Pilar’s Final Week: Fewer Alerts, More Ease

Dinner doesn’t fall apart because we can’t cook. It falls apart because we’re tired, we’re guessing, and we’re trying to invent a plan at 6 pm. Florencia Ramirez sits down with Pilar Ortega to celebrate the final week of their meal-planning check-ins (but not the end of meal planning for her and her family) and to name what actually changed: consistency, a written plan, and meals that finally feel cohesive instead of random parts that don’t add up.

We get specific about the real-life sticking points: how to bring a teenager into the routine without a fight, how to offer choice without losing structure, and how a batch of taquitos can turn into everything from a quick dinner to a “taquito salad” that feels fun and doable. Pilar also shares what it looks like when balanced meals lead to fewer snack spirals and more stable blood sugar, including how carbs without fibre or protein can create spikes and crashes that ripple through the whole day.

Then we zoom out into kitchen activism: shop your pantry first, then the farmers market, and only then hit the grocery store for the remaining items. We talk pop-up markets, farm stands, local bakeries and butchers, virtual farmers market pickups, and why buying direct can keep dramatically more money with the people who grow our food. Along the way, we explore plant-forward cooking and small swaps that keep cultural comfort foods intact while nudging meals toward more seasonal produce and better sourcing, including regenerative agriculture.

If you want meal planning that feels flexible, supportive, and genuinely satisfying, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend who dreads dinner, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one small change you could try this week?

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Transcript

Celebrating A New Meal Planning Habit

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Hi, my name is Florencia Ramirez, and I am here with Pilar Ortega, and we are celebrating her last week of meal planning with me and with us, but not your last week of meal planning. I certainly hope. Okay. I hope I'm really interested to hear from you, Pilad. Well, one about farmers market, if you were able to start to incorporate the farmers market piece into your kitchen activism meal planning, but also how you feel this will resonate for you moving forward without these weekly check-ins.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Yeah. It's been great, honestly. I think the best thing is that I feel like we're getting to a place where it's more consistent. That, like you said, it's like a muscle that you have to build. And we are definitely there where it's a habit now to just think ahead of time about what we're gonna eat. So that is a big change because we used to be a lot more just go with the flow and see what's ready, see what we feel like. And now we're more thoughtful about, and I think that's a great start to just being thoughtful about food in general. It's just uh planning. So I think it's been a great change.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

So you've been writing it down at the beginning of the week, and I know you had that great idea of who is cooking, yeah. That addition you've continued that.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Yeah, we continue that again. Like life happens, and we've had some busy days and had to change some things around, but taking that into consideration, I think we're doing pretty good at sticking with the plan. So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

And how about your daughter? Has your daughter been incorporated into it?

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Yeah, she's been doing her part. I know it's still hard to get her to just be more, should I say, more creative in her own cooking? Uh and she's been more like, okay, just prepare this and do that, and and then she'll do it. But it definitely helps to have things that she likes and that she can she feels comfortable preparing. That has helped to have her include it in the plan throughout the week instead of just like making a plan and then just dumping it on her lap. Okay, this is you today.

Getting A Teen To Cook

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah, I I think it would be really helpful for listeners to get like real-world examples. That was a general explanation of what's happening with your daughter, but because many of us struggle with how do we get our kids on board with cooking for themselves, especially when they're teenagers.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

I mean, every stage has its its challenges and its beauty, but yeah, so what what were some of the things that you got worse?

SPEAKER_03 4:19

This this girl is, you know, give her two or three steps. She's not really willing to do more than that, but she looks to loves taquitos. So my husband did like a big batch of taquitos and froze them. And we've been doing, I think she's been going between taquitos on the days that she cooks, and she likes the fried rice too. So she would reheat that. But the taquitos, she would go and like fry them, and she would cut some lettuce and put cheese on top and put and then reheat some refried beans and just dress it up. She sometimes makes like a taquito salad. She loves salads. What is a taquito salad? She just makes like a salad with all the toppings, like the cheese, the crema, the what else did she put? Avocado. And then she just like puts a taquito on top and coats.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

How is that not creative? Yeah. Creative. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

She is creative when it comes to salads. She wants to turn everything into a salad, and she's funny in that way.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

That's a fabulous skill or habit to have is to turn everything into a salad. If only I had that. I know.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah, I'm like, good for you. You know, that's that's good.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That one.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah. So she does that with my husband cooks like Tinga, it's like chicken with like a sauce, and she would just turn that into a salad. Just put put all the ingredients in the salad and then add the meat on top, you know, kind of like a salad bowl would be. It's been it's been good, that. And then the fried rice. She loves making it's been a lot of soups this week, which I've been trying to also switch things around because it's like it's so hot here. I know. You can't have soup three times a week when it's 90 degrees outside. Yeah, the week before it was cold. Yeah, so we plan on that, and then it's hot, so it's like, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Right. Maybe another thing to look at the weather. It's like, what is your schedule? What's its season? Who's cooking on which day? And what is the weather?

SPEAKER_03 6:41

What is the weather gonna be? Yeah, exactly. If it's gonna rain and it's gonna be cold, I'm down for soup. Yes, this planned soup.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, that's so funny. Okay, so she is has been cooking, and she did you put that on the meal plan when yes, yes, we have it. You're on those particular nights.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Yeah, we have sometimes I even just give her options because teenagers like, oh, you have for Lucia. Lucia is cooking her meal on Friday night. We have taquitos, we have soup, and she can have those couple options.

Less Waste And Fewer Takeout Runs

SPEAKER_00 7:22

That's also another good tip is to give them options, to give teenagers options. I I know all about that. Because it also it's about agency. Yeah, exactly. For her to feel like I'm part of this, I get to make decisions too, and you're giving her a framework in which to do it. So you know that ultimately she's gonna eat something good as she gets to decide what that is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, oh, I love it. When we started this meal planning together, the challenges that you named were well, you weren't meal planning, you were cooking a lot, but you weren't meal planning. So at the end of the week, you had a lot left over that you were throwing away that you that was to the trash bin or to the compost pile. And then you found also the other challenge was you would have parts of a meal that your husband had made, like a lot of protein, for example, but then didn't have the other elements to it. So then you found yourself just going out to eat, anyways, because you had missing parts. Right. Then that was happening. And then with your daughter who needs to manage what she's eating, right, and needs to make sure she's keeping her sugar levels at a certain so she can thrive, right? Then you were also finding yourself picking her up from school, then rushing off to go get her something.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Something and so I so those are three areas which I would love to hear how that has shifted in the time we work together and that you've been using the meal planning.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Yeah, so definitely the amount of food that's being cooked in advance is scaled down a little bit. So that's been good because we found ourselves just having a lot of the same thing and no like size or options to accompany that. So now we're just scaling that down, having enough prep for like maybe two meals only, and then definitely having a plan. So we if we write it down and we have the ingredients, at least we know that we can prepare those meals that we plan ahead. So that has been a big change because then we have everything. Like I would, you know, for the most part, my husband cooks, so if we have plan of the day, he would just have all the other ingredients. So he'll be like, Well, there is I cooked the the ropa vieja, the Cuban like shredded beef, and there's rice, there's beans, I got some plantains, and I'm like, wow, this is a full Cuban meal. I love it. Okay, now I feel like I have a cohesive plan and everything is there, and we go through it because it's there and it makes sense altogether. So that has improved definitely. The other part with that, it comes with the planning. It improves the situation where we get home and what are we gonna eat and should we go out to grab something? I think that has been limited. We only did it, I'm gonna say, on the weekend. We went out and got my daughter lunch on I would say I'm gonna say Saturday, but that was the only time we went and had food outside of the house this week. So that was great. Again, scaling down the takeout, and yeah, and I think my daughter's eating habits have improved. She's and that shows on her levels of her health too. She's going less and less for the snacks because she sometimes would you just eat like whatever's in the fridge, it just doesn't satisfy you. That's that it's that idea again of the full meal. If you don't have a full meal and you're just like kind of picking what you have without a without uh making sense, it doesn't satisfy you. I don't know. That's at least that's like our thing here.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Right. Because if you sit down to a full meal like what you what you just talked about in the beginning with the the Cuban meal, I mean, you're you're you are satisfied. You don't need to go in and look in the pantry for some kind of snack, snacky food because you're hungry an hour later. Yeah, but you feel good.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

You're balanced, you're balanced, you have your Cuban style, like you have your mead with the garlic and all the yummy flavors, and then you have your beans and your rice, which is your your carbs, and then a little plantain that adds a little sweetness. So you have everything on your plate, you don't need to go out and like get more, and then you likely have enough for lunch the next day, right? Oh, yeah, you have enough for lunch, you can turn that into a salad, a salad or a little burrito or something, like you have rice and beans and meat. That's like an easy life.

Balanced Meals And Blood Sugar Stability

SPEAKER_00 13:04

It's satisfying, it's satisfying and it it suppresses the urge to get filler foods, right? Yes, yes, yeah, filler foods. Oh, that's so wonderful. So you you mentioned about her because you have data then to show that it has been better for her health. So talk me through that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Yeah, so um I think a lot of times when she doesn't eat a balanced meal, it's just goes like her her glucose just spikes because she's eating maybe a carb that doesn't have anything around it to to support that spike. So no fiber, no protein. And that shows because then that glucose stays like that for hours sometimes, you know, and in a healthy person, you're you maybe you get a spike a little bit when you eat, but it goes down pretty quickly for her. It's just it stays there for sometimes all night. I get the notifications. That's the thing that's good about technology, but at the same time, I know minute by minute what is happening to her by getting the notifications of like her high blood blood sugar. And then the other thing that happens is that she could crash on the other end because her insulin didn't didn't match that spike or hit her later, and then she'll go like low blood sugar and needs more sugar. So it's like a kind of like cycle. So when I see her going through those like ups and downs, I know that she's not eating healthy, that she's just like catching, catching up. She's eating something not healthy, it's spiking her. Then she's going down, eating more unhealthy because she needs to go back up. And I'm just worried. But this week she was very stable. She didn't have, I know this specific week was good. The week before that, she was sick, so it was a little, you have to take that into consideration. But but this week she was very stable, not a lot of highs or lows. And and that just says that she's doing better at balancing her.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Oh my gosh, I love that. Oh that is so not you didn't you weren't getting many notifications.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

Notifications, exactly. I wasn't getting, yeah, like she. I don't know if I have, but she would have, yeah, like this is not a bad thing. So you're showing me her, yeah. So you're showing the right because she's staying within range. So that's a good, that's a good number. Like when she's bad, she would have like peaks that go all the way up and then stay up and then go all the way down, right? Right. So for her, 135 is a good is a good yeah, yeah. 135. I mean, she had she had breakfast, so it's a little bit little bit higher, but it's that's a really good chart for her.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. One of the words that I love that really stood out to me that you said earlier was cohesive. Yeah. Now you have a cohesive plan. Yes. That's a good word, right? Because it's it's like it it all it's all come together because you did have all of the elements there. You have a husband who's a chef.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

I know.

Shop Your Kitchen Then Farmers Market

SPEAKER_00 16:45

So you work in you guys work in the restaurant, so you know how to warehouse foods and how to plan and how to be creative around food. I mean, that's that's been your career, right? Both of your careers, but you just didn't have that cohesion. And now you do, because it, you know, the meal plan is such a simple way to create a structure of cousin in your week so that you can know, map out simply what it is that you need to eat based on what's happening in your life at any certain period of time. So I'm very happy about that. One of the things we left off the last time we spoke was about because you got the shopping your kitchen. Yes, you got that down, which is yeah, huge. And really, if people who uh just did that, that is a big win for your pocketbook. It's yeah, it's a it's a big win for the environment, right? It's just shopping your kitchen first. But then the second tier of that is all right, so then when you do shop for new ingredients, and if you wanted to take this deeper, then you would shop your farmer's market second before the grocery store. Did you do that?

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Yeah, I think this is gonna be the challenge, is just getting the farmer's market into our schedule too, and seeing how we can fit it in so we can shop there before we plan or within the same day. So yeah, we're trying to find out. I did the Saturday farmer's market in Ventura. So, and that one I think it's a little smaller than the one. Yeah, it's much smaller than the one in Oxnard. So trying to make it down there to have a little bit more options, the one in Oxnard. But uh, we went to the one in Ventura and got a few things. I like that we've been doing even with like leftovers from like say the tacos or something like cream, we had like a whole tub of cream, and I got this awesome strawberries from a season right now. They're like so delicious and juicy from the farmers market, and we just whipped like a little strawberries and cream dessert, and we had that last week, it was so good, and it got rid of that like craving for something sweet, and then we got just like essentials like some lettuce, things like that, so that help with salads and other ingredients, but yeah, definitely had to get more into the schedule of going every week, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

That's for the pop-up farmer's market, but then there's also the brick and mortar farmers market and farm stands like in Rio, for example, there's the farm stand part of the Ventura Co-op at the McGrath farms, and they have all kinds of beautiful organic produce all really so you if you if it doesn't work, and that's just an example for uh just this area, but in every region, there are those examples of how can you tap into what's happening in your community without just being sweating on that the farmers market only looks like the pop-up market that may fit in your schedule. That there's the coffee roaster, right? That's there's the bakeries that are there all week long. There's there's these at least here we we're lucky to have a couple butcher butchers that are serving dates. Yes, those those types of things that don't have to fit into a particular day of the week.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Yeah, so I think uh it would be helpful if I can put together like a list of all those things and then maybe share them in like our text messages that we keep for what we need in the kitchen or in the house, like shopping list wise, and then just have a list of those. That would be good, or just like going to them like once a week, just getting familiar with them because I think it's like you said, you have to build those relationships and those habits in a way that it feels normal. Sorry, it feels normal to just stop by stop by the butcher, stop by the the Bikamore farmer's market, just as a habit.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yes, no, it and it does become a habit because we've been we've always just when you need something, you go to the grocery store. That's how we've grown up, and so this is again just like the meal planning, this is a different way of approaching house shopping that at in the beginning will feel clunky, right? And then we have all of those barriers that we think about, like, oh, it takes too much time, or right, I don't, you know, how can I be, I can't drive over to get that inventura for me, that's where I go to get my bread. But then you start planning it in different ways, like okay. I'm gonna go to the bakery and I'm gonna make that drive because it's worth it. So either one, I'm just not gonna eat bread because it's not worth it. Yeah, you know, until I know I have that one bread, that fermented bread with 80 grains, and there's micro bakery. Yes. So then maybe I buy two loaves. or two or three loaves and then freeze it, right? Cut them in half and freeze it for other weeks. So you don't have to go every week, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Yeah. So what I'm thinking is that the whole planning process of planning these meals maybe would have to switch to include those those items, those products. Because I know from my experience, like when we plan our meals, especially my husband because he's the one who cooks and mostly he does the shopping too, he'll be like, oh yeah, I can get this here, this here. Like he already knows where he's going to find all this product and all those things. So he's not only making his plan about what we're going to eat, but also where he's going to go shopping and how how how much time is going to take him or whatever. He just has in his head, okay, I need to do this, I need to do this trip, this trip, this trip, and this is my list. So I think that including the options that are more environmentally friendly, you would have to start there too.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah. Well what we do is and I have on the on the template for the shopping guide is I suggest putting an asterisk on things that you could purchase from the farmer's market. So for example, for us this week we're making spinach enchiladas. So then the spinach I know we can get from the farmer's market. Right? What else did I have? I'm going to look over here because I have it just here. I had but soy sauce for example soy sauce that was something I needed we needed to get from the grocery store. And then when we bought the soy sauce then we're looking for organic soy sauce right now do I have oh tortilla chips tortilla chips that's also something that we get from the grocery store. They we used to have somebody who sold it at the farmers market. They had nobale chips oh my gosh. But they would drive from LA and we would purchase from them but they weren't making enough it it wasn't working for them to cut to make that drive here eventually they stopped yeah and that's the other thing is that if we don't support yeah folks no they can't do what they're doing and we want them to do what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

And the difference also that helps me to make the the trip the extra trips or to take the time because it's like convenience the convenience of the grocery store there's a trade-off which is in experience and also in quality of food right absolutely but when we there's a study that came out that when we purchase direct from the farmer or the food producer they're keeping about 90 cents per dollar versus when we purchase it from the grocery store the farmer or food producer is uh keeping about 14 cents per dollar that's a massive difference they they can't survive and they're not surviving a lot of folks are not surviving this so we need to cut out the middleman as much as possible and buy direct from from these folks who really are at the forefront of growing more nourishing food for us and for the planet yeah absolutely I I agree yeah that's a shocking number and it definitely puts a lot of what convenience like you said in in perspective that's what it takes for convenience no so we gotta we gotta definitely go out of the way a little to support the ones are doing it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Yes and there's also a virtual farmers market.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Yeah you told me about that I I still have to go in and check it out I I have to go in and maybe do like a little research and put together maybe a list of things that we could start buying on the regular because I I like the idea of making it more like a habit. Yes things that we can switch from what we buy on the regular basis to to those vendors.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

And it's not doing everything all at once this is not a perfection it's it's taken me many years to find to build those relationships and to seek out these different folks but you just do it one by one start asking questions are is your are your foods grown pesticide free are you using organic fertilizers because otherwise the conventional way is to use petroleum based fertilizers and then you don't have to ask that more than once you you just ask it the one time and then you find your your person and those that's the person you go to every every week. And then from that it just builds a relationship when I go to the farmer's market I know them I know my my farmers by first name and they know who I am because it's been years like one of these days I should just meet you at the mar this morning. Absolutely you're absolutely welcome to like everyone so you find your egg person you find the milks that you like which might be at the grocery store or at the farmer's market because for me we don't have milk at the farmer's market. But then you and then you just keep building on that because for so for me the new habit that I'm working to build is Azure standard it's it's it's a company it's been around for this in since the 70s I think but for me it's you order online and it's every two weeks they have a closing date and then you pick it up from in this case it's somebody's house it's like the truck comes and you pick it up in front of somebody's house it could be it's in it all it's all over the country in different spots and people volunteer their place for the distribution drop off yeah the drop off spot but that's different right so then if I'm thinking about two week increments and I have to order milk for the two weeks and I think about okay what kind of cheese how much cheese do I need for four weeks and cheese is easier because if you're not opening up cheese it doesn't go bad. But so it's and then buying things in bulk as well there's bulk options so I'm I'm learning too it's like always deepening wherever we're starting from it it just we just keep getting better and better just like anything else when we when we pay attention and we're focused on it we just get better at it that's like my new homework is okay I've done it once I loved it but then I then this I miss the second cutoff date um to make the order for this next pickup.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

So I miss that that two week window but it's just learning it's not it's not perfection no yeah and you have to find what works for you too for for your schedule like you said luckily there's options where you can order online you can do the pickups so I know it's it's it's there you just have to find find what works for you yes yes and just just keep working at it and it's fun Bilad it's gonna it's so much fun to build those relationships with people your your food just begins to tell these really rich stories when you bring into your into your home they're not anonymous we we don't want our food to be anonymous anymore we want to know where they come from and what the story is attached and put faces to that food and when that happens you absolutely don't want to waste it yeah no and you feel so much better about what you make you just honoring what came before and how they grew this so it's yeah it's what you said just putting that thought into it that like heart it just feels better.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

And I don't know when it when that transition really happened where our lives became where we where we started to value very limited time used to make our food like why why can't it be it's such a big part of who we are as humans which is to nourish ourselves and the people around us so why is it that we want to compartmentalize it so much where it has to be so fast and quick and convenient what has been lost as a result of that versus thinking about why are we not building our lives around nourishment and self-care and and being connected to our food and the way we shop for our food and make our food.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

There's such a richness and beauty and it's just delicious when we exactly no it's I don't know but I also even feel like women have been like more and more hesitant to to do the they'd be more like pressured to just be on a timeline and just like make things quickly and it's just kind of switch. I was just talking to the flamenco ladies this weekend and was talking about my husband cooking and how you know yeah I'm lucky and everyone was just like oh you're lucky like I dread cooking and no one was like talking about how they cook and how they like it. So it's it's almost like a mentality that needs to change a little more and like you said it's it's about the whole process and uh the intention you know that maybe it's not there and that's why most people don't want to put the time and effort into it.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah there's a lot that we lose because of it. And my husband also is very much in the kitchen as well cooking we cook together. He's really good about when he comes home and he's been like this since the start where wherever we are in the kitchen making dinner he just plugs in gets off it takes off gets changed from his suit and then Baba knows he's in the kitchen helping with wherever we're at or just taking over we take you take over for each other because there's some times where you just don't feel like it and it's nice to have a partner who will step in or I step in and then the kids and then having the kids because then the kids feel that see that and then emulate it and want to be part of it. And I think that's it it just it's it's so interesting because there's been those times where we're where we haven't cooked at night and then I'm just like what is it that people do want to do instead of cooking at night like you know what I mean? Yeah like what is it that is it you just want to sit down and watch just TV all that like have more time for TV or what is it? And it just it feels so off. Yeah it's like that just part becomes part of the structure you work during the day and then you come home and you gather in the kitchen and you start cooking whether it's just by yourself or with others and then and then time to set the table and have a really wonderful meal and connect and talk about your day it adds it adds not takes lots of tracks from a life.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Yes it's really the the only time to really commute like to have a communal experience that cannot go away because cooking and eating is just gonna be there forever.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yes exactly yeah I hate it because I did I used to I used to I used to feel that dread like oh my God every day I have to cook I have to cook every day for the family for the rest of my life I would feel that overwhelm around thinking that I have to cook all these dinners and the meal planning taught me that it wasn't cooking necessarily that I hated it was thinking about what to make for dinner on the fly. Right that is that's tough when you're tired then it becomes easy to just order takeout or just go out and get something to eat or just like pick stuff that you have that's not satisfying and then you find that you're just eating empty calorie stuff. Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Right yeah no I think that's a big part I should have suggested that to the ladies it's like maybe try meal planning honestly I I also always kind of hesitated because I always thought meal planning was more like used to watch videos of people like making bags for the crock pot or just like chicken and rice every day for the week or something. Like I just didn't think it could be fun and you know you could actually have delicious meals they're different every day.

Plant Forward Twists On Comfort Foods

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And it could be batch you could put some bat cooking because that's you guys still do yeah we do yeah we do that already exactly yeah but it's just customizing it to where you are the kinds of foods you like to cook your own cultural lineage too right we fall back on the foods that we grew up with. I also what I've also been doing as well as part of this kitchen activism is taking these recipes that I grew up with. So for example chicken taquitos and so instead of thinking about it only as chicken taquitos I start to think well what are ways that I can make more plant forward meals so instead of just chicken taquitos now we're making potato taquitos or a lot of our tacos are not just like the what I grew up with we made tacos it was ground beef. Yeah so now it's like our tacos will mostly most weeks it'll have well it'll be cauliflower you know I've even made with walnuts and you can with spices so it's just getting creative like how can we have more integrate more plants in our diet from that we're finding from the farmers market and not so heavy on the animal proteins which you know make take more water take more land take more everything especially when it's conventionally raised so for sure moving off of the conventionally raised animal proteins as much as possible and moving into regenerative regenerative agricultural you know practices for our animal proteins and then just reducing it because I think it's like the average person eats about 270 pounds of meat every year. That's huge. That's and we don't need that much and we certainly have reduced it a lot actually over the years a lot more plants. So enchiladas for ex another is another so enchiladas we grew up I grew up with chicken yeah chicken so we make potato and spinach or sweet potatoes with spinach that one is really good with a green sauce. So it's just how can we think more creative around the shading things that we would take but thinking about how to make them more plant forward. So that's also part of the kitchen activism cooking so it's not like throwing out these recipes and modifying it's yeah it's just changing them up being more creative within them yeah I like that thinking because you can still be creative like you said but inside the structure like you can still have your taco to say this themes that that you can build your planning into and still make little changes that will still be delicious and creative but yeah so and it brings in more or different vitamins and minerals too when we're bringing bringing in different plants as well and having a variation going to the farmer's market helps with that too because you you're spotting things that are in season things that you normally wouldn't cook with things that you don't see at the grocery store that you find it's the farmer's market and that's also fun is to ask what is this how do you you how do you cook with this so then that is growing the types of vitamins and minerals that we're bringing into our diet because otherwise we can get it's pretty narrow what we are exposed to on a mainstream diet oh yeah definitely it can get repetitive and then you're just like you said missing out on a lot of other vitamins and vinerals that you could be having if you just change one thing on your recipe.

unknown 41:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

So how do you think that this is going to evolve in your family do you feel like it's now a habit or I know it's a new habit still but do you feel has become a habit for you I think so I think the best part about it is that I have realized that it's doable that it works for us.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Like it's not a hard habit to switch into and that it can be built upon like we've been talking about you can just start with this and then move on to one more thing adding this other part which I like because sometimes when you're in a new thing you know I'm meal planning and I'm just being healthy. Say that's just your goal it can get very square and like you just this is your your recipe for this and that's it. The mindset is very limiting but this I think it it has the potential to just build more things around it. So I like that.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

So now that we've come to the end of your journey your meal planning journey with me but not the end of your journey. No beginning this is the beginning of your meal planning journey because you've seen the rewards and there's more there you're just gonna keep uncovering them this is just the beginning what can you give to others who are listening as as advice if somebody hasn't started or is considering starting is still on the fence what could you tell that person well from my own perspective I'd say don't think about it as a restrictive or rigid habit that you're creating think about it more as a potential to more fun and creative ways to to even just express yourself in the kitchen at the same time having the control of what you're putting out into the world.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

So yeah don't don't think about it as a restriction I think because a lot of people go straight to oh I don't want to do that because that seems like very restrictive and I yeah I can only just eat certain things and and I I I don't think it's that I think it's the opposite it's just a world that's being that's opening to you that is much more fulfilling than you think.

unknown 44:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

We'll leave it at that Bilad I don't think that's a great way to end this yeah it's a pleasure working with your advice and your guidance can't wait to send you pictures of things I find at the farmers market.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

I would love that