Episode 2: My strategy
[00:00:00] Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning into, everybody's got to eat. I am your host. Alison Taylor. If you enjoy this episode or have enjoyed any episodes before I would love it. If you could hit that subscribe button and leave a review that helps us podcast her so much, when you show support and love for our show.
I am so excited for today's episode, because I'm going to be sharing with you. The strategy that I have used over the past nine or 10 years, that has helped me so much when it comes to figuring out what to make for dinner. It's pretty life-changing so I can't wait to share it with you guys. And the reason it helps me so much. Is because I think a big part of the stress of meal planning is coming up with the actual meals I'm going to make for that week. Because sometimes I'm so uninspired by food I'm so over it.
But this strategy helps me so much and it saves me so much time and so much mental energy.
So without further ado, here's my strategy. I use Pinterest. And the way that I use Pinterest is I have a board dedicated to food. And within that board, I have labeled different sections and I have labeled those sections based on the type of food that my family enjoys, eating. So for example, I have a section that is titled pasta. And so all the recipes that I have collected over the years go into that pasta section of my food board.
And then the other sections I have are soups. I have a salad section. I have American, I have Asian inspired. I have Crock-Pot meals. All of those are different sections. And then. My husband loves TexMex. We are a big taco Tuesday. Tuesday. Family. And so I have a TexMex section within my food board as well.
The point is I have all those sections that have similar foods group together. So that way, when it's time for me to meal plan, I can go to each section of my food board and get inspiration for what I'm going to make. I don't always follow the recipes because I have recipes that I have created on my own, but it gives me that inspiration for each night of the week of something different. And it makes it so quick and painless when I'm coming up with my menu list. And of course, the whole idea is to have that variety during the week. So you're not making the same thing multiple nights in a row.
But of course that doesn't always happen because we really love pasta. Of course, my kids love macaroni and cheese and they love spaghetti. So. That happens and that's okay too. It's mainly for me and my mental energy when coming up with the list itself.
I know some of you already are doing this and already have collected your recipes, but I think organizing them in the way that I said really helps.
Now I know Pinterest can be super overwhelming for people and it's confusing., And you might be saying to yourself, Okay, Pinterest. How is that going to work for me? There's like 5 million recipes. How is that going to make my life easier?
And I totally hear you. That's why I am putting out a special offer for my listeners. To create your food board for you. 'cause I know Pinterest isn't for everyone, but I promise if you have an organized food board with those sections, it's going to make meal planning so much easier and headache free.
So, let me make your food board for you with all the sections. I would love to do it. I love Pinterest and I would love to help you. Make your life easier when it comes to meal planning and finding those recipes.
I will curate your board and your sections specific to you and your family. Family. And i will also make sure that any recipe i put into your board or section will be simple And it will give you inspiration Ration on what to cook and so When i curate this For you it's very specific and Personal to you and your family.
I have a super introductory price for this. And this special price is only for the first five people that sign up. So go ahead and go in my show notes and click on the link and it will take you to that special offer.
Okay. Now I'm going to share with you the meals for this week. I am making Turkey sausage beans and spinach. This dish doesn't really have a name, but I promise you it's super delicious and so easy. I am making chicken tortilla soup. I am making unstuffed shells. And then I'm making Sesame chicken with rice and broccoli.
And garlic shrimp pasta. And then Greek power bowls. And then the seventh day is a flex day. I like to leave a day open because we sometimes have leftovers or we go out to eat or we do take out order pizza. I just like to leave a day open so that food is not going to waste.
The recipe I'm going to share with you is the unstuffed shells. And I'm sharing this with you because stuffed shells always looks so delicious every time I see them. But it's such a pain to fill them and it's time consuming. And so I just wanted to come up with a recipe where you're still getting all of the flavor.
And you're still getting the shells, but you don't have to spend your time stuffing them. So. You're going to need one pound of Italian Turkey, sausage, one five ounce bag of fresh baby spinach. And that's going to come from the freezer. So when you take it home from the grocery store, just put it right in the freezer.
You're also going to need 1 24 ounce jar of pasta sauce. A 16 ounce box of medium shells, pasta. One cup of chicken broth. And then you're going to need one 15 ounce container. Of ricotta cheese. A third, a cup of grated Parmesan, cheese, and two cups of shredded mozzarella cheese.
okay. So then you're going to cook the Italian Turkey sausage over medium high heat. Breaking it into small chunks until browned. And you're going to do this in a five court saute pan or a deep pot.
Then you're going to take your spinach out of the freezer and break it up. While it's still in the bag with your fingers into small pieces. You can punch it. You can break it up with your fingers, but because it's frozen. It's really easy to break apart into those small pieces that you need and then you're going to add that to your pot and cook it until it's wilted. Then you're going to add in your box of shells, the pasta sauce and the chicken broth. You're going to stir all that together. Bring it to a boil. And then turn it to simmer. Cover and cook for 10 minutes and you're going to want to stir occasionally just to make sure the pasta isn't sticking together. And you can also add more chicken broth if it's needed. If the pasta is absorbing too much of the liquid. While the pasta is cooking. You're going to mix together the ricotta and the Parmesan cheese.
And then once the pasta is done cooking, you're going to add the ricotta mixture. And you're just going to stir it a couple times. You don't want it to be fully incorporated. You want it to just kind of be swirled throughout the pasta. And then you're going to transfer that to a baking dish, top it with the mozzarella cheese.
And broil that in the oven until the cheese is melted and browned. And that is it.
So a couple of things that I do in this dish that makes it easy and simple is of course I don't stuff. The shells, I just use a smaller shell pasta. And then I do the frozen spinach hack, which I love because I can buy a bunch of fresh spinach and just stick it in the freezer. And I know that I'll have some for all the dishes that I make with it.
And I love so much how much nutrition, spinach adds to dishes without the flavor taking over the dish.
And then cooking the pasta in the same pot without having to boil it in another pot saves so much time. And I love how the pasta absorbs the flavor of all of the other things in the dish.
You can find this recipe in my show notes. I hope you try it. It is such a good one to add to your rotation.
I am also going to put a link in my show notes for week two. Recipes full grocery list and the weekly menu.
The food story that I have to share with you this week comes from Rashida. And Rashida has her own podcast called parents connecting. And it's all about sitting down and having conversations to form those deeper connections.
Her episodes really cover everything it means to be a parent.
Which I think is so needed right now. And so go check her podcast out. It's really, really great.
And here is her story. Hi. So I have a story to share that's, um, I guess now funny, but maybe it wasn't so funny at the time. My husband is Moroccan and we went to visit his family in Morocco. And if you know anything about Brown culture, I think in general everybody likes to eat. I'm Indian and actually, um, my, my parents are from India.
And I think that. food is such a love language for people. Um, and to be able to, to feed and cook and, you know, that is just, even if you're like, had too much or you've eaten and you're like, I can't eat anymore, they're like, da, da, have some more. So it's almost, you know, you can almost like offend somebody if you don't eat.
And so I, um, had not met my husband's family. So we were visiting Morocco, we were on our way to do some. The touristy kind of trip things. And, uh, one of his aunt and uncle, lived on the way. So we stopped by to say hello, and this was just like a year after we had gotten married.
Um, and he hadn't seen the family in many, many years. And, you know, anytime you go to somebody's house, they'll give you some food. So they had brought Moroccans or traditionally they have you know, olives is a big thing in their culture. So they brought out this little spread of like olives and bread and, I think maybe some milk or something.
And some of this was a celebration cause we just gotten married and I was starving because we hadn't eaten in, in many hours. So I kind of just filled up. Um, and I was like, wow, this is really great. And I was thinking, wow, like I'm making such a good impression. I'm like, I'm really eating. And, you know, we're, we're talking and chatting and, and then, you know, maybe like 45 minutes, an hour later I started hearing these, this clanking around in the kitchen.
And I have this almost like, fear, I don't know, fear is the right word, but this like anxiety come over me and I just look at my husband and I'm like, , like, are they cooking something? And uh, realized later that yes, indeed they were cooking something like what we had eaten was like literally maybe just like an appetizer, and they came out with this huge dish.
of, it's called spa and it's like this, uh, base of like meat or chicken or something. And then this huge mountain, like literally a mountain, it like look, they make it like kind of like a little hill of, um, like vermella pasta and it's like, God, some powdered sugar and all this stuff. And I had this. My eyes probably bugged outta my head because I was just like, I didn't know what to do.
Cause I'm like, oh my God, I am really full and this is a lot of food and I would say my own strategy and tactic that I have developed over the years for my own family, cuz my parents are ones to serve us. A lots of food is just eat really slowly so there's always food in front of you so they don't keep piling food.
So I was, you know, eating really slowly and keep eating and. And, uh, at one point everybody, like everybody at the table were like, eat, eat, eat. And I just, I mean, I almost was like in tears because I was just so full . I don't know if, I mean, it sounds so ridiculous. Um, but that's not the first time it happened.
So that was really, you know, I mean, we tell the story later, like, I was really inside freaking out because. , you know, I, I just, I didn't wanna offend anybody and so food is like such a big deal. Luckily it was really tasty and it was actually a light, a lighter meal than I thought. Um, but it happened again.
When I went to visit his siblings in Canada, he's got, uh, several siblings in Montreal, and we went there for the first time. And when you go to people's houses, you go to each person's house and. Have a meal with them. And we'd visited the Montreal. We'd eaten lunch, which was probably really silly on our parts before we went to their house.
And then there was like a meal served and like a full meal. And then again, I hear this clanking around in the kitchen. I, the joke wasn't on me this time because I was actually in the kitchen helping, my sister-in-law with some of the food, and it's funny, and the irony is that it happened to my husband who was really surprised because we ate this full meal and then it was like, you know, sandwiches with like meat and cheese and all this kind of stuff inside.
And then, I was joking. I said, well, you know, there's, there's like a whole chicken coming and he just looks at me like thinking I'm joking. And literally she brought in a huge plate of a full chicken with all this food. And it was, it's just funny because we had swapped places in that moment. So, the moral of the story is just know where you're going and come on an empty stomach.
Um, but the food is wonderful and, uh, it. You know, food can be such a great thing, but it can also become such a stressful thing when you have no idea what, like when it will what, when it will end. So that's my funny story.
Is it Rashida, just so amazing. I love this story. It's so funny. It's really, really cool to see what food means to different cultures. I think it's so fascinating and so interesting. And the story was also really, really funny.
So I can totally relate to this story because I also married into a different culture. My husband, Angelo is black and I am white. And it's been so cool and fun over the years what we have discovered about each other. How we grew up. Eating and, and what foods we like and how we like to cook. And our children will be a combination of that, which is so cool to me.
Thank you all so much for listening to episode two. I hope you enjoyed it. And again, if you subscribe and review and send me a screenshot via my email or my Instagram. You will be entered into my giveaway and I announced those winners next week.
I just want to show you guys how much I appreciate you listening and supporting.
So be sure to get entered for a chance to win an Instacart gift card. The pan that I love to cook with. Or a free week of meals, recipes, and grocery lists.
I hope that you gained some inspiration today. I hope that you feel helped in the kitchen and with meal planning.
And I hope that you feel that connection that you're not alone and we're in this together. Have a wonderful day.
