317. Picky Eaters, Kitchen Helpers: Simple Strategies for Family Mealtime | Madison Wetherill of Cook at Home Mom

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CUI more than three million families have chosen K-12. Find a K-12 powered school near you today. Enrollment portals are now open. Go to k-12.com slash farmhouse to learn more. That's the letter K, the number 12.com slash farmhouse. K-12.com slash farmhouse. Sometimes I have to just remind myself like if I want him to help in the future when I actually need him to help, I gotta start now with like letting him help. And so I might be like, oh yeah, can you like make the rice or can you stir the rice that needs to be stirred a little bit? And again, it doesn't have to be like, hey, can you go make the potato side dish for dinner? It's like give them one task. Oh yeah, I need the parsley. Can you grab it from the pantry? And so I would say like, let your kids help in the smallest way that you can think of. My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boon. On this podcast, I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses, Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business course, YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today we are having on Madison Weatherill from Cook at Home Mom and we are going to be talking about making mealtime a family affair. So getting kids involved, what that looks like in the kitchen, ages on when they can be helpful or, you know, age appropriate tasks. We're also going to talk a little bit about picky eating. If you hear little tiny baby hiccups during this episode and you're not watching on YouTube, that's because Little Miriam's in my lap and she, she does that. Now I tried to get her down first to go to sleep, but of course that's not going to work out that I should know better after nine children that that doesn't work. So she'll be in my lap and you might hear little baby coos and hiccups and burps, but we'll get through this interview. I think you're going to be very inspired to hear from Madison about family friendly dinner ideas and how to balance all of that. Madison, welcome to the show. I did a little intro, but for those who don't know you, tell us about your website, what you do. We're going to be talking today about getting kids involved in making mealtime a family affair. So yeah, first let's start with a little bit of introductions. Yeah, for sure. Well, like you, I wear a lot of hats, but the one we're talking about today is my food blog, which is called Cook at Home Mom. And over there I share easy weeknight dinners and other recipes that kind of go with dinner, specifically for busy families, because as a mom myself, I have three boys. I just know how difficult and complicated dinner time can feel for a lot of people. And so it's really become like my joy and my passion to share that with other families and just try to simplify dinner time because we all have to eat and it doesn't have to be as overwhelming and complicated as some of us feel like it is. That's totally true. I think the more you do it, the longer you are a Cook at Home Mom. The more comfortable you get with throwing things together. Tell me what are some of the most popular recipes on your website? I know that wasn't on the outline, but I'm just curious. What are some of the top favorite things that your readers make over and over again? Yeah, well, it's shifted a lot over the years. The site used to be a lot more diet focused and diet specific, which I always tell people like those types of elimination diets like Whole30 or Keto or things like that are great for a season. But what I have found is, as my kids have gotten older, as I've been busier as a family, those things are not as sustainable for us. And I find that learning to cook and learning to adjust things to preferences and diets and things like that really is one of the keys to simplifying dinners. But some of our most popular recipes that come to mind are a sweet Hawaiian chicken that's made in the crockpot, which is super easy. It's like literally three ingredients. It could not be easier to make and takes like five minutes of prep. We have a Swedish meatballs recipe that happens to be dairy free and gluten free, but is also like super adaptable to not being in those diets. If that's not your thing. I'm trying to think of what other we have like a garlic steak bites and potatoes. It's kind of like a one skillet type of meal. A lot of those like one pan meals are really popular because it's simpler. Yeah, less dishes. Exactly. And it's funny, and I'm sure you can relate to this too. Like being someone who loves to cook, I totally can get behind a more complex recipe, something that takes a little bit more time. But that isn't my everyday. Every day I need something that is like super fast, super easy, but also doesn't sacrifice flavor and the enjoyment behind cooking. Because if it doesn't, if it's not something that we love to eat and I don't enjoy making it, then that kind of takes a lot of the joy behind what I like to do in the kitchen. Yeah, you're talking about adapting recipes. I feel like every time I make something over on YouTube, I'm always like, this is exactly the recipe on my website, except for I didn't have ham. So I use sausage and I didn't, I didn't want to do all purpose. So I substituted whole grain, but it is funny how quickly you become comfortable with making really simple swaps to any recipe. Like you could take any recipe on your website. And if you're dairy free, make it dairy free, make it gluten free. Usually you get more comfortable with some of those. If you, if that's something that you have to do. Now, is your family one that likes a lot of variety? Are you able to make a lot of the same things over and over again? Does it change seasonally? Yeah, I would say my family probably doesn't care as much as I do, but I like variety. So I love to be able to cook different things. And one of the things that has worked really well for us is instead of having like this crazy variety of like, we're having steak one night, and then the next night we're having chicken and the next night something else, I like to have variety, but in the same style of meals. So like taco bowls might be a consistent thing that we have or like taco meat, but we eat it in different ways. So we might have it over rice. We might have it over like using lettuce wraps or in taco shells. Like we might vary that like the presentation of it, but the concept is the same or the cooking method is the same. I like to do a lot of like chicken bites in a skillet, in like a cast iron skillet. And you can make that into so many different meals. You can make it Greek chicken, if you want, or Mexican chicken or last night we did our garlic chicken bites, which is another one of our favorites on our website too. And you can just like take the same concept, but tweak it like one degree. And all of a sudden it's something completely new. But and we'll probably get into this a little bit more. One of the things that I think is really helpful in doing that is that it's still familiar to your kids. So if you have kids who are picky or eaters, they're like, Oh, I've seen chicken presented this way before. It probably is going to taste similar to what I've had before. Instead of them being like, I have never seen this before. I am not touching it, which is definitely a way that some kids will interact with the new foods. Yeah. So have you had picky kids before? And has that been something they grow out of? Or did they stay picky? How's that been for you? Yeah. So like I said, I have three boys. I've been very lucky that I would say two out of the three are pretty much will eat anything. My toddler is three. And so he's kind of getting into that picky eating stage a little bit, but two out of the three pretty much will eat whatever they're served. My middle son is my one who is a little bit pickier. And it has definitely been something that he has grown out of a little bit. The other night I actually made chili and I when I presented it, I was like, I'm making chili. I know it's not your favorite. If you don't want to try it, that's okay. But you might try it and you might you might like it this time. And this was the thing I think was key. I told him I'm like, I promise I'm not going to make a big deal if you like it. If you like it, that's awesome. And if you don't, that's okay too. And I just moved on and he ended up having two servings of that chili and he has never liked or eaten chili before in his life. He's always been like, no, I don't like that. And so he has grown out of it a little bit, but it's taken lots and lots of conversations and lots of presenting things in new ways. This particular night we actually had like salad on the side and we had sourdough on the side. And so I think he was sort of like, huh, there's some other stuff I like here and maybe I'll give it a try and he just happened to like it that night. So yeah, yeah, and I can get into specifics of like how we handle kind of some of that stuff in our in our family. But we do have just a variety of different preferences and things like that, maybe not pickiness, but at least one kid who's particular on things. Yeah, I am curious how you handle it. Because I think we, we all have our different ways of dealing with, you know, even if kids aren't picky, there's always something, you know, I can think every time we have dinner, there's probably something I'd rather have than what we're having, right? Like if we're not having a steak dinner, I'd probably not eating the most favorite thing ever. But that doesn't mean that it's not good enough, but there are kids who are pickier even than that. So how do you deal with that in your family? Yeah. And like I said, this is, you know, something that I started from a really young age with my oldest who he was still, you know, he's been my best eater. He's pretty much always been open to trying anything. He'll straight up tell me if he doesn't like it though, like he'll eat it and be like, that wasn't my favorite, but I ate it anyway. And I'm like, cool, that's awesome. Thanks for, yeah, thanks for doing that. But from the beginning, we have sort of had a rule in our family, if you want to call it a rule of we all eat the same thing. And I constantly use the phrase in our home of mom and dad are in charge of what's for dinner, you're in charge of whether or not you eat it. And I think giving that ownership to my kids has really helped over the years because I am a really strong believer in not forcing kids to try a bite. I know for some families that works. And you know, the whole idea of like, you try a bite and you can say no, thank you after that. Yeah, the no thank you, but that's like I've heard of too. Yeah. From an early age, I just didn't really, that just didn't fit well or sit well with me. And so I decided not to do that and instead empower my kids to take that ownership. But the caveat with that was they also didn't have the choice to just go eat something else. And you know, it's a tricky thing because there are some philosophies or thoughts behind this that you're like, well, you're sending your kids, you know, to bed dinner, to bed hungry. And while that might technically be true, they're also not starving and they're not going to like not get another meal or like there's no, you know, there's nothing really bad within that. But what it's taught my kids is this is what's for dinner, you have the choice of whether or not you want to eat it. If you don't want to eat it, there's nothing else and you'll have breakfast tomorrow. And I think that has stopped the cycle of I'm not going to eat anything that's new and I'm just going to eat what I want for dinner and eat cereal. And you know, the other thing we're talking about today is like how you're making family like a, or how you're making dinner a family affair. And I really think that a lot of that can stem with just eating the same thing at dinner, eating at the same time as a family. And obviously families are busy and have different, you know, commitments and things like that that can make that challenging. But I think if the rule is generally that we eat the same thing and we eat at the same time, and you know, it's the exceptions that don't fit that, I feel like that's a better way to make dinner time a communal thing and a family like unifying thing, rather than the opposite. So, you know, kind of answer your question, that's that's how we've always handled is like, this is what's for dinner, you get the choice of whether you eat it or not. And just trying to give kids the language to to explain what they might not like. If they do take a bite and they're like, I don't like this, try to help them explain why. Because maybe they're like, I don't like the pepper in it, it's too spicy for me. Well, great, that's an easy thing I can adjust. Maybe it's a texture thing, like the beans were too mushy, and I don't like mushy beans. Awesome, we can adjust that next time. But I think so often it's it can feel really defeating if your kids don't want to eat what you served. And then you just never try again, which I totally understand. Yeah, and you might think they'll never eat again, but they will. They will definitely, at some point, eat if even if they don't like what you made at that dinner time. And of course, I'm like you, I don't go out of my way to make things my kids don't like. I would prefer it like if they don't like, which one of my daughters likes to put cayenne pepper in the chili. And we've learned now that the kids are like, did Johanna make the chili because we don't want it if she made it. And so it's like, okay, don't put cayenne pepper in it. We can just stick with chili, powder and cumin. We don't have to make it spicy for the kids. Like they'll like it a lot better if we don't. But then also, there's usually a couple things like you mentioned, having some sourdough or salad. And I'm good with if the kids are like, okay, I don't really want the chili, but I'll eat a slice of sourdough and some salad. I'm not going to die on that hill. That's totally fine. Obviously, I don't want them to always choose the low protein option. So if that became a pattern of every single meal. And I do want to encourage moms too. And you have older kids as well, that if all you have is toddlers, just trust me that they grow out of it. And you can eventually reason with older kids, like you can't really explain to a toddler why they can't have what they see up on the countertop. Like let's say you have some leftover muffins that happens at our house all the time, well, if some leftover baked good from a previous meal or that we're planning to have for dessert. And if the toddler sees that they cannot understand if you eat this, then you will get this. And so just know that at some point they can. And you can you can reason with them a bit, right? Like that, I don't know if you have that same issue. Yeah, no, we totally do. And I was going to touch on the sourdough thing, because there are certain meals that I know my kids are going to have a harder time with. And those might be the meals that maybe I don't have bread or cornbread or like something that I'm I know that they're going to really eat. It's a balancing act, right? And you know, your kids best. And so you have to figure out like, if I serve this with it, will it help my kids to eat? Or is it going to actually fill them up on that thing? And then they're not going to try it. But one thing I always do as well when it's a new food, or something that's presented in a new way is make sure that there is that safe food. And so maybe that safe food is the bread or the salad or something that you know, they're going to love fruit. That safe food, at least you know, they're going to eat that. So again, they're not going to go to bed and like truly be starving. So that can be a good like thing to consider. But you're totally right that like, as they get older, you can help them to understand you can help give them the language and you can also help them to like start to understand why certain foods are nourishing for their bodies. And this isn't like health language, or it's not like anything, you know, positive negative about like diet language, right? But it's like, Hey, did you know carrots have XYZ or broccoli is XYZ, like all these things that you want your kids to eat, you can start to empower them on the why behind it. And then at least they maybe will be willing to try it. They may not love it. And that's okay. Like, I mean, I grew up the pickiest eater ever did not touch vegetables, unless it was like, really? Yeah. So there's hope yet. There is hope. Trust me. If I grew out of it, your kids can grow out of it too. But I think so much of it is just like how we approach it. And you know, the there's so many things, you know, as you know, in motherhood that like, strip your desire for control or your thought that you are in control of all the things. Yes. And I feel like it is one of those things if we can just accept that we are like on this journey with our families to help them and to help ourselves, then like it just takes so much of the pressure off of it. And it's like, if they don't eat dinner one night, or if they choose the cupcake instead of dinner, like, it's okay, it's going to be okay. Yeah. And you have to choose your battles. Have you ever gotten into like, something with a three or four year old and then wish you hadn't like, I've totally done that. Like, okay, you're going to do this. And then after a while, you're like, why did I even start this? Or you give a consequence and you're like, I'm not going to be able to call us through. Yeah, or sometimes like your husband will be like, if you do this, you're not going to get to do that. You're like, Oh, no, like we're we really have to do that. Over the weekend, we did family photos. And I totally like regretted how I handled it. Because I was like, I'm making this four year old like, no, you can stand here, you can stand here. And after a while, I'm like, why did I even start? Because, you know, now I have to actually figure out how to enforce this. It's just so frustrating family photos, because it's like, it's just you have to just stay in here. But anyways, that's not what we're talking about. Sorry. Family photos are tricky. But I feel like the the battle of wills that come out in that is like so similar to the battle of wills that can come out at dinnertime. And yes, it is. Again, like, as a mom, like, you're just, you're so spent by the end of the day, and you just want to get through dinner without like someone screaming. But working with your kids, like, you know, the vegetable examples I was giving earlier, like sometimes I'll be like, what would make this taste more yummy to you? And sometimes the answer is ketchup. And you're like, that's not an option, but maybe ranch is an option, you know, like, and you get to pick as the mom, you get to pick like, what are the options that are acceptable in that moment? But just like allowing that back and forth and allowing it to be something that is a conversation instead of like a directive almost, I feel like it just really empowers your kids and it helps them to just know that like they do have a little bit of control, they might not have all the control. But they have enough to make it, you know, something that maybe they're willing to compromise on every once in a while. Yeah, one thing we do as well is we get we have a good source of local raw milk. And I feel good about a glass of milk, like, you know what, if you're still hungry before bed, you didn't eat your dinner very well, have a glass of milk, like that's gonna at least give you a little bit of protein, little sugar, and, you know, possibly the nutrition that you need that you may have missed out on on dinner time. So that's one of my little strategies. Exactly. I feel like that is so much more, that's a better compromise than being like, well, go see what's in the fridge or go have a bowl of cereal or, you know, whatever it is. And like, there's no shame if that's how your family deals with it right now. But I think, you know, hopefully you can like start to unpack like what happens when that happens, like when I allow my kid to do this instead of this, like why would they ever want, you know, yeah, like no shame, but you are going to be dealing with this longer, possibly way past the age that they should have grown out of it. Because I find that like by like five, like all of my kids are to some extent grown out of it, like they might still want to be picky, but they're just not like that's just not the culture of our family. Age two, that's a complete wild card, sometimes even three. But by five, you know, like I always like, I always like to explain this to at the ages of two to three, because I remember when my youngest was that age, or sorry, my oldest was that age. I remember hearing like why toddlers are picky. And it was like, so have you ever heard this before? I don't think so. Okay, so like biologically, or like, from an evolution standpoint in humanity, toddlers at the age of like 18 months to three, that's when they're starting to literally like, toddle around and walk around. And in, you know, back in like the, like, what's the hunt and gatherer like, stage of humanity, they would have been like literally picking stuff off of a bush and eating it. And so the reason that toddlers start to become picky at that age is because of that like curiosity of like, can I eat this, can I not? And they start to analyze food in a different way than when they're like, six months old and experiencing baby led weaning or whatever. And it's just like food is exciting and fun. So it's actually like a safety thing for them, which is why I mentioned the like safe food, you know, concept, because they're actually just trying to protect their safety, but they don't know from a like, you know, frontal cortex perspective, like, what is safe and what isn't. So a lot of the like battles with pickiness is actually just safety. And it's just them not understanding whether a food is like safe for them or not. And so as the parent, we can like come alongside them understanding that and then help them to be like, you know, this is, you know, we don't have to use the language this is safe. But maybe we say like, Oh, you've seen broccoli before. Do you remember broccoli was at in this meal or broccoli was at this place or even like having picture books with different, you know, examples of vegetables and stuff that all counts as awareness. And I think sometimes we get so stuck on them needing to eat the food as like the exposure to the food. But there's so many other things you can do to expose kids to foods that are different to them, without it being that they actually have to take a bite and it and you know, and love it. Yeah, yeah, we have a book, 100 words book by Tabitha Page. I love that one. They've got a lot of different foods in there. My two year old definitely is picky. But just based on the context of my other kids, I know that he'll grow out of it. I think, I think what happens with him is he sees anything on the table that he likes the most. And then that's all he's going to eat because it just makes sense. Like why would I, you know, he doesn't know about health, he has no idea why that would be a better option. So to him, it's like, why would I ever choose that whenever this is clearly the better option. And so I think, you know, they just have strong wills, those little, those little toddlers. For sure. Makes sense. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about getting kids involved in mealtime and helping to prepare food, possibly even gathering the recipes together or the ingredients. How do you get your kids involved? Yeah, I love this question so much. And I will say it looks different for every kid in every stage. I have all three of my kids are very different in how they like to help and how they like to be involved. But I think like my most simple answer before I give like very specifics of tactics, I want to say like sometimes starting looks like literally just letting them help. And I think, again, this is one of those things that like as the mom, we have to recognize like, that maybe we're like too stressed out at dinner time to like let our kids help. But oftentimes I find that like when my kids want to help, usually they want to help for five seconds and then they're like off to the other thing. They don't necessarily want to like sit there and make the entire recipe from start to finish at first. And so there are a lot of times my 10 year old does this the most he'll come up to me and he's like, mom, do you need any help? And my tendency is to want to be like, no, I've got it. Like we're good. Everything is like moving. And sometimes I have to just remind myself like if I want him to help in the future when I actually need him to help, I got to start now with like letting him help. And so I might be like, oh, yeah, can you like make the rice or can you stir the rice that needs to be stirred a little bit? And again, it doesn't have to be like, Hey, can you go make the potato side dish for dinner? It's like give them one task. Oh, yeah, I need the parsley. Can you grab it from the pantry? And so I would say like, let your kids help in the smallest way that you can think of. Toddlers are really great about wanting to do everything with you, which is sometimes harder than it is helpful. But think through like, what are the little things that maybe you don't actually need help with, but like they can feel like they're helping. I remember my toddlers, I used to set up like a small bowl of like flour and oats and water and just let them stir it together, let them like practice with that because it wasn't affecting the actual recipe that I was making, but it was like enough of the same thing that it worked for them. But toddlers can wash and dry vegetables for you. They can pick grapes off of grape stems. And you can use things like that that maybe aren't specifically related to dinner, but still get them involved and in the kitchen and like learning that you can like do things to help in the kitchen. And then as they get older, you can give them bigger jobs. So one of my like favorite things, which I know is a question we were going to get to is like, I love having toddler safe knives because it's like a really easy way for kids to be able to help. And sometimes you start with like them slicing a banana, totally harmless, like they don't even have to really know how to use the knife, but it will just give them practice with doing a task like that in the kitchen. And then you know, sometimes there's like things that maybe like cutting potatoes is really hard with a toddler safe knife, they're just not sharp enough. So I will give my three year old like a banana to slice or strawberries to, you know, cut the tops off or whatever, like something else that is similar to what I'm doing. So again, he feels like he's involved, but he's still safe. He's not trying to use a regular knife to cut the potatoes because his knife isn't sharp enough type of thing. Actually, my four year old, and he just turned four last week, so he was three, he can cut potatoes with a butter knife. I don't know if that's considered toddler safe, but that is one of his favorite activities. And you know, they cut them to like just the tiniest little bits, like some are this big, some are this big. So it works better if you're making something like mashed potatoes, because they don't really have to be a uniform size. But almost always when he's in the kitchen, just give him a potato. Yesterday I gave him one. And there was one that was bad because they came from the garden. And like you cut this one to smithereens because you're not even going to use it. And then with like, you set a banana, that's a good one. And what I'll do then afterwards, if we're not actually going to use it, is put it into a Ziploc bag and in the freezer. So there's no short, like you can cut as many as you want of bananas because I can find a way to still use them. Same with strawberries, that's another really good one. They love cutting things. That's like probably the number one way I keep kids busy in the kitchen is. Yeah, and I think what's really cool about this, and you, I would assume have experienced this too, is then like as they get older, they actually can be proficient in helping you. And there's been so many times where I'm like frazzled or maybe like, I've got something on the grill and I need to start rice. And I can like just look at my seven or 10 year old and be like, Hey, can you go start the rice? They might ask me like, Oh, yeah, what do I have to do again? But they know, what's the ratio again? Yeah, they know enough to be able to get started. And so it's like in those moments, I've like, it's just hit me so many times where I'm like, I'm so glad I let them help at the beginning. Or even if you have older kids, like let them start helping now so that again, when you do actually need the help, they can be there and be ready to help you. Or like my oldest, he can now like I can print a recipe for like muffins off my blog and he can make it like he can make it from start to finish with like the various just a tiny little bit of support. And I just think I mean, especially having boys, I love that I'm like equipping them with knowing some things in the kitchen because you know, for a lot of men, they don't grow up in the kitchen helping their family. Right? Yeah, it's true. You know, my brother actually learned to cook. He was very picky like I was and then we both like love cooking and like love to eat now. And so it's so funny how it's like turned around. But you know, he didn't grow up helping my mom in the kitchen ever. And I barely did either. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't either. And so there's hope for if you feel like you're older and your kids already grew up and you didn't, you know, like you didn't teach them how to cook. I didn't grow up in the kitchen either. And I will say having my two oldest be girls, especially like they're older teenagers now they're at the time of this recording, one is 15 and one will be 17 in a couple weeks, or at the time of when this comes out. And so, you know, they're obviously like extremely good help, like they're just another adult. And so it's really hard to like I need to be always I have to remind myself to allow my next child down who is a boy to help more often because if he was the oldest guaranteed I would be using his help all the time like anytime they're not home I'm quickly like whoever's the oldest can like hey can you do this can you do this because the people are out of the position above them. You're right like but you can teach them later and they can also teach themselves if they become interested in it so that's good. But I think it's more even than than just preparing them for the future to be able to help you. It also just is a good way to keep them involved in things that are going on right now. And like if you have toddlers keeping them busy while you're doing things is an important skill to learn. So what are what are some of the ages that you felt like your kids were actual help? Well, I think it totally depends on like kind of the the definition of actual help you know but because now that my toddler's three he can help with actual tasks you know because he's been by my side since he was old enough to stand up on you know a stool or a helper stool he has been wanting to help with with stuff and you know there are countless times where he's mixing a spice blend and it goes everywhere and I'm like okay that's that's what we you know what we do. It's part of the magic of being in the kitchen is it's messy sometimes and so I would say like probably from two and up is it's possible for kids to be helpful and what that looks like is totally different you know but he I have a video of him when he was probably 18 months where he's standing over the stove and he's stirring the eggs while I'm making scrambled eggs. Every kid has a different disposition all three of my kids have been very like cautious and calm which is not always the case with boys so they're not that way necessarily all the time but in the kitchen at least they're into their home and so I've been able to empower them and give them you know tasks that are appropriate for their skill level and for their age but you know as soon as kids can read they can start to read off the ingredients to you that's another like super easy they're not actually really helping but maybe I'm across the room at the pantry and I'm like hey can you tell me what I need from the the list and so they can read yeah they can read it off to me you know there's so many things within like we home school as well and there's so many things within that like I can teach them fractions I can teach them measuring like all of that type of stuff that is helpful because it's checking off a task from the list but it might not be again that they're like making a full recipe but like I said my 10 year old I think it was about probably right when he turned nine he started being able to like make a full recipe just from reading it if he has the desire to he doesn't always have the desire to well right yeah yeah there's that and there's also personalities involved some kids will be ready at nine and some might be quite a bit older yeah it really depends on their their interests and you know but you won't know unless you try and give them the chance so yeah and I think we don't give enough credit for how helpful kids can be in so many areas of life like what they're actually capable of and genuinely able to help so where does meal planning fit in to all of this how do you plan out your weeks as a as a homeschool mom three kids how in a blogger and also I know you run a podcast and you also create websites so there's a lot of things that you have on your table or on your plate yeah and so there's a lot to juggle which means there's probably a lot of planning that goes behind all of that how does that work for you yeah I remember before I used to meal plan and just like feeling constantly stressed out about like what are we going to eat for dinner the amount of times that there was a last minute drive-through pickup or a last minute like hey text of my husband on the way home from work like please pick up a rotisserie chicken because we have nothing to eat and I finally just got to the point where I was like I can't I can't do this anymore like again I mentioned earlier like I love being in the kitchen I love cooking dinner it is you know and I know that that's not the case for most people but for me it really is something that I love to do yeah it's you know an expression of creativity it's a stress reliever for me that's actually how I started first cooking was just I wanted to do something with my hands and like create something and so I started a practice and I still do this where on the weekend either Saturday or Sunday just depending on the weekend I will sit down for it now it takes me probably 10 minutes but back then it might have been 30 minutes or something like that 30 minutes to an hour and I will just sit and figure out the meals for the week one of my favorite tools that I've built along the way is we actually have a list of like our family favorite meals just it's on it's a digital list now that my husband and I share on our phones but um at least I can go to that and reference a couple of meals that are like tried and true I barely even eat a recipe for them you know they're just like super easy that's also a favorite thing to share with my kids and be like hey will you pick a meal out for this week which circling back to our picky eating conversation earlier that's another great way for kids to have more buy-in with like what is being served to them is if they get to pick a meal um but I will just go through I will look at my calendar kind of side by side and I'll look at like where are the crazy nights that I have this week where do we have maybe a soccer practice or um Bible study or whatever it is that I have that is going to push up against dinner time and I pick a super easy meal for that night or something that's like leftovers something that's like already cooked in the freezer that I can pull out and cook um but I do that practice every single week so that I'm never feeling like I'm super behind or I don't have time to get groceries or anything like that it's just now become a rhythm where like when I don't do that I feel like I woke up and it's Friday like it's just my whole week is out of out of whack um and so that little habit like that is definitely what I would recommend to people if they're not doing any sort of meal planning even if you sit down and you're like Tuesday's really crazy and you make a plan for Tuesday like it does not have to be the whole week at once and generally I usually only plan maybe five meals for the week because I know things are going to come up I'm going to shift things we might have like dinner at a friend or something so I like to keep it simple with just like five meals that I can rotate or shift around and are pretty easy for me to just kind of do on the fly um but at least I will know I have those ingredients ready and I can make something work with those you know kind of like stocked ingredients so what are some of your go-tos like if you just like it's a busy week what are you most likely to make yeah um we love meatballs any type of meatballs honestly and we almost always have ground beef or ground turkey lying around so that's a go-to for us I mentioned those Swedish meatballs which is just like super easy you roll the meatballs up which is another fun toddler activity even though he likes to make like burger patties usually and then I like reform them as meatballs um but we like bake the meatballs in the oven for 10 minutes and then make like a super quick creamy sauce in the skillet it's we usually use coconut milk but you could use whole milk too but just like super easy it's literally ready in like 15 minutes um but it's so flavorful and you don't feel like you're just like eating a salad for dinner not that there's anything wrong with that but like most of the time I want like a hot dinner yeah so any kind of meatball maracan meatballs Swedish meatballs Greek meatballs um we also like I said love taco meals whether that's a taco bowl or a stuffed pepper or taco soup like anything that really is like that same flavor combination I just honestly find ground meat is so quick and easy to make into a million different things that that tends to be a go-to um and then honestly like I know chicken breast gets like a really bad wrap but we really like chicken breast too um I same really learned last couple years that I'm like they're actually they're so great no and I um if my mom listens to this episode I'm sorry but I grew up eating a lot of chicken that was not that was pretty dry um and so I've learned a lot of ways to cook chicken in a way that it does not taste dry and so we'll do a lot of those types of just like cubing up the chicken and cooking it in a stir fry or using the instant pot to make like a shredded barbecue chicken shredded buffalo chicken that type of thing um buffalo chicken is kind of our obsession yeah and we just put it into like salads or bowls or pizza sometimes like all kinds of different things yeah what are your go-to tools you mentioned instant pot you mentioned crock pot what are what are the things you find yourself reaching for over and over again yeah I would say the instant pot is definitely one of them although I probably don't use it the same way that a lot of people do I don't do a lot of um like actual meals in the instant pot but I use it for things like cooking broth or cooking rice that's the only way that I cook rice anymore is just in the instant pot because it's so fast um and I actually don't have a crock pot I just use my instant pot as a slow cook yeah same same yep and um that's been really like a game changer too just to have like less appliances but still have the flexibility of it and then our other big one is our air fryer we use it every single day multiple times a day do you we do yeah um we use it in the morning to cook breakfast sausage usually at lunch to either like cook steak or chicken breast or um just like reheat leftovers and then at night like we'll usually use it for either a side dish or especially in the summer I like to use it for a side dish because we're in Arizona and I do not like to turn my oven on if I can avoid it so the air fryer is a great spot um but it also is like amazing for cooking whole chicken breasts and they're so tender and so like crispy like they were grilled but it's like you have the simplicity of it just being in your kitchen so love my air fryer I'm generally like not a gadget girl other than those things yeah I really feel like I love just like the simplicity of you know a sharp knife and a cutting board in a pan you know uh so our cast iron is probably the other one it's not a gadget but like we cook on our cast iron probably twice a day as well yeah constantly yeah I've never tried the air fryer but I've I've definitely heard a lot of people have a lot of praise for it so it's I'm curious what it's like like what what are the benefits yeah I was a slow adopter to it I mean I feel like it's really nice because it's kind of a set it and forget it like I can put the meat in it or I can put the the veggie in it and just like let it cook the one thing I will say is we have one of the larger capacity ones and sometimes still it's like not enough food for us so I feel like for you like a sheet pan of veggies is probably way more practical for you guys than like just having it in the air fryer but that being said like it is nice for you know reheating lunches or just making like a couple chicken breasts like we can fit usually like four to five chicken breasts in ours which is pretty good so that's like enough for a full meal or enough for like a meal prep you know like let's just get some chicken ready to use for other things throughout the week but it cooks faster generally than the oven and you need less oil too even to still get like a crispy like finish so okay it's nice it's nice for those things and then too if you're making something else like last night I cooked broccoli in the oven put potatoes in the air fryer because they're excuse me different temperatures in different times so then I can like make it work to have two different things in there at the same time okay yeah yeah interesting I've I I've never even like interacted with an air fryer so I have zero experience but I've definitely heard a lot of good things about them so with having multiple children how are you like taking turns rotating roles how do you manage multiple kids helping at one time yeah I would say generally they're not all three helping me at the same time unless I'm making muffins and then that's like the one thing everyone must help like a magnet yeah but I think if you have something like muffins is a good example and I'll just kind of break that down I might have one kid who's mixing the dry ingredients one kid that's mashing bananas if they're banana muffins and then one kid that gets to scoop them into the pan and we might just like rotate who that is um so I think when you have something that has multiple steps which most recipes do like try to break it apart so that one person is doing you know one part of that the steps um I mentioned the seasonings things earlier that's another great one like we make a lot of homemade seasonings like taco seasoning or Greek seasoning and so maybe the older kid is the one measuring it out and the younger kid gets to stir it up or one of them gets to use a funnel and put it into the jar like there's so many steps that I think we we think of it as like I'm mixing a seasoning blend and we forget there's five different steps in there so you can easily just like divvy it up between kids um but like you were saying earlier sometimes you'll have kids that really love one thing more than another or are better at one thing more than another and so if you can break it into you know steps that you know that person is going to want to do and be good at like that's another great way to do it too yeah and like I mean sometimes we're using like we're cutting veggies and like I could easily just use one cutting board to cut all the veggies but like my 10 year old or my 7 year old wants to help and I'm like okay great grab a cutting board grab a knife like you can help with cutting it and you know it's one more dish but at least it's getting kids involved and it's like giving them that ability to help in the future yeah and if it's just a vegetable like a carrot or something I don't know about you but I'm putting that thing right back in the cabinet because I'm going to use it in two seconds anyways maybe I'm weird but I'm like I I don't if it's like us just like a little thing that the kid's cutting on I'm like probably not going to even wash that cutting board but I think too I think people need to know it doesn't have to look so like perfect and organized and obviously as a mom of nine I've learned that just over the years like it's there's no possible way that we're going to have nine different age of children in the kitchen all like happily you know all cutting and doing these like a well-oiled machine it's probably going to be that one toddler followed me in maybe my teenager's talking to me at the same time maybe the baby's in the wrap and maybe like one kid is also helping with something we're definitely not like organizing this whole like a symphony of children just like stirring and you know putting the spices in so it's okay if it doesn't look perfect I think the idea is just the willingness to allow them to help you and to be somewhat involved in the meals if that's something that they're showing some interest in yeah and I didn't mention this before I'm surprised it didn't come to mind but like you know we're talking a lot about like the steps of making the recipe but there's also steps that happen after like plating the food serving the food to the table setting the table with dishes like with the silverware or napkins or whatever or bringing dishes back to the sink washing dishes like there's all these steps that can happen and I will say straight up if the first thing you ask your kids to help with is washing dishes they probably will say no or not be excited about it but if you ask them to set the table with silverware or collect the plates after dinner like so there's all these things that again it might not be the actual cooking of the meal but it's all these things surrounding it um if you're a person who likes to go to the grocery store and pick out your produce like get your kid to learn how to pick out produce and like what you're looking for um I feel like it's just honestly like a constant stream of consciousness of just talking to my kids about what I'm doing why I'm doing it how to do it so that when they're ready to like have the knife in their hand and chop the veggie like they kind of know what they're doing even before they like make the first cut yeah yeah that totally makes sense there's a lot that goes into it we these days like I just do all my grocery orders online I don't know if you do that as well but I'll my since you know that doesn't require anybody to drive even the the 12 year old will sometimes get on and put some things in the cart and then my oldest if I need just one thing I'll send her to actually look at the store because she can drive but we're even able these days to involve our kids in the acquiring of the ingredients because so many things are done online they can actually even participate in in that aspect of it yeah absolutely or putting away the groceries when they arrive like that's something my kids most of the time do because I'm usually doing something else and I'm like hey go grab the groceries from out front and put them away and right like we you know I think sometimes we just minimize like the effectiveness of those little things of helping and just like feeling like they're a part of what is happening and then it isn't just like you know they're like we're their servants that are just providing the cook meal for them or something stuff is just always in these pantries well stocked that's something people don't talk about a lot like when we talk about homemaker tasks we talk about cooking cleaning laundry but we don't talk about like the inventory yeah just keeping the inventory keeping the right things stock keeping the right amount of things all coming in that's a skill that definitely takes some refining and I think that's a good thing for kids to be around as well yeah I mean I think you would agree like we've learned that a little bit the hard way as we've like grown more in our kitchen skills and yeah to be able to empower your kids from a younger age to understand that sometimes it's literally just like oh my gosh we're out of oats again I didn't order enough of those or something like that where they're like oh that doesn't magically appear in the pantry that's interesting yeah exactly exactly and then if you can ever take it one step further and help them to learn where it even how do you even get to the grocery store that's something that we talk about on this show a lot too is figuring you know actually like learning where these things come from is is another thing that if you want to take it beyond like you were saying there's a lot outside of the meal that you can involve your kids in that's another thing is just like where this food even comes from how many trucks did it have to go on to get to the store before it was like brought to our house or yeah you know all of that yeah it's fascinating and kids love that kind of stuff right like they might not want to like talk about something more specific about like a recipe or even like where that recipe comes from but like if you're like do you know how many trucks this you know these oats had to be on before it got to our grocery store or you know was delivered to our house or whatever it's it's definitely like more speaking their language which I feel like is kind of what this is all about right it's just like getting on their level and like speaking to them in a way that they're excited to talk about it and they they care about it yeah yeah okay with Christmas coming up tell us about I don't know if you have any Christmas specific recipes that are going to come out on your blog what what what's there to look forward to on your website and tell us about your website and where we can start I'm looking at the family friendly dinner recipes because I can always use some inspiration on that yeah I will say on on that site on cook at home mom I don't have a ton of like holiday specific recipes okay although I mean I do have some side dishes and things like that um because it was a lot more like diet specific years previous I'm kind of untangling some of that and creating like more recipes but honestly I feel like during the holiday season is when you almost need to double down on like whatever habits you already do have for like meal planning meal prepping cooking at home because it's so crazy and busy that it's like you almost can't afford not to do those things that you're already doing or like try to build those habits because your time is just like that much more precious um so I mean really I would say if you are like where do I get started can I like have some recipes that you know I would enjoy like definitely looking at those family dinners because those are going to be the ones that you can make you know in between the holiday events in between the parties and like things like that when you're just like too exhausted to think like find one of those like under 30 minute recipes yeah I roll in a bowl is another one that's coming to mind um that we love to do because it's just ground turkey and like a little cabbage mixture you serve it over some rice or whatever you like to eat and it's just so easy but like you're gonna feel like you didn't have to like cut corners to have a good dinner um and I think that's just like one of the things that we need to learn is just we don't have to sacrifice and like eat boring food just because we don't have time or we need to eat healthy like you can have both of those things you can have delicious food on a time crunch on a budget crunch like whatever it is for your family um so yeah I would encourage people to start start there in that like family favorites that are like those family dinner recipes because those are definitely like what the site is all about now yeah easy stuff I see 30 minutes or less that's always good to get your wheels turning if you're in a pinch and I always tell people the first step is to have the meat thought out and then you can take any of these ideas and quickly jump on them so it's cookathomemom.com we will also leave it linked down below thank you so much Madison for sharing your your wisdom and your ideas with us yeah and I sorry I think I forgot to answer the second part of your question earlier like where people can go yeah um but yeah we actually so like you said cookathomemom.com is the website and then we also do have um our balanced dinner club which is a meal plan membership for busy families and basically the whole heart behind that was I just wanted to take the guesswork out for people like I we've talked about so many things that are just a part of eating dinner and there's so much that goes into thinking of what to eat for dinner what do I need to get at the store how do I make it do I have time for this does this fit my lifestyle and so the balanced dinner club is really designed to literally hand you the weeknight dinner recipes that you need that your family will love that you can fit into your lifestyle um so there's a tab on the website for that and I know it'll be in the show notes as well and then we are actually starting on youtube here soon so I would love people to go follow over there if they're watching on youtube and that's their thing um so that'll be cookathomemom over there as well oh exciting that's fun yeah awesome well yeah we will leave all of that linked below thank you so much thanks Lisa thanks as always for listening to the simple farmhouse life podcast my husband Luke and I and our kids work together side by side on our little homestead and use our blog podcast and youtube channel to reach other homemakers home cooks and homesteaders with practical recipes in daily family life for everyday sourdough recipes make sure to check out our blog farmhouse on boon.com and to dig deeper we do also offer a course called simple sourdough over at bit bit dot ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course that's all one word bit dot lee forward slash farmhouse sourdough course if you're looking to learn how we earn an income online check out my youtube course at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse youtube course all one word you