March 6, 2025 • 19 mins
Whether you’re trying to save on groceries (and let’s be honest aren’t we all right now?!) or simply trying to waste less food at home, one of the most beneficial habits I’ve developed is what I call shopping my own kitchen. In this episode, I dig into how to make your food go further with this beneficial habit.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today is episode one hundred and eighteen,
Shopping your Own Kitchen. I thought i'd start today with
a winter wellness check. How's everybody doing? I know temps
can like vary widely this time of year. Some of
(00:25):
you are still digging out of snow, while others of
you are starting to see the first signs of spring.
It feels like a fair amount of us maybe saw
like unusually warm temps this past week or two, teasing
us that spring was coming, only to see more snow
or a week of rain in the forecast, which always
seems to be the case. Right Personally, my family and
I we're good, but we have very little room to complain.
(00:48):
We live in southern California, pay for it, but that
sunshine tax feels worth it in the winter. But having
a warm weather vacation to Hawaii midwinter this year, it
really was like the best thing ever for beating those
winter blues. We are now kind of settling in for
being home for a full month and following our regular routines.
(01:12):
We have a few spring sports that are starting up,
like soccer for my girls. And you guys know, I
am generally happiest when we're sticking to a routine. I
am a type a routine girly, So I say, bring
it on March. I am so thrilled that there are
thirty one days in March and I am going to
be home for every single one of them. Part of
(01:34):
returning to a routine after being out of town always
includes grocery shopping. And I know I'm not the only
one feeling the shock when it comes to grocery prices.
Everyone is talking about eggs. I know it's crazy, but
just in general, grocery price is shot up during the pandemic.
It never really came back down. So I want to
chat with you today about this concept of shopping your
own kitchen. For me, it's the best way I save
(01:57):
money at the grocery store a week after week. And
I want to make sure you're in on this habit
that really saves me so much. But first, let's get
a few recipe ideas out there that you could throw
on your meal plan for the week. Here's what we
are eating. We are having my Asian lettuce wraps, which
we haven't had it in a really long time. This
is one of those recipes that got so popular that
my family had to be like, Okay, we gotta step
(02:19):
having those because we had them, so we like went hard.
But I have said this before, but you guys, ground
meat like ground pork, ground chicken, ground peep. I feel
like it's a sleeper hit, especially with kids, and this
recipes is ground chicken. It's so flavorful and so simple,
and it mostly uses pantry ingredients and as long as
(02:40):
you get some really delicious, crunchy butter lettuce, these Asian
lettuce wraps are so good. They are quite healthy, and
they are a hit for my entire family. We usually
serve them alongside rice and people just eat them up.
So I'm really excited to be making them because I
haven't made them in a long time. We're also making
a newer recipe. We're kind of doing a little Asian
theme this next week. And part of that is that
(03:01):
when I buy certain ingredients, I want to be able
to use them in multiple recipes throughout the week, and
so I'm very intentional when I create these recipe club
meal plans for our members because I don't want you.
I'm trying to help you reduce your grocery bill and
I'm not wanting you have to buy a million different ingredients.
So we're also having dumpling soup, which it's kind of
(03:23):
gone viral on TikTok, and I had so much fun
developing this recipe because it really is so simple. It
totally uses shables that you can keep on hand, like
frozen dumplings, so tasty, so delicious. It's very easy to deconstruct.
If your kids aren't gonna eat soup, the first thing
you do is you just cook the dumplings, so you
can just totally deconstruct those, and they can have the
(03:45):
dumplings that they can dip in sauce or whatever. But
it's still cold enough that I'm like, ooh, dumpling soup
so yummy. So that's happening. And then I'm also making
a sheep pan honey cilantro chicken that has this delicious
green sauce that I will most certainly double and use
either on sandwiches or in grain bowls for lunches, because
(04:05):
it's just it's one of those recipes where like the
sauce really makes it. I know, you know what I'm
talking about. But oh, it's so good. It's so good.
All right, there are your recipe ideas for the week.
You can find and print all of these recipes and
recipee Club individually or in our weekly meal plan that
has an easy to follow shopping list where it's broken
down by recipe. That way, if you only want to
make one or two of recipes, you can easily add
(04:26):
those ingredients to your shopping list. Recipe Club is the
resource I created to fix the problems with recipes on
the internet. No long blog posts, banner ads, drawn out stories.
I really wanted to make accessing recipes easier and have
intentionally created a space to do that. And we just
(04:46):
got our wildly popular recipe binders back in stock. They've
been out of stock for three months, which means it's
a great time to buy our bundle, which is a
recipe binder with an annual membership to recipe Club. Both
of those products were created to work with one another.
If you're looking for a complete system to help you
get dinner on the table more regularly, this is it,
(05:08):
and you save twenty bucks when you snag them together.
It has been life changing for me for dinner time.
I literally created the product that I could not find
anywhere else, and it is helping thousands of other families
get dinner on the table more often. All right, let's
jump into the back half of the podcast and discuss
how I shot my own kitchen. Whether you're trying to
(05:34):
save on groceries and let's be honest like we've discussed,
aren't we all right now, or simply trying to waste
less food at home. One of the most beneficial habits
I've developed is what I call shopping my own kitchen.
I do it almost every week, and I swear it
cuts my grocery bills, sometimes maybe in half. Truly, it
saves me so much. Here's how it works. If you've
(05:56):
been following me for a while now, this will not
be the first time you've heard me lay out this system,
but it is worth repeating because it works. In fact,
I jumped on Instagram the other day and said, if
I could walk in any of your kitchens right now
and tell you one thing that I think would be
life changing, I would do this. This is what I
would tell you. The first time I heard about this concept,
(06:18):
it was introduced to me by a famous food Network
chef Alex Corna Shelley, And if you're a Food Network fan,
you've certainly seen Alex on shows like Chopped, Grocery Store, Steakout.
I think anyways, she's an incredible chef. She owns multiple
restaurants in New York City, like the utmost respect for her.
She is the real deal. But she's also someone who
(06:39):
makes dinner at home and she's got a kid, and
she's feeling a lot of the things that you and
I have felt. And I will never forget we were
because as many even know, I was on Food Network
for a long time and we were I think we
were doing Chop together and we were sharing a makeup
room and she was in a makeup share next to me,
and somehow we got talking and she's like talking about
(07:01):
shopping her own kitchen, and it was like this light
bulb moment where she's like, you gotta treat your kitchen
like a grocery store. And ever since she said that,
treat your kitchen like a grocery store, I just have
thought about it countless times over the years. So this
is what that means to me and how I apply
that into these steps. So, first and foremost I start
(07:25):
by having a set time to map out my meals
for the week. Does this change occasionally, Yes, because life happens.
But I literally put a reminder in my phone and
I pick a time that's best. I know I won't
be interrupted or tempted to do something else. That time
has changed over the years, as my kids' activities change,
as my kids ages change, but pick a time. For
(07:46):
the longest time, it was nine o'clock on Thursday nights.
Now it is at five am on Saturday mornings, which
I know that's very early on a Saturday morning, but
I love my early mornings and that is when my
brain is clearest, and that is what is working for
me in this chapter. Before you pull up any recipes
or write out any ideas for the week, you must
(08:09):
shop your kitchen first. Think of it as a grocery store.
You're gonna open up your fridge, your freezer, and your
pantry and you're gonna see what you have on hand
to work with, whether it's half a jar mare and
airsauce that needs to be used up, frozen stir fry
veggies or potstickers, a bag of shredded cheddar that's almost
gone and needs to be used up. Look here first,
(08:31):
not only will this create a habit of wasting less food,
but that in turn has the potential to reduce your
grocery bill pretty significantly. If you don't do this, there's
a chance you're gonna be buying items that you already
have on hand. And by doing this, it kind of
helps build the muscle of learning how to swap things
out when it makes sense. So let me give you
an example of this. This week, my son requested that
(08:53):
I make baked ceedy for dinner. I know, the most
discussed recipe on this podcast of all time. In that rest,
I call for fresh basil. But for whatever reason, fresh
basil at my grocery store lately has been like seven dollars,
like so expensive. So rather than spending nearly seven dollars
on a few basil leaves, I decided that I would
(09:15):
just add a tablespoon of pesto to the marinaiir sauce.
That way, I still got that flavor boost without spending
extra money on a few basil leaves, and everyone was
still happy and no one's gonna miss it, right. So
being able to open my fridge and be like, oh yeah,
I've got marinaire enough sauce I need to use up.
I definitely have a box of ZD. He wants this great.
(09:36):
I don't have any fresh basil, but I see that pesto.
It's almost like I have to see it in the space.
That's why I'm telling you have to physically get up.
Open your fridge, open your freezer, open your pantry, and
look at everything. And don't forget that there are three
places to explore. It's not just your fridge, it's fridge, freezer, pantry.
(09:57):
For a long time, I did like my fridge Friday
clean out, and on Fridays I would look in my
fridge and sometimes I still do that, and I note
what I have on hand, and then that carries over
to my meal planning session on Saturday mornings. But pick
a time, pick a time. One of the other benefits
to developing this habit is that it helps answer the
dreaded question of what should we have for dinner. The
(10:20):
items in those places end up being almost like clues
for you as you decide to plan for the week ahead.
So another example is I just did this and I
opened my fridge and I had a package a chicken
Italian chicken sausage. Forgotten that I bought that. I can't
(10:42):
even be completely sure what I think. I bought it
because I was going to add it to a jar
of marinair sauce for like a quick spaghetti dinner. But
if I had not looked, I would have forgotten. It
would have spoiled. I would have wasted the eight dollars
that I spent on it. Now instead, I can take
that chicken sausage and literally go into recipe Club and
type chicken sausage, and it pulls up all of the
recipes that includes chicken sausage. And because I'm doing this,
(11:06):
and I can see, oh, that Italian sausage skillet that
has bell peppers. Ooh, I've got two bell peppers. Before
I know it, I only need one ingredient to make
this recipe happen, and I'm wasting less and I'm saving
so much. When I was first developing this habit, I
liked to physically pull the items out and place them
on my countertop so that I could visually see how
(11:28):
a meal was going to come together. I don't have
to do that as much anymore because I've been doing
this for years now. But if you're new to this,
think about that. Then, for me, as an online grocery shopper,
I fill my cart online right there as I'm looking
at the ingredients I need. I almost always have either
my recipe binder open or recipe Club open as well,
(11:49):
because I can just cross check things and make sure
that we're all good. But it makes me feel so
much more in control for the week, and it makes
me feel like I'm kind of just one step ahead,
and it's one less thing I don't have to worry about.
I know that I've already taken the ten to fifteen
minutes to decide what we're having every single night of
the week, rather than asking myself every single day, what
(12:11):
are we gonna have for dinner? Now, it's important that
you don't forget to write these meals down, either on
a meal planning notepad we have one that comes in
a recipe binder on a whiteboard, or even in Recipe Club,
we have this drag and drop meal planning tool so
you can look up the recipes and digitally put your
meal plan together, or just your phone. Honestly, that's what
I did for years, so I just put it in
(12:32):
a note in my phone. But what I'm trying to
help you do is I am trying to help reduce
the amount of things that you have to think about
at five pm on any given weeknight. We're gonna make
that decision once so that you do not have to
think about it every single day. Last night, both of
my girls are playing soccer this year, and it's the
(12:53):
first time that both of them have played, and we
had an unexpected dermatology appointment. It's just like the afternoon
got away from me and I walked in the door
at like five thirty. My son had to be somewhere
at six thirty, and I just I knew because I
already decided that we were going to have the skillet
chicken and yokio spinach. I had all the ingredients I
(13:15):
had recently purchased that like I knew it, and that meal,
I kid, you, not came together like in legitimately under
thirty minutes. And I know everybody says that, but let's
be honest. Most recipieces say that you can actually make
in thirty minutes. Like I am talking, I only had
to chop one thing, I had to drop one shallet,
that's it. And it was such a gift because guess
(13:38):
what if I had not planned, you know what we
would have done. We would have driven through in and out,
or we would have said free for all cold cereal.
And you know what, I still do those things. I
definitely have those nights. But it felt so much better
to throw a meal together quickly that was balanced and
(14:00):
that I knew my family would like, and it felt
it just felt satisfying to me as a mother that
I was nourishing my family that way. But if I
had not made that decision in advance, there's no way
that would have happened, because I was so frazzled by
the afternoon and that we had such a limited amount
of time before we had to be to our next thing.
So this is worth it. It is if you develop any
(14:22):
habit surrounding dinner this year, make it this, make it this,
shop your own kitchen, set a weekly meal plan. Even
if you think you hate meal planning, I promise you
will make your life easier. All right. Finally, let's finish
with my weekly give me five. These are five things
that made my life easier or more enjoyable for the week.
We're gonna start with something that I think is gonna
(14:44):
make my life more enjoyable. So I've started. I don't
know if it's me just trying to survive winter, but
for a long time, we've liked lighting candles when we
have family dinner. Even if it's like so simple, it
just kind of like sets the mood and calms everybody down.
We're not fancy like it, just I just like it.
It like creates a moment. But I've decided that I
(15:05):
kind of like lighting a candle when I'm cooking, because cooking,
especially when you've got, you know, young kids, it can
be such a stressful moment when you're trying to throw
stuff together. And something about lighting a candle just as
I begin the process to cook dinner for my family
feels very soothing to me. But what's tricky about this
(15:28):
is I don't ever want to light a candle that
is scented when I'm cooking. So I have been on
the hunt and I found this beeswax candle. It's so
cool looking. The company is called Cooking by Candle Light.
I just found it on Amazon. But it's a candle
by the hour and it's like almost like a rope
that has been it's been molded into a rope the
(15:51):
beeswax and you undo it just about three inches and
three inches gives you about an hour, maybe not even
three inches, maybe closer to an inch, and then once
it burns down, it just snuffs itself out. But it's
so cool looking. I can't decide if it's cool or weird,
but I've been on the hunt and so I finally
(16:11):
bought this one because cooking by candle light has been
i don't know, kind of like a little gift to myself.
And don't get me wrong, it's still complete chaos around me,
but something about having that candle burning next to the
stove just does something for me. So I will definitely
show you guys on Instagram. It'll be in our give
me five email this week as well and on our
(16:33):
blog post. But I'm really excited to try this. I'm
really and I'm glad that it's scentless because I needed
to get the sense out of there all right. Next,
I found a springy layering tea at Old Navy. Both
Old Navy and Gap were having kind of big sale
this weekend where you could use the Gap cash and
the Old Navy cash. Anyways, but I bought this tea
that is got a really subtle kind of floral. It's white,
(16:57):
it's all white, but it's kind of got like floral
imprinting on it. I'd say it's understated. It's nice. I
work under some overalls this week, and I wore it
under a blazer. I've worked with gene and I'm like,
I love this. It's just like just a hint of spring,
but mostly it's just kind of a great layering piece.
Green silicone tributes. I am you know when you realize
(17:19):
that when you go to reach for something pretty regularly
and you want the certain type of that thing. I
have these silicone tributs. They almost like are in the
shape of a rainbow, but they're all green, and they're
my favorite. I am ready to almost get rid of
the other ones because I don't even want to use them.
I love these. It's just a silly thing that I
(17:39):
use frequently because I make a lot of meals that
I bring, whether it's a skillet dish or something, I'll
just PLoP it right in the center of the table,
and I want to have something to protect the table.
So that's on my list. And then Nora, my eight
year old, found a new graphic novel series that she
is so excited about is called Surfside Girls, which is
perfect because we live in a surfing community and I
(18:02):
had never seen it before. I'd never heard of it,
and she is obsessed. And you know what makes my
life easier when my kids want to read. And it's
been if you have kids in elementary school, this week
has been reading across America and it's been a big
emphasis on reading, and there's been read to throns and
book fairs and it just thrills me as a mom
when my kids find a serious they like. And she's
(18:24):
so excited about this. So that's been fun. And then
finally I have returned to a makeup product or a
skincare product that I used for years and then I
ran out and I just didn't rehorder, and I am
reminded how much I love it. And it is the
Tula underre glow and get it cooling and brightening eyebomb.
(18:46):
And it's just that I use it both in the
morning and the evening. I have really dry eyes and
this just it's very calming and I'm liking it being
part of my routine first thing when I wake up
and right before I go to bed. It's just like
a little a little gift to myself. So there you
(19:07):
have it. That's it for today. You guys, make sure
you're subscribed to the podcast so that you never miss
an episode. This podcast is meant to be a quick
twenty minute listen while you map out your meals for
the week and support helping you set up a simple
dinner system. If you're looking to finally get them system
in place, join us in Recipe Club and, better yet,
snag the bundle with the recipe Binder because it's back
(19:27):
in stock. You save twenty dollars when you do that,
and it is such a great system for helping dinner
to feel a bit easier. Thanks for listening today, I'm
so glad you're here. Until next time, happy cooking. I'm
Kelsey and look forward to check all
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today is episode one hundred and eighteen,
Shopping your Own Kitchen. I thought i'd start today with
a winter wellness check. How's everybody doing? I know temps
can like vary widely this time of year. Some of
(00:25):
you are still digging out of snow, while others of
you are starting to see the first signs of spring.
It feels like a fair amount of us maybe saw
like unusually warm temps this past week or two, teasing
us that spring was coming, only to see more snow
or a week of rain in the forecast, which always
seems to be the case. Right Personally, my family and
I we're good, but we have very little room to complain.
(00:48):
We live in southern California, pay for it, but that
sunshine tax feels worth it in the winter. But having
a warm weather vacation to Hawaii midwinter this year, it
really was like the best thing ever for beating those
winter blues. We are now kind of settling in for
being home for a full month and following our regular routines.
(01:12):
We have a few spring sports that are starting up,
like soccer for my girls. And you guys know, I
am generally happiest when we're sticking to a routine. I
am a type a routine girly, So I say, bring
it on March. I am so thrilled that there are
thirty one days in March and I am going to
be home for every single one of them. Part of
(01:34):
returning to a routine after being out of town always
includes grocery shopping. And I know I'm not the only
one feeling the shock when it comes to grocery prices.
Everyone is talking about eggs. I know it's crazy, but
just in general, grocery price is shot up during the pandemic.
It never really came back down. So I want to
chat with you today about this concept of shopping your
own kitchen. For me, it's the best way I save
(01:57):
money at the grocery store a week after week. And
I want to make sure you're in on this habit
that really saves me so much. But first, let's get
a few recipe ideas out there that you could throw
on your meal plan for the week. Here's what we
are eating. We are having my Asian lettuce wraps, which
we haven't had it in a really long time. This
is one of those recipes that got so popular that
my family had to be like, Okay, we gotta step
(02:19):
having those because we had them, so we like went hard.
But I have said this before, but you guys, ground
meat like ground pork, ground chicken, ground peep. I feel
like it's a sleeper hit, especially with kids, and this
recipes is ground chicken. It's so flavorful and so simple,
and it mostly uses pantry ingredients and as long as
(02:40):
you get some really delicious, crunchy butter lettuce, these Asian
lettuce wraps are so good. They are quite healthy, and
they are a hit for my entire family. We usually
serve them alongside rice and people just eat them up.
So I'm really excited to be making them because I
haven't made them in a long time. We're also making
a newer recipe. We're kind of doing a little Asian
theme this next week. And part of that is that
(03:01):
when I buy certain ingredients, I want to be able
to use them in multiple recipes throughout the week, and
so I'm very intentional when I create these recipe club
meal plans for our members because I don't want you.
I'm trying to help you reduce your grocery bill and
I'm not wanting you have to buy a million different ingredients.
So we're also having dumpling soup, which it's kind of
(03:23):
gone viral on TikTok, and I had so much fun
developing this recipe because it really is so simple. It
totally uses shables that you can keep on hand, like
frozen dumplings, so tasty, so delicious. It's very easy to deconstruct.
If your kids aren't gonna eat soup, the first thing
you do is you just cook the dumplings, so you
can just totally deconstruct those, and they can have the
(03:45):
dumplings that they can dip in sauce or whatever. But
it's still cold enough that I'm like, ooh, dumpling soup
so yummy. So that's happening. And then I'm also making
a sheep pan honey cilantro chicken that has this delicious
green sauce that I will most certainly double and use
either on sandwiches or in grain bowls for lunches, because
(04:05):
it's just it's one of those recipes where like the
sauce really makes it. I know, you know what I'm
talking about. But oh, it's so good. It's so good.
All right, there are your recipe ideas for the week.
You can find and print all of these recipes and
recipee Club individually or in our weekly meal plan that
has an easy to follow shopping list where it's broken
down by recipe. That way, if you only want to
make one or two of recipes, you can easily add
(04:26):
those ingredients to your shopping list. Recipe Club is the
resource I created to fix the problems with recipes on
the internet. No long blog posts, banner ads, drawn out stories.
I really wanted to make accessing recipes easier and have
intentionally created a space to do that. And we just
(04:46):
got our wildly popular recipe binders back in stock. They've
been out of stock for three months, which means it's
a great time to buy our bundle, which is a
recipe binder with an annual membership to recipe Club. Both
of those products were created to work with one another.
If you're looking for a complete system to help you
get dinner on the table more regularly, this is it,
(05:08):
and you save twenty bucks when you snag them together.
It has been life changing for me for dinner time.
I literally created the product that I could not find
anywhere else, and it is helping thousands of other families
get dinner on the table more often. All right, let's
jump into the back half of the podcast and discuss
how I shot my own kitchen. Whether you're trying to
(05:34):
save on groceries and let's be honest like we've discussed,
aren't we all right now, or simply trying to waste
less food at home. One of the most beneficial habits
I've developed is what I call shopping my own kitchen.
I do it almost every week, and I swear it
cuts my grocery bills, sometimes maybe in half. Truly, it
saves me so much. Here's how it works. If you've
(05:56):
been following me for a while now, this will not
be the first time you've heard me lay out this system,
but it is worth repeating because it works. In fact,
I jumped on Instagram the other day and said, if
I could walk in any of your kitchens right now
and tell you one thing that I think would be
life changing, I would do this. This is what I
would tell you. The first time I heard about this concept,
(06:18):
it was introduced to me by a famous food Network
chef Alex Corna Shelley, And if you're a Food Network fan,
you've certainly seen Alex on shows like Chopped, Grocery Store, Steakout.
I think anyways, she's an incredible chef. She owns multiple
restaurants in New York City, like the utmost respect for her.
She is the real deal. But she's also someone who
(06:39):
makes dinner at home and she's got a kid, and
she's feeling a lot of the things that you and
I have felt. And I will never forget we were
because as many even know, I was on Food Network
for a long time and we were I think we
were doing Chop together and we were sharing a makeup
room and she was in a makeup share next to me,
and somehow we got talking and she's like talking about
(07:01):
shopping her own kitchen, and it was like this light
bulb moment where she's like, you gotta treat your kitchen
like a grocery store. And ever since she said that,
treat your kitchen like a grocery store, I just have
thought about it countless times over the years. So this
is what that means to me and how I apply
that into these steps. So, first and foremost I start
(07:25):
by having a set time to map out my meals
for the week. Does this change occasionally, Yes, because life happens.
But I literally put a reminder in my phone and
I pick a time that's best. I know I won't
be interrupted or tempted to do something else. That time
has changed over the years, as my kids' activities change,
as my kids ages change, but pick a time. For
(07:46):
the longest time, it was nine o'clock on Thursday nights.
Now it is at five am on Saturday mornings, which
I know that's very early on a Saturday morning, but
I love my early mornings and that is when my
brain is clearest, and that is what is working for
me in this chapter. Before you pull up any recipes
or write out any ideas for the week, you must
(08:09):
shop your kitchen first. Think of it as a grocery store.
You're gonna open up your fridge, your freezer, and your
pantry and you're gonna see what you have on hand
to work with, whether it's half a jar mare and
airsauce that needs to be used up, frozen stir fry
veggies or potstickers, a bag of shredded cheddar that's almost
gone and needs to be used up. Look here first,
(08:31):
not only will this create a habit of wasting less food,
but that in turn has the potential to reduce your
grocery bill pretty significantly. If you don't do this, there's
a chance you're gonna be buying items that you already
have on hand. And by doing this, it kind of
helps build the muscle of learning how to swap things
out when it makes sense. So let me give you
an example of this. This week, my son requested that
(08:53):
I make baked ceedy for dinner. I know, the most
discussed recipe on this podcast of all time. In that rest,
I call for fresh basil. But for whatever reason, fresh
basil at my grocery store lately has been like seven dollars,
like so expensive. So rather than spending nearly seven dollars
on a few basil leaves, I decided that I would
(09:15):
just add a tablespoon of pesto to the marinaiir sauce.
That way, I still got that flavor boost without spending
extra money on a few basil leaves, and everyone was
still happy and no one's gonna miss it, right. So
being able to open my fridge and be like, oh yeah,
I've got marinaire enough sauce I need to use up.
I definitely have a box of ZD. He wants this great.
(09:36):
I don't have any fresh basil, but I see that pesto.
It's almost like I have to see it in the space.
That's why I'm telling you have to physically get up.
Open your fridge, open your freezer, open your pantry, and
look at everything. And don't forget that there are three
places to explore. It's not just your fridge, it's fridge, freezer, pantry.
(09:57):
For a long time, I did like my fridge Friday
clean out, and on Fridays I would look in my
fridge and sometimes I still do that, and I note
what I have on hand, and then that carries over
to my meal planning session on Saturday mornings. But pick
a time, pick a time. One of the other benefits
to developing this habit is that it helps answer the
dreaded question of what should we have for dinner. The
(10:20):
items in those places end up being almost like clues
for you as you decide to plan for the week ahead.
So another example is I just did this and I
opened my fridge and I had a package a chicken
Italian chicken sausage. Forgotten that I bought that. I can't
(10:42):
even be completely sure what I think. I bought it
because I was going to add it to a jar
of marinair sauce for like a quick spaghetti dinner. But
if I had not looked, I would have forgotten. It
would have spoiled. I would have wasted the eight dollars
that I spent on it. Now instead, I can take
that chicken sausage and literally go into recipe Club and
type chicken sausage, and it pulls up all of the
recipes that includes chicken sausage. And because I'm doing this,
(11:06):
and I can see, oh, that Italian sausage skillet that
has bell peppers. Ooh, I've got two bell peppers. Before
I know it, I only need one ingredient to make
this recipe happen, and I'm wasting less and I'm saving
so much. When I was first developing this habit, I
liked to physically pull the items out and place them
on my countertop so that I could visually see how
(11:28):
a meal was going to come together. I don't have
to do that as much anymore because I've been doing
this for years now. But if you're new to this,
think about that. Then, for me, as an online grocery shopper,
I fill my cart online right there as I'm looking
at the ingredients I need. I almost always have either
my recipe binder open or recipe Club open as well,
(11:49):
because I can just cross check things and make sure
that we're all good. But it makes me feel so
much more in control for the week, and it makes
me feel like I'm kind of just one step ahead,
and it's one less thing I don't have to worry about.
I know that I've already taken the ten to fifteen
minutes to decide what we're having every single night of
the week, rather than asking myself every single day, what
(12:11):
are we gonna have for dinner? Now, it's important that
you don't forget to write these meals down, either on
a meal planning notepad we have one that comes in
a recipe binder on a whiteboard, or even in Recipe Club,
we have this drag and drop meal planning tool so
you can look up the recipes and digitally put your
meal plan together, or just your phone. Honestly, that's what
I did for years, so I just put it in
(12:32):
a note in my phone. But what I'm trying to
help you do is I am trying to help reduce
the amount of things that you have to think about
at five pm on any given weeknight. We're gonna make
that decision once so that you do not have to
think about it every single day. Last night, both of
my girls are playing soccer this year, and it's the
(12:53):
first time that both of them have played, and we
had an unexpected dermatology appointment. It's just like the afternoon
got away from me and I walked in the door
at like five thirty. My son had to be somewhere
at six thirty, and I just I knew because I
already decided that we were going to have the skillet
chicken and yokio spinach. I had all the ingredients I
(13:15):
had recently purchased that like I knew it, and that meal,
I kid, you, not came together like in legitimately under
thirty minutes. And I know everybody says that, but let's
be honest. Most recipieces say that you can actually make
in thirty minutes. Like I am talking, I only had
to chop one thing, I had to drop one shallet,
that's it. And it was such a gift because guess
(13:38):
what if I had not planned, you know what we
would have done. We would have driven through in and out,
or we would have said free for all cold cereal.
And you know what, I still do those things. I
definitely have those nights. But it felt so much better
to throw a meal together quickly that was balanced and
(14:00):
that I knew my family would like, and it felt
it just felt satisfying to me as a mother that
I was nourishing my family that way. But if I
had not made that decision in advance, there's no way
that would have happened, because I was so frazzled by
the afternoon and that we had such a limited amount
of time before we had to be to our next thing.
So this is worth it. It is if you develop any
(14:22):
habit surrounding dinner this year, make it this, make it this,
shop your own kitchen, set a weekly meal plan. Even
if you think you hate meal planning, I promise you
will make your life easier. All right. Finally, let's finish
with my weekly give me five. These are five things
that made my life easier or more enjoyable for the week.
We're gonna start with something that I think is gonna
(14:44):
make my life more enjoyable. So I've started. I don't
know if it's me just trying to survive winter, but
for a long time, we've liked lighting candles when we
have family dinner. Even if it's like so simple, it
just kind of like sets the mood and calms everybody down.
We're not fancy like it, just I just like it.
It like creates a moment. But I've decided that I
(15:05):
kind of like lighting a candle when I'm cooking, because cooking,
especially when you've got, you know, young kids, it can
be such a stressful moment when you're trying to throw
stuff together. And something about lighting a candle just as
I begin the process to cook dinner for my family
feels very soothing to me. But what's tricky about this
(15:28):
is I don't ever want to light a candle that
is scented when I'm cooking. So I have been on
the hunt and I found this beeswax candle. It's so
cool looking. The company is called Cooking by Candle Light.
I just found it on Amazon. But it's a candle
by the hour and it's like almost like a rope
that has been it's been molded into a rope the
(15:51):
beeswax and you undo it just about three inches and
three inches gives you about an hour, maybe not even
three inches, maybe closer to an inch, and then once
it burns down, it just snuffs itself out. But it's
so cool looking. I can't decide if it's cool or weird,
but I've been on the hunt and so I finally
(16:11):
bought this one because cooking by candle light has been
i don't know, kind of like a little gift to myself.
And don't get me wrong, it's still complete chaos around me,
but something about having that candle burning next to the
stove just does something for me. So I will definitely
show you guys on Instagram. It'll be in our give
me five email this week as well and on our
(16:33):
blog post. But I'm really excited to try this. I'm
really and I'm glad that it's scentless because I needed
to get the sense out of there all right. Next,
I found a springy layering tea at Old Navy. Both
Old Navy and Gap were having kind of big sale
this weekend where you could use the Gap cash and
the Old Navy cash. Anyways, but I bought this tea
that is got a really subtle kind of floral. It's white,
(16:57):
it's all white, but it's kind of got like floral
imprinting on it. I'd say it's understated. It's nice. I
work under some overalls this week, and I wore it
under a blazer. I've worked with gene and I'm like,
I love this. It's just like just a hint of spring,
but mostly it's just kind of a great layering piece.
Green silicone tributes. I am you know when you realize
(17:19):
that when you go to reach for something pretty regularly
and you want the certain type of that thing. I
have these silicone tributs. They almost like are in the
shape of a rainbow, but they're all green, and they're
my favorite. I am ready to almost get rid of
the other ones because I don't even want to use them.
I love these. It's just a silly thing that I
(17:39):
use frequently because I make a lot of meals that
I bring, whether it's a skillet dish or something, I'll
just PLoP it right in the center of the table,
and I want to have something to protect the table.
So that's on my list. And then Nora, my eight
year old, found a new graphic novel series that she
is so excited about is called Surfside Girls, which is
perfect because we live in a surfing community and I
(18:02):
had never seen it before. I'd never heard of it,
and she is obsessed. And you know what makes my
life easier when my kids want to read. And it's
been if you have kids in elementary school, this week
has been reading across America and it's been a big
emphasis on reading, and there's been read to throns and
book fairs and it just thrills me as a mom
when my kids find a serious they like. And she's
(18:24):
so excited about this. So that's been fun. And then
finally I have returned to a makeup product or a
skincare product that I used for years and then I
ran out and I just didn't rehorder, and I am
reminded how much I love it. And it is the
Tula underre glow and get it cooling and brightening eyebomb.
(18:46):
And it's just that I use it both in the
morning and the evening. I have really dry eyes and
this just it's very calming and I'm liking it being
part of my routine first thing when I wake up
and right before I go to bed. It's just like
a little a little gift to myself. So there you
(19:07):
have it. That's it for today. You guys, make sure
you're subscribed to the podcast so that you never miss
an episode. This podcast is meant to be a quick
twenty minute listen while you map out your meals for
the week and support helping you set up a simple
dinner system. If you're looking to finally get them system
in place, join us in Recipe Club and, better yet,
snag the bundle with the recipe Binder because it's back
(19:27):
in stock. You save twenty dollars when you do that,
and it is such a great system for helping dinner
to feel a bit easier. Thanks for listening today, I'm
so glad you're here. Until next time, happy cooking. I'm
Kelsey and look forward to check all
Host
Kelsey Nixon
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