Speaker 1: Episode four sixteen, Simplified meal planning, low ingredient meal plans.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 1: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver a your life.
Speaker 2: Here your hosts.
Speaker 1: Jen and Jill. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My
Speaker 1: name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we
Speaker 1: are talking simple meal planning. We are in summer. Well
Speaker 1: technically summer starts in a few days, but if you
Speaker 1: live in Florida, we are in summer and we're thinking
Speaker 1: simple summer meal planning. Just very low maintenance, low effort,
Speaker 1: too easy not to do it meal planning.
Speaker 2: Because we're so tired.
Speaker 1: So tired and RESTful. I think we should rebrand to
Speaker 1: rest full intentional rest, intentional lace going down. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we are capitalizing that. Let's not work against the season.
Speaker 1: Let's embrace the season. Let's not work against our brains,
Speaker 1: embrace the energy level that comes with the season.
Speaker 3: But also do the things that are going to help
Speaker 3: you to still be eating at home, eating more nutritiously,
Speaker 3: eating in ways that don't hurt your money. And we
Speaker 3: asked you all in the friend letter. We give a
Speaker 3: poll in every friend letter, and this time, we asked,
Speaker 3: what's your best trick for simplifying meal plans with options
Speaker 3: to rotate the same meals each week, Make one big meal,
Speaker 3: eat lots of leftovers, get other family members to pitch in.
Speaker 3: Others might have just said what plan or other do
Speaker 3: you do something else? But most of you did say
Speaker 3: that your best trick is to just make one big
Speaker 3: meal and eat lots of leftovers.
Speaker 2: So there you go. That's our episode.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, so we're not like as much into
Speaker 1: that as most of you are, So I think we're
Speaker 1: going to focus on the ingredients and maybe making one big,
Speaker 1: low ingredient meal that you can have leftovers, but you
Speaker 1: don't have to. So we're gonna come at it from
Speaker 1: all angles in this episode. Whether you're a leftover eater,
Speaker 1: whether you're not, there is gonna be something for you
Speaker 1: in this episode.
Speaker 3: But first, this one's brought to you by the offspring
Speaker 3: of the trichoplex and water flea, the first being the
Speaker 3: simplest living creature on earth, with no mouth, no stomach,
Speaker 3: no muscles, no blood, and no veins. They also have
Speaker 3: no front or back, whereas the water flea is the
Speaker 3: most complex, with about twenty five percent more genes than
Speaker 3: us here humans. Their offspring, however, is the radical middle
Speaker 3: of the simplest and most complicated beings on Earth, sponsoring
Speaker 3: this episode to remind you about their cousin, The Friend Letter,
Speaker 3: also being the radical middle of helpful personal finance tips
Speaker 3: with humor and actionable steps sprinkled in. Cause you don't
Speaker 3: need tricloplaxes or water fleas in your life. You need
Speaker 3: the Friend Letter fugal friendspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: I read the first line of that and I stopped
Speaker 1: reading because I didn't I didn't want to know.
Speaker 2: You didn't want to know. Most people don't want to know.
Speaker 1: I read no mouth, no stomach, no muscles, no blood,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, well, if some gluetid's not
Speaker 1: working for you, whatever the trichoplax that's going on, maybe
Speaker 1: it will.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: The trichoplax and the water flea obviously cannot actually have offspring,
Speaker 3: just based on what I have described to you about
Speaker 3: the two of them, but it still is interesting to
Speaker 3: think about what their offspring would be.
Speaker 2: They'd be.
Speaker 3: Both and simple with the right amount of complexity, and
Speaker 3: I think that's what the Friend Letter does so true.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to know any of that. But what
Speaker 1: I do want to know is how to simplify my
Speaker 1: meal planning. That is what I'm always looking for. After
Speaker 1: what feels like a decade of meal planning, I'm still
Speaker 1: always looking for ways to simplify it. So this is
Speaker 1: one of our most popular topics. You love it too.
Speaker 1: A couple episodes to queue up for after this episode
Speaker 1: three ninety five Creative Ways to Reduce food wasts with
Speaker 1: Carly Bodrag of Plant You her newest cookbook New York
Speaker 1: Times bestselling cookbook, Scrappy Cooking is I think a manual
Speaker 1: that everybody should have in their kitchen tells you how
Speaker 1: to reuse commonly thrown away kitchen scraps into fantas plastic recipes.
Speaker 1: Episode three seventy First Annual Dinner Awards are best dinner
Speaker 1: recipes to meal plan. I still love that episode.
Speaker 3: We call it first Annual. But are we passed? Oh?
Speaker 2: I guess we're not. Yeah, we're past.
Speaker 1: One year on it.
Speaker 2: Will we do another one?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, we could?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, time is a construct. And then episode three
Speaker 1: point fifty four Meal Planning for people who hate to cook.
Speaker 2: So this is like the.
Speaker 1: Simplifying cooking is the top topic we love talking about
Speaker 1: because we are not don't we don't love cooking. So
Speaker 1: we are going to look at an article with thirteen
Speaker 1: practical ways to simplify your meals. We're gonna look at
Speaker 1: just some good foundational pieces when you are planning your meals,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to go into a few low
Speaker 1: ingredient resources.
Speaker 3: So I will say we probably won't go through all thirteen.
Speaker 3: The article does have thirteen listed. We're just kind of
Speaker 3: picking out our favorites. We'll go through most of them.
Speaker 3: I really we looked at a couple of different articles
Speaker 3: to inform this episode, and this one was my favorite.
Speaker 3: I do feel like it was the combination of the
Speaker 3: best tips and some kind of reframes. Are thinking about
Speaker 3: things a little bit differently than maybe I have before.
Speaker 3: So I'm excited about this one. It comes from raising simple,
Speaker 3: Like we said, thirteen practical ways to simplify meals. We
Speaker 3: will have it linked in the show notes. But they
Speaker 3: describe both coming from different cultures. The writer is Italian
Speaker 3: married to a person from Korea, and they together have
Speaker 3: a couple of children, and so really kind of diverse
Speaker 3: types of food that they're eating in their homes, but
Speaker 3: then also some creative ways of getting your kids to
Speaker 3: enjoy the food too, and how to engage in some
Speaker 3: of that creativity and just make it simple too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that brings us to our first one to
Speaker 1: check your expectations. First simplifying tip. If you are going
Speaker 1: for simple, easy, and low ingredient, you have to start
Speaker 1: with a realistic approach to your meals to reflect that.
Speaker 1: So and this is you. You have to honor your
Speaker 1: season in this and so a lot of the times
Speaker 1: we will want to cook the most healthy meal plan
Speaker 1: or the tastiest all these superlatives to our meal plan,
Speaker 1: but we have to really look at our season and
Speaker 1: honor that when we are creating a meal plan. And
Speaker 1: so summer just seems like a really good time to
Speaker 1: talk about really simple meal plans, she says. If you're
Speaker 1: raising a small tribe like myself, complicated meals with hard
Speaker 1: to find ingredients may not be a good fit. I
Speaker 1: think the hardest thing for me in meal plans is
Speaker 1: finding recipes with ingredients I already have, because there's always
Speaker 1: some like some random ingredient that I can't find at Walmart.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to run around to specialty grocery stores
Speaker 1: right now in my life, it's just not what I value.
Speaker 1: If it is something you value, then of course that's
Speaker 1: something enjoyable to you do it. But I had to
Speaker 1: check my expectations. So think about what kind of meals
Speaker 1: meet your family needs in this season of life. And
Speaker 1: maybe the season is short, maybe it's a couple months
Speaker 1: like summer, or maybe it's longer, like having young children.
Speaker 1: So just decide what season of life you're in. Check
Speaker 1: your expectations about what type of meal plan you can
Speaker 1: really have. Sometimes the healthiest meal plans are not the
Speaker 1: meal plans your children will eat, you know, So check
Speaker 1: your expectations.
Speaker 3: Make it realistic on it, you won't do it. The
Speaker 3: next one on here is to cook in one pot.
Speaker 3: This is just going to simplify dishes, not to mention
Speaker 3: just the process of cooking. If you're able to find
Speaker 3: recipes that can all be made in one type of container,
Speaker 3: then it's just simplified. So they talk about using an
Speaker 3: instant pot or a crock pot. I know a lot
Speaker 3: of you love the instant pot.
Speaker 2: It scares me.
Speaker 1: I'm to be honest, I'm an instant pot girl.
Speaker 2: I am not. It terrifies me. I do have one.
Speaker 2: I let other people use it mostly.
Speaker 3: But what I've also learned about some of these is
Speaker 3: it's especially great if you like soup. I'm also not
Speaker 3: someone who loves soup. However, I think I still do
Speaker 3: use this kind of cook in one container hack with
Speaker 3: casse roles aka bakes like the one that you got
Speaker 3: from Jenny. It's good for the buffalo chicken and rice
Speaker 3: that's made in one skillet.
Speaker 1: Girl, I'll make that in the instant pot. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: a one pot instant pot for me. I'm going to
Speaker 1: bring up that.
Speaker 2: And it can be made in a skillet as well.
Speaker 3: So I do this. It just isn't necessarily in a
Speaker 3: pot or a crockpot. So if you're like me and
Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, I'm not into that, sometimes it just
Speaker 3: ends up tasting like mush to me. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of things you can make in just one thing and
Speaker 3: it's really good, and it can still have your your
Speaker 3: veggies and your starches and your protein all wrapped up
Speaker 3: into one thing.
Speaker 1: My newest one pot obsession, and this is gonna sound
Speaker 1: don't judge me, spaghetti. So I know, could you make
Speaker 1: it easier? Yes? Could you make it less dishes. Yes,
Speaker 1: and by doing it in the instant pot. So full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I actually have a ninja foodie, but I still call
Speaker 1: the instant pot because that's when I say pressure cooker.
Speaker 1: It gives off different vibes.
Speaker 2: You're putting so raw pasta and yeah.
Speaker 1: And so listen, this is it's I've done it so
Speaker 1: many times and it is fantastic every time. So we're
Speaker 1: browning a pound of ground beef in the instant pot
Speaker 1: on saute, and once that's browned, we put in the sauce,
Speaker 1: a little bit of the sauce, and then we break
Speaker 1: our pasta in half. I know you were You're polish.
Speaker 1: Get out of here.
Speaker 3: I'm what.
Speaker 2: I still know what thought over it?
Speaker 1: Get over it? You break it in half and you
Speaker 1: say it hail Mary. I don't know. And then you
Speaker 1: put that in there kind of lined up, and then
Speaker 1: cover it with your water the rest of your sauce,
Speaker 1: and you don't mix it. The secret is to not
Speaker 1: mix it. Just make sure all of the pasta is
Speaker 1: covered with water and sauce, and then you I think
Speaker 1: eight minutes in high pressure and then it all comes
Speaker 1: out just creamy and dreamy. You've got that pasta water
Speaker 1: that makes everything a little creamier, and it is just
Speaker 1: a fantastic pasta bolonaise one pot. The only thing you
Speaker 1: have to think about is when you're browning the meat.
Speaker 1: I love it. I don't know why you need to
Speaker 1: make it easier because is already easy. But for me,
Speaker 1: it just like I'm glad that you found something better
Speaker 1: for you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will boil my pasta. That's just something that's
Speaker 3: fine for me to do anyways. Uh.
Speaker 1: That brings us to our next point. Find your favorite sauce.
Speaker 1: So rather than cooking multiple dishes to please the selective eaters,
Speaker 1: choose a sauce that can be added individually to meals.
Speaker 2: I I love that one.
Speaker 1: I love this idea because my kids want everything plain. Well,
Speaker 1: the one year old needs it plain or the sauce
Speaker 1: will be everywhere, but Kai just like needs everything plain.
Speaker 1: And then Travis and I have differing preferences on our styles.
Speaker 1: Basically everything I like to eat, Travis dislikes to eat,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. We have opposite food tastes. So this
Speaker 1: has been like something where you can make something that's
Speaker 1: kind of neutral, not bland, but kind of neutral and
Speaker 1: just hush it up with sauce to your preference. So
Speaker 1: she's saying her she and her husband loves saracha Coach
Speaker 1: Jang and we have like different types of hot sauces.
Speaker 1: I have fallen in love with the PF Chain's sweet
Speaker 1: Chili sauce. It is delicious, got some heat, It's low
Speaker 1: in sugar, but still a little sweet. Love that sauce
Speaker 1: on almost anything. Buffalo sauce, low fat ranch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this one stood out to me as
Speaker 3: one of those I love that perspective of being able
Speaker 3: to make even if you do want to kind of
Speaker 3: have one batch of one thing, but make it taste
Speaker 3: different throughout the week, or be able to cater to
Speaker 3: your child's needs, but then also be able to elevate
Speaker 3: it for your own taste buds. So you know, I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: if rice or veggies or even pasta is kind of
Speaker 3: the bulk of the food that you're having, you could
Speaker 3: make a big old mess of it at the beginning
Speaker 3: of the week and then do pesto one night and
Speaker 3: a sierracha the other night, and a kind of more
Speaker 3: creamier type of sauce the next night. Like that could
Speaker 3: be a way that is low cost to be able
Speaker 3: to make the bulk of the food taste different every night.
Speaker 2: So I love that one, all right.
Speaker 3: The next one that I'm going to highlight is jumping
Speaker 3: down the list a little bit to number seven, which
Speaker 3: is talking about batch cooking. And again this is one
Speaker 3: of those like take what you want, leave what you don't.
Speaker 3: Some things are going to work for you, some things don't.
Speaker 3: But batch cooking can be really helpful in simplifying the
Speaker 3: way that week to week.
Speaker 2: Can look for you.
Speaker 3: This is where you're preparing a larger quantity of food
Speaker 3: ahead of time that of course you intend to use,
Speaker 3: and then get cooking entire meals or meal components like
Speaker 3: side dishes and batches can save you time and effort
Speaker 3: during the week. They talk about how they like to
Speaker 3: batch cook roasted vegetables and then they'll use them for
Speaker 3: the next four or five days. They may be served
Speaker 3: as a standalone or added to a keishe or on
Speaker 3: top of a bed of rice. The possibilities are endless.
Speaker 3: I think when we hear the term batch cook we
Speaker 3: think making a bunch of different recipes and shoving them
Speaker 3: all into the freezer. And for some people that can
Speaker 3: work that's a whole other way of going about meal
Speaker 3: planning and having meals ready for the days that you're
Speaker 3: short on time. But I also like how she's describing
Speaker 3: that it could just be one ingredient. I know you've
Speaker 3: talked Jen about cooking a ton of chicken breasts all
Speaker 3: at once in your instant pot and then shredding it
Speaker 3: and free or leaving some of it in the fridge
Speaker 3: to be able to throw that into that Sunday. Yeah,
Speaker 3: on top of a salad. I love her example of
Speaker 3: the roasted vegetables. So rather than just I'm gonna cook
Speaker 3: this one thing for tonight, put in that extra three
Speaker 3: to five minutes to chop up all the veggies that
Speaker 3: you have on hand and roast them, and then you're
Speaker 3: you're halfway there for the rest of the meals that week.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I actually I bought a s a family
Speaker 1: sized caesar salad kit from Walmart and added some of
Speaker 1: that shredded chicken on top. That was a five minute meal.
Speaker 1: I love a chicken caesar salad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah too.
Speaker 1: So the next one is to plan for four to
Speaker 1: five cooked meals. So to me, I interpret that and
Speaker 1: I this is a short description, So I don't know
Speaker 1: what she interprets it as, but for me, it's don't
Speaker 1: plan cooked meals every night. Some nights you want to
Speaker 1: intentionally plan for a freezer meal, and you can, and
Speaker 1: that can be flexible. You can say, I'm just gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, on Thursday night, I'm gonna see what peaks
Speaker 1: my fancy that's in the freezer and defrost it for Friday.
Speaker 1: So you want to be intentional about incorporating freezer meals,
Speaker 1: whether you pre prepared them or you bought them from
Speaker 1: the grocery store. We love these bulk shaking cord on
Speaker 1: blues from Sam's Club, and those you don't defrost, those
Speaker 1: you just take out from the freezer. You also want
Speaker 1: to be intentional about like sandwich or salad nights, bag
Speaker 1: salad or you know, just making a sandwich or cereal
Speaker 1: as Kelloggs would like you to start incorporating into your
Speaker 1: meal plan. So be intentionable, intentional about putting those things
Speaker 1: in your meal plan when the week when your schedule
Speaker 1: requires it. Don't just like schedule out all these meals
Speaker 1: and then end up eating cereal for dinner. Plan it
Speaker 1: in and I would say three to four cooked meals
Speaker 1: that's where I live three to four cooked meals a week.
Speaker 1: I try to live around four, so the other three
Speaker 1: are either freezer, sandwich, cereal.
Speaker 3: Or the leftovers or left Yeah, make one of those
Speaker 3: three or four meals a bit a larger meal and
Speaker 3: then be able to do leftovers. The next one I'm
Speaker 3: going to highlight on here is number eight, which is
Speaker 3: try a challenge. You know us, we love those. If
Speaker 3: you need to gamify this thing to get yourself on
Speaker 3: board with it, do that. They reference how Courtney Carver
Speaker 3: at Be More with Less. We actually interviewed her a
Speaker 3: week very long time ago, a very long time ago,
Speaker 3: but she's got a lot of resources just around pairing
Speaker 3: down minimalism, and she does a Capsule Kitchen Challenge. I
Speaker 3: believe she started out with the Capsule Wardrobe Challenge and
Speaker 3: they just three challenged, so she's sticking with her threes.
Speaker 3: And the Capsule Kitchen Challenge is a three month, thirty
Speaker 3: three ingredient challenge. So that's where you experiment to see
Speaker 3: if limiting your food choices can offer you maybe eat
Speaker 3: some health, lifestyle, financial benefits and be able to learn
Speaker 3: from and maybe alter some habits in the way that
Speaker 3: you're cooking. So this is for three months, try to
Speaker 3: only eat off of thirty three ingredients. So that's going
Speaker 3: to limit what you're putting in your grocery cart. It's
Speaker 3: going to help you really refine your recipes that you're
Speaker 3: making and hopefully help to eliminate some decision fatigue. I'm
Speaker 3: sure there's other types of challenges out there. That's just
Speaker 3: the one that this article gave as an example. But again,
Speaker 3: I think we love challenges for the opportunity to open
Speaker 3: the door to what it is that we want to
Speaker 3: see shift or change in our lifestyles, what we're doing
Speaker 3: with our food, and help us to kind of think
Speaker 3: creatively outside the box. That can be that spark that
Speaker 3: we need to do something different. So if that's you
Speaker 3: try a challenge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so in the book we actually included
Speaker 1: you found a study where limits or boundaries actually helped
Speaker 1: in creativity. That teams given reasonable restrictions were more creative,
Speaker 1: they had more innovative solutions for problems. And that's what
Speaker 1: a challenge is. It's not meant to be restrictive. It's
Speaker 1: meant to give reasonable restrictions, which I guess you could
Speaker 1: argue is restrictive, but reasonable limitations or constraints. Constraints, yes,
Speaker 1: reasonable constraints to foster creativity. So that's why a challenge
Speaker 1: is fun and healthy.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So the next one I am going to talk about
Speaker 1: is to choose always foods. So this is a list
Speaker 1: of a few things for your kids of snacks they
Speaker 1: can always have. Our goal, she says, our goal is
Speaker 1: to only have the healthy food in our house that
Speaker 1: I want to say yes to all the time. Having
Speaker 1: food options that you want to say yes to can
Speaker 1: simplify snack and meal time, so I would say yes.
Speaker 1: I think this one focuses more on the health aspect
Speaker 1: for me. I think having always foods and communicating that
Speaker 1: to your kids it helps with decision fatigue because it's
Speaker 1: always like, Mom, can I have a snack?
Speaker 4: Mom?
Speaker 1: What can I have for snack? Yeah? Yeah, So we
Speaker 1: made We just got new cabinets and we have our
Speaker 1: microwave on the bottom and so a base microwave cabinet
Speaker 1: has a cabinet underneath the microwave and that is where
Speaker 1: we put all of kay snacks. So whatever is in
Speaker 1: that cabinet, he can have what he wants when he wants,
Speaker 1: and he can get it himself, and so that has
Speaker 1: limited questions, limit decision fatigue, interruptions on what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: all of that. So that's what I think. Always foods
Speaker 1: are important, but in terms of meal planning, this can help.
Speaker 1: It's not every week I'm deciding something different. It's I
Speaker 1: would say, once a month, you're talking to your kids
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, what snacks do you want me
Speaker 1: to get from the next month, and then you've got it.
Speaker 1: You buy it every week if you need to, or
Speaker 1: you buy it in bulk at Costco or Sam's and
Speaker 1: the decision is done. So we're not just when we're
Speaker 1: talking about simplified meal planning, we're not just talking about dinner.
Speaker 1: We've got to think about breakfast, lunch, and snacks too.
Speaker 1: So create these always foods for snacks, and then also
Speaker 1: think about, when you're doing these ingredient challenges or thinking
Speaker 1: about simplified ingredients in general, think about making breakfast symbolk.
Speaker 1: I think breakfast is our my favorite thing to batch
Speaker 1: because I'll make a batch of egg cups or a
Speaker 1: batch of overnight oats on Sunday very quickly while I'm
Speaker 1: making dinner, and there's breakfast for the week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one lines up with a tip I believe
Speaker 3: we've talked about before on the podcast, but it involves
Speaker 3: even keeping a menu, so to speak of five to
Speaker 3: ten meals.
Speaker 2: Well, ten might be a little much.
Speaker 3: Five to seven meals that you know your family likes,
Speaker 3: that you can make with some shelf staples that are
Speaker 3: always possibilities for you. So for me, one of those
Speaker 3: things is a Korean beef and rice recipe. So I
Speaker 3: will often keep ground beef and rice and I just
Speaker 3: have all of the ingredients that I need. It's very
Speaker 3: simple to be able to make that recipe. I always
Speaker 3: have on hand frozen veggies and rice to be able
Speaker 3: to make fried rice. So I kind of know, if
Speaker 3: we're really running low, we haven't had time to get
Speaker 3: to the grocery store, don't really know what I'm going
Speaker 3: to make. An always meal or always foods can be
Speaker 3: can include the things I'm always going to have on
Speaker 3: hand and the recipes that I know everybody in the
Speaker 3: house likes, even if I've got company over. So the
Speaker 3: next one on the list for me is choose recipes
Speaker 3: with ten ingredients or less. And this flows into our
Speaker 3: next bit about sharing some low ingredient resources that we
Speaker 3: can use kind of that second portion of this episode,
Speaker 3: because we think that that's one of the ways that
Speaker 3: we can make meal planning simple is if our recipes,
Speaker 3: the amount of time that the food takes to make
Speaker 3: is also simple. This can also feel a little bit
Speaker 3: like a food challenge in some ways to only source
Speaker 3: for a period of time. Let's say a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks or maybe even a month that I'm only going
Speaker 3: to make recipes that are ten ingredients or less, and
Speaker 3: see what that does for your timing, your wallet, your
Speaker 3: barrier to entry to meal planning and cooking in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: They reference how flavorful meals do not need twenty ingredients.
Speaker 3: Ten ingredients is still a real decent amount. I'd say
Speaker 3: I often will make meals that only have like five
Speaker 3: ingredients and they're still real great. So decide your number
Speaker 3: and give yourself that challenge. This could also really help
Speaker 3: to simplify.
Speaker 1: So yeah, heading into our low ingredient resources again, like
Speaker 1: less ingredients means you're spending less money on ingredients. So
Speaker 1: this could be a really great challenge. So my article
Speaker 1: that I want to share with you, we're not going
Speaker 1: to go through these, but you can see them in
Speaker 1: our show notes is twenty eight five ingredient dinner recipes
Speaker 1: that are oh so simple, And I would say you
Speaker 1: could even this is from Tasty, but you can even
Speaker 1: google five ingredient recipes and get a bunch of different lists.
Speaker 3: I would say, search it on Instagram and then be in.
Speaker 3: I always see the pictures like what's this going to
Speaker 3: look like on my plate?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I love searching for five ingredient recipes. Challenge
Speaker 1: yourself one week to make only recipes that have five
Speaker 1: ingredients or less.
Speaker 2: What looks the best on here to you?
Speaker 1: I really love a where was it? I just saw it?
Speaker 1: I love a beef and bean burrito.
Speaker 2: Yeah I forgot about those.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so that's really great. There's even a pasta
Speaker 1: salad which got penne, arugola, pesto like pre made pesto,
Speaker 1: pre roasted red peppers, and some barata like all stuff
Speaker 1: you can get at Walmart, so it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be bad. Crockpot Italian beef that looks like I would
Speaker 1: just get some stakums and some Italian rolls and pre
Speaker 1: cut like the frozen onion pepper mix like that is
Speaker 1: something that we really love. So yeah, when you see these,
Speaker 1: you will also get creative with other things. So sometimes
Speaker 1: this is just to spark your.
Speaker 2: Creative I know it jogs your memory on things.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I do get in a rut of just working
Speaker 3: off that menu that I know I have on hand
Speaker 3: and we like, and I forget all these other options
Speaker 3: of what you can do with food. The one I
Speaker 3: want to highlight comes from the Minimalist Baker, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of resources on this site, but one of
Speaker 3: the things that is really cool about it is the
Speaker 3: way that you can filter and recipes. So you can
Speaker 3: filter by season or a special diet or type of
Speaker 3: cuisine or simple factor, so whether you want ten ingredients
Speaker 3: or less, or fifteen minutes or less, or thirty minutes
Speaker 3: or less, or instant pot or one bowl. So that
Speaker 3: I thought was a really cool way to be able
Speaker 3: to hack the simplification of cooking. Some of you might think,
Speaker 3: I don't really care how many ingredients there are.
Speaker 2: How long is it going to take that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So being able to filter your recipes based on
Speaker 3: what you think is most valuable and important with your
Speaker 3: meal plan is awesome. The fact that this is a
Speaker 3: tool and resource on their website is amazing.
Speaker 1: A Minimalist Baker is just a fantastic resource for any
Speaker 1: vegan or vegetarian. So if you're trying to eat less meat,
Speaker 1: hit up the Minimalist Baker website. It's not baked goods,
Speaker 1: it's just all vegan.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And of course, if all of this is still sounding
Speaker 3: so overwhelming, there's still cook Smart.
Speaker 1: There's still cook Smarts, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Going to sing their praises because again, if this is
Speaker 3: what's keeping you from eating more at home or cooking,
Speaker 3: it's just in general, there are resources like cook Smarts
Speaker 3: who can do the meal planning for you. So that
Speaker 3: cuts out a pretty significant part of this process. If
Speaker 3: it's the sitting down, the coming up with stuff, the
Speaker 3: Google searching, the filtering, the recipes, if that's the barrier
Speaker 3: to entry, hire it out, have cook smarts do it
Speaker 3: for you. And that doesn't have to be for forever.
Speaker 3: Try them for a month, see how that goes, See
Speaker 3: if that starts to spark some creativity for you to
Speaker 3: be able to do it on your own. But I
Speaker 3: think it's worth paying in a company to be able
Speaker 3: to do this, or even an individual to be able
Speaker 3: to do this for you. If that's what's going to
Speaker 3: help you start eating at home more if that's what's
Speaker 3: going to help you save on groceries. And I love
Speaker 3: about Cooksmarts is they will also help you reuse ingredients
Speaker 3: throughout the week, like they're thoughtful about it versus a
Speaker 3: lot of times when I am doing meal plans, sometimes
Speaker 3: it can just be a conglomeration of recipes that look good,
Speaker 3: but it's not necessarily taking into consideration. But how much
Speaker 3: leftover food am I going to end up having because
Speaker 3: I didn't use up all those ingredients? So yeah, Frugal
Speaker 3: friendspodcast dot com slash ccs.
Speaker 1: And they do sales about five times a year. I
Speaker 1: think they'll do a back to school sale and we
Speaker 1: will tell you whenever they are doing sales. It's like
Speaker 1: if you it's fifteen dollars a month if you buy
Speaker 1: it an annual subscription, I think it's about eight ish
Speaker 1: dollars a month. But then they have those sales a
Speaker 1: few times a year. Their next one, I think is
Speaker 1: back to school and if you are on the front
Speaker 1: letter Frugal friendspodcast dot com, we will tell you when
Speaker 1: the next cook smart sale is they do. You'll get
Speaker 1: four meals a week. And you can choose between the
Speaker 1: regular or paleo or vegetarian options. So if you're outside
Speaker 1: of those dietary restrictions or preferences, then maybe cook Smarts
Speaker 1: is not the best for you. But if you are
Speaker 1: in those, we love that cook Smarts not only meal
Speaker 1: plans for you, but they also help you learn some techniques,
Speaker 1: so there is a little bit of cooking education. And
Speaker 1: then also reused ingredients. So they'll use one ingredient and
Speaker 1: they'll try to include it in meal plans occasionally until
Speaker 1: you would theoretically be done with that ingredient. So yes,
Speaker 1: we love love cook Smarts.
Speaker 2: Do you know what else we love that we absolutely
Speaker 2: reuse in every episode.
Speaker 1: And it's never done, it never runs out.
Speaker 2: The Bill of the week.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 1: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 1: is Williams.
Speaker 4: Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died
Speaker 4: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 1: That bills, Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill
Speaker 1: of the week.
Speaker 4: Hi, Dannan Bill.
Speaker 1: My name is Carissa. I'm from California.
Speaker 4: I will Saying Tales podcast for literally so long, like
Speaker 4: over a year now. It feels like a long time
Speaker 4: for me, but you' all literally taking me through like
Speaker 4: living with my ex, trying to budget for us to
Speaker 4: move out to now us breaking up, in me living
Speaker 4: on my own and having a new job and getting
Speaker 4: a row High Array all thanks to you guys. And
Speaker 4: the main point of this bill, though, is that my
Speaker 4: birthday just passed on this past Tuesday, and that tuesday,
Speaker 4: you guys released an adhd Nerriday Virgins Money Managing video
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh my god, like I have
Speaker 4: Adhd and it felt like a little gift to me,
Speaker 4: So thank you guys. And in preparation for my birthday,
Speaker 4: I was actually able to budget enough for me to
Speaker 4: save up for a new tattoo that I've been wanting.
Speaker 4: So that is my bill of the week. I got
Speaker 4: a tattoo thanks to y'all, and I'm just thriving because
Speaker 4: I've been listening to you guys for so long, So
Speaker 4: thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Lets tend to see what you guys post next.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 1: Carissa, I congratulations, that's amazing. Oh my gosh. The episode
Speaker 1: she's talking about is episode three ninety Managing Money with
Speaker 1: Adhd Or neurodivergence and so well, happy birthday back in March.
Speaker 1: We do get to every bill, even takes a while,
Speaker 1: but yay, that's so exciting.
Speaker 3: Ugh, I'm so glad you felt seen by that, and
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you've been listening to us for a
Speaker 3: long time and finally called in your bill where we
Speaker 3: love to hear from longtime listeners and hear about the
Speaker 3: things that are resonating with you. It sounds like you've
Speaker 3: accomplished a lot over these past few years, and the
Speaker 3: ability to gift yourself with something you love and value
Speaker 3: like a new tattoo is so exciting.
Speaker 2: Money for that, well, and.
Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing that with us. We're celebrating with you.
Speaker 3: If you all listening, want to submit your bill. If
Speaker 3: it's because you've been listening to us for a while
Speaker 3: and you just haven't done it yet, please do so.
Speaker 3: Or if you're a new listener or your name is
Speaker 3: Bill Forrual friendspodcast dot com slash bill, leave us.
Speaker 2: Your bill, and now it's time for the lightning around. Shoot.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the nuts and bolts tastiest, cheapest, healthiest, healthiest,
Speaker 1: lowest ingredient recipes that you can make with five minutes
Speaker 1: and zero. This is a lot of.
Speaker 3: Restrict Goldy put a lot of restrictions on us, and
Speaker 3: this is what we're gonna live.
Speaker 1: The creative in I feel hindered.
Speaker 3: We want tasty, inexpensive, healthy, low ingredient made in five
Speaker 3: minutes or last was zero prior work, not requiring previous
Speaker 3: prep work.
Speaker 2: You don't do it, you know what?
Speaker 1: I just thought, Uh oh, this is gonna be. This
Speaker 1: is gonna be a very niche reference. But I digested
Speaker 1: a huge gust of the wind. That's my favorite. A
Speaker 1: huge gust of wind is probably my best. No, Okay,
Speaker 1: So chicken pot stickers, the frozen ones from Walmart or
Speaker 1: Sam's Club, they're both good. Turkey sandwiches. We do a
Speaker 1: lot of turkey sandwiches. We big turkey sandwiches.
Speaker 2: Tell me what you put on it?
Speaker 3: Bread?
Speaker 2: What are we working with?
Speaker 1: We're working with any bread. I like Dave's killer bread.
Speaker 1: I think that's what it's called. Mike, I don't know
Speaker 1: what his name is. So and then the rest of
Speaker 1: my family prefers white chemical bread. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I know something is bad about.
Speaker 2: It and enriched enriched, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's something about it. I don't know. So they will
Speaker 1: do that bread and then just turkey and whatever cheese
Speaker 1: we have and not always chippies because I'm still like
Speaker 1: growing in myself work wow wow yeah, so yeah that
Speaker 1: is that meatball subs instance spots instant pot spaghetti kale
Speaker 1: salad with some shredded chicken. But I will just get
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean kale salad from Zam's Club, throw the shredded
Speaker 1: shreaded chicken on top. Bam.
Speaker 3: Uh So like that one does require the previous prep
Speaker 3: work of the shredded chicken.
Speaker 2: But I'll let you have it. I'll let it slide.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Although Kennon instant pot cook chicken in five minutes.
Speaker 1: Probably yeah, okay, well then I'll stick with my first
Speaker 1: A huge gust of wind y.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are a lot of constraints.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with a fridge raid, also called charcootery board.
Speaker 3: My charcooteries are unhinged. It's really whatever whatever is they
Speaker 3: that was.
Speaker 1: On your last charcooter.
Speaker 2: It usually includes.
Speaker 3: I've I've usually got a block of cheddar. There's You're
Speaker 3: gonna be hard pressed to go in my fridge and
Speaker 3: not find cheddar cheese, a sliced apple. I've always got
Speaker 3: olives on hand, bread with whatever jams and mustards we
Speaker 3: got going on. Sometimes that's it. Occasionally I've got a
Speaker 3: little bit of a little extra something something in the freezer.
Speaker 2: But again that that would be what's.
Speaker 1: The something something like?
Speaker 3: You can't just say I'm about to say, but I'm
Speaker 3: gonna say that that would have required some extra prep.
Speaker 3: But eggplant fries, which that's a nice air fryer thing.
Speaker 3: You just slice up your eggplant coda in egg and
Speaker 3: breadcrumbs and air fry those bad boys, and that's a
Speaker 3: yummy on the side. I also I love a fried
Speaker 3: rice that is very quick. I just use the frozen veggies.
Speaker 3: It does require having rice already because it takes longer
Speaker 3: than five minutes to cook rice. Egg tacos, so those
Speaker 3: are fast. That does not require any other Now, eregs
Speaker 3: are so good. Kids eat eggs. Eggs go in anything.
Speaker 3: I'd hard boil eggs on the weekend and my kids
Speaker 3: just love them. Yeah, so that yeah, egg tacos will
Speaker 3: just be like some scrambled eggs, salsa, sour cream. I
Speaker 3: also love me a sad with avocado, and this does
Speaker 3: not meet the health standards. But hot dogs, hot dogs.
Speaker 3: Hot dogs are so fast. You just heat one of
Speaker 3: those bad boys up and done. That's like you can
Speaker 3: have it made and eaten in five minutes. And that's
Speaker 3: something that Goldie did not ask for in this lightning round.
Speaker 3: But you gave it.
Speaker 1: You gave it's giving above and beyond, it's giving gust
Speaker 1: of wind. So thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1: We hope that this kind of sparked your interest in
Speaker 1: looking for those low ingredient meal plans and kind of
Speaker 1: gave you some places to look to. Obviously, we can't
Speaker 1: give you. You know, it's not time for our second
Speaker 1: annual Dinner Awards, so we're not going to give you
Speaker 1: a two week meal plan on this episode. We could,
Speaker 1: but we won't. But we wanted to spark your creativity
Speaker 1: in looking for those food challenges, those five ingredients and yeah,
Speaker 1: ways to simplify your meal plans over the summer. And
Speaker 1: so if this did inspire you, then we would love
Speaker 1: to hear about it in a rating and review on Apple,
Speaker 1: kind of like this one from Liz in Asia that
Speaker 1: says great for people in non traditional lives five stars.
Speaker 1: It says we live in Asia and can't relate to
Speaker 1: most financial podcasts. We have no desire or ability to
Speaker 1: own a home, for example. This podcast is so practical
Speaker 1: and helps you elevate your own values and goals and
Speaker 1: then take practical and attainable steps. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. I love hearing that. It's fun to know
Speaker 3: we've got people all around the world listening in and
Speaker 3: that some of what we talk about is translatable across
Speaker 3: different cult communities. And that's one of the things I
Speaker 3: mean when we've been writing the book that we've talked about,
Speaker 3: is we want some of these evergreen principles that can
Speaker 3: be applied because sometimes the exact plan and the exact
Speaker 3: blueprint of do this, do that, save that amount isn't
Speaker 3: what works for everybody, but rather these concepts of values
Speaker 3: based spending that can follow us throughout a lifetime and
Speaker 3: kind of wherever we choose to live and whatever our
Speaker 3: personal goals are. So so glad to hear that. Lisen Asia,
Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing. If you are also enjoying this show
Speaker 3: and you haven't told us yet that you're enjoying this
Speaker 3: show by leaving a rating and review, please do that
Speaker 3: when when we reach because it's not an if, it's
Speaker 3: a when we reach one thousand reviews, because we're not
Speaker 3: there yet.
Speaker 2: We're going to the recording. Yeah, well, then we'll set
Speaker 2: a new goal for ourselves.
Speaker 3: Jen wants to do a poll in the friend letter
Speaker 3: of what we should treat ourselves with when we reach
Speaker 3: one thousand reviews.
Speaker 1: We'd love your ideas too. I don't know what our
Speaker 1: little treat should be, but we've been working on it
Speaker 1: for over six years, so maybe it should be a
Speaker 1: little bigger than a little tree.
Speaker 2: We've got so many things to celebrate though.
Speaker 1: So yes, if you are our thousandth review maybe we'll
Speaker 1: let you tell us what we should have the friend
Speaker 1: letter the options we should be a.
Speaker 3: Screenshot if you are the one thousand reviewer. But don't wait,
Speaker 3: don't wait, so you will be the one thousand.
Speaker 1: Please don't wait. I shouldn't have said that, not dang,
Speaker 1: all right, see you next time. Frugal Friends is produced
Speaker 1: by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 3: Jill.
Speaker 1: What what are you cooking? This summer?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What is what are you craving? What are you eating?
Speaker 2: What's in what you'r era?
Speaker 1: What era are you in? M food?
Speaker 3: Wise, we are in a little bit of an avocado era,
Speaker 3: which is fun for me because I used to be
Speaker 3: allergic to avocado in that they made me vomit. Like
Speaker 3: if I had too many. I loved them, I remember.
Speaker 2: But if it was too much, it was nausea.
Speaker 3: It's been since I've known you, but I love avocado
Speaker 3: so much that I'm like, I'm going to see if
Speaker 3: I can reintroduce avocado to my diet and like builds
Speaker 3: up immunity.
Speaker 2: And I don't know it worked, and or the nausea
Speaker 2: was in my head. I don't know.
Speaker 3: They are very fatty, Yeah, it's whatever they're high in
Speaker 3: that I have read there are people who have this
Speaker 3: like reaction to the nutrient that it is super dense
Speaker 3: in So even still I'll only eat like half an avocado,
Speaker 3: but oh it's so great, So doing like a nice
Speaker 3: salt combo on the avocado. Making guacamole. I am definitely
Speaker 3: into the spreads and sauces, So making my own salsa
Speaker 3: verde chimmy cherry pesto guacamole.
Speaker 2: These are really fun for me.
Speaker 3: And like one of those things like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 3: finding a sauce or I'd even take it further, like
Speaker 3: the spread.
Speaker 2: The mixture.
Speaker 3: Has been helpful for me to get some of that
Speaker 3: fresh flavor and make every meal taste a.
Speaker 2: Little bit different.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder you about you. What's your era?
Speaker 1: I have recently been in that like potsticker era where
Speaker 1: I've just been like making those like several times a
Speaker 1: week because they're so easy. I am in my easy era, honestly,
Speaker 1: like less thought the better era, which is why I
Speaker 1: think I love a one pot spaghetti because I can't
Speaker 1: even manage regular spaghetti. I can't. I hear you talking
Speaker 1: about making salsa verde and Jimmy cherry and I might
Speaker 1: I get anxious.
Speaker 3: So yeah, speaking of the salsa verde, though, it's actually
Speaker 3: really pretty easy.
Speaker 1: You roast all that, that's what they say, and then
Speaker 1: you say the oven. But here's the thing, when you're
Speaker 1: already roasting other things, like I will, what's that one
Speaker 1: step you can take now that makes your life easier
Speaker 1: in the future. Like if I'm if the oven's on,
Speaker 1: then I think, what else can I throw in this
Speaker 1: oven that's gonna make my life easier through the rest
Speaker 1: of the week. So a lot of.
Speaker 3: Times My oven's on just once a week and we're
Speaker 3: just we're just rotating it. We're just shoving stuff in,
Speaker 3: uh and with a timer. I'm not there in the
Speaker 3: kitchen all day. It just is all right. I chopped
Speaker 3: up all this stuff and we're just gonna fit as
Speaker 3: much as we can in there. So really, salsa verde
Speaker 3: is roasted tomatillos and then you throw that in a
Speaker 3: blender with like a.
Speaker 2: Bunch of other stuff. That's it. Yeah, it's blend roast
Speaker 2: and blend roast and blend done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Still I can't wrap my head around it.
Speaker 2: That's fine.
Speaker 1: I have too much laundry and I can't.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I bet there's a rat for it. I bet there is.
Speaker 2: But yes, you don't.
Speaker 1: Can't even wrap my head around spaghetti.
Speaker 3: That can be a big thing to have to make
Speaker 3: your own sauces and salad dressings and that kind of
Speaker 3: a thing. For me, it's what's inspiring me and making
Speaker 3: other things easier, the fact that I've got this fresh sauce,
Speaker 3: fresh dip. Then it makes the other things, Oh, those
Speaker 3: can be simple, not complicated, because I've got this nice sauce.
Speaker 1: That maybe you don't go big on the meat or
Speaker 1: the big thing. Maybe you're a sauce centered.
Speaker 3: Yep, which I say. I'm not into soup, but here
Speaker 3: we are with the sauces. Get in a spoon.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're sauce centered.