The Livy Method Podcast - A Chef's System for Spending Less on Groceries with Eimear Brazil

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Most of us don't need more recipes. We need a plan that fits the life we're actually living.Gina sits down with Eimear Brazil to talk about cooking from scratch without the overwhelm. Eimear is a trained chef from Waterford, Ireland, and the creator of The Kitchen Shift. She's worked as a head chef, an operations chef and a food stylist, and she shares the simple systems she uses at home to eat well, waste less and spend less on groceries. She also explains why she doesn't meal prep, why flashy packaging and prime shelf space don't mean a better product, and why "healthy" and "nutritious" aren't always the same thing.Where to Find Eimear:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekitchenshift_/ TikTok & YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thekitchenshift This podcast aligns with Day 3 of our Fall Program, members can find video in our Livy Method app or Livy Method Community Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodThere is still time to join the Fall Program and there are two ways to join you can purchase the Fall Session for $99, or become a member for $20/month for year-round support, access to every session, Livy AI, member perks and more. The program is meant to fit into your life, not make your life the program. So start when you’re ready, make it work for you, and visit livymethod.com to join us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New season, new name, bigger conversations. Welcome to Live Lighter with Gina, because lightness isn't something you find. It's something you create in your body, your mind, your home, and in your life. Real conversations, no bullshit. So let's lighten things up for you. If you're looking to lose weight and you want to keep it off, you have got to check out the Living Method. Our next live session starts September 14th. Better than ever.

easy to follow. We have the most incredible community and it works. Head over to living method.com to sign out today. Eamer, good morning or should I say, is it afternoon for you? You're over in... It's two o'clock. It's two o'clock. Two o'clock. You're over in Ireland. Welcome to our LiveLiter podcast. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you. It's so good to be here. Thank you. Okay. So for our viewers and our listeners, I'm just going to give them a little backstory on you. So you are a trained chef from Waterford, Ireland. So that's your home base.

Yes. Okay. You have years of experience as a head chef, operations chef, I mean, food stylists, you know your way around the kitchen. You're also the creator of the kitchen shift where you share simple from scratch recipes and practical tips that make home cooking feel easy and approachable. Boy, do we need that? My goodness.

Yeah. People are making it too complicated these days. Social media is ruining us. Well, but you're on social media and thank goodness. If you want to check out Emer's Instagram account, let's get right to it. It's at the kitchen ship underscore where you do share recipes and tips. Okay. So speaking of online, you have like a massive following.

Hundreds of thousands of people follow you. What inspired you to start the kitchen shift? Well, truthfully, I was moving home and I really wanted. wanted to connect to Waterford again. I'd been gone for over 10 years. And I came up with an idea that I wanted to start when I came home. And I was like, oh, like, I should start a social media page to try kind of like push this idea that also never ended up happening because the kitchen shift blew up so fast. And so I started the page and I was like, okay, I'm just going to start cooking, showing people what I do at home. And for the first few months, like, nothing really happened.

I posted every single day. I became absolutely obsessed with it. The filming element of it, also sharing just like what I was making but like nothing was really taking off like very much like maybe one follower a day if I was lucky and then when I moved home I started to share so I went around I called it the big shop series and I went around these all the different grocery stores in Waterford to try and decide where I wants to go shopping which obviously everyone was like so into but it was really when I kind of vocalized for the first time what I was doing online what I was trying to achieve because I realized all those six months leading up to moving home. I never actually told people.

I was just like making dinners and I wasn't vocalizing what I was trying to get across. So I vocalized it for the first time and I ended up going viral. And then that just kind of started this crazy momentum for me. And it just went on for months on end. And I gained like hundreds of thousand followers just in a few months. So what goes through your mind when you're creating something for your Instagram account? Like we know your mission. That's really clear.

But how do you choose that? things that you're going to share? Honestly, it's only what I do at home. And that's something that I really, it feels a lot easier because it's not a performance. I'm not sitting down and specifically coming up with a dish or something crazy just to share online. I'm just like, oh, I'm about to do this thing at home. Like, maybe I should just put up the camera and share it with everyone else. So there's a real, like, it's very organic because it really is just me. What do you think, what do you think is that in having in doing these, in doing your post and obviously talking and sharing with the community, what do you think the biggest like barrier is to people, cooking from home, eating from home?

We want to be healthy. We want to buy fresh foods. We want to prepare them ourselves. But it's a lot easier said than done. What do you think the biggest block is for people? I think time. Like their life has changed so much in the last like, especially like 10, 15, 20 years. Like yeah. Back in the day. I know for a long time, like, I only had one parent at home that was working and my mom was off. So I think getting a meal together at the end, like there was more time for that. Whereas nowadays, you have two parents working full time or you're only one parent in the home. So there really just isn't enough time where people feel like it will take forever.

And I think it then it comes to the whole education part of it. like if you haven't been taught or you didn't grow up in a home where parents did cook from scratch or did know how it cooked like it just it won't become naturally to you so it generally feels quite overwhelming even before you start because you just don't have the knowledge to know what you're doing yeah it feels like we're okay let's start with that what's start let's start with that knowledge first of all groceries are not cheap and i know you spent a good amount of time in canada so you're familiar with our grocery stores and our accessibility here um where do we start with the mindset that it's expensive to eat healthy or it's expensive to put in the time and create

these meals for our families. How do we, how do we, where do we start with that conversation? Well, I think it's all, it's all about planning. And I was used to be an over shopper myself going into grocery stores, not planning it out, just picking up whatever and being like, oh yeah, I'll buy a bag of three peppers. And then I'd use one. And then the two of them are sitting in the back of the fridge. Like I was, I was like Costco, Costco, right? You go. in a Costco, you want to save money and you walk out spending $700 and you bought like a pool. Yes, 100%. Like, it's crazy.

And I think it's like so much, there's so much packaging out there that makes it, like, makes us believe that this healthy products can't be made at home and that we must buy it from scratch or we wouldn't be able to do it. But I spent so much my time when I started to cook a lot more from scratch at home, actually checking labels on things. And reading the back of them, I was like, this is four ingredients. Like there is nothing special about this. All it took was some very smart person to say, hey, I should put this in a bag,

put a lovely label on it and make people believe that it's something premium when really it is only, say, a four mixed taco blend or something like that. Like it really is all about deception at the grocery store and just some people don't have the time and that's fine to just turn that packet around and say, what am I actually buying? Do I already have these ingredients or using it for inspiration? If I'm stuck on inspiration or don't want to spend the money on the pre-made product, I'll just turn it around and see what's in it. And I'm like, sick, I'm going to try this at home and just do it myself. You know, I just had a major like, oh my goodness, because we talk a lot about how processed foods are designed to be addictive.

Right. Like this is why you can't just eat one chip. But I never really thought about the packaging and the grocery store is not really designed to help us eat in a healthy way or cook from scratch or it's not really like you said all these flashy labels trying to get us to buy the process product absolutely and as well it's the companies

if you're a company with more money you're obviously going to be able to afford more shelf space like if you're buying a small local producer or a smaller company they're not going to be in the middle eye line level of that fridge they're going to be down at the bottom that no one can see because they can't afford

the fridge space or don't have the production line to be able to put in so many skews of this. It might just be like one yogurt offering. So it really is. It's just the companies that have the money behind them that can really get as much possible room on that shelf. So would you say the best products are not necessarily the ones that you're seeing? Like there are, I think we perceive like bottom shelf stuff as like bottom shelf stuff, right? Like we don't want to grab that. And I know even in Canada, some of the no name stuff is like just as good as that middle shelf stuff. Do you think that's true?

Yeah, I do. Like, where do we think they come from anyway? And I think it's true for Costco a lot of the time too. Like, a company is making them. They're just able to get a better deal because they're a larger company, able to buy in larger quantity, able to get, like, say, for instance, like, no frills. Like, that's a huge company. They have shops all over Canada.

Like, they're probably able to cut a deal with the pasta company, to be able to get that product in that is the same quality. Same quality. Yeah, I love a good no frills. Oh, because also like you, you're paying like $2 more for the same can of beans that you get at the like more well-known or fancy named shops.

Okay, so, all right. So I want to eat healthy. I want to start cooking at home. I do still want to talk about how to save money on groceries, but where do what start? Do you plan out your whole week? Do you do one big shop? Like, what's your,

What's your process? Okay, so the process is a shop a week. That allows me to stay on top of it, not consumed so much in the fridge and the press at one time, not to get bored of the menu as well is kind of helpful. So I will basically sit down on my day off and I will take inventory of my kitchen. Now my kitchen has barely anything in it. It has like pantry staples, herbs, spices, but like it's pretty bare because I shop on more of a week. weekly basis and I don't keep a load of inventory in the presses. Okay, wait. Yeah. Okay. Right? Because I would think that you have like a pantry stocked, everything stocked. You don't. No, I just buy what I need. Buy what I need to get me through the week. And especially here, like, I shop a lot more organic and a lot more locally in Ireland than I would have in Canada. And basically that is down to pricing and also

being like the availability of it all. Like we're very lucky here in Waterford that we just have some really incredible shops that make it a lot more easier. Like we have seven family-owned butchers here in Waterford. That's not, yeah, like it's incredible. Like we had one where I lived in Canada and it was like you'd have to take out alone to go there just to buy a piece of chicken.

Like it just wasn't feasible. It just wasn't feasible for our lifestyle in Canada. So really it's sitting down or it's taking the inventory, seeing what I have, seeing what needs to be used up. And even though I'll write my menu and we'll be organized like there might be an outlawed carer shirt or a bit of meat that we had excess of,

we didn't end up eating, like I'll prioritize using those things up first. So based on my inventory list, I'll write my menu. And then I don't do it here, but this is how I used to do in Canada. And I know, have you heard of the Flip app? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Flip app was like my dream in Canada. So after I would write my, like I'd probably get like three dishes out of what was in the kitchen, two, three dishes. I would go onto the flip app,

see what's on sale. And then I would build the rest of, of my menu out based on what was on sale because I get inspiration as well like I'd see pork shoulder on sale and I'm like okay poor cool what can I do with that and then I'm like okay let's put beans with it and I just like write my list based on that like okay I need one can of beans or again it's so different in Canada we don't sell I miss this so much like big bags of stuff aren't as easy to find in Ireland as they were in Canada like we went to we were I can't remember the grocery store now it wasn't food basics it was the other one um

but we would go and get like big bags of like kidney beans and whatever and just soak as much as we need. Whereas here they're like little tiny bags and they cost fortune as well. And I'm like, okay, different to Canada. Well, we would just, I would write that list based on exactly what I need. If I was buying a bag of onions, I would have a plan for the onions. I would incorporate that bag. Same with the pepper example. If I'm buying a bag of three peppers because they don't sell them loose, I'm making a plan.

Okay, we're going to have tacos. That's one pepper. okay, we're going to do a salad, that's another pepper. Okay, we're going to do, like, roasted peppers on top of rice someday. Like, that's another pepper used. But it's writing that down that really helps me organize, okay, exactly where everything is going. And by the end of it, you end up spending less money because you're utilizing every single piece of ingredients. I remember my parents would do the whole, like, this is what we're eating all week.

Of course, they would cook that food. My dad worked at a grocery store. But like he did that one shop. I remember at the, was it old Dominion? I can't Dominion, I think. And we would do the one shop. And like when we ran out of milk or we ran out of something or we ate all the good cereal, it's not like he brought it home.

Like he worked at the grocery store and he was like, that's our groceries. When that runs out, it runs out. And then we wait to buy more groceries until the next. And he worked at the grocery store. Now you are, you are a train chef. So I'm listening to you to say, well, just kind of get this and make something out of this. If we don't really know what to make, where do we start? Do we start with like the protein that we want that's on sale?

Like how do you plan? You must have a huge repertoire of recipes. But one of us who are new at this, should we find recipes? Should we just start with the protein and build around it? How would we, what's our end? There's a few things, ways that you can do this. And like, it's not that I have like a million recipes. I just see ingredients and then I'm able to figure out like what way I want to cook them.

So say if I'm like coming up with a dinner, I will start on my protein because either I'm going to the butchers first or I'm looking at the flyers and I'm seeing what meat is on sale because generally the meat is the most expensive part of the dinner. So start there. And then I'll add on a carbohydrate and I'll add on a veg and just like those three things equal a dinner to me. And then I'll decide, okay, how do I want to cook it? So like if we're doing a whole roast chicken, I'm like, okay, what do I want to do? do I want to make a soup out of it and like what's the veg going to be on top of that? Like I'll just think of all the different ways that you can cook things, whether that be boiling, roasting, steaming, brining, like whatever it is of a cooking method

to try to figure out like what I want to do that week. And then like if it's a piece of trout, okay, I want it easy dinner. I'm just going to throw some sweet potatoes, some broccoli and some trout on a tray and throw it into the oven with all different seasonings on it to make it just some more interesting. Yeah, I think we overthink it. You know, this week we're talking about our food plan. So, for example, at lunch, we want to focus on vegetables, proteins, leafy greens, healthy fats, then adding in that heavier carb, right, when needed.

But that could be like just straight up. It could be a soup, a stew, a stir fry. And I think that we might over, do you find that people complicate the concept of healthy eating? Um, a little bit because there's healthy and then there's nutritious. And I was very, what do you mean by that? So this is all new learnings for me as well since I moved home. But I think there's a lot of talk like, say for an instance, and I don't need to demonize this ingredient. But like say like an avocado or a sweet potato.

Yeah, yeah. Those are being picked probably thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away from Ireland. So when those ingredients are picked, they are at their highest nutritional value. But once they go on a ship and they're taking months to get to Ireland, those are losing. They're in nutrient density. They're not as nutrient dense anymore. So I think there's a lot of conversation about these things being healthy. But are they actually nutrient density?

Are they giving us our bodies what we've really? really neat. But also, I just, we have to remember, too, eating the avocado and the sweet potato is better than some pre-made chicken nuggets. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just there's, like, you can find fault, you can find fault in anything. And like, I have a lot, like, there's a lot going on in my mind when I'm going shopping. And sometimes I have to just tell myself, like, okay, you're, you're doing a great job. And for me as well, like, it's not about what I eat. It's actually the quantity that they eat a lot of time. Like I lost like 70 pounds after pregnancy.

And like not in a good way. Like didn't eat enough. Like going through a critical time wasn't eating enough. And like, yeah, I lost a lot of weight. But was I mentally and physically at my best? No, I wasn't. And that's not good for your body as well. So I think it's all about what you're able to do,

what food you have available to you. Like I found it very hard to eat with. the season in Canada. Like you walk into most of the grocery stores and like those beautiful cardboard boxes with like Ontario written on them and like they're like local, but the whole shop isn't. It's very sacred to find, oh, those Canadian produce and produce unless you're going to like a small farm shop, which can be a lot more expensive. Yeah.

So, oh, yes. Right, because we say, even I say that here in this program, eat seasonally. But what does that mean? And it's a lot easier said than done unless maybe you're going to. markets on Saturday or, um, okay. All right. Do you cook, do you do batch cooking? I guess. Yes and no. Yeah. Like do you cook more at dinner so you have leftovers for lunch. Yeah. Actually, that we do. So just to compensate, just so things are easier as well. Like one thing that we love to eat is balanese. So we will generally have a balanese on our menu once a week and it'll be

on for two days. And it'll be done like, I'll get home from the butcher. and we'll make that Bolognese in the first or second day of doing that grocery shop. So I'll write my menu. It'll be on a whiteboard. I'm a very goal-orientated person and I can't scratch out a piece of paper because I'm like, well, that piece of paper is done now. I'm like, no. So I have to use a whiteboard.

So if Monday's dinner ends up being on Thursday, I can just rub it out, reverse it. Menu looks perfect. My brain is calm inside. So that's just kind of how I do my menu because, like, things happen. You put something on a menu. and you're like, I'm actually, I don't want to cook a whole chicken right now. Like, I just want to cook some pasta and eat it with the Bolognaz I made two days ago. So minimal, easy prep.

Like if we're doing, say, like I mentioned, like the trout with sweet potatoes, we'll just cook a little bit more sweet potatoes and put that into the fridge. That will be how about a fried egg, over rice, a little bit of whatever, sweet chili sauce on top. And then you have a delicious, nutritious lunch the next day without really that much effort. Yeah, because that's the thing, right? We can plan out our whole, when we're hungry on a Sunday and we're planning out our meals for the week and I decide I'm going to make this thing on Thursday and then I'm tired on Thursday. It's just so easy to not make that thing. It is.

And that's when it's all about also being realistic when you're writing that menu. Like it's great to say, especially because when we make things from scratch at home as well, I'm like deadly, I'm going to make a curry. And when I think about it, I'm like, oh, I have to make curry paste first. Like, oh, my God. Like, I'm like able for this right now? We're like, it's just so much effort sometimes I'm like, why does I do this to myself? So I really have to like be more realistic with myself. Like, okay, I think I actually just want seven days, like two days of Bolognais.

And then the rest of it, I want to throw on a sheet tray and chuck it into the oven with whatever seat things I'm thinking of. Do you do a lot of prep? Do you do a lot of meal prepping? Do you do prepping for? No, no, I don't. No, we just cook as the days go on. Like little bits of leftover. for lunch the next day. But when it comes to meal prepping, like, I used to more when I lived in Canada.

And I don't know what it is now that I just find myself. I just don't meal prep. I'm like, I'm also lucky because I get fed at work. So, and my son is like, he's a fruit fiend. So, like, his lunchboxes are really, like, today he had seven different types of fruit in his lunchbox. And that would be like the greatest thing ever, like ham, cheese, crackers and seven different fruits. and he's like happy as Larry like the child will be delighted you'll eat all of it so it's just like it's so

it really is like it's straightforward and we don't buy anything pre-made pre-packaged so it just becomes a norm of like not having those things because like you know when you get older as well and like you move out of mom and dad's house and you're like oh my god like I can buy crisps and chips like

whatever I want but you do like and then I got older and started to read the packages and I'm like oh my god what am I putting into my I was like, I need to stop, so I just stopped buying it. And I was like, I would just like divert. I wouldn't even go down certain aisles in the grocery store in Canada because I'm like, no, we can make it ourselves. It was like a joke between myself and my husband whenever we went shopping together.

He was like, can we get this? He picked up jerk seasoning one day. He's like, can we buy this? I'm like, I'm not spending six or one jerk seasoning. I was like, let's just make that at home. And he's like, that's insane. I'm like, we have the ingredients. So is it really that insane?

And is it, isn't it, is it that hard? Like, you obviously have such a. passion for this. Like I'm learning. I would love the idea of, you know, I love the idea of loving to cook and feed myself and feed my feeling, which is hard to because some people are on their own or there's just two of them and it's hard to be motivated to prepare these. For some reason, there's this concept of like if you're on your own or there's only two of you that it's more, like, is it more work or less work to feed more people? That's not what I'm asking, but it's, sometimes it seems like, well, there's only two of us or there's just me. So am I really just going to,

am I going to prepare this food? You know? No, because like food is, it's so good. And it can be so enjoyable. But I think it's about flipping the script in your brain when it comes to meal time. Yeah. Good food takes time. And also, like, good food also takes no time sometimes, also depending on just what you're doing.

But I think it does start with the menu writing, like picking things that. are exciting for you, that you really enjoy and also experimenting. Like, the greatest things that I've done at home are things that I never meant to do in the first place. It was messing around and I was using spices that I wouldn't have really used before, but I was like, Asher, like, how bad can it really be, you know? And just like, having a bit of fun with it. You know, at the end of the day, it's just one dinner. You're going to have another one tomorrow, hopefully anyway, another one tomorrow. So, like, have a bit of thumb with it, you know, put on a bit of music, put on Netflix in front of you, like, do whatever it is that you want to do. And if you do have a really busy life, so, like,

absolutely, like, meal prepping certain things and making big batches, like, we're in the season now of stews and braises and ragoos, like, all those things can be done in such large quantities and can be so delicious that make us just so excited about dinner time, you know? Well, here's, Taya, sometimes I plan to make, like, eight meals on. Sunday for meal prep, big mistake. I also need to be more realistic. I get tired and it's too much food. Now I cut a ton of veggies, cut out watermelon batch of eggs, some quinoa and some salad jars. Simplifying is better for me and I don't waste any food this way and I get my Sunday back. I guess people need to figure out, I guess, what works for them and everyone's a little different?

Or is like there's just certain like this is how it's done? Everyone's different. Everyone has different lifestyles. Everyone works different hours. Like I grew up in my house where both parents, when they were working, both of them, they were nine to fiveers. And then myself and my husband, we weren't nine to fiveers at all. We worked every single Saturday Sunday. Like that was not our lifestyle. Like everyone has something different going on at home. Everyone has a different budget, different needs, different wants.

Kids, no kids, like whatever the case may be, it doesn't mean it's wrong, but it has to work for you. I think that's so huge because I think that's so huge because we have a standard, okay, I see other people meal prepping, see the meals that other people are making and you're not taking into account the life that you're living. And I love that that's like permission to do it your way rather than all of a sudden I need to be this perfect chef in the kitchen and spend six hours on a Sunday meal prepping. Yeah, it's not realistic. And that's why I said at the start like social media is ruining all of us.

Like we also feel, I think, a lot of the time as well that it needs to be like a dish. Like it needs to be like a lasagna, like a curry, like I said earlier. Like whatever happens is just no-name dinners. A veg, a carb and a protein just like cooked. Like my, our favorite dinner at home, apart from Bolognese, of course, is just cooked fish, steamed or boiled broccoli and boiled or mashed potatoes. just basic. Letting, and the veg over here in Ireland is like on a different level as well.

Like absolutely never tasted carrots like this in your life. Like we are so blessed here. But really just like that has so much natural flavor and goodness and everything. And yeah, you can put sauces and different herbs and seasonings on it to make it more interesting. But like I think we've gotten so used to seeing these extravagant meals and dinners that people are making online because they're also trying to impress. They're like, look at this incredible recipe that I have come up with. It was like, yeah, that looks incredible. But I don't have the time nor the want to be able to do that from start to finish.

And, you know, food, we need food. We need food. Like, such an important part of our day. And sometimes it's just about getting it into your body, for me, not overeating. So I feel like I can't, I have such bad ass reflux after it. and I feel like crap after it. Like that was my battle for a long time. Like I would see food on a plate and I'm like, must finish.

And as I get older, I'm like, I don't have to finish that. I'm full. Like, it's good. I think this is why you're resonating so much because the food industry is constantly trying to sell you something and especially the processed food industry. And even people online, they're trying to sell, they're trying to sell likes or shares or whatever that night be. And you're just sharing real tips from the heart.

I love that about you. I'm just a couple quick questions. If you were to have five spices that you could choose, and only five, five herbs, five spices, what would it be? Like, you must have these five. Can I give you five herbs and five spices? Sure, sure. Okay, herbs and spices. Now, technically not spice, but I'm going to say it anyway because it's a flavor.

So onion powder, garlic powder. Okay. Paprika. Oh. What else am I thinking on the spice side? I think humans agree. want to have in the press. So funny, I just wrote out this list the other day and now I can't really think of a fifth

one that I use all the time. But garlic and onion powder? Yeah, garlic and onion powder, like, you can make anything taste good with those two. Okay. Those on top of everything, drizzle of oil, salt, obviously. Salt is the most important ingredient because it emphasizes the flavor of anything that you are eating. And then when it contents to herbs, you have like your soft herbs and your dried herbs.

so parsley, cilantro, I suppose to say coriander, parsley, cilantro, basil, try all a soft herb. Sage would be a soft herb too. And then you have your hard herbs, rosemary oregano. Oregono is technically classified as a hard herb even though like it's a soft actual leaf petal on the herb itself. But rosemary, thine, oregano, sage, basil, such great ones to have in the press. So, so good. Rosemary and thyme will basically go with anything. And if you mix, this is the thing.

Do you have you see like an Italian seasoning in the shop and you're like, oh, like $3.50? Like I'll pay that. No, get a big, I think it's literally mix of parsley, oregano and like thyme or something. That's it. Like, what? I can mix that myself. Thank you so much. And like you can get the bags and no frills for like a dollar and just mix them all together.

and you have a month supply, two months supply, depending on how much you use of these dried herbs and it didn't cost you an arm and a leg. It's people making us feel like we don't have the capability to do these things ourselves. Well, we're paying for things to be simplified, like buying our spices in a mix instead of doing it ourselves, and then we're over-complicating everything.

I mean, especially like every night around here has got to be a different style of food. One night it's Chinese food, then it's Japanese, then it's Italian, then it's like whatever. None of it's authentic, of course, except maybe the Chinese food. And, you know, I love a good chicken, broccoli and rice is my staple. But we don't have to, we don't have to spend hours in the kitchen in order to make the foods that we need and make the foods taste good, is what I'm hearing. Yeah, no, absolutely.

It's just, like I said, like sometimes it takes no time and other times it does. But the things that take time, get them on the stove when you're doing the dinner that's not taking any time. You know, get a breeze going. get the Bolognais going on a Monday night when you're cooking your fish and your one tray dinner of whatever's going into the oven. Get it going because everything tastes better

when anything slow-cooked, balanays, braise, like whatever thing like that, it'll always taste better the next day. Always. Gives the flavors time to develop. Yeah. And then you're not doing anything tomorrow.

So now you've had two easy nights. I think we're caught up with how long things last in the fridge. And then what about your freezer? Do you have like a job? Do you freeze? a lot? Are you freezing? No, you're not. No, very little. I was honestly the only thing, I know what's in my fridge right now. Like, I have one thing of rashers because we weren't going to eat them. So I was like, whatever, I'll just chuck them in there. And I just left him in there

for a day that we like need something in a hurry that we don't have anything there for whatever reason. And I was given a load of meat from doing like a competition if you once ago. So I have two racks, a lamb and rashers. And that's it. That's all the meat that I have in there. And I'm just waiting for the right time to take those out. Or when my, Money is low. Like great meat sales in Canada in the shops. Like we used to stock up a lot. Like you don't like sometimes in loblos and get a whole chickens for $3 and like $5 sometimes? Yeah. I would buy like 10 of those and I would put them in the freezer in Canada because they were, I can't get over how expensive chicken is in Canada. We were paying like $15 to $18 for a 1.2kgy bird. So much cheaper in Ireland for chicken. It's actually insane. But I used to stock up on all those things. And then it makes, I just have like meat. generally is the most expensive part of your shopping. So if you're able to bulk up in the freezer when things are on sale, it can make it a lot cheaper in the long run then. Yeah, I love that. Well, I used to be the coupon girl, right? We used to get a coupon sent to us and I'm like, okay,

let me do. And I used to drive to a totally different store, like to save like two bucks. I don't know if I was saving on gas at the time. I'm not buying this here when I can buy it there. And then, you know, do the price swapping wherever you can. These are such great tips. If someone was like in a good group, so we run these seasonal groups right in the fall, winter, spring, kind of these like pushes where we're trying to stay motivated. And we can feel like we're crushing it one time and we're doing really great. And then other times you just feel like, oh, this season of my life is too busy.

What is your suggestion if someone's like really had it together in their kitchen and prep in and meal and cooking and all that and just fell off? What's the simplest way to get back into it? Do you ever do that? Do you ever fall off? Yes. 100%. Give yourself some grace. I think the first thing, because I think we all take life a little bit too seriously.

And tomorrow's always a new day. And I think a lot of the time it's more the mental struggle for some people than the actual physical work itself. So we dedicate that time to sit down for just say, okay, I'm going to set a timer. I'm giving myself 20 minutes to take note of what's going to in the kitchen, write a menu for the week and then in the next two days I'm going to do this grocery shop

and you know will it take as long as you originally thought probably not but it's going to take off so much stress later on in the week. That's for me like to not have to think about what's being made for dinner during the week when I started the whole like running my kitchen

like a professional one like it completely changed how I was on a day to day basis because I wasn't having to think about it and my friends would come into the house see the menu for the week and they're like, oh, ribs on Thursday, Emer, we'll be there. So like, it's a fun thing too. So yeah, give yourself some grace. Take it day by day and just whenever you feel good to get back on it, just try your best to get back on it.

I love this. We are going to summarize Emer's tips and we'll add them to the post and over on the podcast. You've got a follower, honest to goodness. Not only does she give some great tips and some fundraising recipes, you make it fun. Make it fun. You can follow her on Instagram at the kitchen shift underscore. And then on TikTok and YouTube at the kitchen shift. Imer, thank you so much.

Honestly, you make it seem easy. So we're going to go forth with that kind of. Just don't overthink it. It's grand. It's just food. It's just food. I love that. And we needed this so much.

Thanks, everyone who's joining us live. And everyone who's listening are. or watching later. Have a fantastic day. Emer, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, 100%. It was so much one. Thank you.

Take care. Bye.