#121: Declutter Your Kitchen and Save Money This Season

The holidays are coming, and your kitchen is about to get a whole lot more crowded. Let's make space now before the chaos begins!

Between holiday meal prep, leftovers, cookie exchanges, and the inevitable influx of food, your kitchen can feel overwhelming. In this episode, we're walking you through some kitchen declutter tips that will save you stress, money, and precious counter space.

Decluttering now means you'll start January with a clean slate instead of inheriting last year's mess. 

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

Roni: Hello and welcome to the Plan to Eat podcast. Today we are talking about decluttering your kitchen. This might seem like the time of year when you do not want to be thinking about decluttering your kitchen, but we actually think that there is an argument to be made for doing some decluttering and some kitchen cleaning just before the holidays, and to kind of make some extra space simplify things, reduce some stress, so we're not trying to stress you out right now.

We're trying to help reduce the stress.

Riley: Yeah, and I think everything we are gonna talk to you about and like how we think you should do this, I think will really fit in with just like a really, like sim uh, essentially like fit in with your life. It's [00:01:00] not spring cleaning, it's not take a week out of your life and do your whole house. Nothing like that.

It's a lot simpler. And yeah, like Roni said, it's just about reducing your stress and honestly making the season feel more comfortable.

Roni: Because. Coming outta Thanksgiving, going into Christmas and like other end of the year holidays, like there's just an influx of things into our life, whether it's food or gifts from other people. People come into our house. There's just a lot of things that can be happening and it can feel really overwhelming.

So this is kind of like trying to simplify at the beginning of the month before all of that chaos starts.

Riley: Yeah, I mean even think like people we're about to put up Christmas trees and Christmas decor or other seasonal decor, and it's just like you add a lot of stuff in

Roni: Yes.

Riley: that and I mean,

Roni: 'cause who takes things away when they add Christmas things, right? Like you rarely are ever taking things away. You're just adding things with all the other stuff you normally have.

Riley: I'm even thinking about where I'm keeping all the Christmas gifts [00:02:00] from my family and I'm like, even like, even just like I'm adding, I've got like a pile, like a bag in my closet that just keeps getting things added to it and it's, yeah, it's a lot of things added this season. So this is to try to help you feel a little better in other areas of your life.

Roni: Yes. So I think the first place we wanna start with this is meal planning. And one of our biggest tips for meal planning is gonna be to meal plan around what you already have. So like, take an inventory of what's in your fridge, what's in your pantry, what's in your freezers, so that you don't double buy things at the grocery store because that's just wasting money, wasting food contributing to this clutter in the kitchen.

'Cause the goal here, like we said, is to like not feel cramped during the holidays.

Riley: Taking inventory of what you have. So you don't double buy is excellent. Taking inventory to also plan around what you already have can also like naturally declutter because you're using what you've already got. And then so you're not double buying and you're also using what you [00:03:00] already have. And then it's also a huge bonus is it's gonna reduce your spending in a season where spending is just higher than normal.

Even if it's just because you're hosting Thanksgiving dinner, you know you're spending more, 'cause you gotta feed a lot of people. Or sorry, I guess we're past Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever, new Year's, whatever else you're hosting this year.

Roni: Yeah, and we've talked about this before when we have intentionally had weeks where we're meal planning and we are. Like using things that are in the back of the pantry or like, look, I got five cans of beans. We are mixing up beans in every recipe this week to try and figure it out. And it really does save so much.

I know that like prices have changed since then, but I think it was. Two years ago that we did our, like, pantry clean out episode. And we talked about how like after the fact that we like had such like a light grocery shopping week or maybe two weeks because it was like, oh yeah, I have all these things in the pantry.

I'm just gonna, it, it kinda like [00:04:00] sparks meal inspiration too of like, oh yeah, we got these lasagna noodles, let's make some lasagna, whatever, you know, random things you have.

Riley: Meal planning from my pantry often makes, uh, it kind of like hands me on a silver platter. Some meal planning ideas too. And you know, I'm not saying like just cook from your pantry. We've talked about that, but cooking from your pantry and then knowing like, well, I just need to add. Some Italian sausage or I just need to add, um, some canned tomatoes to this chili, you know, and then, you know, those few ingredients that you need to buy.

But seeing what you already have can kind of give you some inspiration because I think that around this time of year when we're cooking so much and baking so much, like dinner tomorrow night just feels like. A more of a burden 'cause you're already doing so much of it and so when like that meal planning is just like kind of handed to you, oh, I can make that perfect.

Oh, we got a box of mac and cheese in the back. Let's make that,

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: whatever. Whatever you got going on in there.

Roni: Yeah, and this could be a good time to do the idea that I think you mentioned in the last [00:05:00] episode that we got from Mackenzie Koppa, which is, you know. Sorting things in your pantry or in your cupboards together. So it's like you realize like, oh, I have all these things that are gonna be to make chili and I just need to buy the ground beef to go with it.

Like you, that can be part of this decluttering is reorganizing into a way that makes more sense, so that putting the meal together is a lot faster when you go to actually

Riley: yeah. Yeah. Again, another way to reduce like that burden of kind of cooking dinner on a Tuesday when you know you got a holiday coming up. Yep.

Similar to the pantry. Another area where you can very easily meal print, meal plan from you guys know what I'm about to say? It's your freezer. I'm a broken record. Hello? Uh, yeah, but planning a freezer clean out week. Or a day each week this month, is gonna allow you to again, reduce your spending at the grocery store.

Maybe give yourself a break from cooking many nights if you have things in your freezer. [00:06:00] Like I know I do, I've got some frozen chicken that's pre-cooked. I've got some, uh, soup, I've got chili. You know, like these things in there that, are, are gonna make for a really nice dinner that I didn't have to cook, but it also cleans out my freezer.

So it's like simultaneously doing both of those things. It's amazing.

Roni: Yeah, and I think this is great too, to make a little extra room in your freezer if you're somebody who likes to, you know, you store, somebody gives you a bunch of cookies or something and you're like, we're not going to eat 17 dozen cookies right now. And so maybe you like freezer, put 'em in a freezer bag, keep 'em in the freezer.

And then, you know, you're able to enjoy cookies at other times of the year. Or like every time that I go to a big. Holiday meal at my parents' house, they always send me home with leftovers. And so it's like either you get sent home with leftovers from somebody, or you're the one who hosted the meal and you end up with a lot of leftovers.

Maybe you're not feeling the honey baked ham for weeks on end, and so you just put [00:07:00] it in the freezer and you know, then you're able to enjoy it again later. So there's an aspect of it too, where it's like you are decluttering to make room for some other things that might come up during this time of year too.

Riley: Absolutely. It's a great point that you make the space in the freezer, uh, for other things because this is actually how my mom usually handles when we, all of her kids and grandkids come home. In the weeks leading up to our arrival, she'll actually prep a lot of the food beforehand. Either just like, like I'm thinking of a few things like a shepherd's pie or a, um, like this Italian pasta she always makes, or these like Salisbury steak.

There's like these like TexMex Salisbury steaks. She always makes, there's a lot of fresh components, but the patties or the meat patties, she always makes and freezes ahead of time and it allows her to do less work when we're all there. Because she's already done it, so then it's just all in her freezer.

So that's just another idea for how you can like make the space and then use the space.

Roni: Totally.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: [00:08:00] And to piggyback off of that is if you are trying to declutter, you could be decluttering your cupboards as well, and I just want to encourage everybody to throw things away. Or you can donate things, right? Like I, it tossed the expired food. But you know, maybe donate things that are unopened to a local food bank.

Things that you know you're never gonna use. This is the time to get rid of that protein pasta, you know, that was on sale at Costco and you bought five boxes of it 'cause it was on sale. And then you ate one box and you were like, Ew, I don't like it.

Riley: Right. Yeah. Another option, um, that some areas have is like, schools will collect canned goods and dry goods. You. Things that aren't gonna expire and give it actually to the students and families in their schools. So giving it to a food bank is a great option.

Check at your children's school or schools in your area. 'cause they might be collecting those things, especially for kids who go home over Christmas break and maybe the food resources at home are [00:09:00] very low. It's a great way to like provide for those kids in that off season.

Roni: I love that. That's a really good idea.

Riley: Yeah, a lot of kids get free lunch and sometimes even free breakfast at school. And so when they go home for the holiday or like, not home, but like when they're at home full time over the holidays or summer, just food can be more scarce in some homes. And so I think it's a really cool thing that some schools do.

Roni: That's really cool. I like that. So also related to this is go through your refrigerator, look through those shelves in your refrigerator. There might be some condiments in there that are old and need to be getting rid, gotten rid of, tossed

Riley: like the, yeah, kinda like the protein pasta. You opened it, didn't like it and kept it for some reason.

Roni: Yeah. Like my husband likes deli yellow mustard. Right. But I like more like Deon mustard or honey mustard I like, or like spicy mustard something. He'll eat those things every once in a while, like if I bratwurst or something. But inevitably we end up with like seven different [00:10:00] mustards in our refrigerator and at some point I just have to be like, look, we need to.

This needs to be simpler. We need to just have like two or three mustards. We need a yellow and we need a honey mustard. That's all we need right now.

Riley: Ours is hot sauce.

Roni: Oh, sure. Yeah.

Riley: hot sauce collection is excessive. I was, it's like, takes up a whole part of our door. I'm like, this is crazy. I like hot sauce, but this is crazy.

Roni: But sometimes you get to the situation where you're, everything just has like, like a half an inch of it, of, of sauce or something left at the bottom, but then you can't fit any new condiments or like another jug of milk or something in the door. And it's like you just have to get rid of things sometimes.

Make it easier instead of like kind to play this dumb Tetris game of getting things in the refrigerator.

Riley: Yeah. Another place in our fridge that kind of can collect is the very back. Wall. Um, because things go in front, you know, like we should be doing a [00:11:00] FIFO situation first in, first out. But yes, things get pushed to the back. Inevitably it's things that I use for recipes like. Olives, pepper peppers, um, jalapeno like, pickled jalapenos.

What's the, another one? Sun dried tomatoes, like things that are jarred that I used half of or a fourth of. And then well, I'm like, I'm just gonna put those back there and I'll use 'em when I need 'em. And then they're back there for a little too long.

Roni: That happens to me with

pesto, Oh, pesto.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: and it's like moldy every time I go to use it again. I'm like, oh no, I can, I, I know you, I know you can. I just don't ever do it. But I'm always like, I, I'm like, oh yeah, I have a half a jar of pesto. Let's make this pesto chicken, whatever. And then I go to open the jar and I'm like, oh, it's moldy.

Riley: Yeah. That is such a bummer. I hate when that happens. Yeah.

Roni: So this is your PSA to go through them now.

Riley: Yeah. Okay. The next place is your spice cabinet. Make sure you don't have 3-year-old nutmeg, because it [00:12:00] won't be as good.

Roni: It's not gonna make your cookies taste great. No.

Riley: No, it, the flavor, uh, specifically of some, like, you know, those warming spices can really diminish over time. And so making sure you have fresh ones is actually more beneficial than you might realize.

Like if you, your mom, your grandma makes those ginger cookies and every year you're like, I have to make those, and yours are never as good it could be because your spices are expired.

Roni: Yeah, my stepmom does like a cookie baking, you know, Christmas cookie baking day every year. So I think it was two years ago, she was like, man, like the sugar cookies just like didn't turn out as good. And it's my grandma's sugar cookie recipe and there is some nutmeg in the sugar cookies.

It's like secret ingredient kind of a thing. I think maybe all sugar cookies have nutmeg in 'em. I don't know. Anyways, two years ago, the cookies didn't turn out very well and so last year my stepmom realized like, oh, my nutmeg was like four years old. And that was why they didn't turn out well is because it had none of that flavor in the cookie.

So.

Riley: yeah. And this [00:13:00] is something I feel like that's like all, well, okay. I don't bake very often

Roni: Yeah. Me

Riley: and I feel like for a lot of people who are low bakers, like me and you, we use them only once a year. So it's not like we like used it up, you know? It does feel wasteful to throw it away. But if you want it to taste good, you need, definitely need to check the date.

Roni: it almost feels like we need to make like a spice Co-op.

Riley: Oh, I like

Roni: You know, I mean, you and I live so close to each other now. We should just share spices for the holidays,

Riley: I like that. That's a really good idea. I mean, I use Nutmeg about three times a year, and it's like one recipe has a calls for a sprinkle of nutmeg, A sprinkle, like it feels worthless, but it really does add to the recipe. So you want it.

Roni: that's true.

Riley: A spice co-op is a good idea. There is a spice shop in town that you can get like measured amounts

Roni: Right? Right.

Riley: and so a lot of places, if you have like a local spice shop, you don't have to go and buy, you know, like the whole four ounce jar or however, 1.8 ounce jar that lasts you for seven years.

You can go get a smaller amount from [00:14:00] some places,

Roni: That's true. Yeah.

Riley: Similar to the spice cabinet, my baking cabinet, 'cause this is what we're talking about, I don't bake very often is a huge culprit for expired and old items. I use this cabinet the least, like there's a few things in there I use all the time.

But anyway, so that's a cabinet I really need to go through and clean out. And it's, so it's already for the three times I bake in December.

Roni: Baking powder is, is really similar to spices. Like baking powder loses, it loses its potency. And so if you're using bacon baking powder in a recipe, and it's supposed to be the leave and the, you know, the thing falls flat, your baking powder could be too old.

Riley: Yeah. Also yeast. Yeast is also one you definitely wanna check the date on. I was going through my cabinet recently, check some to see if I had any. Yeast in date, and I did not, I had four that were out of date. So I chunked those, but chunked them. I did, I chunked them.

Roni: chunked'em

Riley: But that's another one you definitely need to check.

There are certainly some things that I am not worried about a lot [00:15:00] of, expired, like canned goods, I'm way less worried about, but like, yeast isn't gonna work, you know, it's, it's not gonna do its job.

Roni: That's right. Yeah. All right. Some other things you could chunk would be if you have, uh, Tupperware lids that don't go with any of your Tupperwares. This, I think for most people, the Tupperware section of their cabinets is like the bane of their existence. It's like everything is just shoved in and you just, you know, pull everything out to try and find a lid and a matching container.

It's a miracle when it all happens, right at the same time. It doesn't take you 12 minutes to do it. So this could be a great time to go through and organize your Tupperware and or your glassware, particularly if you're somebody who does give cookies or other goodies to people during the holidays, and you wanna use your Tupperware for it.

So go make sure that things have matching lids. If the, if there's a container without a lid or a lid without a container, just toss it. You don't need it. It's taking up unnecessary [00:16:00] space.

Riley: I am really feeling the toss it and chunk it situation right now in my home. I am like, I am like get rid of it. It, I have been doing this left and right and it feels so good. So if you aren't accustomed to just tossing stuff, try it out. You'll love it.

Roni: There's freedom. There's freedom in it. I am a tossing, I'm a tosser and a chunker. I'm a chucker. Not a chunker,

Riley: Oh, you are a chucker.

Roni: I'm a chucker. I chuck things out, uh, and yeah, and it's very freeing. I like it.

Riley: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you and I, I just like feel like I need to say this, but like you and I are very, we want to be low waste. We want people to not be throwing away their groceries. The whole idea around meal planning is that you waste less food. You use what you have, but it accumulates and it accumulates even in the Tupperware contain.

In the Tupperware. Tupperware oblivion, what do you call that? Tupperware cabinet? That's. Just like what, you know what I'm talking about? Like, you don't even wanna open the cabinet 'cause it's so bad.

Roni: Well, yeah. And half of the time you open the cabinet and like seven [00:17:00] things fall on you.

Riley: Yeah. And then you just wanna shut it, just like shove it in then shut the door.

Roni: Or just like chuck the things across the room like

Riley: Yeah. Chunk 'em across the room. Uh, a couple of years ago, there were. Um, like the glass Tupperware lid containers that we use already, they were on sale at Costco for like a ridiculously good price.

So I bought a second set and I have not opened it on purpose 'cause I was like waiting for like, when it was time to like move new stuff in. I think that time is now. I'm gonna get rid of the plastic ones and the pieces and parts that don't go together and I'm gonna like move all the new ones in. It's gonna feel so good.

Roni: I like that idea.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: Really we want to encourage you to do all of this so that you can declutter with your January self in mind, your New Year's self, so that you can make space now and you're not starting the new year with all of. Last year's junk and clutter in your kitchen.

'Cause that's, we're always saying like, your future self is gonna thank you for this. You're gonna be so [00:18:00] grateful when the new year rolls around and you're like, oh, oh my gosh. Look at the Tupperware. They're all organized. And I don't have 17 bottles of clove in the spice cabinet.

Riley: And only one of them's in date.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Yes, you and I love this idea. We love doing things that our future self we'll be grateful for. So do this now and your holidays will be like, feel more free, and January will feel easy peasy.

Roni: Absolutely. All right. That was those, that was our quick decluttering message for today, and now it's time to move on to some more dinner dilemmas.

Riley: can't wait. 

Roni: First dinner dilemma is from Lynn. She says, how to maintain an inventory of pantry and freezer items. This feels very apropos.

Riley: It's perfect for this episode. Well, as you may or may not know, Plan to Eat has a freezer feature. This feature is [00:19:00] awesome. You add a meal to your meal plan. Maybe you are gonna immediately freeze it. All you do is click on it on your meal plan and click add to freezer. If you don't eat everything, you can also just click add to freezer and add what's left over.

Um, there's an option to add the amount of servings for a recipe and how many meals it makes. So let's just say you made a lasagna and it is gonna serve you for two meals at four servings each. That's how you're gonna enter it into your freezer. , The plan to eat freezer is awesome. If it's a recipe in your plan to eat recipe book, it can be a recipe in your freezer.

And then once you wanna go use that recipe, all you do is click on the freezer and you drag and drop it to your meal plan, and then it delete, it like removes it from your freezer. So it's keeping that inventory for your freezer specifically as you go.

Roni: Yep. And then for pantry inventory or other kitchen inventory, we generally recommend using your Staples list for that. So Staples list is kind of like an auxiliary list to your shopping list. It's like a, a static list where you can [00:20:00] add your frequently purchased items, or you can use it as an inventory.

Then it's really easy to scan. You can add things to your shopping list in bulk from the Staples list. So what you would do is fill up your Staples list with all the items that you already have at home or that you keep an inventory of. And then when you run outta anything, you can just go over to your Staples list and quickly add it over to your shopping list.

So there's nothing automated with it. It's not like you run out of. Your ground nutmeg and it gets, added to your shopping list or you buy nutmeg and it gets added to your staples list. Like there is a manual aspect of it, but it allows you to really quickly see the things that you have on hand or the things that you normally keep on hand so you can be reminded to buy 'em the next time you go to the grocery store.

Riley: If you're wondering why plan to eat doesn't automatically do this, we used to have a feature called the Pantry, and if your item was in your pantry, then it would automatically remove that item from your shopping list.

But it required some like serious maintenance of the pantry. And if you were [00:21:00] not diligent to maintain your pantry, then you were going to the grocery store and having a hot mess experience and not getting what you need. So we actually just completely removed that feature because of how much it required of.

Our customers to like kinda keep an eye on their pantry and instead now we just recommend that you shop your pan, you shop your pantry with your grocery list and remove the things from your grocery list that you already have on hand. And that process is much more streamlined than keeping a digital list of your pantry.

Roni: I know we've talked about this in previous episodes related to inventory. So if you don't wanna use Plan to Eat for these things, you could also do something of keeping a, a list that you tape to the outside of your freezer. Like if you're somebody who has multiple freezers or multiple refrigerators, you could keep a list on the outside of that fridge or.

Freezer to remind yourself of the inventory that you have in there, or like a whiteboard that you could write on, and then you could, you know, easily remove things or add things to [00:22:00] it. So if you, if you're not looking to do it in a digital way, there's also ways that you could do it that are a little more manual like that.

I think the whiteboard is probably the best option for that because it's just so easy to add and remove stuff.

Riley: Yeah, for sure. And then you can just keep that pen right there, like a printed list. We're gonna go print another list or, I mean, yeah, I think the whiteboard's probably one of my favorite ideas for this, so hopefully that helps. Next up we have Katie and she says, I've, I've been under a kitchen renovation for five months, no sink, no dishwasher, no kitchen cabinets, no kitchen.

I'm fell. I'm falling to frozen prepared foods due to lack of inspiration and frustration of the mess at home.

Roni: Wow. I'll be honest, I have had many home renovations at my house. But none of them have really involved the kitchen being like inoperable for a long period of time. That was the one place in our last house that I told my husband, like, look, I know our hus, I know our kitchen needs some work, but like this is a pretty [00:23:00] important part of the house.

I wish that we would have known. About your renovation before it happened because I feel like I have better tips for, you know, a kitchen renovation is happening rather than we are in the middle of a kitchen renovation. A lot of that being make a bunch of freezer meals. Invest in something like an air fryer or an instant pot.

I mean that an air fryer and instant pot could still be something that, that Katie could utilize right now is like find a kitchen gadget that, that makes cooking and prepping really simple, really easy, doesn't take up very much space. You're not using the stove, you don't need that kind of stuff.

There's even new crockpots nowadays is nowadays that have like saute features and stuff on them. Like there's a lot of these kitchen gadgets that can do a lot of the things you would normally want. A, like an oven or a stove or,

Riley: The downside is that she doesn't have a sink.

Roni: yes. Well, not a kitchen sink.

Riley: I assume she has [00:24:00] ay somewhere to wash something.

Roni: Yeah. I mean, I know that that's kind of weird and gross, but like, if you don't have a kitchen, then you're gonna have to wash anything like in the bathroom sink, you know?

Riley: yeah, This is a tricky one. She doesn't mention no oven. I.

Roni: I mean, she says, no kitchen.

Riley: Yeah, she does. Okay. Katie, we're with you. This is a hard one, I

Roni: This is a super hard one.

Riley: I mean, I guess I have a couple of thoughts that might not be ideal, but are options. If you live near family or if you live near a really good friend and you said, can I come to your house and can I prepare myself?

Maybe you do this once a month. You say Once a month, can I come to your house? Use your kitchen prep, all of our meals, put 'em in the freezer so that even though you're falling to freezer prepared food, it's your, it's food you prepared. Um, and then you can supplement, those frozen meals with a steamer bag of veggies or a side salad that's [00:25:00] comes, you know, like a bagged salad.

But if you have just like a really good friend or a family member who would let you use their kitchen and then you just go to town, then, you know. The food you're making is food that you made and you've got yourself covered for dinners that month.

Roni: for sure.

Riley: Yeah, because like dinner's the hardest with no oven.

The others one, the other ones you can come up with or not. No oven, but no kitchen. The other ones you can definitely like, think, think anything you'd make while camping,

Roni: Yeah, totally.

Riley: breakfast or lunch.

Roni: You, you might be super tired of e eating yogurt for breakfast after your kitchen renovation is over, but like you didn't have to cook it, you know?

Riley: yeah. Even like hot water and oatmeal, like, I feel like you could probably come up with that pretty easy. Um, you could, yeah. I don't know. Even, like, even if you were going to somebody else's house, like boiled 20 eggs and you have those and you got boiled eggs for breakfast, or even freezer, freezer sandwiches, freezer breakfast burritos, like you can make all those so easy.

Roni: definitely. I think an alternative to that, or maybe an addition to that [00:26:00] is cooking outside using your grill or your smoker and just having real, I think the, the. Main tip here is to have really simple meals, like you said, like like a bagged salad. Like what if it's just like grilled chicken and a bag salad?

Riley: Yeah, it's great.

Roni: And like I said, there, I feel like you might fall back on recipes that you end up being really tired of after the kitchen renovation is over. But that's okay. You gotta a whole brand new kitchen. You're gonna wanna cook everything else.

Riley: Totally. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, I, yeah. I love, I love your going to outside. Hopefully that's reasonable. I mean, I feel like I grill all all year and I live in Colorado where we get tons of snow and I grill the whole year. So I do feel like it's reasonable to be able to like throw something on the smoker or the grill even, like if you did it once a week, like we've talked about a lot, like a meal prep, batch cooking situation.

I mean, there's a lot of great options for microwaveable rice or like instant simple rice that you can make. And then yeah, a [00:27:00] lot of veggies that you don't have to cook.

Roni: right. Well,

Riley: Yeah. And then just rotate. Or rotate marinades, rotate proteins, like rotate those things and Yeah.

Roni: yeah. Well, Katie sent us this dilemma quite a while ago. So Katie, I hope at this point your renovation is done and you're enjoying your new kitchen.

Riley: And I'm so sorry that we are just now getting to these last,

Roni: know.

Yeah. All right, Lisa, who titles herself as Exhausted Single Mom of two. She says in particular how a meal plan for a toddler and ensure exposure to new foods, especially vegetables without wasting a ton of food. It's just me and him eating in the house. Falling off plan is a biggie. The biggest barrier for me is just being exhausted after work.

I'm a single mom of choice, uh, of a 2-year-old and a of a three-year-old and a two month old. I need to figure out how to plan for quick, easy meals that are toddler friendly, but also continue to expose him to new foods. Ideally, I'd like to have a three to four week plan that I can modify if I need.

It's [00:28:00] just kind of our set plan. Overspending is an issue, but I think it can be resolved if I address the issue above. Well,

Riley: This is a great question.

Roni: this is a great question and I actually think that Lisa sort of answered her own question here a little bit, was to create a three to four week meal plan, like create a menu and plan to eat that she can then drag and drop onto her planner and then modify as needed.

I think that's a great idea.

Riley: Uhhuh totally. Especially with a, to being mom of three and a two month old, like that's gonna save her so much time, so much energy. Um.

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: And I feel like she's gonna be the only one who really remembers, you know, like, oh, we had this exactly three weeks ago. Well, okay, I hardly remember, but like, my 3-year-old and two month olds certainly aren't, you know,

Roni: Right.

Riley: So another, um, so just in regards to. Toddlers and ensuring exposure to new foods. This is such a great like, place to start. It like with this idea, like this mentality, right? Because exposing your kids to foods, at this young of an age [00:29:00] really helps them to be not picky and just like having the mentality of like, I'm gonna expose them to foods all the time.

I would say look up Katie Kimball. She just changed the name of her company, Roni, what is that called now?

Roni: Raising healthy families.com.

Riley: Raising healthy families.com. She's an incredible resource for preventing and combating picky eating. In addition, I just looked up on Instagram. There's several accounts that we follow. Toddler dietician, tiff Yummy toddler food Feeding, tiny Bellies, real little meals, and Busy toddler.

All of those are accounts that we follow on Instagram and they're always sharing delicious looking. Simple recipes where they're using, they're like embedding vegetables into things that you would never know. Um, not that we're always trying to hide vegetables when it comes to kids, but making sure that they're getting that nutrition.

Sometimes we do hide it, right? Sometimes we make sure that it's, it's hidden. But those. Our awesome resources. They're always sharing really good recipes. Um, a lot of low sugar, high protein, high veggie, [00:30:00] meals that all look really good. And that's another really good option I feel like, just for like, getting some good ideas.

'cause sometimes as an adult it's hard to know, like what, like, can my toddler even chew this? Well, no. You know, Brussels sprouts are really hard to chew as an adult, you know, but, but we, it's hard to think that way. And so kind of coming up with a different way to serve something to your kid, all those are really great resources.

Roni: absolutely. Just something that I was thinking about related to wasting food is like maybe you try a different vegetable. Every week, right? Like maybe this week it's like roasted broccoli and if they don't eat roasted broccoli on Monday, it goes on their plate again on Tuesday. This was kind of some of the things we learned from Katie Kimball is such like the exposure of it, and so it's like maybe if it's on their plate like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but it's just, you know, maybe you're reheating your same roasted broccoli instead of throwing it out when they don't eat it.

I think maybe that could help with the wasting. So you're not like, we have green beans, we have broccoli, we have Brussels [00:31:00] sprouts and we're trying and we have carrots and we're trying everything. Like, it's like maybe it's just like one at a time and, and you know, then you move on to something else.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: I don't know.

I'm just trying to think of like, number one, she's trying to save time because she's busy and exhausted at the end of the day. And number two, she doesn't wanna waste food. So like maybe like pulling back a little bit and trying to just do a little bit less.

Riley: Yeah. And then meal prepping, it certainly reduces time. The idea that I'm thinking might add a little time, but it also is a way to like repurpose those ingredients without serving it the exact same way. 'cause sometimes like that's the way, you know, I'm thinking about with my kids. For the longest time, they would not eat broccoli.

And then I was like, it's little trees. And they're like, oh, they're excited about little trees. But then if like I chopped it and put it like with like, you know, broccoli and cheese and like an egg muffin cup or something, like they would eat it that way. And over time they eventually began to like it. So if you did choose one vegetable per week, maybe you cook it and then it becomes, it's roasted broccoli Monday, [00:32:00] Tuesday, it's broccoli cheddar soup Wednesday, it's broccoli cheddar egg muffins, you know, and you're kind of using that one roasted ingredient multiple ways.

It might be a way to introduce it and just like use it up, like you said, and pretty simple if it's already pre-done so.

Roni: Yeah, that's a good idea.

Riley: Like be the biggest barrier being exhausted after work. Um, we alway we all feel that, and man, so many, so many of our dinner dilemmas have been related to this issue. So hopefully you've been like, tuning into a lot of these episodes because I know you and I, and like you and I feel redundant because we give a lot of the same advice.

Your idea of having that meal plan. Is a great idea. I would say make sure that you're meal planning around your schedule and looking and saying like, our weeks Monday through Friday, it has to be easy. Saturday I can cook something more complicated. And then within that three to four week meal plan, that's how you're focusing those three, four weeks.

Making sure they're 15 minute dinners or like, it feels like Tetris. But once you've got that three to four week meal plan made, you're gonna be a lot more on [00:33:00] autopilot. And all those dinners are gonna get easier the more you cook them.

Roni: Right, and it could be, it could be a good way to frame it from the like template standpoint, you know, when we've talked about this before, but it's like every Monday is crazy. So every Monday has to be a crockpot meal that I, that I start before I leave for work kind of a thing. And so you could create a meal planning template for that, so that way when you're feeling exhausted about meal planning, you can just go, okay, all I have to do is find a crockpot meal.

All I have to do is find, you know, a 15 minute air fryer meal. On and on 

alright, that wraps us up for this week. There is only one more episode left for the end of the year and we are gonna, we're gonna go heavy on the dinner dilemmas on that episode. We're still not gonna finish 'em unfortunately. But, we have really enjoyed answering these and we hope you guys have found it really helpful.

So hopefully you take some of our decluttering tips and make your holiday season just a little less stressful with that. [00:34:00] As always, thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you again in two weeks.