everybody, welcome back to the old-fashioned on purpose podcast. So in recent episodes, we've done a lot of

kind of big picture topics and I've shared a lot of my thoughts and feelings. But today,

I wanted to go back to kind of my foundation, and that is

practical. I wanted to get super practical today talking about how I am cooking these days.

Because, you know, we've talked a lot here in recent episodes about how my life has changed

from what it used to be. We're a lot more mobile. My kids are busy. We're not all on the homestead all day long. And in the middle of all that, somehow, most nights, not every night, but most nights, we're still eating pretty decent food. I'm still cooking home-cooked meals. And I'm still doing a lot of things from scratch. And so I've had questions from you, like, how are you doing it? What does that look like? Is this possible? Because I know many of you are either in this season or shifting into this season. And it's kind of a shock when you're going from an era of maybe having smaller children, which has its own challenges, but you're home more, or at least I was, right? Or maybe you don't have children at all and you're just transitioning into a season or you're in a season where you're just like running a lot of places, your careers, you know, taking off or you have a lot of extracurricular activities. And you're just trying to figure out where does food fit into this. So, you know, even in the midst of all the busyness of my life, food's still really important to me. You know, I still am

passionate about homemade food. I still want to eat well. I know how I feel when I don't eat well.

I want to not spend a million dollars on packaged processed stuff. I wrote a cookbook last

year. So obviously food is still something I'm passionate about. I own a restaurant. So food is still

centered in my life, but it just looks a lot different. So in this episode,

I just want to share some of the most practical down and dirty strategies I'm using right now.

They aren't perfect, but they're really working for me. And it's less about a system and more

of a shift in mindset. And I have a feeling that these will possibly be useful for you as well. So let's

dive in. I think the problem around this for me is because, I mean, it's not a new concept to try

to solve the meal planning problem. There are so many apps and spreadsheets and meal plans you can buy. I mean,

just if you try to shop for that, it's almost overwhelming. And I've tried a lot of them. I've shared

that before here on the show. There's something about a spreadsheet or an app that really appeals to

my brain and how I'm wired. The problem is for 15 years, I have tried

to implement those and I will buy them and I will start them and I will download them.

And then I get in and I'm just like, it's just not flowing. It's just not a fit. And what I have

learned so many times, whether when I've tried to systemize things, whether that's on the

homestead, it's in the kitchen or in my businesses.

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