The Empty Nest Kitchen

Smart Shopping for The Empty Nest Kitchen

• Christine Van Bloem • Season 2 • Episode 43

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Practical money-saving tips for grocery shopping are a must-have in today's world, particularly for empty nesters. In this episode, you'll find helpful tips and tricks for shopping smart for your own Empty Nest Kitchen. You can save money while still enjoying good food and reducing waste.

00:00 Introduction and Current Market Overview

01:35 Smart Shopping Tips for Spices

05:39 Buying Meat for the empty nester

08:26 Bread and Stock Tips

14:33 Meal Planning and Final Tips





Speaker:

Well, oh, happy day. I am so delighted to be here with you this week Now. If you've been paying any attention, you know that the world is a nutty right now and the market is crazy and everything is wild and weird. So I was thinking that one of the great things that we can start to do as empty nesters. One of the things we start doing as we're nearing retirement or we're even thinking about retirement or maybe we're in retirement, is we're becoming just a little more cost conscious of the money that we're spending. And this is not me coming at you with a beans, rice kind of menu. Of course, if you change your diet to eat beans and rice, you are going to, uh, save money there because meat is expensive. But this. Is talking about smart shopping for you today because there are ways that you can be saving money at the grocery store, having less food waste by making little simple changes and looking for simple, cool things in the store. Ready? Let's go.

Speaker 2:

So you know that I'm an herbs and spices kind of gal, not just with the fresh herbs that you can grow at home, though. That will certainly save you some money in the long run, but I'm thinking more of the dried herbs and spices, um, that you're getting at the grocery store. And one of my favorite tips here is to get away from the spice aisle, get away from the baking aisle because that big rack of all the spices by the big name spice company, well seriously, those run a little pricey, right? You have two options here. The first is. Take a little walk to the international aisle of your grocery store, or if you're feeling really fancy, go to an international grocery store. They are the most fun place to shop if you ask me. But even in your regular grocery store, if you take a walk over to the international aisle, you are going to find brand names that are different from the big, big spice companies, and these tend to run. Way less money. So for example, you can be looking at one of those little containers of, oh, I don't know, let's say cumin in the big spice aisle. And that's gonna cost you 5 49, maybe six bucks for that small bottle. If you walk to the international aisle, a lot of times you'll find an international brand called Badia, B-A-D-I-A, forgive my pronunciation, and that is typically going to run you about. Half of the cost. What? Say what. But not only that, if you go to the bulk section, and even my Wegmans has a small bulk section, you will find that you can buy. Exactly what you need. Let's say you need an odd spice, or let's stick with cumin and say that you don't use much cumin in your cooking, so you just wanna buy what you need for a recipe. Did you know that you can go and actually buy two teaspoons of cumin? I know you'll weigh it. There's a code on it. Uh, our whole, um, our food co-op, our local food co-op has tags and you write the number on the tag. I am telling you this is a great way to shop for spices if. You are not going to use a lot of it. Uh, I think a lot of times of sumac, I actually love sumac and I, uh, try to buy it in as big a container as I can get, but it's not used a ton here in the States, so it's a little trickier to find. I remember getting it in Scotland, oh my gosh, a hundred years ago because they use it, I guess, a lot over there. But it was so funny to me to be able to go to the bulk section and just pick up a little. Of what you need. Perhaps that container of nutmeg is not what you wanna get, right, because you don't need a ton of nutmeg. Nutmeg's, a super powerful spice. So using just a little of it here and there, that tiny container lasts you a while or go bulk baby.

Speaker 3:

Okay. And speaking of going bulk, you can think about that for any grains as well, or rices, anything along those lines. But I always miss, uh, guess how much I need so. Be careful when you do this because it can end up costing you more if you're not careful. Somehow. My brain used to make two cups, one cup, and I'd always buy twice as much as I needed, and then I'd have little bags hanging around in the cupboard, so watch for that. But do consider using the bulk section of your grocery store. It's a great way to go. Now, one of the other things I like to do as an empty nester, and I swear I never. Did this before the kids left, but when I buy the family size pack of meat, because we know meat and eggs are pricey right now I am buying family size of boneless skinless chicken thighs. I love boneless skinless chicken thighs. I think they're such a dream to work with and they tend to be. More economical than the chicken breasts. Also, just coming at it from a cook standpoint, they're always gonna be more delicious. They're a little higher in fat than a chicken breast because chicken breast is so lean, but it's not high compared to other things. I love the boneless, skinless size. Oh my gosh. Chicken salad. I do a lot of them in the air fryer. Believe it or not, tonight I'm making chicken, chicken Caesar salad wraps and all. Marinate that chicken and throw it in the air fryer. But when I do buy it now in bulk, I've gotten so much better with this. I open up the container and I immediately freeze it into the portions that I'm going to use. And I know this is, this is like, oh, I'm never really gonna do that. No, no, no. I'm telling you it takes five minutes. But do make sure that you're using. Freezer bags. Don't use the regular bags. You want that thickness of the freezer bags. But I do this with ground beef. I just bought a huge container. I think it was six pounds of ground beef. Well, I'm never gonna use all of that. Yes I am. I just split it out into one pound packages and truthfully, I think I could have probably done half pound packages for us, but I took it, I put the ground beef in and then I squish it so it's all flat. It's a great way to store it. It haws out super quickly for you. Um, and it just works really, really well. I think I paid$2 a pound less for that and figure out. That math, right? So if it was a six pound package, holy cow, that's a savings of 12 bucks. I used what I needed, I popped it in the freezer bags. Same thing with those boneless skinless chicken thighs. I find we tend to eat, uh, one and a half or two per person. They're not big. So I'll package'em in packs of three or four, squish out all the air. You know, I've told you before that air is the enemy of all things frozen. So squish out as much of the air as you can label'em. Flat pack'em. There you go. Easy breezy.

Speaker 4:

Now I have seen tips for people that say, oh, I'm baking all of my own bread now. And I have to tell you personally, I think that's a labor of love, not a money saving device. Yes, of course it costs pennies to make your own bread, but let's be realistic and are you going to do that? Or could you go to a really fantastic bread bakery in your neighborhood, in your neck of the woods and grab a loaf of their fantastic sourdough bread? Sure. But now you don't want that to go to waste because typically that's a big loaf of bread.

Speaker 5:

So what I've started doing is buying that gorgeous$12 loaf of bread, but I ask them to slice it for me. When I get home, I take out what I want and then immediately freeze the rest. I promise that you'll be able to gently pry apart the slices with a little butter knife when you're ready, and then give them a toast. I do it this way so that I'm not wasting any of the bread. I'm getting that good bread. And hey, if I wanna make bread, I can still do that when it suits me. But I will tell you, I am not gonna be making bread every day for sandwiches. It's just not gonna happen. So consider going, buying that great loaf of bread and supporting your local bakeries. Have'em slice it. Butter bang butter, boom.

Speaker 6:

Now when it comes to stocks and broths, having those around or buying those, they're really important in cooking. We use'em a lot. If you are not the person who's going to make your own with the carcass of the Costco rotisserie chicken, which by the way is a fantastic thing to do, get those darn Costco chickens. They are not only a fantastic price, but they taste great. You can use them as an empty nester over the course of a couple of days, right? And save the carcass of those rotisserie chickens. When you have a couple you can make stock, if that's your vibe, but if it's not, rather than keeping those big quart containers of the stock, which run anywhere from two to$4 each, right? Rather than keeping those on hand. I actually love to use a low sodium. Base. Now bases are typically super high sodium and they are also, um, they, I don't know, they don't have as much of that real flavor. You can buy the big bulk ones that they use in a lot of restaurants, but there's one called Better Than Bullion and know this. Isn't, uh, this isn't supported by them. I just really, really like the product. And right now at Costco, you can get an absolutely gigantic container of it for$6, I think it's either six or$7, and they have low sodium chicken. Vegetable and beef. Now I just have the chicken and the vegetable because those are the ones that I tend to use the most, but the cost per use on those is so much lower than those quart containers, and I dare say. It's a better product. I actually like this product for easy weeknight cooking. I think it works really, really well. Um, and I'll use it. Here's the great thing, you don't have to follow the directions. Did you know that? Uh, you can buy it? Then if it's one teaspoon to one cup of water to make stock, you could do a double enriched stock, right? Even more chickeny and put two teaspoons in. There have been times when I'm making a sauce and I'll put just, oh, I don't know, a half teaspoon or a quarter teaspoon, just into the sauce. No water, not making it broth, using it to enrich the flavor and their veg stock is really good too. I, I use that. A ton. It's great to have it on hand so that if you are. Visited by a vegetarian, or if you have to make something that's vegetarian, you've got a great tool right there. I mean, my goodness. Instant pot risotto is my go-to An onion, a little bit of olive oil, some veg broth, some wine if you have it. Oreo Rice. Done. That's it, right? And it only takes a couple of minutes to cook it in an instant pot rather than the 45 minutes that you would do Stove Top. But I digress. I do love having these in the fridge. Now, I recommend having a sharpie. I'm gonna make y'all a little professional right here, having a Sharpie or this. There's this thing called a kitchen stick in. I've talked about this before. It holds blue tape on the side of your fridge. I use it all the time, but I have no issue just scratching the date with my Sharpie onto any packaged good that I've got. If you are buying salad dressings, first of all, we should do a podcast on salad dressings because you can make really incredible dressings. In no time at home, but if you're buying salad dressings, just write the date that you open it. If you've got Hershey's chocolate syrup, write the date. If you've got a pasta sauce and you only use some of it, write the date that you opened it. Then there's no guessing and hopefully no furry tops, so anything because they got pushed to the back of the fridge.

Speaker 7:

And then finally, this is truthfully where I've had the most success. In addition to these money saving matters, and of course, doing a meatless Monday, that's always gonna save you some cash. I love to do that. I love my Pharaoh Bowls. With the arugula in them and the roasted tomatoes. You can find that recipe on empty nest kitchen.com, by the way. But in addition to all of these other things, the thing that has really helped me the most, I swear, is making a plan. Now, listen, I've got my menopause meal plans. Yes. I would love for you to try that. Please try that. But even if you're not gonna go with a meal plan, which I think is just such a great thing, make yourself a list. Like just take the time to give yourself five minutes or 10 minutes. You don't have to be fancy. Okay. You don't have to be fancy every night. You don't have to be cooking something really amazing every night. Do I love that? Sure, sure. Especially as spring is here and summer is coming, but by making a plan. Making a list and then going and shopping, you really save yourself from those last minute trips of grabbing. I mean, listen, every trip to the grocery store right now is costing me at least 75 or a hundred dollars, and I feel like I'm not getting anything right. What I'm doing is being more judicious and I plan things out. I plan three of the meals for the week. I plan just three because listen, stuff comes up or there are leftovers, or there's a meeting or stuff is gonna happen, but I plan three meals and then I make the shopping list for three meals. This is what menopause meal plans does. But I've got that, and then I know what I'm gonna do and I do maintain some flexibility on that. Right? That's why I chose three, because if I'm trying to do five, listen, Friday comes, forget about it. I'm going to Bella's Pizza, I'm getting a steak wedgie, I'm eating half of it. My husband's getting his mini pizza with anchovies because we know anchovies infect the whole pizza. You're not, I mean, power to you if you are cooking at home every single night. I love as an empty nester. I love to walk downtown and sit at the bar. Uh, maybe I'll have a glass of wine with something, but I love it. Bartenders are awesome. They're so interesting. I love sitting at the bar with my husband and sharing a pizza or doing something like that, so I'm not planning that. I'm gonna cook. Seven meals a week, seven nights of dinner. I just make it attainable. I choose three. I make sure they work together. So if, for example, I need romaine lettuce. Right. And this is another great tip. You don't have to buy the package of the three romaine lettuce heads. You can walk to the other side of the produce section and find just a single romaine lettuce head, right? So think about buying, uh, that way. Just another helpful hint in there, instead of buying a bag with a pound of green beans, grab a handful of green beans and put it in. Its own little bag, right? Do it that way. You don't have to bri the pre-packaged stuff if it makes your life easier and it's not gonna go away as heck. Yeah, totally do that. But can you grab, you know, half a pound of Brussels sprouts in the fall? Sure, you can totally do that. So think about that, that way, but make yourself a little plan. Make a little plan and of course, try the menopause meal plans if you like. You know, right now I have a five day challenge going and you'll be able to find that on the website too. I have a five day challenge and you can even buy like a, a two week plan. I think it's like$9, but check that out because it's good stuff, Sue. Think about making a plan to make your life easier, and maybe you're feeling fancy and you're gonna make that instant Pot risotto one night. And you have leftover, okay, guess what? You can make arni out of leftover risotto the next day. In fact, I always make a little extra so that I've got leftover risotto the next day. So just give yourself that 10 minutes to plan. 10 minutes to plan, and you don't have to recreate the wheel every week. You can have, most people have a repertoire of, you know, 10 recipes that they're just constantly cycling through. So maybe you pull two of your favorites and throw a new one in that you think will be good. Make sure it's a quick one, because on a weeknight you're not gonna wanna spend an hour making dinner, but those are options. For you. So as always, I want you to go check out empty nest kitchen.com. You can join the email list. I have all these great emails going out. You can check out menopause meal plans. And I even have, I'm just gonna give you a little hint, but I have a class coming up that I'm teaching online that is all about the Mediterranean diet, how to make it work for you, how to cook the different components. I think it's gonna be. Well, I'm just super excited about it, and that's gonna launch in May, so just tuck that in the back there. But here you go, money saving tips out the wazoo, because just because you're an empty nester doesn't mean you wanna throw money around, and it doesn't mean that you don't deserve to eat well too. Just take these simple tips, these simple hints, incorporate them and watch those pennies turn into dollars. That's it. I hope you have an awesome week. I'll see you back here next week, and of course, I'll see you in the kitchen.