Has meal time got you down? Don’t fret! Audrey and Bonnie are back with another episode, this one all about the logistics behind feeding your wild ones.
Whether you struggle with what to feed your kids, how to avoid the dinner time hustle or how to maintain your sanity at the grocery store, we’ve got answers to help you cope!
Sweet Peas Meal Plan
Clean, Simple Eats Meal Plans
FODMAPs diet
Keto diet
Macro diet
Audrey’s Recommendation:
Eat Right for Your Blood Type
Bonnie’s Recommendations:
Cookie + Kate Blog (love her recipe book!)
Oh She Glows Blog (also love her book!)
Mel’s Kitchen Cafe (tried and true recipes for ALL the things)
Please support our podcast on Patreon
Automated audio transcription of this episode:
— Speaker 1 00:06 Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I’m Bonnie and I’m Audrey and we’re homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter regardless of where you are on your journey. Come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Speaker 0 00:28 <inaudible>
Speaker 2 00:31 hello. Welcome back to the podcast. Today is episode a 39 and we are talking about feeding all the children. Like the worst part about parenting. If you ask me. Yeah, what did they have to eat three times a day anyway? <inaudible> seriously, I seriously question the wisdom in that. Can’t they just eat once? Couldn’t that have been arranged that our bodies just need to eat once, but I mean, I like to eat three times a day, but not my children. Okay, so we’re gonna start off with a review. Audrey. Okay. All right. This one is from Sarah radiant home. She says fun and relatable. Bonnie and Adria obviously have fun chatting and the joy comes through in their conversations. I love the things I thought I’d never say segment. I need to start writing mine down to share. Oh, you really do. Because yeah, we’d love to hear this.
Speaker 2 01:18 These moms of many don’t mind sharing a peek into the everyday chaos in their homes. You’ll laugh and be encouraged listening to their stories and advice. No, thank you. Yes, that was so sweet. Thanks so much. Um, I, I also love writing down the funny things my kids say. Um, just because sometimes in the moment you’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that’s kinda funny. But then later on when you look back and you’re like, that was really hilarious. You know, sometimes in the chaos of parenting you don’t quite realize just how funny your kids are. That being said, I just have to share something really quick and this isn’t our humor segment. I just have to share this. The other night I was laying in bed. I hear my baby, I realized my four year old was in bed with us asleep. I get up to go get the baby and my four year old rolls over and goes, it’s okay mom. I’ll save your spot and then she rolls onto my
Speaker 3 02:04 hello. I’m like, uh, okay. So I get up, we need to maybe come back to bed. And sure enough she rolls off my pillow cause we might have back. Sweet thing. I had a really good laugh about that the next day I’m like, who was going? Okay nevermind. Okay so
Speaker 2 02:30 but onto our a real humor segment. This is hilarious. And this is from Taylor made Taylor’s on Instagram. Okay. This a little bit long. She says, I have an embarrassing mom story for you. We recently moved into the fixer upper on our road, a gorgeous 10 acre piece of land with an ugly never updated, 1970s ranch. All of our neighbors are new construction houses and my immediate next door neighbors had just finished construction on the most Joanna Gaines house ever built outside of Waco. The lady of the house is a cool mom, you know the type beautiful home and possibly cleaned car. My van is a disaster, perfect hair, perfect kids, et cetera. Her three kids were about the same age as my oldest three and I just want her to not think I’m weird. Every occasion I’ve had to run into her has ended poorly.
Speaker 2 03:11 This particular day I was driving my riding lawnmower with a wagon attached, nothing to see here. Just normal labors back to a dead Oak tree at the edge of our property to dump all our fall pumpkin’s in my wagon where three of my little homeschooled blessings as we approached the dumping spot, I saw her shiny black SUV come around the bend and head toward us. No, I whisper, screamed just under the sound of my lawnmower. Put put flooding. I had no makeup on. My hair was greasy and falling out of the haphazard ponytail. I looked the part of the weird neighbor. My girl spotted their car and ran across the field to greet their friends. They stood a hundred or so feet from me and played while I dumped old pumpkins and prayed. I wouldn’t have to be seen up close just then. My oldest yelled back at me, can we play neighbor? Mom said, it’s fine with me. I said, sure, it sounds good. Please just let me go home and shower real quick. My daughter shouted. Well, I just wasn’t sure if I was contagious or not. Me. Confused, confused, but still shouting. You’re not even sick. Oldest daughter. Yes. Speaker 2 04:12 Sh —
— e says I died there that day. I putt, putted back home on my riding mower with my empty wagon. But I left what dignity I had in that field. I have properly leaving on that line there. Leave the diarrhea, talk at home. Teles so awesome. Oh, thank you for sharing. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Okay, so we’re going to move on and talk to you guys about the feeding time at the zoo. And I hope you guys like the title of this. Uh, this episode, it was particularly funny to us, but this episode is brought to you by sweet peas meals. So this is a meal plan that I personally use for my family. It is a weekly plan emailed on Thursdays and it includes six family dinners, a grocery list with everything you need, a handful of sides, a drink, and an occasional dessert recipe, and they’re all delicious.
Speaker 2 05:11 Um, they come with a great combination of vegetarian and different protein meals. And, um, my kids almost always love what we have. I say almost always. Cause is there a child that always loves what you put in front of them? Absolutely not. But this one is a pretty dang close to five stars as far as my kids come. So we will put a link for these, this meal plan in the show notes. So when we talk about feeding our children, um, we came up with this idea because we just know that it is probably one of the top three stressors in any mom’s life is the feeding of these children. Whether you have one or 13, it just takes a lot of, um, mental effort, takes a lot of preparation, takes a lot of time and makes a big mess. So I know it’s a stressor for everyone.
Speaker 2 05:54 In fact, people are always asking, okay, if you had all the money in the world, you could hire full time help for one task in your household, what would it be? And I have a lot of people pick cleaning. A lot of people pick chauffeur service, but I would pick meal planning and chef service hands down every single day. I actually enjoy cooking, but not for my children because I know my comment tagline when I have company over is that and they’re like, Oh thanks, this was so good. I, I always say, you know, I just enjoy cooking for people who don’t say, how many bites do I have to eat? Can I be done yet? This is gross. Exactly. Thank you. There was a time in our early marriage that I subscribed to bone Appetit magazine because I love that magazine. They have some of the most decadent things.
Speaker 2 06:40 I’m definitely a foodie. I could eat a different meal every day of my life. And um, the other day I was just thinking I will never have a reason to make a gourmet meal again in my life. Nobody cares. And the nice thing is actually my oldest two do appreciate like really good food now, especially my second he is, he’s my foodie too. He’ll go out to sushi with us or something, but it’s really disheartening. So we totally get that. Today we are going to talk specifically about what to eat, what to feed your kids and grocery shopping, meal prepping, the actual cooking and cleanup. So talking in depth about all these things could take us forever. And if you want to know more information specifically about one of these areas, let us know. Email us out number the podcast@gmail.com or leave us a review and we can go in depth on another episode, but we’re going to just kind of give a broad pass on all these things and the things that help us out.
Speaker 2 07:27 Yes, we’re looking forward to talking about this with you and um, I feel like I’m a little further along in my family and food journey than you because I have kids who are old enough to be interested in food. Sometimes when they hit those teenage years, girls especially, they get really interested in cooking and trying new things and that’s kind of fun because then sometimes you get a night off or a meal off every once in a while. Yes, yes. Yeah. But I definitely remember, it seems like the baby always gets fussy when it’s time to cook supper or you know, so you’re trying to cook separate and jiggle baby at the same time and you’re just already, you know, frustrated over a hundred different things that are involved in feeding this family and keeping them alive. So, yeah, totally understand. And then add in the picky eating situation that we covered that in depth in episode 13. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Like make you Insta institutes some forced intermittent fasting in your family. No kids is good for you. That’s it. We’re never eating again. It’s all your fault. So we’re —
— going to address all these just broadly, um, all these stressors today, but we’re going to start with what to feed your kids. So I know you say what to feed your kids. The first thing everyone thinks about is like Mac and cheese, whatever they’ll eat. I don’t care. Um, but really a lot of us, most of us I think have some pretty lofty aspirations, um, as far as what we would like our kids to eat. But we fail for a number of reasons, mostly because kids won’t
Speaker 4 08:56 eat things the first time we served them or sometimes the fourth or fifth time we serve them. And that can be really frustrating when you know what’s healthy or you’re trying to learn about what’s healthy, um, and feed them accordingly and they just won’t cooperate. Yeah. Yeah. To reiterate some really good points that we set in our picky eating episode is, um, don’t buy the junk and because I always choose that first, just don’t have it available. And when they get hungry they’ll have to pluck up the courage to try something that’s more nutrient dense that you have provided and slaved over and sweated over and spent time on for them. Right, right. Yup. Yes. So tips for picking a diet strategy for your family. Um, ours have evolved over the years and every family of course is going to look different because everybody’s different diet Terry needs, you might remember us discussing with Delia in our mother’s day episode on, um, her allergies that her daughter has and that has a huge effect on the way that she cooks and shops.
Speaker 4 09:56 And feeds her family. Um, so, you know, lots of families have different dietary needs, allergy needs and so on. Um, our personal family way of eating has evolved over the years. Um, trial and error. Uh, of course we have favorite foods, um, things we like to eat
and things we don’t like to eat. But again, like we talked about in our picky eating episode, we try to introduce a wide variety of food just to introduce and have available a wide variety of
nutrients. Um, we have discovered one pretty hard and fast thing that nothing good comes from sugar. And one thing I’m trying to do is not use sugar as a reward for my kids. Like it’s really
hard because you know, they almost never have it. So ice cream is a huge motivator for them because they almost never have it except in the sauna, right?
Speaker 4 10:46 That’s right. Oh, sorry. That’s a reference back to our, um, episode on emergencies. And we have sauna in the basement ice cream when there’s tornadoes. However, other than that, and my kids don’t get ice cream very often. So it is a, a big reward. And a big motivator, but I’m trying to come up with other ways to reward them than sugar because sugar isn’t a good thing that I want my kids to be looking forward to, are rewarded with. And this is such a struggle for me because they automatically see it that day. They had that way. They have a sweet tooth. We all, we all have, you know, the sweet sensation in our mouth. So anyway, I was still working on that one. Yeah, same here. It seems like the only thing that really truly motivates my kids is sugar or electronic usage. So two things I want to, I would like completely eliminate from their life if I could write, but that’s tricky.
Speaker 4 11:37 Yeah. And food especially comes with some emotions and can create some issues later on. So that’s a tricky one. Yes, absolutely. Um, you want to introduce good habits when they’re young, around food and around the emotion and all that so that they don’t struggle with that when they’re older. And that emotional eating thing, I mean, you know, there are some emotions attached to food because it’s what keeps us alive. So we have found one thing is that the fewer carbohydrates and sugar that we have, the more nutrient dense, the better, healthier that we eat. Actually the less hungry our kids are, the less food they require. So we don’t really have to have snacks in between meals, um, very often anymore because, um, that they’re, their nutrients are holding them from one meal to the next. And that’s always nice because then it’s like you never get out of the kitchen if you do breakfast and then a snack and then lunch and a snack and supper and a bedtime snack and you know, then you’re just never out of the kitchen. So that is kind of a nice thing. More nutrient dense means they actually need less food.
Speaker 2 12:44 Yeah. We have also had kind of a trial and error path on finding the be —
— st diet for our family. We did, uh, w we like to focus on plant based foods just because I feel a lot better when I’m doing that. Um, for years we, um, you know, tried to eliminate a lot of meat. Same with, um, eliminating sugar or trying to do that. Uh, but the one thing that we have succeeded at over and over is to avoid the processed stuff. So just getting in the habit of making things from scratch. Yes, it takes more time. It takes a little bit more effort, but the reward is really, really worth it. Um, same with Audrey. We just don’t buy snack type foods. We don’t buy chips or cookies or junk like that because that’s the first thing they eat. You know, if there’s a bag of chips in the house, it will be gone in 30 seconds and my kids will be starving for the rest of the day.
Speaker 2 13:31 You know, it’s like nothing worth it. Also. It all makes the biggest mess ever. So do you want pretzels? No, we’re not buying pretzels. Sorry. Tough life. Um, and then we’ve also had to look into a handful of specialty diets for kids with needs. So we’ve had a couple of kids with some dairy intolerances, which is what made us look into more of a plant based diet for a while. Um, another kid we, um, use the FODMAPs diet for for awhile. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but no, I haven’t heard that. Very common for kids with um, irritable bowel syndrome or other digestive issues. And I highly recommend that one, it’s not a longterm diet. It’s usually a short term one that you use for several months until they clear up whatever bacteria or issue is causing them problems. But there are lots and lots of dietary solutions for lots and lots of issues. So if your family’s struggling with something, I encourage you to research and see if you can find something that will work for you guys.
Speaker 4 14:23 Right, exactly. Um, we have tried many different things through the years as well. Um, one thing we can link this book in the show notes is eat right for your blood type and um, we, we don’t go 100% buy that, um, buy that book because it’s, Oh, there’s this kind of some weird unavailable foods that are on blood type lists. Like for example, ostrich, you know, where are you going to find out? Yeah.
Speaker 2 14:49 Well I think you should raise some Audrey.
Speaker 4 14:51 Okay. Well. Yeah, but that is one thing that has helped us figure out some different things with different kids. Like for example, for an a blood type. Um, if they have hot water with fresh lemon juice, squeezed in it in the morning, that will help them through the whole day, um, with some stomach building, stomach acid and some dietary needs. Uh, for example, type O, um, if I have, I have, Hmm. I dunno, four or five typo blood type kids and if they’re
getting out of sorts, if they’re getting frustrated or hungry or crying a lot, I know that immediately that protein will, um, clear up their behavioral issues with, uh, with typo. They’re the meat eater, you know. So anyway, sometimes you can figure out a little thing with a kid from the eat right for your blood type book. Hm. Currently, what’s going on in our family is we have switched, um, two of the little boys, we call them two of the youngest boys onto the keto diet.
Speaker 4 15:53 And, um, it’s 20 grams of carbs or less per day high, high protein, high fat. And the reason we’re doing this is because, um, one of our little boys was exhibiting, um, some pretty severe reactions. He would get hives whenever he got around. Um, chemicals, long backstory on that with that we’re going to skip for now. But, um, like for example, you know, we have farm fields around us and if the farmer had sprayed in some of it, um, you know, he happened to brush the plant on the field. He would break out in hives or something. Really, it was getting pretty severe and we’re worried about it. So we decided, um, there was something inside of him that was making his body react this way and we decided to do a big cleanse using the keto diet. So, um, he has had no sugar and no carbs and it hasn’t broken out in hives. Speaker 4 16:46 Um, for, since he’s been on the diet actually, well once or twice afterwards as he was cleansing out. But we went ahead and put our second little boy on it because, well, for one, these two little boys, what one does, the other one does? They’re like inseparable. And to the second little boy. Um, we had him at the dentist and he had some cavities in, uh, one o —
— f his back molars and they were giving him a lot of pain. Well, put them on a keto diet with no sugar and there’s no pain because there’s nothing back there to yeah. To cause the trigger that the nerve or whatever until we could get him to the dentist and get it filled. Well, when we put them on the keto diet, he instantly stopped complaining about the pain in his tooth because he wasn’t getting any sugar. And so we haven’t actually gotten the cavity filled yet because he doesn’t even act like it’s there anymore. Yeah. Interesting side benefit of that, of that. Interesting. But anyways, so my husband was also doing the keto diet and our oldest daughter, so it, people were already doing it in the family, so it was easy to throw a couple more kids on that dietary restriction.
Speaker 2 17:55 So do you, um, prepare separate things for them or does everybody pretty much eat that way now?
Speaker 4 18:00 Um, we’re pretty close to all eating that way. Um, with a few caveats. Um, we do provide a little bit of, uh, more carbs for the others. Um, for myself personally, the keto diet is pretty dairy centric because there’s so much fat and protein and dairy. And I’m avoiding dairy because the baby gets more colicky or spit ups and gets all these issues if I’m too much, too intense on dairy. And so, um, I’m not able to do the keto diet, so we all eat the same meat and vegetables. But then, you know, some of us will have, you know, like maybe a piece of cornbread or something along with our ribs and gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, so not everybody’s on it, but, but I’m not specifically fixing special foods for them except for fat bombs. They love fat bombs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. Okay.
Speaker 4
evolved is
the family.
the family,
sugar and
a big effect on the way that we eat. And um, a lot of anecdotal stories from people coming in and saying, Hey, you know, I noticed that such and such radishes eating radishes helped clear up my gallbladder pain. And so, you know, that that sort of thing.
18:52 So the one thing that has had a huge effect on how our family’s diet has that I’m, my husband’s family has had a health food store, um, before I married into Uh, like he grew up eating this way. And so, um, I didn’t, but since I’ve married into
I’ve really, you know, seen the benefits of eating healthy and nutrient dense and low low carbon, all that. And so I’m having the health food business in the family has had
Speaker 2 19:36 Yeah. And I think the big takeaway from what you’re saying is that there really are specific foods that help certain ailments and specific diets that are better for certain people than others. So it always kind of frustrates me to see a diet trend really gained popularity and everybody think I’m going to try it because I really do think that everybody’s body functions best on, you know, a certain base of foods and it’s up to us to kind of figure that out. Obviously you can’t do that for each and every one of your kids. Probably the best way they should because you would be driving yourself crazy, making 14 different meals. I’m not going to do that. But as you experiment with different things, you can kinda tell. Like Audrey said, I can tell my kids do really poorly when they eat a ton of sugar or a ton of refined carbs.
Speaker 2 20:21 They’re often hungry all the time when they’re snacking on, on breads and crackers and those sorts of things. Um, so just, you know, don’t give up if there’s something that is really frustrating you about your children’s behavior or, or how they approach food. There’s always a way I think I really feel like there’s always a way to fix it. Um, just a side note, the child had to go on that FODMAPs diet and I was talking about, used to be my pickiest child and we went and saw a holistic doctor and he was, look, I think he’s dealing with this kind of bacteria. You should try this diet up for awhile. And his pickiness will probably improve because he’s no longer craving the stuff that’s feeding the bacteria, right? So we get him on this diet and like three, four, five months in all of a sudden the kid was experimenting.
Speaker 2 21:04 Like I had never seen him experiment. He would try any kind of vegetable, any kind of, um, he didn’t like mixed foods, you know, and he would try anything. And I thought that is so fascinating to me. I just thought he was a picky eater for life and he’s definitely not, not like that now. So all very interesting. Yeah —
— . Um, so we’re gonna move on to meal planning and grocery shopping a little bit. Um, like I mentioned at the beginning, I use, uh, the sweet peas meal plan for my family. Actually a combination right now we’re using some of those meals and some of the clean, simple eats meals. Um, just for my own fitness goals, um, because it’s like a macro based meal plan. But a meal plan can really be a huge key in simplifying your family’s eating process. So you can, you can even do it yourself with your family’s favorite meal.
Speaker 2 21:50 So I’ve done in the past, done this in the past, let’s say there are five meals that my family is obsessed with. I decided this week we’re on every one of those meals. I write down all the ingredients for them. I make sure that we have them at the beginning of the of the week. And then I do some meal prepping, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. But it’s really not as difficult as it seems. The important thing is that you plan ahead and that you get the groceries for every meal ahead of time as well. So you’re never scrambling at four 35 36 30 going, shoot, everybody’s starving. What are we gonna make? You know? And I feel like it eliminates a huge portion of that stress at dinner time. And sometimes we feel pressured to come up with a ton of meals or get a meal plan that has tons of variety. And I personally do like variety because I’m kind of a foodie. But really I think most people only eat probably 10 to 15 different types of dinners. We’re mostly just talking about dinner. Um, in a month and then you just rotate them. Right. Most of us just have a handful that we really enjoy and as long as they’re fairly nutritious, there’s no point. There’s no problem with repeating them over and over again, especially if it’s something you know, your kid will like. So. Okay.
Speaker 4 22:53 Yeah. Uh, yeah, I totally agree about having a meal plan. If you don’t have a plan, you’re just so like, I’m just gonna say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Yeah. So my daughters, my teenage daughters and I will sit down at the beginning of the week and plan out our meal and um, we actually do it on our phone with our reminders. We have one title groceries and one titled dinner and we just, one of us will be on dinner cause we share, we sync our phones. So one of us will be on dinner and one of us be on groceries and say, okay, let’s have inch Valadez on Tuesday and then the one on groceries and say, okay, for that we need tortillas and we need ground beef and we need, okay. So just working, working through it together. Um, it’s so much nicer to have somebody to help plan with instead of, you know, trying to come it up, come up with it all by myself.
Speaker 4 23:42 Um, make your plan meal plan though when you’re not hungry. Um, or maybe make it when you are hungry because you’ll think of different things. I mean, try it both ways and see which one works better for you. Definitely don’t go grocery shopping. If you’re hungry, you’ll come home with your bill. Double the size you want it to be. Yeah. And mostly just donuts. Yeah. Whatever looks about that day. Yeah. And it’s not like you, your mind thinks, okay, I got my donuts, now I can just stick to my list. You’re like, Oh, cashews. And then the next day you’re like, Oh, cinnamon rolls in the next Valley. Yeah. Yep. So you can also get input from your kids and your husband. Um, what do they want to eat this week? Say I’m tired of thinking of meals. You guys decide what we’re going to eat this week and since that’s something new and different for them, they can get, they can all get up excited about that. And then we always start with our meat or our main dish and then plan aside in a vegetable to go with that. But it’s just somewhere to start. It’s just where we start and we start with the meat and then plan what would taste good with it or what we haven’t had for a while or what’s growing in the garden, et cetera. Speaker 2 24:50 Yeah. What’s in season, what’s on sale. Yeah, totally. Um, I love the idea of asking your family with their ideas too, because sometimes we feel really pressured to come up with it on their own, on our own, but really they’re the ones that are going to be complaining about it. We might as well ask them what they want. And it’s a really good life skill too, to say, okay, we need four meals for this week because we’re going to be eating out one day and going to grandma’s one day, whatever, come up —
— with four meals. And then I always give my kids a few requirements. So they have to have a vegetable, they have to have a protein, they have to be something that at least five kids will like, you know, so no, it can’t just be cereal. It can’t just be, you know, whatever they, they want to choose.
Speaker 2 25:30 Um, moving into grocery shopping. So in a perfect world, I drive all over town for the best prices and the highest quality and my favorite products. But in real life, grocery delivery is my best friend actually did strictly grocery delivery for a long time and it was fantastic. Um, and then I found my local Kroger store did, um, you know, their ClickList, the, the, the pickup, which Walmart also does. So I do that almost exclusively now because I really liked the produce and the offerings there. They have a lot of healthy options, but I can do it all online. So I meal plan, I write up my grocery list and I, and I do it on my phone right then and then I pick it up or my husband picks up on his way home from work. And that’s usually on a Saturday or on a Monday and then we have it for the whole week. But honestly you guys, that has been a game changer in getting my act together because I hated grocery shopping so much. It was absolutely my least favorite thing to do of all the meal planning activities that I would put it off and put it off and then it’d be Thursday we’re completely out of food. Everybody’s hungry. I’m more frustrated at dinner time because there’s nothing to do. So huge, huge, huge resource. If it’s available in your area, I highly recommend a grocery pickup or grocery delivery.
Speaker 4 26:44 Yeah, I haven’t ever tried it yet, but I can see how it would be so helpful just so that, um, like for example, I asked my husband or one of my teenagers to pick up cottage cheese and they bring home the wrong kinds, you know, and then just stuck with it or whatever. So it’d be really useful in the, in that, in that way. Okay. So my grocery shopping tips and hacks, although I have to say my husband does the majority now because he really enjoys it. And also because it helps cut down on the, the amount spent because he, he doesn’t, you know, see chocolate and wanted or wa or whatever. That’s funny. My husband does have impulse purchases. He comes home with extra ice cream all the time. But, but I will say the grocery delivery also really cuts down on, on impulse.
Speaker 4 27:30 Um, you just as an I, I rarely go over my budget now. It’s pretty great. Yeah. I think my husband also enjoys the social aspect of grocery shopping, um, seeing people and being around and whatever. And we also do like Costco once a month, so like a big Costco trip. And then, um, so before we go grocery shopping, we check and see what we have and you know, make our meal plan off of that and then go, you know, get what we need. Uh, I also have my teenagers, um, if they’re on their way home from work or I’ll send my card with them and have them pick up, you know, in between items that I just ran out of or whatever. But this is the way that I used to grocery shop when I did the grocery shopping and it was pretty effective. So I’m going to share it.
Speaker 4 28:14 It might work for you if you don’t have grocery pickup in your area. So I would let my kids make one request. One thing they wanted before we went in, they had to think of it while we were still in the vehicle and they could have basically whatever they requested, but they had to think of it so that it wouldn’t be an impulse purchase or they just wanted it because they saw it and they usually came up with pretty healthy stuff. Like, Oh, I want to get apples this week. Okay. And then the next go to say, well, can we get gum this week? And, okay. So they, but then they weren’t allowed to ask for anything else in the store and it gets cut down on me having to decide if they could have that thing because grocery shopping is all about decision making when you’re there.
Speaker 4 28:53 Right. You know, you’ve got five brands of peanut butter, crunchy, creamy, all this and you’re doing all this decision making. Then some kid is yapping in your ear because you’re sitting next to the jelly, but by the peanut butter can we have this guy, you know? Uh, so it helps with the decision making cut down on that. So they would all get one request before we went in and if they asked for anything else in the store, then they wouldn’t get the thing that t —
— hey requested. Oh, I like that. I like, yeah, that helped them out. And then the way I would do it was I would push the cart and I would have the kids that were too little to walk or keep up or couldn’t be trusted to do the next thing that I’m going to say in the cart or having to have one hand on the cart.
Speaker 4 29:37 And I would push the cart and I would say to my helpers. So these were usually Oh eight and above, I would say tortillas and they would run and get the tortillas and come back as I’m pushing the cart past and the next one K cottage cheese. And that one, that helper wouldn’t often get the cottage cheese. And the next one I would say, okay, great at cheese and you know, as we, and I would just keep walking. It wasn’t like, you know, a fast walk, but I would just keep walking and pushing the cart and never stopping and sending off a little runner runner here, runner there. And um, so it was, we would get through really fast without them getting lost. They felt like they were on a mission with mom. We would time ourselves, how fast can we get through this time? You know? And yeah. And so it was just our way of grocery shopping. We got the job done without a lot of impulse purchases and with them helping me instead of wandering off or begging for things. And it was for several years when I couldn’t leave kids at home or have a help or do grocery shopping for me, that was what worked for us. So anyway, I just went through that in depth because it might help somebody else do. Speaker 2 30:42 Yes, I love that idea. And kids are always wanting to help and they’re much more useful running to grab something than they are holding under the cart or doing whatever you’re asking them to do, which is not fun. I recently went to the grocery store with my six youngest kids, which was, you know, in hindsight, a terrible idea. <inaudible> been a long time since I grocery shop with that many little children and in the produce aisle, you know, I’m wearing the baby, I’ve got two toddlers melting down on the floor, a couple others are fighting in the cart. And this lady comes up to me and goes, Oh honey, I will pray for you. I was like, ah, okay, thanks for that. That was helpful. So grocery shopping can be stressful. I totally get it. Um, but we’re gonna move on to talking about meal prepping.
Speaker 2 31:24 So this is a step that not everyone takes an admittedly, I don’t always take it either, but it can be huge in helping eliminate or at least less than that dinnertime stress because the big jobs are already done. So, uh, the, the key for this is to choose a day ahead of time that you’re gonna do every time. So like Saturday, Sunday, Monday, usually sometime towards the end of the beginning of the week is helpful. Um, and you write a list of all the things you need to do to get your meals mostly ready for the rest of the week. So some ideas are cooking, the things that take a long time. So grains, meats, beans, things that need to simmer or, or pressure cooker saw or whatever. You work on those that day. Um, and then chopping vegetables and you can store them in the fridge making sauces or like salad dressings ahead of time.
Speaker 2 32:16 Anything that is going to stress you out at five 30 when everybody is starving and there’s a baby thing on your leg or three, um, it can be so helpful. So this week, admittedly this was the first time I’d meal prepped in a long time and I was like, when it was time to eat, I’m like, Oh my gosh, pull this out, pull this out, pull this out, throw it together, done. It was so nice. So if that’s something that you’re really, really stressing with is that dinnertime hustle and you don’t have a lot of help or even if you do have a lot of help, you can, you can assign it out as well. Hey meal prep day, you’re, you’re cooking chicken, you’re doing this, you’re mixing this, whatever. And that being said, if you have kid helpers, but there it’s too stressful to have them help during the dinnertime rush. Help. Having them help on a meal prep day is so much nicer. They can take their time, they can make a message, they can screw things up and it doesn’t matter cause there’s no pressure of it’s time to eat right now. It’s not done, you know. Speaker 4 33:08 Yeah. Yeah. That’s such a good idea. Um, we don’t do as much meal prep as when I’m prep, when I’m making dinners. I wish I would have done. Yeah, right. Yeah. Oh, I saw Jordan Page on Instagram. She’s —
— doing shelf timber and I know this episode is going to air after she’s done, but she, I think she has a highlight. You can go back and look it over and she’s eating out of the supplies that she has and getting real creative with it and going like going through her refrigerator and only spending, I think what, $25 a week. And they have, they have a bunch of kids. So anyway, interesting. Just how to get creative with, you know, okay, we’re not going to buy any groceries this week. What do we have here that we can eat? Um, so enter in creativity.
Speaker 2 33:54 Yeah. And in addition to that, what that does is it helps stretch your creativity for the future. So like right now you’re scrambling to see what you can make with, you know, ground beef and carrots and some random salad dressing leftover, but maybe next month you’ll have those same supplies and say, Hey, actually remember that meal we came up with that was kinda good. You know? So I really, I really love the fields that can be used in a, in a challenge like that.
Speaker 4 34:19 Yeah. Yeah. One thing I do to help, um, or I used to do more often it was I’m subscribed to food magazines. You said bone Appetit. I used to subscribe to the Martha Stewart, um, her everyday food one. And those were shorter, shorter to prepare meals, but still really good recipes. And, um, so yeah, you subscribed to different people on Instagram who have
really awesome food feeds or whatever, just to kind of break you out of your routine. It’s something we do for prep is, um, and we do this especially like when we’re getting ready for an event where I won’t be able to help in the kitchen as much like, you know, the birth of a child or travel. Um, if you’re making supper and lasagna is on the list, make two lists on yes and freeze one. Um, so whatever meal you’re making, you can make to have that meal and put one away in the freezer for later in the week or for later in the month or whatever. So that is one way that we do prep. Often, as you know, we’re going through all this effort. It doesn’t take that much more time or effort to make two and stick one in the freezer. And then we’ll be so glad we did when
it’s, you know, a busy night and we all come home and we’re tired and all we do is pull it out in Vegas. So that’s one way we do prep.
Speaker 2 35:33 Nothing quite like a finished meal waiting for you in the freezer. We actually use to do that a lot more in the past. But now my family’s gotten to the point where we kind of need one and a half, 13 by nine inch pans for Dan. So I’m like, I make three, this is going to be true. Um, but yeah, I love, love, love that idea. And you’ll get to the point where you need to nine by 13 pants. Yeah. Right. It’s funny cause like it just kinda snuck up on us. I remember for years where like my kids aren’t even really eating that much more than we were when we only had three little ones. But all of a sudden it hit us and I’m like, Oh my gosh, you guys eat so much. Vode uh, we used to just buy like a pound, a pound and a half of fish when we had like salmon
or something. And now my kids like clear through that in about five seconds and they’re like, where’s the rest? I’m like, Oh, okay. You guys like that? That’s tricky.
Speaker 4 36:22 Yeah. I remember when two guns of hamburger was enough to feed our family.
Speaker 2 36:26 Yeah. Seriously. Seriously means they’re growing kids. That’s good. Yeah. So we’re gonna move on to a few tips for cooking on the day of. So you know, whenever you’re cooking that day is dinner or whatever. We mentioned having kids help, but like I said, this is
only helpful if they’re actually kids that can help, if that makes sense. So usually that means kids over eight or 10 if possible. We have started doing, um, at least one day a week where my husband’s in charge, which I love. It means I don’t think about what we’re having. I don’t think about whether we have the ingredients for it. He does everything, which is awesome. It’s on the weekend obviously when he’s home. But um, or, um, we’ve also chosen days for each kid to help. So like I think I talked about in a previous episode, each day of the week is assigned to one of my children that their like special day to say all the prayers and to pick the favorite seed or whatever.
Speaker 2 37:18 That’s also their day to help with dinner. So, um, if I’m working or I’m busy with something, that person starts stuff and the older ones —
— can go from start to finish and do the whole thing. But the younger ones obviously can maybe just chop something with a butter knife and then I come help them finish or whatever. So that’s pretty, pretty great. Um, and, and then the other thing that’s really helped me on the day of is choosing a time to start dinner. So this is, you know, when I’m trying to plan on how to get someplace on time, I work backwards, right? Like I have to be there at five, I gotta leave at four 45, you know, same thing with dinner. So I’ll think, okay, this dinner is actually gonna take more like an hour and a half to make it a little bit more labor intensive. I’m going to have to start this at four 30 and most days at four 30 I’m not thinking about starting dinner yet. You know, it’s like, Oh, six o’clock shoot, we got to get moving. So to think, especially specific days like this is a little faster, this a little sh a little bit longer to plan ahead so that you’re not caught unawares and defrosting meat at 6:00 PM.
Speaker 4 38:13 Yeah, that’s a lot like what we do. I think I mentioned in an earlier episode, we have a four o’clock afternoon short-time and that’s the point where my daughters, and I’ll talk about how long it’s gonna take to prepare separate and when we need to get started in that, that sort of thing. But my husband has taken over a lot of the cooking of the meat because man, he’s so at it. Um, he got a smoker and, um, I tell you what, we have been eating high on the hog, sort of pun intended here, but he’s, he’s has been smoking brisket and ribs and steaks and bacon and you name it. He’ll throw it in the smoker and smoke it or he’ll, you know, text us from work, Hey, go turn on the smoker to this many degrees and throw in some steaks and I’ll finish them on the grill when I get home or something.
Speaker 4 39:07 So he just, man, he’s so good at it. That sounds often, I think it’s, yeah, I think it’s part of the Quito dye that he’s on that I’m like, he’s just really craving these, these good foods and they’re, they’re really good and he can make them really good because he’s hungry for them and yeah. Yeah. So he has done, taken over a lot of like the meat part of the cooking for dinner and um, so then we’ll, we’ll do like the vegetable or whatever else we’re going to have with it. And then, um, we also split obligations. So, you know, we’ll talk about it with my daughters or with, you know, whoever’s helping me that day. Okay, I’ll do the vegetable all, you know, steam some broccoli and why don’t you make some biscuits to go with it or whatever and we’ll just split up the obligations.
Speaker 4 39:54 Um, we’ve also gone back to our chore card system that I talked about in one of our first episodes in kids in chores. And it’s working out really well because we’ll have, instead of a helper for the day, we’ll have a like a kitchen helper for the week and it’s their responsibility. If the dishwasher needs emptied, they empty it. And if you know, mom needs help make an a meal, then they’re the helper and for, for the whole week, um, and then to get kids ready for the responsibility of running their own home. I do give my kids a meal responsibility for the week. Like they get a tour card that says lunch. And so I usually give the the lunch card to somebody who’s not very good at meals yet because it’s a meal that they can, um, mess up on and it doesn’t really matter cause dad’s not there.
Speaker 4 40:41 And you know, the older kids are going off to college, there’s less mouths to feed and everybody’s had breakfast and we’ll get supper, you know, and a snack in between if they need it, if they’re still hungry. But it’s kind of a meal you can mess up on and, and not be as important. And then another kid will have the breakfast. Sure cards. So breakfast and lunch are usually a kid cooking or, or taking the responsibility for cooking. Um, so it does give me a break and when I have, um, like I have more energy or more creativity to put into the meal that I’m responsible for instead of, uh, this is another meal that I have to cook and I’m so tired from just, I just cleaned it bugs. Nothing bugs me more than just being in the kitchen, washing the last dish and some kid want us or, Hey mom, I’m hungry. What can I eat
Speaker 2 41:34 there is, how about a knuckle sandwich? Good. Just kidding. So moving on to the last portion and that’s the cleanup. <inaudible> excellent meal. Mom said no one ever —
— know. Go clean it up all by herself. So what’s worked out fairly well for us for the last couple of years. We’ve finally hit on something that’s worked for us. Granted, my kids had been little for, you know, most of their lives. So now we’re having some success with, uh, a chore chart that gives kids a dish responsibility that they’re stuck with the whole week. Like you were saying. So, you know, Liam will be on setting and clearing the table and sweeping every day that week the next person will be on unloading the dishwasher and putting dishes away all week, you know, so I know who to get after if it’s not done. Um, and I love the week long thing because it’s enough time for them to really learn how to do it, but not so long that they just get so burned out, they won’t do it anymore.
Speaker 2 42:32 So that’s works really well for us. Um, and it helps that, um, it includes a job for getting dinner on the table. So even when kids haven’t been helping and I’m doing all of dinner on my own, someone still has to set the table, fill the waters, et cetera. And that’s how, because if they don’t pitch in, we can’t eat right. Nobody really cares about clean-out, but everybody cares about eating. So that’s really, that’s really helpful to have someone help you get it on the table. Um, and then when it comes to clean up, we’ve started instigating the like no one leaves the kitchen or no one goes to do anything fun until clean up is done. So even for the little kids can’t start a game, can’t have dessert, can’t do anything until everything’s done. So they’re either pitching in or egging on the older kids, come on, come on, come on. You know. Um, and you know, we don’t watch TV every night or eat dessert every night, but there’s always a little something read books together or play a card game or something. So it really helps to have a little bit of a break to make them do that. So then we can have some family time together. Yeah. Speaker 4 43:32 Okay. Similar at our house, everybody helps clean up the dining room in the dining room, which includes cleaning off the table, vacuuming the floor if it needs it, putting the food away, that kind of thing. And then in the kitchen we kind of split the responsibilities for, for kitchen cleanup between, you know, my daughter and I and whoever’s the kitchen helper. Our kitchen isn’t really big enough to have everybody in there at one time. Help me clean up. So as an aside, the other day on Instagram, Lilly shine creates, Rue mentioned that at their house, whoever cooks doesn’t clean up. So if you cook you don’t clean up and if you don’t cook then you clean up. Which I love that I could get behind that. And my husband had recently instituted the sink is the last dish policy, just trying to get the idea that, you know, just because the dishes are done in the and the kitchen is not cleaned up or the sinks not cleaned out. You know, you’ve gotta gotta take it all the way. So the sink is the last dishes was something we’ve been saying around here a lot.
Speaker 2 44:28 Yeah. Yeah. Or my kids think that as soon as the dishwasher’s running, the dish job is done, I’m like, ah. Yet there’s still three pots, two pans and like you still have to do the hand dishes and you got to get it all cleaned up. I and and are are saying is your job’s not done if they’re stumped it unless the thing’s empty basically. Oh, okay. Okay. So we are going to finish up with just a few recommendations for you. Audrey, you want to do yours first? Yeah, sure. I mentioned the eat right.
Speaker 4 44:56 Well the type book, um, and I guess that’s all I have right now.
Speaker 2 45:01 Okay, perfect. I am actually not going to list the titles but I have four or five favorite cookbooks and blogs that I go to over and over. Some of them are on the healthier side that have helped us make some good choices. Like I said, eating more plant based, which is what we really enjoy. And then um, also other ones are just very, very family friendly. So I’ll include those in, in the show notes as well. Thanks so much for joining us guys. I hope that some of our tips have helped lessen your dinnertime stress and make you not hate meals quite so much as to before all this talk about food has made me hungry. I think I might go make supper. Yeah, I’m 10 of that. Got me too.
Speaker 0 45:38 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 45:41 thanks so much for tuning in. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, we’d be so gr —
— ateful if you’d leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us@outnumberthepodcastatgmail.com and find us on Instagram at outnumbered the podcast. See you next week.
Speaker 0
Speaker 4
Speaker 2
was what I call it of Hey, but you know, I saw something really cool.
Speaker 4 46:19 Um, Lily Cheyenne creates on Instagram. She just said this as a, uh, by side the other day and that’s not my word. A a by the way, an aside.
45:57 <inaudible>
46:03 um, ah, why am I losing my train of thought today?
46:08 I dunno, but it’s better than just talking like diarrhea, like verbal diarrhea. It
Speaker 2 46:30 <inaudible> there you go. Good job. She said, just as an answer, try to use my word now. Use your big words. Good job.
Speaker 0 46:50 <inaudible>.
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