Kathi (00:01.472)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter -Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. I’m Kathi Lipp, and this is part two of our special episode on managing meals when you’re low on energy. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, I encourage you to go back and check it out for some great tips on meal planning and energy -saving kitchen strategies. In the second part, we’re gonna build on those ideas with specific meal suggestions, ways to get your family involved in the cooking process, and some of my favorite recipes from my new book, Sabbath Soup. So let’s jump right in where we left off.

Kathi

this past weekend we had our kids over I was so low energy I had burnt myself I was not feeling well it was just a bad week but past me had made my cookie dough recipe which I am happy to include in this episode in our show notes but it makes it makes enough for like 120 cookies it’s like it’s a

Tonya Kubo (19:43.277)

Kathi (19:44.034)

It’s big, you can cut it in half, but I never do because I freeze it into portions that will do like a dozen cookies. I, and both of the kids were like, my gosh, this is so good. And I’m like, yeah, homemade cookies, but I didn’t make them today, which is beautiful. And then so much of this is about freezing leftovers. Freezing leftovers for a day when you’re not, on the good energy days,

Tonya Kubo (19:47.091)

Mm

Right.

Kathi (20:12.812)

Take care of your future self on the low-energy days.

Tonya Kubo (20:16.44)

my gosh, and that is so in alignment with what we talk about in our free group, Clutter Free Academy, all the time, right? Because we get people who have chronic illness. And I think that’s one of the issues is in our community, I know we have a lot of people who struggle with low energy for a variety of reasons. you know, a lot of good points in what you just said, but the big one is, that because you never know when the low energy period may hit, it is

Kathi (20:21.504)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (20:32.706)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Kathi (20:44.396)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (20:45.998)

to seize and make the most of the moments when you have abundant energy.

Kathi (20:51.222)

Yeah, and Tonya, let’s talk about this because some people do not have low energy. They just have chaotic lives. And that leads to low energy. We have people in our paid and free group who have chronically ill children. But the family still needs to be fed, right? And so they’re going to cook ahead and freeze so they can just pull out that meal when it needs to be pulled out.

Tonya Kubo (20:55.764)

Right

Tonya Kubo (21:05.15)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (21:20.444)

what depends you have a crazy work schedule. You know, I know a lot of people, me included, you know, you were getting ready for back to school. Because not only do you have girls that are going to school, you have a teacher who hasn’t quite made it to school yet because he’s been so sick, but he’ll get there. But you know that that time is coming. It may not be that you are low energy.

Tonya Kubo (21:31.347)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (21:37.224)

He’ll get there.

Kathi (21:45.45)

you know, a couple of days a week, it may be that your life is chaotic for a couple of months a year. And so to think about that and plan ahead for that is a beautiful thing.

Tonya Kubo (21:57.396)

Great, well thank you for all of those fabulous ideas and also the consideration. That’s what I love so much about Sabbath Soup is that you have taken time to consider that not everybody lives a life of leisure and the book is set up to really help each of us no matter what’s going on in our lives. Just take advantage of the time, the energy, and the money that can be saved from meal planning.

Kathi (22:13.366)

Hmm

Kathi (22:27.362)

Can I also say, you were talking earlier about here’s how to feed your family of 20 on $200, right? Here’s the thing I wanna say, I value your time. And if you love to make homemade tortillas, go off, friend. But I also believe if you can find tortillas for $3 .99 and you are not totally financially strapped,

Tonya Kubo (22:28.626)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (22:33.736)

Hahaha!

Tonya Kubo (22:46.344)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (22:57.216)

that that is that’s I believe that by the tortillas because your energy is also conserving your energy for things you love and maybe you love to make homemade tortillas. I’ve had homemade homemade tortillas. I do. I love to eat homemade tortillas, but if I’m baking them in something or I’m doing it’s not going to happen. So I value your time. I value your energy.

Tonya Kubo (23:02.856)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (23:20.029)

Mm

Kathi (23:26.26)

and I want you to have your resources.

Tonya Kubo (23:28.87)

All right, so since you brought up the tortillas, that’s a great segue into my next question, which is, what are some go -to meal ideas that you would suggest for people when energy is love?

Kathi (23:33.388)

Mm

Kathi (23:42.314)

Okay, you’re going to be shocked, but soup. I know that’s shocking.

Tonya Kubo (23:44.916)

No, well, it’s also my go-to. I’m not going to lie. That and fried rice. That’s what we make around here.

Kathi (23:51.302)

Right, yeah. Yeah, but you know that it doesn’t take a lot of energy to prepare a soup, especially if you have that leftover bag of shredded chicken in your freezer. And by the way, can we also talk about Sam’s Club has a smoked shredded chicken that is just divine. Yeah, you don’t have a Sam’s near you. The next time you come to visit,

Tonya Kubo (24:04.5)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (24:14.64)

Okay.

Dumb.

Kathi (24:19.222)

We’re gonna have to dry, we’re gonna have to go to a Sam’s and you’re gonna have to experience the magic. Yay, we love a good field trip. But also, you know, I love soup because, I’ve got some leftover celery, I’ve got some leftover tomatoes, I’ve got some leftovers, that can all be thrown in there. And it, you know, those extras that you have can be thrown in. It takes very little effort to do that. So I love that. Rotisserie chicken. Whether you rotisserie it, you’re,

Tonya Kubo (24:23.391)

Field trip!

Tonya Kubo (24:37.022)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (24:49.038)

Okay, let’s be honest, you’re gonna roast it. Or you buy it at the store. Both of those are perfectly wonderful options. I just encourage you within a day or two of getting at home, you know, your first meal is eating just the straight rotisserie chicken, yum. Your second meal is putting that into like a salad or a soup. And then your third meal is

Tonya Kubo (24:49.598)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (25:06.643)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (25:16.852)

you’re going to do like a chicken salad with Greek yogurt and lemon juice and almonds and you some seasonings like that rotisserie chicken is going to do triple duty and then if you still have leftovers you can put those into the freezer like a rotisserie chicken you can buy pre-shredded chicken that’s that’s totally fine I would just make sure that as soon as you open it up you freeze it

Tonya Kubo (25:33.62)

Mmm.

Kathi (25:44.586)

whatever you’re not using so it doesn’t die a terrible death. I love chili. I love chili on, because if I make a double batch of chili, I’m gonna have chili for dinner. I’m gonna do a taco salad another day. I’m going to do chili on baked potatoes. And by the way, baked potatoes is on this list too. Because you can put anything on a baked potato, right?

Tonya Kubo (25:45.982)

Mm

Tonya Kubo (26:08.13)

yeah.

Tonya Kubo (26:11.643)

you

Kathi (26:12.45)

I love a good baked potato. it’s my favorite, right? And then buying greens. So if you are low energy and you’re like, can’t think about washing and chopping, that’s fine. Buy a box of pre-washed salad. then, we had salmon the other night. So of course I had salmon on my salad the next day. You can have that shredded chicken.

Tonya Kubo (26:14.566)

I love chili on baked potatoes. That’s like my favorite.

Tonya Kubo (26:38.836)

Mm

Kathi (26:41.974)

think of all the combinations you can have. I want you, I think another thing that is really a great staple to have on hand is canned tomatoes. Because you can turn canned tomatoes into just about anything. You can turn it into a sauce, you can turn it into a chili, you can turn it into a marinara, you can turn it into just about anything. It’s great, like last night I had, we had

Tonya Kubo (26:55.624)

Hmm.

Kathi (27:11.21)

we I did just a box jambalaya. It was just the rice and I cut up I put in some sausage in there that we had leftover some shredded chicken and then I put in a can of just tomatoes, chopped tomatoes and it was one of Roger’s favorite meals. Like it’s so easy. It took no energy to prepare. It worked out you know the other thing I would say

Tonya Kubo (27:32.862)

Yay.

Kathi (27:40.306)

is I love to have, I do a big batch of chopped onions and sliced mushrooms and I throw those in everything. I throw them on salads, I throw them into soups, I throw them onto baked potatoes, I put them on pizzas, like those will go onto anything, I love.

Tonya Kubo (27:46.569)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (28:00.168)

my gosh, those are all such great ideas and such delicious, delicious ideas as well. So Kathi, so these are great ideas for when we have low energy. But one thing you haven’t mentioned is sharing the…

Kathi (28:04.82)

Yes, we love delicious.

Kathi (28:19.711)

Mm

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (28:23.732)

So talk, I mean, not everybody has the benefit of living with other humans, right? Some people live alone, but for those who don’t live alone, like talk to me about how we can enroll the other humans in our home who aren’t currently laid up sick on the couch to lighten our load when we have low energy days.

Kathi (28:27.712)

Right. Right. Right.

Kathi (28:38.656)

Yeah

Yeah, well, so let’s talk about different stages of life. You have two girls who Lily loves to cook, right? Where’s Abby on that scale?

Tonya Kubo (28:48.468)

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Abby doesn’t quite understand why she needs to do chores. Aren’t there other humans around here? Yeah.

Kathi (28:58.762)

Okay. Yes. Okay. I understand. So she’s more of a cat. Like, yes, yes. So I think it’s important for, you know, at of the age that she can be that everybody participates. And sometimes that participation is dishes. Sometimes that participation is cooking. But

Tonya Kubo (29:05.242)

Abby is a cat definitely.

Tonya Kubo (29:14.974)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (29:26.89)

We all eat so we all cook. We all eat so we all do dishes. you know, Abby also, you know, has other things going on in her life. We let you parent as you parent. it’s here’s the thing. And Abby has the most wonderful heart in the entire world. But I would definitely lean into the Lily side of things and say, you know, Lily get well, Lily is excited about cooking because that could change.

Tonya Kubo (29:29.107)

Mm

Tonya Kubo (29:49.0)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (29:56.094)

Right.

Kathi (29:56.352)

We don’t know, it could change. But how can you support it without it becoming a huge thing for you? You know what I mean? So what are some simple meals that she can prepare without a lot of supervision? What are some cheats that she could have? Like one of the things that Roger and I do, now that we’re not cooking for a bunch of people, we used to make big batches of rice and eat off of it, you know, for days.

Tonya Kubo (30:21.757)

Mm

Kathi (30:24.768)

We don’t do that so much anymore because we’re not doing that kind of cooking all the time. He has to watch his, I don’t know, there’s something with white rice. He has to watch. And so we do more like brown rice, but every once in we want white rice. So we just have like a little container. But if it’s Roger’s turn to cook, if he’s doing something, because I have a late meeting, he knows he can grab one of those white rices. He can grab some salmon.

Tonya Kubo (30:30.163)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (30:54.402)

and do it very easily. I think it’s just establishing the expectation. You know, it took Roger and I 15 years to figure out, I don’t mind cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. He doesn’t mind doing dishes. He hates cooking and cleaning in the kitchen and doesn’t mind doing dishes. But we were both trying to out-nice each other by doing the most detestable chores. And now

Tonya Kubo (30:54.569)

Mm

Tonya Kubo (31:10.376)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (31:18.13)

Mmm.

Kathi (31:23.53)

You know, I cook dinner. I could cook all day, all week long if somebody else will do the dishes, right? And I still have to do some dishes, that’s fine. But Roger doesn’t mind. say, talking it through and saying, I don’t want to be resentful. I want to, I want to, you know, feed our family with joy, but I need partners in this. So what, how can that look together? And I think that’s a great of start.

Tonya Kubo (31:30.004)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (31:40.317)

Hmm.

Tonya Kubo (31:47.572)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (31:53.566)

start of a great conversation. And if people just say, you know, my husband refuses to cook, it’s not a cooking issue. It’s a marital issue. Like, Roger doesn’t refuse to cook. He doesn’t enjoy it. But he will because he knows that sometimes I need the support. If somebody will not support you when you need the support, that’s a marital issue. And that’s beyond what Sabbath soup can do. But if we can approach it as, you know, I want input.

Tonya Kubo (32:02.984)

Hmm.

Kathi (32:22.89)

into what you wanna eat this week. And I think that’s a big part of it. Letting our family have some decision -making in the meals gets them excited about the cooking. How have you incorporated Brian and Lily into your cooking?

Tonya Kubo (32:31.763)

Mm

Tonya Kubo (32:40.84)

Yeah, so, well, we’ve, how I’ve managed to incorporate all three. So Brian is great at cooking in a pinch at any point in time. Like, you know, if he knows if I have a late meeting, he can usually whip something up so long as there is either pasta or rice and thawed-out animal protein of some sort, right? I would make my leftover meal always be soup. His, he is the reason we have a lot of fried rice in this house. What we are doing differently this year,

Kathi (32:57.634)

Perfect.

Kathi (33:08.246)

Yeah, okay.

Tonya Kubo (33:11.264)

I am actually pulling Abby into the meal planning since she is our pickiest eater in the house So if she helps plan the meals we are more likely to have meals that she will eat and then Lily is cooking one night a week

Kathi (33:15.38)

got it, okay.

Kathi (33:27.21)

Okay, because Abby loves some decision-making. Yes. But what you’re doing is you’re taking everybody’s strengths. And I know when Lily’s cooking, does she get to pick what she’s going to cook for the most part? Yeah, everybody.

Tonya Kubo (33:32.03)

She does. She does love herself some decision-making.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (33:44.338)

Yep. Yep. Soup de nuts, whole thing. I will buy whatever it is if that’s what she wants to cook.

Kathi (33:49.224)

Yes. Okay, so tell me one of the meals that Lily has cooked.

Tonya Kubo (33:54.784)

she’s so cute. So she loves to make what I call fancy ramen. So she does the soft-boiled egg and she does the enoki mushrooms. Not going to lie, Kathi, I never bought an enoki mushroom until like three weeks ago, but that’s a big one for her. The other thing that she really loves to do is she likes making pancakes, cookies, and things like that from scratch.

Kathi (34:00.172)

All right.

Kathi (34:09.035)

Yeah.

Kathi (34:19.635)

Okay.

Tonya Kubo (34:21.178)

she would prefer to come up with a recipe all by herself. I have encouraged her to follow a lot of recipes to sort of learn, let’s just say proportions before venturing out on I’ll just add flour and milk and salt together and think a pancake comes out.

Kathi (34:31.008)

Right. Yeah.

Kathi (34:38.772)

Well, you know what? It’s good to experiment to a point, but it’s also good to have some knowledge. And next time she comes to the Red House, Miss Kathi will be more than thrilled to buy all the ingredients so she can cook for us. I love that. Yeah. And, know, I, you know,my super sneaky way, which isn’t really sneaky because Roger knows exactly what I’m doing. Like when we had the kids here, you know, let’s barbecue, let’s create pizzas.

Tonya Kubo (34:39.966)

You

Tonya Kubo (34:52.062)

Sounds good.

Tonya Kubo (35:06.59)

Mm

Kathi (35:08.79)

You know, anything outside, Roger’s on it. And I will say, since we got the new Air Fryer, like, ninja combo, Roger’s much more…

Tonya Kubo (35:11.687)

Nice.

Tonya Kubo (35:18.524)

I was like your whole contraption thing that does all the jobs in one? Yes.

Kathi (35:22.644)

love it. I love it. Roger’s much more willing to cook because he feels like things come out well. So yeah. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (35:27.986)

Yes. Well, and that’s important to Roger, right? And think that’s the thing that we didn’t specifically talk about, but is important, is know what’s important to each person in your family. For Roger, he’ll do just about anything if he has confidence that it will come out well. Right?

Kathi (35:38.337)

Yeah.

Kathi (35:43.688)

Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. He doesn’t want to fail on it. You know, when we were cooking, when I burnt myself, it was because I was making the tomato Jen soup. Just a little hint, people. By the way, this is one of my favorite recipes in the book. Don’t you know, you the soup has a base of bacon grease? I know that sounds crazy, but it’s so good. But don’t drop the butter from a high

Tonya Kubo (35:56.584)

Mmm.

Kathi (36:12.2)

altitude into the bacon grease. Just a little tip, just a little pro tip. Yes, but we were making that tomato basil soup and I had to stop because I was in so much pain and the recipe, Roger was able to make the Cuban sandwiches with no pain whatsoever because I’ve really tried to lay out the recipes very easily so you’re not like

Tonya Kubo (36:15.572)

Pro tip, tip, pro tip from Kathi Lip to you.

Kathi (36:37.784)

shoot, I should have done that. no. Like the recipes in this book are ones that from a novice to somebody who really loves to cook will be able to do pretty easily.

Tonya Kubo (36:48.27)

Nice! And where can we find out more information on the blog?

Kathi (36:53.73)

Yeah, so definitely check the notes here because we’ll have a link to all the places you can buy the book, which is anywhere. It’s called Sabbath Soup and you can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your favorite Christian bookstore, any place like that. But also we have a pre-order gifty, which is just, it’s like a, what would you call it? It’s a sample. Yeah, so you.

Tonya Kubo (37:16.456)

It’s a sampler. I call it a sampler. It’s a sneak peek.

Kathi (37:21.728)

But it’s a hefty sampler. Like you’re gonna get a lot of stuff with it. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (37:24.112)

Yeah, well, yeah. And I mean, it’s stuff that’s not in the book, right? That just really helps to get you between now and here because there is nothing worse, Kathi, than buying a cookbook that you are excited about and then having to wait for it to arrive. Don’t ask me how I know listeners. Don’t ask me how I know. But it’s just really hard. So this gets you this closes the gap between when you order the book and when it actually arrives.

Kathi (37:29.579)

Right? Yeah.

Kathi (37:36.769)

Yeah.

Kathi (37:40.48)

Yes. Yes. Yep.

Kathi (37:50.72)

Yep, exactly. So we will put that we’ll drop that below. And by the way, I’ll just say as an author, boy, if you tell me that you’ve pre-ordered my book, you’re my favorite. just I mean, I’ll say that for any author. It’s the most amazing gift. It really is.

Tonya Kubo (38:09.318)

I’m sorry, I’m making funny facial expressions at Kathi. You cannot see my funny facial expressions, but it was because I had an idea. well, my idea is, is that people who pre -order the book and let us know, if they let us know, we should give them a shout out on the podcast. And we will publicly thank you for pre-ordering our book. But you have to tell us because the way that like the…

Kathi (38:16.834)

Do tell.

Kathi (38:22.86)

Mm

Kathi (38:26.965)

yes!

my goodness. Yes. Yes.

Tonya Kubo (38:36.904)

The way that technology works, don’t oftentimes get your name. So we cannot thank you properly on our end. if you tell us you pre-order, they should let us know by emailing me specifically, tonya@Kathilipp.org. Email, I’m not gonna make you send me a screenshot. Okay, we know you don’t have time for that. But yeah, just email me, tell me you pre-ordered the book and we will shout you out in a future episode.

Kathi (38:42.772)

Yeah, how should they let us know?

Kathi (38:50.337)

Okay.

Kathi (38:55.413)

Okay.

No, no, no, no, we trust people.

I love that. I love that. Okay. We have a couple of super-sized episodes here, but it was worth it friend Thank you for going on this sabbath soup journey with us guys. We appreciate you so much You have been listening to Clutter Free Academy. I’m Kathi left now go create the clutter free life. You’ve always wanted to live