#127: Everyone in my house eats differently. Now what?

From answering your dinner dilemmas in 2025, we learned that many families juggle multiple dietary needs: picky kids, allergies, macros, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, low-sodium, etc. And creating meals that satisfy everyone feels exhausting!

This week, we're spending the entire episode tackling the problem of managing multiple diets and dietary needs in one house. Our goal is to help you avoid being a short-order chef in your house and reduce the burden of cooking for everyone's needs and preferences. We hope you get a lot from this episode! 

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Transcript

Managing multiple diets

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

Roni: Hello, welcome back to the Plan to Eat podcast. Today we are continuing our series in helping you get started on the right path for meal planning in 2026. So we have previously talked about having low energy or no motivation for meal planning. Our last episode, we talked about having a lack of time and unpredictable schedules, and today we are gonna be tackling how to manage multiple diets within one household.

Now we're not necessarily talking about like one person's on Weight Watchers, and then the other person's on Atkins. We're talking, people have allergies, dietary restrictions, somebody's gluten-free, somebody's dairy free, low sodium picky, picky eaters, things like that where creating [00:01:00] meals that satisfy everybody, it feels really challenging.

We heard a lot about these situations in our dinner dilemmas, so we wanted to spend a whole episode talking about how to remedy this situation the best that you can, because this is probably one of the hardest, uh, dinner dilemma situations that we encountered when we were reading through, uh, people's different dilemmas.

Riley: And I think one of the reasons why it's so hard. Well, one, it's difficult because you and I haven't experienced every dietary dilemma that people, or like dietary need. Like I've been, I'm currently gluten-free and I've been dairy free, and I've been gluten-free and dairy free. And I, I can talk about those topics, but like some of the other ones I haven't actually experienced.

And so it can be really difficult to. Give advice in a situation where you really haven't navigated it. But today I'm excited about this podcast because we have some really good, [00:02:00] uh, good tips and tricks for at least making the load just way a little less on the primary cook.

Roni: Yeah, so a lot of these situations are where there is somebody who's the primary cook cooking for multiple people in the household, and everybody has a different want or a different need we saw a lot of these where it was like, you know, one person's vegetarian, the other person's meat and potatoes, or even I think a husband and wife, she was like, I eat Mediterranean and he likes to eat, you know, a lot of like red meat.

Or, you know, kids where. This one kid has to eat basically like low fodmap And I eat low carb, my husband eats low sugar there. There was all sorts of things that, there is definitely all sorts of things that people are navigating and a lot of it is not just for a season, right?

When we've talked about picky eating before, and we've talked to some of our professional resources about picky eating. Picky eating is often for a season of life and you can sort of get past it with some strategies. [00:03:00] However, certain things like allergies and dietary restrictions. You kind of have to build your life around them.

Riley: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would say that is a pretty complicated thing to navigate in my household, I have been the one who has been gluten-free. I have a daughter who is for a period of time, dairy free, and and I was dairy free because of that, because I was nursing her. But everybody else that lives here can't eat anything.

So and so that does really make it a little bit easier, because unfortunately we just like kind of lean towards the diets that have requirements and everybody else just kind of follows along. Thankfully my family's pretty easygoing, but. I think it would be really good. I would like to just jump in with this quote from Lisa.

Lisa is one of our customers who sent us a dinner dilemma and we answered it and we answered it knowing that we weren't giving her the best possible answer, but it was the best answer we could come up with for her in that moment. So she sent us just. A really kind email. And here's [00:04:00] what she said.

You helped me realize that my situation truly is difficult and I need to stop beating myself up about it. In the process, I came to the conclusion that I just need to be grateful for the meals that work well for us. Yes, tacos and rice bowls. In many cultures, people eat the same meals every day of their lives.

We are pretty spoiled here in America. Uh, and then she, uh, she went on to suggest some options for people in her situation.

Roni: Yeah, we mentioned these a few episodes ago, so.

Lisa emailed us probably a month ago, maybe like a month and a half ago, just saying that us acknowledging the fact that that these situations with multiple diets is difficult, just she felt really vindicated by knowing that other people are, are, are recognizing that situation being difficult.

But then she also said she's been doing some brainstorming. So we share, we have shared these meal ideas in the past, but we thought it was really worthwhile to share them again, simply because one of our main tips for this kind of situation is to make. Build your own type meals. So she said the, you know, tacos [00:05:00] and rice bowls, we talked a lot about that.

Every single time one of these dilemmas came up, we were like, we're a broken record because we're gonna tell you to do a build your own situation. But it really does feel like one of the simplest solutions here. So some of her build buildable meal ideas are a pasta salad bar, breakfast burrito, bar.

Breakfast sandwich bar hash brown pizza bar, which is where the hash browns are. The crust, a baked potato bar, individual pizzas, stuffed bell peppers. Build your own sandwich or wrap. Build your own taco salad. Pie Tin nachos, one pie tin for each person. Pizza pockets ramen bar. Build your own chef salad. Stir fry where you cook the meat separately.

Spaghetti where the meatballs are cooked separately as well.

Riley: And this is a lot of options. It really is. You know, like if you think about there's seven dinners in one week, like this could be like, this is so option heavy for looking at a month worth of dinners. Like, because [00:06:00] when I look at something like a baked potato bar. I think that could be a, like a buffalo chicken baked potato bar or a barbecue, something baked potato bar or a meatless baked potato bar.

Or, I mean, I've seen people put like broccoli and cheddar soup on a baked

Roni: Ooh. Yeah.

Riley: like, like this. It can be so, they can be so different. That base is really similar. The, uh, habit of it is really similar. Like, we recently did Greek chicken bowls here. And, my father-in-law, uh, not a huge fan of like Greek food, but he could make it however he wanted it.

He didn't have to put the sauces and all the veggies and all the, he didn't have to put everything on it that he didn't like. He could do chicken and rice if that's all he wanted, you know? And so these things, like, these are great bases, but then you can totally customize the flavor profile of almost every single one of these.

Roni: Which I think is one of the, the biggest tips with the build your own meal idea is to kind of find [00:07:00] that common ground of like, what's the one thing that everybody can eat? Is it just rice, right? Like, is it just the grain or just the, you know, potato, um, just the. Tortilla or just the pizza crust, whatever that thing is, like find what the common ground is and kind of like build out from there.

But have something like that as your starting point, which is definitely what Lisa did here. She thought about like, you know, a pasta salad bar. Well, the pasta salad is the, is the main thing, and then you can just build off of it. Have things separate. People can put what they want in their pasta salad. So I think it's really important to focus on what everybody can eat rather than what they can't eat.

And we found that this was the most helpful when we were answering dinner dilemmas was that when we kind of pushed the things aside, like, oh, well they don't like blue cheese and. Garbanzo beans and whatever. We kind of pushed those aside and just thought like, well, what are the things that we can eat?

It really [00:08:00] simplified the situation instead of looking at the long list of all the things that were off limits.

Riley: Well, and I know that there's a hundred percent psychology behind the I can versus the, I can't. And, and I don't have a quote, I don't have research, but I just know there's psychology behind that. Like when you have, when you choose to have a positive outlook on something, it changes everything. One, one of the things I, I thought of when we were talking about this list and talking about the, the, the, the lowest common denominator for all of these meals, is shopping around.

Now I know that people in this country are all over the place and stores in every part of the country, like what they offer is so different. I live in an area with a lot of dietary options available to me, and I know I'm very spoiled. And it takes me equal time to get to each one of them.

It's not out of my way. You know, I, I like, I, I, I'm very aware that I'm spoiled and I'm not, and I know our audience not everywhere has everything. Right. But I would, [00:09:00] I just wanna encourage you that if your store that you shop at most of the time doesn't offer alternatives for, I don't know, maybe it's a gluten, I, I'm a, I ate gluten-free, so that's an easy for one for me to talk about.

Um, but Dairy Free is another, another one, vegan is another one that these are just like things I've seen in my store. If you are looking for something and your store doesn't have it, I really encourage you to shop around and see what, like if you go to a different store, what do they offer? Because it could be vastly different or it could just have, like I recently found a gluten-free bread that is an amazing price and delicious, and the only place I can find it is at Walmart.

And not every Walmart, just this, just this. Like there's two Walmarts in our town that have it. No, we have a lot of Walmarts in our area, so just to go with me here. Um, but it's not even in the gluten-free section of the store. It's in the regular bread section. And I don't think I would've ever seen it if somebody else hadn't told me about it.

For anyone listening, it's the [00:10:00] Brand is Franz, F-R-A-N-Z, and it, it's really, really good. They have like sourdough and brioche, they have all these options. And so I go there and I stock up on it. I put it in my fridge, and then I've got it for however long. It's only slightly out of the way for me to get that.

Uh, and I'm going on a rabbit trail here. I'm just thinking like, I have a friend that comes to town, um, and we do a girls weekend. Uh, several girls do a girls' weekend. And. There's several dietary issues within this group. And like when these people come to town, we just know, okay, well Sprouts has the dairy-free cream cheese, that's really good.

Or, the, or the macadamian nut milk that she likes in her coffee that like, I can't get that somewhere else, you know? And so looking around for different options and kind of expanding. I dunno, expanding what's available to you. Maybe something like Thrive Market, misfits market, some of those like online grocery stores might be another really good option for you because there's like, there's sauces and [00:11:00] soy sauces and dairy free, blah blah, blah and this and that.

And like pick your thing that you can buy online but you would never find locally. Um, and that really could help you expand what you're cooking, uh, because you've got more options available to you with these like ingredients, the base level ingredients. You know, I'm thinking about this ramen bar. People may not know that there's actually rice ramen that you can get that's gluten free and dairy free.

Um, but like a regular thing of ramen, not, you know, like, but if you're looking for it, you might be able to find it. So

Roni: i'll be honest, I actually didn't know that most ramen wasn't gluten-free until you and I went and ate ramen together because I only ever buy the rice noodles for ramen.

Riley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but if you think about those like, uh, the orange squares or whatever,

Roni: What's the, the brand is like Matcha Man or

Riley: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Machen, I don't know what they're,

Roni: that? Yeah.

Riley: yes. Um, that's not gluten-free, but, you can buy rice ramen really easily. Yeah. And I think, um, particularly with this Ramen restaurant you're talking about, I think a lot of the issue was actually the [00:12:00] sauces was the problem because, what is, uh.

Roni: it's soy sauce.

Riley: Well, yeah, I knew soy sauce. There's another one that's a common ingredient in Asian food. Hoisin is not gluten-free. And so sometimes when you're looking at like sauce, flavor development, like they're not making it with a gluten-free ingredient,

Roni: Yeah. Well, I think this is a good segue into one of the other tips that I had, which is if you're dealing specifically with allergies as part of your dietary restrictions in your household, is to look up alternatives and substitutions If you're unfamiliar with them, right? Or like maybe somebody recently got diagnosed with a dietary issue, it doesn't mean that your family favorite recipes are totally off the table.

No pun intended. Because there are tons of alternatives out there now for gluten-free, dairy-free, basically anything. And so I think just being, doing like a quick search and figuring substitutions, or you could use the feature in plan to eat where you can, in the Plan to Eat app, you can tap [00:13:00] on an ingredient and it'll give you a list of substitutions.

You could also use that.

Riley: Yeah, that's helpful. It is a, that's a, that's one of the most helpful things is just to look up alternatives. And because the internet is such a vast and wonderful resource, there are people who've gone before you. There are people who have suggestions, and people who have a variety of suggestions.

Like there's, there's things I've tried that other people swear by that has not worked well for me. I am thinking about the cinnamon rolls that I make, um, like a gluten-free bread flour versus a gluten-free one-to-one all purpose flour. The, the recipe works completely differently. And if I didn't know, okay, this dough is too wet, it needs more flour because I'm a seasoned gluten-free cook.

Like it, they, they would've literally gone. They, they did. Well recently I had a batch to completely go to waste because I didn't add enough. I get to add extra flour. . It was unusable and so like a unseasoned gluten-free cook would've been like, this is a failure. I can never make gluten-free cinnamon rolls.

I just know that I've done it successfully before. [00:14:00] I just had to do that tweak. And it was unfortunate that it was a failure, but it's also a learning experience too.

Roni: Yeah, that's a really good point because when you are not a recipe author, like most people are, not you, the people who are recipe authors go through the. Time consuming process, you know, of figuring out the right ratios and the right amounts of everything. They have a lot of botched recipes before they get to the right one.

So if this is something that's new in your life and you don't know exactly how to cook or bake in a certain way with certain substitutions like. Use somebody else's hard work. You know, like when they put the recipe out on the internet, like they've done a lot of hard work to get it to that point where like it's coming out the way that you would expect it to come out.

Riley: And a lot of these recipes just on the topic of recipe authors. It is worth it to read every note that they add because like I live at a high altitude. But if the [00:15:00] recipe author is at a low altitude, that's a different thing. If they say, this is the flower I found and I used, but it's really hard to find and you can't find it, here's what to do instead.

That sounds so specific because it is, it's real, like it's a real example. But those substitutions and those tweaks, like there's usually a note section at the bottom of every recipe author's recipe. And particularly when you are cooking for a different dietary need, no matter what it is, that's a very important thing to note.

Roni: Right.

Riley: Um, if you're cooking for someone who's a vegan and you're using a product that you are very like, familiar with, a vegan may not eat it. It may have some, but you didn't know. And you know, and it's very easy to just overlook reading like an ingredient label. I have a friend who was recently telling me that she made these little like mini muffins or pancakes for her daughter.

Oh no. Maybe it was bagel, some kind of, some kind of thing. But her daughter can't have corn or cornmeal, anything like that. And she had been feeding them to her kid and her husband read the label and cornmeal was [00:16:00] buried in the, in, in the ingredients. But she just, for some reason she thought this is a safe product.

And they determined, oh, it's not.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Um, that was a happy accident for them because they realized that potentially cornmeal is safe for their daughter, because she wasn't having a reaction. But she has a reaction to just corn. By itself. I'm not exactly sure, but but like she just overlooked it. But if you're cooking for somebody and you're not experienced like with being, with vegan needs or, with low sodium needs, like reading ingredient labels is super duper important.

And the recipe knows at the bottom of recipe.

Roni: Absolutely.

So if you use plan to eat, the best way to keep all your recipes organized when you're dealing with different dietary preferences and needs is to use tags and custom categories so you can customize your tags and all of your categories. So the categories are course cuisine and main ingredient, and then you also have tags for a like additional level of organization on your recipes.

So. I think that it's a great idea to have [00:17:00] tags specifically for whatever the dietary restrictions or preferences are that you're dealing with in your household, so that way you can just quickly search by those tags or those keywords and find those recipes. Particularly if you're somebody who, maybe this is a recent, more recent development in your life, but you've had Plan to eat for several years, and so you've got hundreds of recipes in there, and there's a bunch of 'em that don't meet.

The dietary needs for anybody. You can go through and tag the recipes that do work for your family so that way you can keep 'em kind of separate or you could just create like a whole separate course that's like, these recipes work for Angela.

And then, you know, like that you, those are recipes that are safe to plan.

If you don't wanna like clear out your whole recipe book, with the recipes, that wouldn't work so.

Riley: Yeah. Another something I thought of while you were talking about customizing categories. You might have friends, like this might not be a household issue. This could be something that you have friends who navigate this and you're inviting them [00:18:00] over for dinner or like my example earlier, the girls weekend.

As someone who has a dietary need. I feel very much like I'm high maintenance, like for my friends. And I try to like, I would rather go hungry than be a problem, you know, like that, that's genuinely how I feel and I appreciate when people put in the effort. And I just wanna like put this out there for anyone who's like navigating this for other people, like ask them, it is okay to ask them.

I'm, I'm thinking about a friend of mine whose, whose family is dairy free and when they come to my house I say, Hey, here's what I have on the menu. Is this safe for your family? Or like, you know, I mean there are people who have allergies that are deadly, right? Peanuts, soy, I, I mean like I know people who have allergies that are like.

Very dangerous for them. And so don't shy away from just trying to have a clear communication, like clear conversation. Can you eat this? Is this safe? A lot of people, like in my experience, a lot of people don't know soy sauce is, [00:19:00] has gluten in it. And so they make this whole elaborate meal for me, but I can't eat it.

'cause that soy sauce, you know, like that is devastating and also embarrassing. As the person who has like, I feel like shameful, you know, to have to say, I'm so sorry, I can't. I can't eat this or whatever. And so just like opening up that line of communication and saying, Hey, this is what I'm making, does this work for you guys?

I read every label, or I'm using this product as the dairy, or I'm, you know, like, you know, a non-dairy item. I'm using this in place of the soy sauce and just by saying, is this safe? Does this work for your family? Here's what I'm thinking of eating. Maybe it is a customizable situation. Hey, there will be a bowl of cheese, but I'll have dairy free cheese in addition.

Like I, I think most people who are navigating like. Dietary needs that affect their health would just really love that from you.

Roni: Yeah, that's a great tip, and I think this is a good thing to do within your own household if the [00:20:00] dietary preferences are more voluntary. Right. So I'm not thinking about somebody who's been told you can't have gluten or dairy or something thinking like it's a picky eater. It's somebody who has decided to go vegetarian or vegan or low carb.

You know, these are all voluntary, eating decisions that people might make. And so I think in those situations it's really great to kind of crowdsource your meal planning as well.

Riley: Mm-hmm.

Roni: Because it can feel really overwhelming to be like, well, this person's eating this way and this person's eating this way, and this kid won't eat this thing.

And, and again, like we talked about, like you're looking at the, the restrictions rather than looking at what you can actually do. But I think a lot of times it's. Been really helpful to just reach out and get support from the actual people to be like, okay, what will you eat? What can we eat? Right? Like you could basically have everybody else sit down and be like, what are the meals we can all agree on?

And this is, that's how I'm, that's how I'm gonna base my meal plan off of those things. Because there's definitely, like I was, we talked about earlier, like there's definitely common ground somewhere.

Riley: Yeah. So if [00:21:00] you're dealing with something like picky eating in a child, there's some amazing resources out there. I, you guys know that I'm like the biggest Katie Kimball fan. I ever since we interviewed her. What has it been like three years ago?

Roni: Yeah, I think so.

Riley: I am just like, I have talked about her like on every other podcast since then. But you can find her at raising Healthy Families on Instagram. Um, and I think that's her website page also. Website page. How old am I? Oh my gosh. That is where you can find her on the internet. Also, you can website page, uh, I believe that's her, like the name of her website as well. And she just has incredible resources for navigating picky eating, the reasons why your child may be a picky eater and not, it's not shame inducing.

It's, it's very much like a, how can we move through this? How can we. Present food that will help them feel safe to eat dinner and then like add something the next week and the next week. Just, she's, she's incredible in the resource department for picky eaters specifically. Um, [00:22:00] so I just wanna like commend her to you if that's what you're navigating at your house and that's what's making your dinner.

Like that's your dinner dilemma. That's your challenge every night is like coming up with something that people will actually eat. She's a great one.

Roni: She's great.

Riley: Okay. Last thing I think is. As someone who navigates dietary needs and has navigated, multiple dietary needs, uh, I just want to encourage you to try to not cook multiple meals. Cooking multiple meals for multiple family members is just like, it is just so much more of a load than cooking already is, you know, um, cooking every night of the week all the time.

It can become, I mean. Everything about this podcast and plan to eat is we're trying to help this be a simpler task. Help this be less of a mental load, less of a financial load. Take this off, like, like take this outta your brain space altogether because it's written down the rest the, you know, shopping list is made for you.

All these things. And so like another thing I just wanna encourage you to do is just cook one meal. [00:23:00] As often as you can. Uh, and so that's why these buildable meals are so helpful because it allows you to cook one meal and everyone customizes it. They want the way they want it, which means everyone's gonna eat dinner, everyone's gonna be satisfied and full.

And so I, I think that's just the thing about these mul, these like these buildable meals that's so helpful is just 'cause it lowers that mental load. Because the person who's the primary cook at your house is likely. Like they can go through times where it's really draining and really tiring. Um, and so it's just something that can be really helpful.

And like we've already said, just like ask for help, ask the people in your house what they would like to eat. Batch cooking can be super helpful. Meal prep can be super helpful. And don't forget that the internet is your friend.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: I mean, a lot of our dinner dilemmas, like I think our suggestion was there are Instagrammers. Instagram influencers, who their whole shtick is Trader Joe's dinners for $5 or less or whatever. And so finding, finding [00:24:00] a recipe author whose recipes you like, it, it just builds trust, right? You like, okay, I know I like this person's stuff. I'm gonna keep using their recipes. Find these people, start saving their recipes, utilizing their resources for the dietary need that you're facing.

Just like really, really helpful.

Roni: Yeah. An additional thought that I had on that too is when you're creating some of these, build your own meals, if it feels like you're constantly. Spending a lot of time to create all of the different sides or additions to the thing. I think that's a great time to ask the people in your family for help.

You know, say this one person can't have cheese, so you bought dairy free cheese, or something like that. Well like be like, Hey, can you come here and grate. The dairy free cheese, you know, because like that's gonna be what's going on your meal. And, and not to sit, not as like a punitive, I don't mean to say that like, because you have to eat this, you should do this thing, but just as a way to like offload some of the work.

If you're like, okay, well I [00:25:00] make the, the chicken and rice, but then I spend 45 minutes chopping all the extra vegetables and the accoutrement that's gonna go with our dinner. I think that's a great time to like get. Everybody in your family involved and be like, you know, prepare the thing that you want to eat with this, which is kind of where the like, pizza bar situation comes in as well, where it's like, well you, if you can just make pizza dough, everybody can make their own pizza.

Those kinds of situations I feel like make it feel like you're not like, okay, well the build your own meal situation helps. 'cause I'm only making one meal but I'm spending an hour and a half doing it.

Riley: Yeah, and on that note, I would also just say be uh, accept help. From

Roni: the help. Yes,

Riley: but also accept the help sometimes, like buy the dough, like there's vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free dough out there for the pizzas. Like, like try to lighten your load however you can, especially if it's quite, you know, like it's okay to use [00:26:00] instant rice.

It's okay to buy the gluten-free whatever, pizza crust, whatever base you need that's pre-done. Sometimes pre-chopped veggies, like if you're gonna use them all up, it's awesome. If you're gonna use it for something else. That's why I say that. 'cause if you're gonna use it for something else and you need it to be in a different shape, like maybe you buy the one you need to cut out.

But, yeah, I, I just think accept the help in multiple ways.

Roni: Yeah. I like it. Do you wanna talk about something else?

Riley: How are you saving money at the grocery store this week? Roni?

Roni: Ooh, great question. This is actually interesting to talk about because, I don't know if you've ever had this situation, but I feel like the last couple months I've been like super diligent about my meal planning and my grocery lists, and. Every week I'm making a meal plan and I'm going to the grocery store, and at some point it all like got, I don't know exactly what the right word is for it.

Like I got like super caught up on it where we had. [00:27:00] A few different instances where, you know, we had like a, a pantry meal on the, on the meal plan that we then cont like it kept getting pushed off and it kept getting pushed off and it kept getting pushed off because something else would come up. But it's a pantry meal, so it doesn't matter.

Riley: Right.

Roni: And so last week we had like a whole week of just pantry meals and I literally went to the grocery store to get some fresh fruit. And like some milk or something, and that was it. So how I'm saving money is I did my

Riley: Accidentally.

Roni: self a favor a long time ago.

Riley: That's awesome. That's great.

Roni: Yeah, it worked out really well. I was really surprised, like I kept being like, I need to make a meal plan. And then I'd look at my plan sheet app and be like, oh no, I can just move that recipe from last week here and then be like, I need to make a move. Oh no, I can just move that other recipe down. So.

That's really cool. This week I, kept my meal plan really simple, by, I basically just planned like this was like a money saving thing too. I didn't spend very much at the grocery store [00:28:00] for this week. I basically decided like, okay, I'm gonna like meal prep on Monday and make, some food that's gonna last like two or three days.

And then I'll plan a recipe, like a crockpot recipe on Wednesday that I know gives us plenty of leftovers. So I basically plan like two recipes this week in, in the idea that they're both gonna give us leftovers for multiple days. We'll see how it goes, but I only spent like $75 at the grocery store, which is like half of what I would normally spend.

Riley: That's awesome. I love the weeks where. I don't know what to call them, but like, I love the budget week, like where I eat, what I've got on hand, what I've pre, like, what I've frozen. Like kinda like what you're saying, like you use all those pantry meals and you spent $0, or basically zero. I love those weeks and I, I try to plan them because I do have that situation build up here too, where, okay, well I froze enchiladas a month ago.

It's, we should probably eat them. I didn't have a plan for them, so we'll just eat them. Or, you know, we've got these sausages in the [00:29:00] freezer and we've got things we could have as sides. You know, like I'm just gonna have these weeks where I intentionally have these weeks sometimes where, uh, where I try not to spend any money at the store at all, and that actually helps my monthly overall grocery budget tremendously,

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: because if you don't spend groceries for one whole month, it's like, you know, it's incredible.

It like, makes such a dent in the grocery budget.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Yeah, I'm, I'm actually, I'm doing the exact same thing this week. This week I'm taking a bit of a break, um, from cooking and meal planning and, uh, and winging it is not ideal and I don't recommend it. So like, I definitely do have a plan and I know like what we're going to be eating, like I've got all the stuff for white chicken chili, shocker, y'all know. Um, but I also have, I literally, these examples were real, I have these chicken apple sausages we're gonna have for dinner. I've got a pan of enchiladas, so like, um, we're gonna have breakfast for dinner one night 'cause I have hash browns that we haven't eaten. I'm gonna eat those like, or like make those with something else.

Like we have meals. It's [00:30:00] just gonna be a really like tight week of just like eating what we've got. And I might go to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables 'cause we do need that and my kids eat a lot of that. But it's gonna be a really tight week grocery wise, and I'm really excited about it.

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: I, yeah, I feel like I am at the point right now where I have done enough extra grocery shopping that we, like, the meals might not be fantastic, but I could make a lot of meals based off of what we have, like in our pantry and in our freezer. And so I, that was kind of what I was trying to do last week was like use up some of the like meat that I bought that was like, buy one, get one free, or whatever.

And just not be so concerned with, like, is it a fantastic meal? Like one night I was just like, we're gonna eat red beans and rice, the end.

Riley: Yeah, it's great.

Roni: And my husband loved it. He put it in a burrito

Riley: Whoa. Nice. I like it. One does. I love it. Yeah. [00:31:00] Nobody's complaining here and it's gonna be a nice week for our budget and I think no one's gonna, I think, I think it's actually gonna be good. I don't think it's gonna be a bummer. I think when you do, if you have the space and if you do have the, like pantry storage for things like this, like having it built in really does ease some of the burden of planning because you know you've got a buffer, which I know is something we talked about last week or last episode.

But it really does ease the burden when, you know, you've got that, like, oh, I've got this meal, like this back pocket meal I can pull out anytime I need it. And when you've got a couple of those, it just really helps.

Roni: And really to me, the important part is having that like list of ideas because I think that where I get stuck, and I'm guessing a lot of people get stuck with this too, is you look in your cupboards and you think. We have a lot of food, but I can't make anything with

Riley: Yeah, no. All this food, but no meals.

Roni: No meals with any of this food.

But, uh, to me that's really just kind of like a lack of ideas of, of how [00:32:00] to use the meals. Like you and I have done the thing before where it's like, okay, I've got these three ingredients. Tell me what I can make with it. Because sometimes you just need an outside look of. Just, just give me something that my brain is not thinking of.

However, if you kinda like go through like red beans and rice is not something that I would normally make, but we had some like leftover ham. Well, so it was like leftover Christmas ham that I had frozen, and then I pulled a bag of it out and we were using it for lunch meat. But then there was like some pieces that were not lunch meat pieces, you know?

And so then I was like, well, what am I gonna do with this? And so. I Googled it, what should I do with leftover smoked ham? And like the first recipe was put in red bean bread, beans and rice instead of having sausage. And I was like, genius.

Riley: Yeah, genius.

Roni: So sometimes you just need the ideas.

Riley: Yep. Yeah, we, that would be a fun series. I wish we could do that on the fly, like with like live, you know, like a, like an Instagram live where people did that to us. 'cause it's such a fun game, in my opinion.

Roni: It is a fun game.

Riley: It's [00:33:00] easier for me to think of it for you than for me.

Roni: And I don't know why that is. Why is it that you can text me, be like, I have these three items, what should I make with it? And I immediately have an answer.

Riley: Yeah. What was that? What did you, well, you text me this recently. Do you remember what it was?

Roni: no.

Riley: What would you, oh, what would you make with this, or what would you serve with this or something?

Roni: Oh, well, I did ask you what you would serve with

Riley: Biscuits and

Roni: biscuits and gravy and you said fruit, which was also what the internet had told me. I had

Riley: Me and the internet.

Roni: I had also tried to crowdsource from the internet. 'Cause yeah, I didn't, I was like, biscuit and gravy is kind of heavy. And so I was like, what would you serve with it? It's not, I, I'm not gonna serve like broccoli with it. That feels

Riley: No, that would feel weird. I, um, I, I have been known to, make like, uh, spinach, like scrambled eggs with biscuits and gravy. My family usually requests that I do not do that, but I'm always trying to sneak some vegetables into unhealthy dinners. But I always go back to one of my favorite restaurants.[00:34:00]

Has like an, like a goat cheese omelet for on their menu for breakfast, and they serve it with a salad and I love it. So like, why can I not do that at my own house? I can, and I do.

Roni: Yeah. I love that too. They just put like a really simple lemon dressing on it. So

Riley: good.

Roni: Okay, hang on. I'm looking for that other one because you gave me a really good 

Riley: Only, yeah, it was like you had people over your house or something. 

Roni: Yes. So I did this to you back right after Christmas, and I text you and said, all right, riley, I have chicken thighs, cauliflower, and black beans. What should I make? And then I said, oh, or I also have potatoes. And you gave me the idea. Cheesy cauliflower, potato puree, topped with Mexican black beans and grilled chicken thighs.

And it was so good. It was such a good recommendation. The cauliflower, mashed potato puree turned out so good. Even my husband liked it. He doesn't like cauliflower that [00:35:00] much. So,

Riley: I really like a parsnip puree, I dunno if I've ever made that.

it's good. Well, okay, this is going down to my dietary restrictions rabbit hole with a recipe that I found one time, uh, when I was doing the autoimmune protocol.

Roni: Oh.

Riley: And it, it is just a, like parsnip has a bit of a sweetness to it so it doesn't have the same flavor as potato, even though they're both root vegetables.

And so I think that's where that idea came from to make the cauliflower puree, like, 'cause you can mix the two together to kind of mask the cauliflower if you're not a big fan of cauliflower. Um, but still gives you the hardiness of a potato. Yeah,

Roni: Yeah, it was good. I was actually gonna ask if that was like a southern thing. 'cause I feel like growing turnips and parsnips and stuff is a little more common in the south.

Riley: Um, no, I didn't grow up eating it. I don't think I had eaten a parsnip prior to making the

Roni: Okay. Okay. Well I think that wraps us up for this episode. As [00:36:00] always, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate you being here and, following along on our tips for getting started in the new year, and we'll talk to you again in two weeks.