Episode 337: Healthy Fall Prep: Stocking Your Freezer and Pantry

Intro:

Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking up recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I’m going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good and your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals and how to get them on the table make food that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies well in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.

Main Episode:

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome to today’s episode. Thank you so much for joining me, it is the last in this series of healthy fall prep today we are talking all about stocking your freezer and pantry. Now, real quick before I dive in, I just want to let you know that the eight week group coaching program that I offer just a few times a year is kicking off September 18. If you have heard this, at the start of a lot of episodes, just go ahead and skip a couple I’m not gonna go away into it today just want to let you know that that is coming up. And I am pre recording this. So the spots might even already be full, because I cap it to just 20 ladies. So what I do is teach you all the basics of nutrition, what works best for your body of working out. And it’s not really for beginners. It’s just a good introductory program for the person who hasn’t worked with me before. Because I walk you through what I consider proper hydration and feeling your body well, you come away just absolutely knowing what to do. Like you could never work with somebody again, you could never need a different, you know, another program again, I have obviously another monthly workout group. For those who want to continue on with my personal workouts. It’s called the chasing greatest group. But this is just setting the foundation for you. Because you really cannot just piecemeal and go, you know, Google macro eating plan, you have no idea what works for your body, and what’s going to work and you need time to figure it out. So even for someone to just say like let’s do a coaching call and you can set me up with a macro eating plan. I can’t do that. I need a couple of weeks to see your food logs to work with you to explain things to you. So you can make the small tweaks of things you’re already eating and doing or you know, changing your workouts to actually be effective. If you’re just picking random YouTube workouts or doing a lot of cardio or whatever. I just teach you how to fine tune everything to get your body to be a fat burning machine. And it just works from there on out. So hundreds of women have done this. I love doing this. I love teaching people how to lose fat and to maintain fat loss because it really is simple. It’s not complicated when you know I break it down very simply for you. I am not a big mathematician, but I can you know make the concepts work. So if I can understand it, anybody can understand it. But that kicks off September 18 So you can message me Brittany and healthy Catholic moms.com If you need to find out if there’s more spots left, or just go over to my website, healthy Catholic moms.com and sign up there. Okay, today talking about stocking your freezer and pantry. Come on back if you skipped ahead. All right. Before we talk about stocking number one, the first thing I want you to do is use up what is there. So go look in your freezer, go look in your pantry, come up with a meal plan for the next week or two to try to use up stuff that’s going to be going bad that’s been in there a while. You know we love new we love shiny. We love like going out and picking out all new stuff. And that’s awesome. That’s going to come next but we don’t want to be wasteful. We want to be resourceful use up what’s there, make some weird meals for a couple of weeks. I will tell my family and like listen, it’s going to be a little bit of a weird combination for the next couple of weeks. We’re gonna have meals that don’t really make sense because I had to pull out some weird Frozen egg bites I had in the freezer, and serve them with broccoli and like some weird side, you know. So it is what it is we want to use up what we have first before we just check everything out and you know, start new and you don’t want to just layer in the new stuff on top of the old. The reason I think that even stocking our freezers and pantries is so important, and it’s so nice to do seasonally, is so that you can kind of have this general foundation of knowing all your basics are reset. You know, there’s lots of times that I’ll go to make recipe and I’m like, oh, shoot, I don’t have whatever key ingredient. That’s something I always have, like how did that fly under the radar. And it’s frustrating. So this is nice to like, be able to just lay the groundwork for what’s probably gonna be a busy season for you and your family that back to school time usually is and no, like, all right, we are well stocked, ready to go heading into it. And I think it’s an awesome peace of mind kind of feeling. So step two, after you’ve used up what you have, is to make a list of what you use all the time and include your bailout foods. So if you guys make say like some kind of specific, I Annie’s mac and cheese or something is one of your family’s go to bail out foods like I bail out foods to me are things that are really easy to throw together to make that are kind of pre made but are healthier than fast food, you know, and they can be as healthy as you want. It could range from, like, I do have some examples of my own. But like some bailout foods for our family, or cauliflower, frozen pizzas, or general Sour Chicken, that they have an oldie, that it just happens to be gluten free. We’re not gluten free, but it’s really delicious. But it’s, you know, not perfectly clean. Those are what I consider bale of food. So make a list of things that your family loves that you use routinely, and include those bailout foods. Now, I will just give you my list. So that maybe gives you some inspiration or some ideas about what we usually have on hand. And lately too, ladies, like I really not been sharing much, by way of recipes on my Instagram or
on any like, I guess I still share them with my email list. So that’s not true. But I haven’t been creating new recipes as much. If you’re in the eight week program, you get those recipes. If you’re in the chase ingredients group, you get access to all my previous recipes, anything from, you know, different challenges to different holiday programs and whatnot. So I do have a really big stack of recipes up but lately, I think because I followed recipes for so long or developed recipes for so long, I like to just shoot from the hip like now to me cooking is really fun, creative. And you know, I just I like to have the staples on hand. I do meal plan for the week. But I like more to just have staples on hand you have proteins readily readily available and cooked and whatnot to so that I can throw together different combinations. And that’s just me right now. That’s just the season I’m in. But these staples I can do a lot with if I have them on hand. Now. Like I just said you have to be the reason I do still advise having some kind of plan going into the week is if you’ve got meat in your freezer, like you can’t shoot from the hip on what the heck are we eating tonight because it’s got to be defrosted. So this is where I think it’s nice to have everything well stocked. But then by Sunday night or Monday come up with a plan for the week so that you know what you’re defrosting when you make sure you have the right stuff. So my list of what’s in our freezer is bulk staples is chicken definitely and I always have chicken breast or chicken thighs or both. Sausage is a big one, especially when grocery prices skyrocketed. Sausage is one of those things that is a protein that is definitely on the cheaper side, obviously on the higher fat side as well. But remember, we’re not scared of calories. So if it works for your day, that’s still okay. And actually most of my family really enjoys it. I think it’s super versatile too. Another perk for it is that it defrost really quickly. So if I forgotten to pull something out, and it’s one o’clock I can usually still pull that out and use it for dinner. And it’s all good. And I usually do I mean chicken I use all the time too. So I’m not going to talk about all of these for 20 minutes but if you don’t really use sausage or and I think chickens a little more common. Like I will do lots of different sausage combinations with rice like Pharaoh Pharaoh is not a rice technically that’s an ancient grain but I’ll do and I’ll talk about that in the pantry staples but I’ll do like a sausage Pharaoh with lots of veggies and goat cheese or I just switch up the basic elements in there like it’s usually Pharaoh and sausage and then I might do like red onion sundried tomato and goat cheese or in spinach or I might do feta cheese and still the sausage and Pharaoh but different kind of vegetables that go great With the feta cheese, I might do it with parm cheese, like I just switch up the staples, but I use it all time. Same thing with pasta, I’ll swap in, I’ll swap out the Pharaoh and use chickpea your regular pasta or mix of both. And I’ll do sausage and pasta and fire roasted diced tomatoes, and then I’ll top it with some shredded mozzarella or whatever, like there’s so much you can do with sauces in those specific combos, and that’s always like a quick one pan kind of meals. So I’ve tapped meal too. So that some variation of that is in our weeknight dinners at least once a week like I just switch things out. So it’s different. But everybody likes it. My kids like the sausage sometimes we’re still a little weird about the mixing, you know, the something one food touching another food. So I will sometimes just leave some sausage separate for the kids and some Pharaoh separate or whatever, you know, we play the game sometimes. So that’s always in my freezer is lots of chicken loss. Lots of sausage shrimp is another great one. We do meatless Fridays, so you shrimp a lot. But it’s also one of those quick defrost foods where if you have not thought about dinner, you can always grab shrimp out of the freezer and it’s ready to go in like 10 minutes, you can do some quick shrimp tacos or shrimp and pasta, or something like that. bread products too. I store up in the freezer. So whether I’m buying bread or I’m making bread, if same thing with like tortillas buying or making, I’ll throw a bunch of the freezer, burger bonds or hotdog buns or whatever that kind of stuff I like to have stocked up in the freezer. Lastly, frozen fruits and vegetables. I love fresh and I love having fresh air in our house. However, sometimes frozen can be cheaper to buy. Also, it just obviously has a longer shelf life where if I get produce, it’s, you know, we only have x amount of days to eat it. And I know there are some hacks to make produce last longer. I’ve shared some of those hacks, as well that was an episode titled something about put your carrots in water, but dry your lettuce and it’s true. A lot of those things really do work and extend your shelf life. However, what I what I run into more often than not is if I tried to grocery shop only once a week, they will eat through the produce. And then I would have to turn like my fridge can only hold so much. So I can’t buy more produce to fit their appetites and fill their appetites. So using the freezer helps me in this way. We use frozen fruit for smoothies. Tap it on yogurt and stuff. Sometimes I use frozen vegetables then sometimes again, my preference would be roasted vegetables usually. But I will use those for dinner of client and listener shared ones too, that you can just roast frozen vegetables and I have tried that but it still tastes you know not the same to me as when you do with fresh of course. But you know, that’s another quick way to prepare it. So frozen fruits and vegetables always on stock. They’re now moving over to the pantry. This is what I keep stacked up number one, kind of like the Green family and pasta family. Here’s Pharaoh which I mentioned is an ancient grain. It’s delicious. If you’ve never heard of Pharaoh, go get yourself something. And then I do keep a bunch of different races. I’ll keep you know brown rice, a big big brown rice. I keep arborio rice because I like to make my own risotto. I also keep usually just a couple I haven’t done this in a while, but I tried to buy the bulk rice because that is you know a way to save money to buy it takes a lot longer to cook like an hour. Also usually better for us to have those kinds of foods as a side note if you didn’t know that because our body usually digest things better if it’s cooked longer than like just an instant rice but what I usually do is also keep on hand a couple little instant rice packets. You know the ones you just pop in the microwave for 90 seconds or something because they’re a good bailout food when again, you’re like crap, I don’t have an hour, but I need to put a healthy dinner on the table. So that can be helpful.
Oh, where am I in the Green family pasta, chickpea pasta. And then I’ll also always have usually the makings for pasta sauce, like big cans of I love making sauce. So usually what I’ll do is make my own sauce a couple like at least once a month and I just make a huge vat of it and then I freeze it in Ziploc bags like flat and then I just stack it in the freezer like a lot of people do it for soup I do it for soup as well but I’ll freeze it like that. So I usually have the makings of sauce but I also keep this is kind of the same thing as rice. I’ll keep some storebought sauce on hand for when I’m just out of homemade I don’t I’m trying to make homemade. I need a quick something for pizza or quick something for pasta. I did mention that my fire roasted tomato love. I love roasted tomatoes, and I especially love the ones with little dice green chilies, so I will add that to a lot of dishes. I always stock up on cans of that I also stocked up on cans of black beans. Now this is an area where again take stock of what your family likes and enjoys because there’s tons of canned goods that you know have a really long shelf life that you can stock up on that my family’s not wild about so I don’t do like we don’t do any kind of corn or green beans or anything like that from cans because they are not into it and that kind of stuff I just use fresh or frozen then and don’t use canned goods but you know take stackable canned goods you guys do like to have. And then lastly last kind of category is nut butters. So peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, whatever you use, not trail mix, raisins, freeze dried fruit, these are always I tried to keep on stacking the pantry. Some of these things leave more quickly than others like freeze dried fruits I can never keep in the house they whether I make them with our dehydrator or I buy freeze dried or whatever. Like I have to ration those those have to be under lock and key I will see sometimes people share like this is my kids snack cabinet. You know it’s made my life so much easier. Because they don’t ask me for a snack they just go in and get it and I’m like okay, well if I put dried fruits in there, I wouldn’t need like to take out a home equity on my house or something to pay for that because they would just inhale them. So that’s what it looks like over here. Now. My big tip for adding to this stash and having a really good backup for freezer and more so freezer I guess and pantry here is to try to at least double one meal a week and then freeze it. I am not super scrupulous about like looking at the weekend mean like what is the one meal I’m doubling. But there are some things that when I make it I know I’m making extra and I’m doubling like when I make the sauce, I will never just make one quantity of sauce that like we would need for one dinner. I make at least several times that I give some away usually I freeze it. And same thing with meatballs by the time I mix and roll all those meatballs. I am making double. I’m freezing it I just did that one last week. I do it for the things I know freeze well. turkey meatloaf is another big one my family loves. So I will make two I will freeze one ready to go. And these are the best kind of bailout foods because they’re quick they’re ready to go. Like I’m such a fan of this. I don’t do a big tech kind of aspire to do a big freezer meal prep day. I that’s another thing. I want you to videos about a doc last episode about watching YouTube videos about people like doing the really most mundane things. freezer meals is one of them. Oh my gosh, like one lady I stumbled upon. Her name is J Morel. And some of you might be familiar with her and she’s like, All right, we are going to start today getting our prep on you’re gonna start by browning 25 pounds of burger meat. And I’m like, What’s that? Like? How do you? How does one brown 25 pounds of burger meat at once. But I think I need some bigger pans, a bigger stove. I don’t know what I need. But anyway, I don’t do that kind of thing. But what I do, do for lack of a better word here and what I advise that you do is to double your efforts like make your time work for you. If you’re doing it once, you can do a little more and it take lino way less time from future Bernie, if that makes sense. Think about it. Like if it takes you an hour to prepare turkey meatloaf say it’s gonna take you maybe an extra 10 minutes to make up. Mix up that separate one. When you’re already chopping all the ingredients. You’re already prepping everything. So if you’re not doing this, truly, you could just win some of your time back where it’s so nice. I’m so excited. Where I can look at the next week. What are we going to eat for dinner and I open the freezer and I see what I’ve got stashed up. Awesome. I already have taco meat from last week. That’s another one. I only make taco meat every couple of weeks because I just make like three portions or at least two portions when it’s a taco Tuesday night. And then I freeze that in a ziploc bag and just freeze it flat already cooked ready to go. Doesn’t taste weird. I know we can’t do with everything. I don’t freeze any kind of pastas after I’ve made them or anything like that. But the stuff I know freezes well. Like just make more of your efforts. And it goes a really long way and helps keep that stash for when stuff gets really busy. All right, because then you still just have to find like one night to cook dinner but you now get two meals out of it and or three meals out of it and all that goodness. So I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much for joining me and for being here with me today. Next week. Now, next episode rather, we’re going to talk about why it’s okay to loosen up your diet on the weekends. Okay, what that might look like I’m going to walk through a couple options of how you can do 8020 Eating which is what I advise 80% whole clean foods 20% treats, how you can make it work for your schedule. All right, so that’s next up and I will talk to you. Have a good rest your day.

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