  If there's a random breakfast I feel like making, I might, you
• 31:24
  know, throw that on my list or something.
• 31:25
  But I'm only planning dinners because I find dinners are the
• 31:29
  thing that are the most chaotic. Breakfast and lunch, it's
• 31:31
  easier. But for you, like you were
• 31:33
  saying at the beginning of the episode, like if lunches are
• 31:35
  really hard for you, plan a lunch menu for yourself.
• 31:38
  And that could be a good way to start and kind of start slow as
• 31:41
  well. Is like, is there a particular
• 31:44
  meal of the week that's difficult?
• 31:45
  Can I make a plan for just that one meal and then over time add
• 31:49
  more to it? I like this a lot.
• 31:52
  I think that's so inspiring and it makes me feel better that the
• 31:56
  food recipe Blogger herself still has this list that she has
• 32:01
  to go to because I've got a couple different lists.
• 32:03
  I really should consolidate them.
• 32:04
  My husband and I tried to do this at one point, but it's so
• 32:08
  hard to think outside of like 3 recipes that are in your brain.
• 32:12
  But when you have a list written down, you're like, oh, yeah,
• 32:15
  that is really good. Oh yeah, that is really easy to
• 32:16
  make. Oh, my kids loved that.
• 32:19
  That's incredible. And to make this list one time,
• 32:21
  maybe before we had kids and this is probably during COVID,
• 32:24
  to be honest, but I had a girlfriend who reached out to
• 32:27
  like seven of us and was like, OK, I'm so sick of food right
• 32:30
  now. Everyone send their favorite 2
• 32:33
  recipes. And we did it.
• 32:34
  And we actually, of course, we created a spreadsheet and like
• 32:36
  shared it and it was incredible. All of a sudden, boom, we had
• 32:39
  like upwards of 15 recipes right there.
• 32:42
  And people were like tech. Then once their spreadsheet was
• 32:45
  created, it was like serious business.
• 32:46
  And people would like say who it was and like how easy it was.
• 32:50
  And just like it was so fun. And it was so fun to like have
• 32:53
  everyone take their top 2 and put it together and then try the
• 32:57
  recipe and then be like, Oh my gosh, Hill, that one was so
• 33:00
  good. Like thanks for sharing.
• 33:01
  Like that was actually kind of fun.
• 33:03
  And I feel like I've done this now with moms.
• 33:05
  You know, you're like sitting like having a dinner.
• 33:07
  It's supposed to be like a night away from your kids.
• 33:08
  And then you're like, talk about recipes that your kids enjoy.
• 33:11
  So there's ways to make this list outside of just your your
• 33:15
  brain. And then you can go to Madison
• 33:17
  site. Yeah, yeah, start at
• 33:19
  cook@homemom.com and look there first.
• 33:22
  But yeah, it's something that you build overtime.
• 33:24
  And I think once you start it, like I remember when I first
• 33:26
  started it, I literally, I don't know what I was, why I had this
• 33:29
  free time, but I had some amount of free time and I just took a
• 33:31
  notebook and started writing and the ideas that I could think of
• 33:34
  that I remembered. And then eventually we turned
• 33:36
  that digital. But it's been also cool because
• 33:38
  I can ask my kids for help and I'll say like, Hey, will you
• 33:41
  pick a recipe from this list? And they remember these recipes,
• 33:44
  but sometimes they're not the ones that we necessarily default
• 33:47
  to. Like you were saying, like you
• 33:48
  have the three in your head, but they'll be like, Oh gosh, we
• 33:51
  haven't had, you know, that whatever that that salmon recipe
• 33:54
  recently, like, let's add that to the list.
• 33:56
  And so it gets people involved in a way that they wouldn't
• 33:58
  otherwise. Because I promise you, if you go
• 34:00
  ask your kids what do you want for dinner, they're going to say
• 34:02
  pizza, tacos, burgers. Like it's gonna be one of those
• 34:05
  like hot dogs, whatever. That's probably not what you
• 34:08
  want them to choose. So if you have that list that
• 34:11
  they can reference, you can go from there to like, customize
• 34:14
  it, make it unique if you want to.
• 34:16
  You're not eating the same thing every week, but it gives you a
• 34:18
  starting place that is not like a blank cursor on Google or
• 34:23
  Pinterest where it's like there's a million options out
• 34:25
  there and you have to at least know like what you're looking
• 34:28
  for to find something. It's so true.
• 34:31
  And maybe the hot tip on this, I bet you do this given you have
• 34:34
  this with your husband, like put a couple on there that your
• 34:38
  partner. So if like you're the dad and
• 34:39
  you're the cook in the house, like put a couple that like your
• 34:41
  wife know how to make or vice versa.
• 34:43
  If you're like, if one partner is the owner of the list, ensure
• 34:47
  that you're putting a couple on there.
• 34:49
  Like my husband is like, it's so stereotypical.
• 34:51
  I'm rolling my own eyes, but he does the grilling, he does the
• 34:54
  BBQ stuff, He's like chatting with the neighbors.
• 34:56
  And so I'm you'll best be sure when I'm making this list, I'm
• 35:00
  going to put some like grilling things on there to involve him.
• 35:04
  Because he's 100. And what happens to when you
• 35:07
  have like a broad sort of list like that is when you're going
• 35:11
  to do that meal planning, you can look at the week and be
• 35:13
  like, OK, Tuesday night we have music lessons.
• 35:15
  So I know we have to like do an easy dinner that night because
• 35:18
  we're getting home at 5:30 or we've got soccer practice on
• 35:21
  Friday or whatever it is. And you start to be able to like
• 35:24
  almost pick out on that list, which are the easy recipes,
• 35:27
  which are the ones that like I could literally make blindfolded
• 35:30
  versus which are the ones that's like, oh, that sounds so good.
• 35:33
  But that's like better for a slow Sunday evening and I have
• 35:35
  hours to work on this. Or maybe you don't have any of
• 35:39
  those types of recipes on your list and that's OK too.
• 35:41
  But it'll help you to overtime be able to just kind of
• 35:44
  reference those things. And then like I said, anytime
• 35:47
  that we make something new and there's any positive comments
• 35:49
  for my kids, I'm like, add it to the list because I know that
• 35:53
  we'll want to come back to that later.
• 35:55
  For me, often I know like where those recipes live, like because
• 35:58
  it's either a Blogger friend of mine or it's my own site.
• 36:01
  But for you, you know, you can put the exact link or hyperlink
• 36:04
  that part of your your node or whatever.
• 36:07
  But yeah, I think having it be a shared list is really helpful
• 36:10
  because even if you're not necessarily shifting the
• 36:12
  responsibility of cooking to the other partner, it at least gets
• 36:16
  them involved in the process in a way that is like doable for
• 36:20
  them. Because I know for me, if I ask
• 36:22
  my husband, like, can you pick a few meals?
• 36:24
  He's just like I, I have nothing.
• 36:27
  But if he has that list, all of a sudden he's like, oh, that
• 36:29
  one, that one, that one. And it like makes the work way
• 36:32
  easier for me too. I think that's awesome.
• 36:35
  OK, so earlier you were talking about the two or three recipes
• 36:38
  that you'll pick for the week. How many?
• 36:40
  Let's let's move forward in the in the planning process.
• 36:43
  I'm feeling a bit better already.
• 36:45
  So now we're getting into the phase where you're like, OK,
• 36:48
  I've picked out, I've seen some recipes that I like.
• 36:51
  I've got this list. How many are you picking for the
• 36:53
  week? And I know you're only speaking
• 36:54
  from your own personal experience, but what's your
• 36:56
  recommendation on that? Sure.
• 36:58
  Well, like I said, even for me, I don't tend to pick 7 meals
• 37:01
  because I know I'm going to get bored.
• 37:03
  Honestly, I'm going to get to Thursday and be like, I don't
• 37:05
  feel like eating that anymore. But I think it's helpful to at
• 37:10
  least have 5 And it again, really think about like what
• 37:13
  works for your family. My family, we don't eat out
• 37:15
  hardly ever. It's like very rare that we eat
• 37:17
  out. So I know I have to have almost
• 37:20
  7 ideas or at least like proteins that I can easily put
• 37:24
  together. But for your family, if you know
• 37:26
  you're going to eat out once a week, maybe you have like a
• 37:28
  family dinner at grandmas or you know, whatever it is, you
• 37:32
  obviously don't have to plan meals for those days or when
• 37:35
  you're getting used to this kind of process.
• 37:37
  Or if you only have like one or two kids, you might need a
• 37:39
  leftover night to make sure that you're eating up all of the
• 37:41
  leftovers from the week. So those are some things that
• 37:45
  like you'll learn over time as you do this process.
• 37:47
  But I think you know, starting with like 3 meals as like a
• 37:51
  solid plan for the week that is going to help you.
• 37:53
  Because even if let's say you're doing that planning on Sunday
• 37:56
  and I plan Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, well, if I get to
• 37:58
  Wednesday, I'm like, this has been awesome.
• 38:00
  Go ahead and plan Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
• 38:02
  Like you can keep that process going.
• 38:04
  So I think 3 meals is like achievable and doable, but like
• 38:08
  still helpful. But again, if it feels
• 38:12
  overwhelming to get started, don't be shy with just picking
• 38:14
  one and seeing how that feels because my guess is you're going
• 38:18
  to love that. Like, I didn't have to think
• 38:20
  about this. It was super easy.
• 38:22
  And you're going to want to keep doing that.
• 38:23
  And so you can scale to three, then 4, then five, then you
• 38:26
  know, whatever works for your family.
• 38:27
  Amazing. What are some of your favorite
• 38:29
  hacks for how you keep track of what meal is going to be when?
• 38:33
  What are some of the ways that like, how do you do it?
• 38:35
  How do you hear other people do it?
• 38:36
  I have I have my own way of doing it too, but I like hearing
• 38:39
  other peoples. Yeah.
• 38:40
  So for a while I was really wanting, well, actually I had in
• 38:44
  a couple places. So in that shared note, we would
• 38:47
  actually have at the top of it kind of like the list of days.
• 38:50
  And so I would just add it to that day.
• 38:52
  So Sunday we're having Taco bowls, Monday we're having this.
• 38:55
  And then over time, I actually found that we needed it on our
• 38:58
  calendar. So we actually created like our
• 39:01
  digital calendar that we share. So we created like a shared
• 39:03
  calendar that's called dinner. So I can toggle it on and off,
• 39:06
  but I will literally just add it to like 5:00 to 6:00 every day
• 39:09
  on the calendar. That way, if my husband is
• 39:13
  usually the one who's with the kids in the afternoon, so he
• 39:15
  usually will be like, what can I do to start the dinner process?
• 39:18
  Like, it might not be cooking it.
• 39:19
  Maybe he'll say I need to make sure the meat is thawed or I can
• 39:21
  prep these veggies, whatever it is.
• 39:23
  And so for him, he can go to that calendar and see, like,
• 39:26
  this is what we're having for dinner.
• 39:28
  And I just found that, like, when I was looking at my day,
• 39:31
  like, I've got this call here and this meeting and this,
• 39:33
  whatever, it just felt natural to be like, oh, yeah.
• 39:36
  And we're also having shepherds pie for dinner.
• 39:37
  Cool. Like now I mentally know like
• 39:39
  how much time that's going to take.
• 39:42
  We had like a shared, not a shared, but a physical like meal
• 39:45
  planner on our fridge for a while, which I really liked.
• 39:49
  And then I just found like I was putting it in multiple places,
• 39:51
  but I was looking for it on the calendar.
• 39:53
  So I'm like, I'm just going to keep it there.
• 39:55
  So like you can see it's like evolved over time, but I would
• 39:59
  have never probably started with what we're doing now because I
• 40:02
  wouldn't have known that that was like where I needed it.
• 40:05
  So sometimes it's just like pick something, just start somewhere.
• 40:09
  Think about like, am I more of a digital person or a paper
• 40:11
  person? Like and start with that.
• 40:13
  And then obviously you can tweak it and go from there, but you
• 40:16
  kind of have to first start to figure it out.
• 40:18
  So true. I do have a magnet.
• 40:21
  It's not a meal planning board, but it's like 2 different.
• 40:24
  Like I don't even know what they are, the days of the week and
• 40:26
  the months. And I was like, Oh, yeah, it's
• 40:28
  like buying a new notebook or a planner or some sort of like, Oh
• 40:31
  my God, book of some sort. It's like that, but it's on my
• 40:35
  fridge. Used it for one week.
• 40:37
  Haven't used it again because my husband and I live on our
• 40:40
  calendars. Yeah.
• 40:41
  Exactly. But if that's what you need to
• 40:43
  like feel excited about starting it, if you need to buy a new
• 40:45
  pen, if you need to like romanticize this like meal
• 40:49
  planning experience for yourself, like do that.
• 40:51
  Like I am here for that experience if it helps you to
• 40:54
  just start. But just know it might not be
• 40:56
  like your last thing ever that you use and that's OK.
• 41:00
  It's not like the end of the world if you have to switch it
• 41:02
  up. But yeah, I think a lot of us
• 41:04
  are living in our digital spaces nowadays between, like, our
• 41:09
  calendar or the Notes app on our phone or whatever.
• 41:11
  So think through, like, what that needs to look like.
• 41:14
  And like, if you're at the grocery store and you need to,
• 41:17
  like, get the thing for dinner, if you don't have the paper list
• 41:20
  with you, you know, then having it on your phone is really
• 41:22
  handy. So just thinking through some of
• 41:25
  those, like, life dynamics. But again, it's going to ebb and
• 41:28
  flow 100 times before it's, like, really ingrained in you.
• 41:31
  And that's just how it goes. True.
• 41:34
  OK, So you've picked out two or three for the week.
• 41:37
  You know what I actually hear as a step in there is ensuring that
• 41:40
  whoever's doing this, you can be in your kitchen.
• 41:44
  This is actually a huge barrier for me if I'm not in my kitchen
• 41:48
  alone with the clarity and mental space and time to just do
• 41:52
  this for like 10 or 15 minutes, AKA look at my pantry, look at
• 41:56
  my freezer, look at my fridge. Then I'm doing it up here where
• 42:00
  my workspace is and I'm trying to think and remember what's
• 42:03
  downstairs, but everyone's down there and it overwhelms me and
• 42:06
  that I don't do it because I'm like, OK, I need to do this
• 42:08
  process of planning when I'm downstairs in my kitchen.
• 42:11
  So it actually feels like that's a, for me, that's a huge step
• 42:14
  that I just need to like enroll my husband and be like, listen,
• 42:17
  on Sunday mornings, take the kids outside, go biking so I can
• 42:21
  be in my kitchen to like assess the scene.
• 42:24
  What do you think? Is that like, is that an
• 42:26
  important thing to do? You hear that from other people?
• 42:28
  Or is that just? Me, I do think that's important
• 42:29
  because same, same for me. Like if I don't know what I
• 42:33
  have, then obviously I can't like use up those ingredients.
• 42:36
  And you know, there will be times where that happens and I
• 42:39
  end up buying stuff that maybe I already had and like that's OK
• 42:41
  too. But then that next week it's
• 42:43
  like, alright, I gotta remember to do this.
• 42:45
  And I was actually like, when you were saying that that was a
• 42:47
  struggle for you, I was literally going to say like,
• 42:49
  well, when in the week would you be able to do that?
• 42:51
  Because most people maybe are trying to plan it at a time
• 42:54
  where they're like, not at home or they can't take that couple
• 42:57
  of minutes to be in front of their fridge And they're like,
• 43:00
  meal planning doesn't work for me.
• 43:01
  It's like, no, actually not being in your kitchen when your
• 43:03
  meal planning is what doesn't work for you.
• 43:05
  It's not meal planning as a whole.
• 43:07
  You know, it's just the like the process that you're trying to do
• 43:10
  it in isn't working for you. And that's again, kind of going
• 43:14
  back to what I was saying about like the food stuff.
• 43:15
  Like what do you want to add more in?
• 43:17
  It's like when you reframe like, well, why is it meal planning
• 43:20
  working for you? Get curious about it.
• 43:21
  All sudden now it's like there's a really easy solution there.
• 43:25
  It's just make sure you're in your kitchen.
• 43:28
  But I also just want to like highlight too, that there's a
• 43:30
  reason that this stuff feels like, I don't know, like an
• 43:34
  itchy sweater like, and it's because you're not used to doing
• 43:36
  it. And it will get easier over
• 43:38
  time. And there's also like, you know,
• 43:41
  we don't have time to go into this, but there's like
• 43:42
  neuroscience behind this all being like difficult.
• 43:45
  It's not what you're used to doing.
• 43:47
  Your brain is like, whoa, this feels hard.
• 43:49
  I don't want to do this. And you have to just push
• 43:51
  through that kind of like initial phase of difficulty.
• 43:54
  And again, just get curious about like what is hard about
• 43:58
  this and just solve those little tiny pieces of the puzzle along
• 44:02
  the way so that it can feel easier in the long run.
• 44:05
  And I think it sounds like it's acknowledging that there are a
• 44:08
  lot of steps to this. I think it's so different from
• 44:11
  if we all lived on farms and it was like, OK, there's a plethora
• 44:14
  of eggs. Let's do something that's like
• 44:16
  very, let's make a quiche tonight for dinner.
• 44:18
  OK, We have like fresh meat here.
• 44:20
  We caught these fish like there was when there's scarcity, I
• 44:23
  think it's easier. And I, there's obviously a huge
• 44:27
  freaking privilege statement, but it's like, and you've only
• 44:30
  had five things in the fridge. It's kind of mentally easier to
• 44:33
  be like, great, we're having Mac and cheese with hot dogs tonight
• 44:36
  because that's all we've got. And so it's like what I'm kind
• 44:39
  of hearing from this conversation already, which I'm
• 44:41
  just loving is just be acknowledged that there are a
• 44:44
  number of steps and then create ease in all those steps.
• 44:48
  Make it so that you are in front of your fridge.
• 44:50
  Like as I'm saying this and having this conversation with
• 44:53
  you, I'm like, I always try to meal plan on the weekends when
• 44:55
  it is full family time. That is when the four of us are
• 44:59
  fully together 24/7. We don't we're in a small space
• 45:03
  like we're not in a huge, huge house.
• 45:05
  Like we're very open concept. We're all there.
• 45:08
  However, I have a lot of time during the week.
• 45:10
  I work for myself and I work from home and my children are
• 45:12
  often out of the house in the mornings without me.
• 45:14
  And so why the hell am I not meal planning at that time?
• 45:18
  Like just dawned on me like in these last 10 minutes.
• 45:22
  So thank you for that. I appreciate you.
• 45:26
  Let me just speak to the parents who maybe like are working
• 45:29
  outside of the home because I'm in the same boat as you.
• 45:31
  Like work for myself. Like my time is very flexible,
• 45:33
  like, and I can fit in the things that I want to fit in.
• 45:36
  That being said that it's not always easy to do that.
• 45:38
  But if you are like both parents are working outside the home,
• 45:42
  kids are outside the home for school or daycare.
• 45:45
  Like it might look like 8:00 on a Monday night that you're doing
• 45:49
  this and that's OK too. Like, again, how can you
• 45:52
  romanticize that? Can you put on some music and
• 45:54
  like dance around your kitchen a little bit?
• 45:56
  I mean, there are nights where, you know, I would love to, after
• 45:59
  my kids are in bed, go sit on the couch and watch TV or go do
• 46:02
  whatever. And instead, I'm like, I'm going
• 46:04
  to cook XYZ tonight so that it's done for tomorrow.
• 46:08
  It doesn't happen all the time, but there are those times where
• 46:10
  it's like, I have to choose maybe the thing that is a little
• 46:13
  bit more difficult for this, like, temporary moment in order
• 46:16
  to support what I want to be true for the rest of the week,
• 46:19
  which is like, the meals being light and easy and us having a
• 46:22
  plan. And so, yeah, if you're a family
• 46:24
  that you're not home during the day, like, what dynamic could
• 46:29
  work for that? Or like, could you get home 10
• 46:31
  minutes before the kids get home and the other parent goes to
• 46:34
  pick them up? I don't know.
• 46:35
  I think there's like a lot of ways to be creative about this.
• 46:38
  It just takes the intentionality of being like, you know, even
• 46:41
  just speaking to your spouse or your partner and being like, I
• 46:44
  need 15 minutes alone in the kitchen.
• 46:46
  How can we make that happen? And that is not a lot to ask at
• 46:50
  all, especially when you consider how easy the rest of
• 46:53
  the week is going to be when you set that, set that time aside.
• 46:57
  I always like to equate it to to like a budget.
• 46:59
  Like when we set money aside for certain things, all of a sudden
• 47:03
  it's like, well that was easy, spend that money because we had
• 47:05
  a plan for it. Meal planning is the exact same
• 47:07
  way and I'm actually shocked. I haven't said this yet, but
• 47:11
  meal planning is a muscle and healthy eating, cooking at home,
• 47:15
  all of these things, they are muscles that we have to build
• 47:17
  overtime. So like it's OK if it's hard at
• 47:20
  first, but like it will get easier the more that you do it,
• 47:22
  I promise. And if not, you know there's
• 47:25
  resources out there like my website and others that can help
• 47:28
  make it easier and help take some of those decisions off your
• 47:30
  plate too. So you don't have to start with
• 47:33
  cocoe like you can go with something else first maybe.
• 47:36
  Exactly. And it's honestly, if you were
• 47:38
  to look at my like meal plans, they are not complicated.
• 47:42
  I like, I love cooking, I love having creativity in the
• 47:45
  kitchen. But most of the time our
• 47:47
  weeknight dinners are very simple and they're very easy.
• 47:50
  Even as someone who literally creates recipes for a living,
• 47:53
  Like it's just the reality of like what my life is like with
• 47:57
  three kids, you know, and we are home all the time.
• 48:00
  We work from home, we home school, all the things.
• 48:02
  So it's like there's just a lot going on in our home all the
• 48:04
  time. So I don't have the mental
• 48:06
  capacity to make these like 5 star dinners.
• 48:09
  And that's OK. I can still enjoy the process
• 48:11
  and create amazing food, my family and love it along the
• 48:14
  way. I don't have to be creating
• 48:16
  these like steakhouse, you know, restaurant type of type of
• 48:20
  recipes. Yes, OK.
• 48:22
  So what comes next? This is kind of just turned into
• 48:25
  like we're going, we're going in a chronological order and like
• 48:28
  step by step and I'm very much loving this and these are
• 48:32
  incredible tips. So when it comes to the shop,
• 48:36
  you got to get the food somehow and we don't live on farms.
• 48:39
  Let's not speak to the people on the farms because you are
• 48:41
  spoiled. Yeah, sorry, we can't help you
• 48:43
  there. No, we can't help you.
• 48:45
  Go. Go collect your eggs from your
• 48:47
  chicken, you spoiled brat. OK, the people who have to go to
• 48:50
  stores, what are your tips? How I know some sort of list
• 48:54
  like give us all, give us all the details.
• 48:57
  Sure. Well, actually it's going to go
• 48:59
  back to what we've already talked about with the meal
• 49:00
  planning, which is like you have to start with what you already
• 49:03
  have. If you are buying seasonings,
• 49:05
  every time that you go to the store, you're going to end up
• 49:07
  with six jars of oregano and be like, why do I have all this?
• 49:11
  And then it's going to expire and go bad and you throw it
• 49:13
  away. And then it just is, is sad.
• 49:16
  I am someone who absolutely despises wasting food and I try
• 49:19
  to avoid it at all costs and probably to a fault.
• 49:22
  Sometimes my husband's like, that's disgusting.
• 49:24
  Throw it away. I'm like, OK, fine.
• 49:27
  But you have to start with what you already have.
• 49:28
  So once you have your recipes like planned out, obviously
• 49:31
  you're going to need to look at like, what are the ingredients
• 49:33
  that I need for this? And something that can be I
• 49:36
  guess like a 2.0 version of this is thinking through like
• 49:41
  ingredients that you can use multiple times throughout a
• 49:43
  week. So one of the examples that
• 49:45
  comes to mind whenever I make like egg roll in a bowl at like
• 49:50
  it's like a ground meat with like a cabbage mix on top.
• 49:53
  Whenever I make that, I know I'm not going to use the entire bag
• 49:56
  of the cabbage mix. And so usually that same week
• 49:59
  I'm thinking through like what can I eat with the rest of that
• 50:02
  mix? So usually it's like a BBQ
• 50:04
  chicken with a coleslaw on the side or something like that.
• 50:08
  And so little things like that or a big bag of carrots.
• 50:11
  How can I use it again later in the week?
• 50:14
  That's going to totally depend on your size of family and how
• 50:17
  much food you eat, whether you like leftovers or not.
• 50:20
  So that might depend on like how much you're making.
• 50:22
  But I think that can be like a hack down the road too, where
• 50:25
  it's like, I'm thinking ahead about, OK, well now I'm going to
• 50:28
  have this giant bag of whatever, how can I use it up?
• 50:31
  Um, sorry, I kind of got ahead of myself there, but kind of
• 50:35
  just thinking through like, what ingredients do I have?
• 50:37
  What do I need to buy? Is there something I can use
• 50:40
  this for in addition to what I'm making on Monday night?
• 50:43
  That way I'm not wasting it. And then honestly, my biggest
• 50:47
  tip for grocery shopping is actually to do like grocery
• 50:50
  pickup or grocery delivery. It is a game changer.
• 50:53
  Especially like if we're talking to parents that are both working
• 50:56
  parents or one working parent, any type of busy family like can
• 51:01
  benefit from this. And there's all kinds of
• 51:03
  different options, obviously, depending on where you live.
• 51:05
  I don't use like Instacart or anything like that because I
• 51:08
  think the prices are, you know, way marked up.
• 51:10
  But a lot of our like local grocery stores here, even
• 51:12
  Walmart, like I can do a pick up order or a delivery order.
• 51:16
  And even if I'm paying that annual fee of like, you know, 80
• 51:19
  bucks or whatever, it is well worth it to be able to have
• 51:21
  those groceries delivered. I spend way less money.
• 51:24
  Like the savings is way beyond that $80 a year that I'm paying
• 51:28
  because I can look at the grocery bill and be like, OK, I
• 51:31
  actually don't need all of these extra things that I thought I
• 51:34
  needed because I don't want to spend that much money versus
• 51:36
  going in the store. I always spend way more money
• 51:38
  than I plan to. 1000% I'm so happy you said that because I
• 51:44
  and people are like, oh, but you can't pick your produce.
• 51:46
  I'm like, is that worth it? Are you really that picky when
• 51:49
  you're in there when you're like and they're doing their best to
• 51:52
  pick, not like they're not giving you the moldy Peach.
• 51:55
  Like it happens sometimes, but you also sometimes pick up the
• 51:58
  moldy Peach, right? So it's like 100% agree with
• 52:01
  you. And I'm like looking and I'm
• 52:02
  like, whoa, why is this feels so much more than we normally
• 52:05
  spend. And I look through and I'm like,
• 52:06
  OK, it's OK this time because we're buying these like big
• 52:09
  product, like, you know, you're buying the detergents and things
• 52:11
  like that, which can add up or, or like, no, OK, something's a
• 52:14
  little out of control here. Let's like cut this back.
• 52:17
  It's so here's. And then you're not like like
• 52:20
  purchasing random things that you actually don't need that you
• 52:23
  get enticed by in the store. And for me, it's the time.
• 52:26
  Like the money is, is definitely a bonus.
• 52:28
  But for me, it's the time. I don't want to spend upwards of
• 52:32
  two hours a week going to the store twice, getting to like I
• 52:35
  go once and then I don't see everything or I forgot a couple
• 52:37
  things or I'm you have to get there, you have to park, you
• 52:40
  have to do the shop, get back on.
• 52:42
  Like it's a lot. That's a lot.
• 52:44
  And I think for like, you know, any, I want to say mom
• 52:48
  specifically, and I know this could be a thing for dads.
• 52:51
  In my experience, my husband does not have the same approach
• 52:53
  to grocery shopping. But like if I go to grocery
• 52:55
  shopping, I am usually like completely exhausted afterwards.
• 52:59
  And it's not because like I physically am exhausted.
• 53:01
  It's just the mental energy of like being at the store, trying
• 53:04
  to decide the meals, all of that stuff.
• 53:06
  It's exhausting. And you will definitely spend
• 53:08
  way less time if you do your meal plan, do your grocery
• 53:11
  order, and then you're just done for the entire week and it's
• 53:13
  amazing. If the produce thing is an
• 53:15
  issue, maybe you can just go buy the produce.
• 53:17
  It's not going to take you that long to go and buy the produce.
• 53:19
  Or maybe your husband can do that or your partner.
• 53:22
  I feel like there's ways around it.
• 53:23
  But yeah, I feel like spending time actually shopping in a
• 53:26
  grocery store to me is like a huge waste of time.
• 53:30
  I would just. Say that good one.
• 53:32
  We're so. Sorry for whoever I offended
• 53:34
  saying that if you love going to the grocery store, like more
• 53:37
  power to you, but I do. Not know, but that's the thing
• 53:40
  though, right like we're talking to we're kind of speaking to all
• 53:43
  different types of people. It's like we're kind of talking
• 53:45
  to the person who like I'm neither here nor there.
• 53:47
  I don't loathe going to the grocery store, but it's really
• 53:50
  not an efficient use of my time. If I'm complaining at the end of
• 53:52
  the week that I feel time starved, I feel tired.
• 53:55
  I feel like I didn't have enough time for XY and Z.
• 53:58
  I'm not like I'm really happy I grocery shopped.
• 54:00
  No, I'm not like so something's gotta give and that for me is
• 54:03
  the thing that I want to give. But if you find so much
• 54:05
  enjoyment and, like, you're one of those people that, like,
• 54:07
  romanticizes the grocery store, all power to you, But you're
• 54:11
  something else is going to have to give.
• 54:12
  If you're at the end of the week and you're like, Oh my God, I'm
• 54:14
  exhausted, then yeah, you have to figure out what it is.
• 54:17
  Maybe you got all your clothes washed and folded or something.
• 54:20
  Somebody in your neighborhood. That would be nice.
• 54:24
  OK, cooking. So we get the food, we come
• 54:27
  home. What are we doing with it?
• 54:30
  Yeah. So I feel like there's kind of a
• 54:31
  Part 1 and a Part 2 to this as well, because I feel like phase
• 54:37
  two of this whole process is actually that like meal prepping
• 54:40
  that we kind of like highlighted earlier.
• 54:43
  But I want to like be very specific that when I say meal
• 54:46
  prepping, I do not necessarily mean like I'm making all my
• 54:49
  meals for the entire week and I'm eating the same thing seven
• 54:51
  times and you know, in the week or whatever.
• 54:54
  Actually, I know I actually really love the concept of
• 54:58
  ingredient prepping. I was afraid I just learned kind
• 55:02
  of recently, but I was, I have been doing it for years.
• 55:04
  And for me, sometimes looks like I am making like a shredded
• 55:08
  chicken breast and then I'm turning it into 3 or 4 meals
• 55:11
  down the road in the week. Or maybe I am, you know, looking
• 55:15
  ahead and saying, OK, I'm going to need carrots three times.
• 55:17
  So I'm going to go ahead and just like chop all the carrots
• 55:19
  and have them ready for later in the week.
• 55:22
  And so it's like creating those components of recipes.
• 55:25
  And another example that comes to mind is sometimes I will make
• 55:28
  ranch dressing for just for like my kids for snack.
• 55:31
  And I will actually take that and I can marinate chicken in it
• 55:34
  and grill that down the road, you know, the next day or two.
• 55:36
  So like little things like that, that just like save you time.
• 55:40
  We actually have like a ranch seasoning that we use for that
• 55:43
  ranch dressing. So it's like you make the ranch
• 55:44
  seasoning and then it turns into like 3 recipes down the road,
• 55:47
  which is awesome. So I like doing things like
• 55:50
  that. And again, you can like think
• 55:52
  about those things when you're doing your meal planning and say
• 55:54
  like, OK, if I'm going to make this, like when can I use it
• 55:57
  again in the week? Can I do fajita tacos the first
• 56:00
  night of the week and then later down the week use this fajita
• 56:02
  seasoning for something else? So that's kind of like how I
• 56:05
  approach the cooking part for different people.
• 56:08
  They may need to like batch cook, you know, and do a couple
• 56:11
  of meals at the beginning of the week that can like last them
• 56:13
  throughout the week or whatever. It totally just depends on your
• 56:16
  lifestyle. I find that like we go through
• 56:19
  food so fast that like it's annoying to me to make all the
• 56:22
  meals on Sunday because then we're out of it by Tuesday And
• 56:23
  I'm like, well, that felt like a waste.
• 56:25
  I would personally rather cook like every night, but I know
• 56:28
  there's other people like one of my best friends.
• 56:30
  She's like, I would rather cook all the meals on Sunday and be
• 56:33
  done with it. And I'm like, OK, more power to
• 56:35
  you then that. That totally works.
• 56:36
  You're going to need a really strong plan to be able to do
• 56:39
  that. And again, for me, sometimes I
• 56:41
  get bored by Thursday and I want to do something else.
• 56:43
  So not planning ahead and like doing everything on Sunday works
• 56:47
  really well for me, but there's so many different ways to do it.
• 56:51
  And like, again, it's that curiosity of like, what would
• 56:54
  make this feel light and easy for me?
• 56:55
  And can I give that a try? That and your friend would have
• 56:59
  to have all the Tupperware clean.
• 57:01
  That's a huge step, right? It's like if you're going to,
• 57:03
  you have to put that food somewhere.
• 57:05
  So all that has to be ready to go and the ingredient prepping
• 57:08
  that is that's only one that I've seen recently too, where
• 57:11
  I'm like, wait a minute. And I actually did it recently.
• 57:14
  I had, I bought a big carrot and I bought a big cucumber.
• 57:18
  And I was like, instead of these just sitting in like the
• 57:20
  cucumber in the plastic and the carrot just Willy nilly in the
• 57:24
  veggie drawer. Like I'm actually going to
• 57:27
  before I even put them away in the fridge, I'm going to cut,
• 57:29
  wash and cut these up and put them in some like paper towel in
• 57:32
  a little dish in the fridge. And that was like me talking
• 57:36
  about like romanticizing for me romanticizing like motherhood
• 57:39
  and like that side of me that really wants to be this like
• 57:42
  domestic rancher and like, just like have like the cookies and
• 57:46
  they're like cucumbers ready. Like that was like a nice moment
• 57:48
  for me. I was looking in the fridge that
• 57:50
  week and I was like adding like the cucumbers to my daughter's
• 57:53
  lunch. And I was like, go me.
• 57:55
  Like I felt so good. But that was because that was
• 57:57
  something that for some reason seen on social media and I was
• 58:00
  like, I want to be that person. And it was so small that it was
• 58:04
  such a win. O I'm like.
• 58:05
  Yeah, and I bet you found it was easier one, to serve that and 2,
• 58:09
  like your kids probably actually ate it.
• 58:10
  I find that too. Whenever I have like, cucumbers
• 58:13
  or bell Peppers just chopped up, I can't, like, keep them long
• 58:16
  enough because my kids just go for them.
• 58:18
  When it's a whole pepper, then they have to get out the cutting
• 58:20
  board and the knife and it's like a whole process they won't
• 58:22
  do. So yeah, sometimes it's like we
• 58:25
  need to think that way about our own meals throughout the week.
• 58:28
  And like if I'm making the same like again, the like the
• 58:31
  shredded chicken multiple times in the week, it's like it would
• 58:34
  be so much easier for me to just do it price or like do it once
• 58:37
  and then let it be for two meals versus doing it twice throughout
• 58:40
  the week because it's super easy to double that.
• 58:43
  But again, like I have to have that plan.
• 58:45
  I have to look ahead and be like, Oh yeah, I need this again
• 58:47
  in a couple days. I can't do that if I don't have
• 58:49
  that plan. But for you, I like the
• 58:51
  differentiation. So like, you're not the person
• 58:53
  who's going to make so say you're doing fajitas in a
• 58:56
  tortilla wrap on the Monday, but on the Friday you were going to
• 58:59
  do a rice bowl with the shredded chicken.
• 59:00
  What you're saying is you're like, I'm going to do the
• 59:02
  shredded chicken for the Monday. I'm not going to cook the rice
• 59:05
  for the Friday. I will just have to then only
• 59:08
  cook the rice on the Friday and the shredded chickens already
• 59:11
  done. I like that.
• 59:12
  That's that's my vibe. I like that.
• 59:14
  Yeah, well, and rice is a good example too.
• 59:16
  Like, my kids especially eat rice like multiple times a day
• 59:20
  usually. I mean, most of our dinners
• 59:22
  usually have rice unless it's like a salad or something.
• 59:24
  And so I might just like, make that ahead for the week too, or
• 59:28
  make it for like the two days and then make it again.
• 59:30
  But it's like, I can always guarantee that I have some sort
• 59:33
  of cooked protein and rice in my fridge to make lunch easy or
• 59:38
  make a dinner easy if it's like I just need something quick and
• 59:40
  fast. Another hack I love is actually
• 59:43
  getting like a rotisserie chicken and shredding that
• 59:46
  because that can turn into literally a million meals.
• 59:49
  One of our absolute favorite things right now is like a pesto
• 59:52
  chicken salad. It's literally like the
• 59:54
  rotisserie chicken pesto, homemade pesto, but you could
• 59:56
  use store bought too and like Mayo and Oh my gosh, it's so
• 1:00:00
  good. Well either eat it just like by
• 1:00:02
  itself or on a piece of toast. Like it's such a hack for like
• 1:00:05
  an easy lunch. My kids also love it.
• 1:00:08
  We had some friends that came over for like a pool day.
• 1:00:10
  I just said like 2 rotisserie chickens, shredded those and
• 1:00:13
  made that for everybody and it was perfect.
• 1:00:15
  But I can turn a rotisserie chicken into like 17 different
• 1:00:19
  meals. It's crazy.
• 1:00:19
  So I always love to have that when I can because it just
• 1:00:23
  again, it's going to make those like nights where you're like, I
• 1:00:25
  have no plan. So much easier to just like
• 1:00:27
  throw something together. And even the rotisserie chicken
• 1:00:30
  chicken itself takes a bit of work to get it off.
• 1:00:33
  Like there's planning involved in that to be like, hey, have to
• 1:00:36
  have enough time to like cut that chicken up.
• 1:00:38
  And like, I know these seem very small, but like that's a real
• 1:00:41
  thing. And so even if you're like, hey,
• 1:00:43
  maybe I'll just before I even put it in the fridge for me,
• 1:00:45
  this is what I actually have to do now or else the rotisserie
• 1:00:47
  chicken doesn't get eaten. If I don't cut it up, I won't
• 1:00:51
  eat it because I'm like, Oh, I'm too busy.
• 1:00:53
  No, no, no, I'm not like coming and going or whatever.
• 1:00:55
  But if I've cut it up, taking it out of the plastic container,
• 1:00:58
  which is kind of gross, and then cut it up and put it in one of
• 1:01:01
  my like glass containers, then like I actually, it's so much
• 1:01:05
  easier. Isn't that funny?
• 1:01:06
  It takes no time, but then there's some sort of mental
• 1:01:09
  barrier. So if you want to up level that
• 1:01:11
  the next time, you get to shred 2 of them and then put half of
• 1:01:15
  it in your freezer so then you have it ready for the next time.
• 1:01:19
  I could talk to you forever. I'm like, can you?
• 1:01:22
  Can this be like a news show where you come on monthly and we
• 1:01:24
  do like a segment because this is amazing.
• 1:01:27
  Oh my gosh. OK, so you have a five day meal
• 1:01:31
  plan, weeknight dinners freebie that the audience can download.
• 1:01:34
  So can I put that link in the show notes for everyone to?
• 1:01:36
  Find yes, yes, absolutely. And I'll tell it to you as well
• 1:01:38
  in case people like can remember it, but it's
• 1:01:41
  cook@homemom.com/show that like double S is right in the row.
• 1:01:46
  Get me every time. But yeah, it's back slash show.
• 1:01:49
  And then when you enter your e-mail, it'll redirect you to
• 1:01:52
  the page. You'll see it has like Monday
• 1:01:54
  through Friday. It has like side suggestions.
• 1:01:57
  So one night is like, you should make broccoli and you know, or
• 1:02:00
  potatoes with this and things like that.
• 1:02:02
  And then at the bottom of the page is a like consolidated
• 1:02:05
  grocery list. So you can literally just look
• 1:02:07
  at that. And again, think about like, do
• 1:02:09
  I have oregano? No, I need it.
• 1:02:11
  Do I have this? No, I need it.
• 1:02:12
  And then you can just use that to create your list or print out
• 1:02:15
  that page and bring it to the store if that's your jam.
• 1:02:17
  And yeah, I mean, I hope that people will look at those
• 1:02:20
  recipes and be like, wow, this is actually really simple and
• 1:02:23
  really doable. My like, my heart behind
• 1:02:25
  creating this freebie was literally just like, I want to
• 1:02:28
  take the guesswork out of it for you guys and just you don't have
• 1:02:31
  to worry. Like how am I going to make
• 1:02:32
  these meals fit together? There's a mixture in there of
• 1:02:35
  like prep ahead versus, you know, easy to do the night of.
• 1:02:39
  But none of them are going to take you a lot of time or be
• 1:02:41
  super complicated or have complicated ingredients.
• 1:02:43
  Like they are all super easy, super healthy and of course
• 1:02:47
  delicious. So.
• 1:02:48
  Family friendly, I'm sure as well.
• 1:02:51
  Yeah. This was so amazing.
• 1:02:53
  Thank you so much for coming on. I ask every guest this what are
• 1:02:57
  you? What would you say that you're
• 1:02:58
  still trying to figure out? Yes, I forgot that you asked
• 1:03:01
  that question. I did not have an answer
• 1:03:03
  planned. Let me see, I think, well, so
• 1:03:06
  we're in summer right now. And so whenever we have like a
• 1:03:10
  shift in the season, I'm always trying to figure out like my
• 1:03:13
  work dynamic with like my kids and all of that.
• 1:03:16
  And so even though we're halfway through summer, I'm still trying
• 1:03:19
  to figure that out, like what time of day do I want to work so
• 1:03:22
  that I can still like enjoy the pool in the afternoon and things
• 1:03:24
  like that. So I would say that's just that
• 1:03:28
  ever evolving dynamic of like the work life balance is
• 1:03:31
  something I'm always trying to figure out.
• 1:03:33
  Amen. And everybody can find you at
• 1:03:38
  Wait. Say it Again, cook@homemom.com.
• 1:03:41
  Yep, Yep. And I'm over on Instagram.
• 1:03:43
  I cook at home, mom as well. If there's anything that I said
• 1:03:46
  in this episode where you're like, oh, that was so good.
• 1:03:48
  But like I actually need more help with that.
• 1:03:50
  Like feel free to message me over on Instagram.
• 1:03:52
  I'd be happy to help you, like troubleshoot or give you a
• 1:03:55
  little tip like double your rotisserie chicken or whatever.
• 1:03:58
  It's always really fun for me to just chat with people that way.
• 1:04:00
  So I would love to hear from any of you there.
• 1:04:03
  Such good tips. I wish I had a.
• 1:04:06
  I mean, I have a transcript after this, but we will put all
• 1:04:09
  the show notes as always on the, if you go into the show notes
• 1:04:14
  themselves on your podcast player, there will be a link
• 1:04:17
  there that says show notes and takeaways.
• 1:04:18
  Click that. There will be a blog post I'll
• 1:04:20
  put on my blog and it'll be all the hot tips.
• 1:04:23
  We'll link everything out to Madison's world.
• 1:04:25
  And man, this was so good. I feel so inspired.
• 1:04:28
  We're about to go on vacation for two weeks to go see family.
• 1:04:30
  But if we weren't, I would be like so militant and hardcore
• 1:04:35
  about this, but in a sustainable way.
• 1:04:37
  So yeah, thank. You for sure.
• 1:04:38
  Well, that week you come back, try to implement some of this
• 1:04:41
  because it will help make that week back a lot less stressful
• 1:04:43
  for you. Know what I'm gonna do?
• 1:04:44
  I'm gonna meal plan before I go so that I have my online order
• 1:04:49
  list ready for when we get back. Well, actually you have a meal
• 1:04:53
  plan now. You have your five days when you
• 1:04:55
  get back, so you don't even need to plan the week you get back.
• 1:04:58
  My God, Oh my God, I should do this.
• 1:04:59
  And then I should make it to this episode comes out that
• 1:05:02
  week, please, and I can document it.
• 1:05:04
  Wait, how fun would this be? OK, OK, I'm going to take this
• 1:05:06
  way. Madison, you're the best.
• 1:05:08
  I appreciate you so much coming on and sharing all your wisdom.
• 1:05:11
  Thank you. Yes, thank you so much for
• 1:05:13
  having me. It was so fun.
• 1:05:14
  And I mean, you're right, we could keep talking for hours and
• 1:05:17
  hours about this stuff. Have a great day, enjoy your
• 1:05:20
  meals tonight that are going to be so easy I'm sure.
• 1:05:23
  Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening
• 1:05:28
  and since you made it this far, please share this episode with a
• 1:05:31
  fellow parent who you love, respect, and want to support.
• 1:05:35
  And while you're at it, hit me up on Instagram at All Figured
• 1:05:38
  Out. Andrea, I would love to meet you
• 1:05:40
  and hear what you are trying to figure out these days.