You are busy, tired and burned-out by the end of the day. I get it. I really do.

But, family meals are too important to skip. Eating together has always played a key role in training kids and keeping families healthy.

If you don’t know, we spend a lot of time together as a family. Even when Knick is busy with coaching and I’m stretched thin, we still eat 99% of our dinners together. It is easier to do this with little kids, since they will be busy themselves as they get older. But, eating together requires prioritizing family meals at all times. Understanding the importance of eating together as a family and how you can make that easier is the first step to establishing that priority.

September is National Family Meals Month and I am so excited to partner with the FMI Foundation to bring you this post on family meals.

Keep reading for some helpful tips and inspiration to get you started on making those family memories across the table.

Are Family Meals Really that Important?

“Home Cooking in America 2020,” by the FMI Foundation[1] notes the biggest reasons families don’t cook meals and eat together at home include lacking time, energy and inspiration. But, homemade family meals create a deep connection, can cost less and can be healthier.

It showed that during the COVID-19 pandemic:

• 40% of American adults say they are cooking more
• 23% are planning more meals in advance
• 18% are trying new dishes more often

Studies show that family meals improve fruit and vegetable consumption. My kids are always more willing to try vegetables if they see us (especially dad) eating them first. Family meals improve communication, teach table behavior and give us a set time to spend time together each day.

Whatever our new normal will be, we need to stay physically and emotionally fit. Family meals help with both. But, so many meals at home means we need to get creative with options for healthy, cheap and easy meals.

Cheap, Healthy and Filling Family Meals

I know all too well what it’s like to feel broke and in need of a cheap meal. Sometimes money gets tight and that’s when you need meal ideas that will stretch out those pay periods without sacrificing your family’s health. Rather than spend money on fast food, you can make cheaper dinners at home. My go-to cost-conscious meal typically involves:

Chicken: usually the cheapest by the pound of the meats, chicken is also one of the more nutritious—high in protein and low in fat. I try to find on-the-bone meat for around $.99/lb and boneless for under $2/lb. It can be added to pasta, grilled, baked or fried.

Green vegetable: Adding a green food to the plate adds nutrients and vitamins without starches or carbs. In-season vegetables are the cheapest and can be as low as $.99/lb. Asparagus, green beans, bell peppers (we eat these raw) and broccoli are all great vegetables to snag when they are on sale. You can also opt for a bag of frozen peas for $1. Kids are probably going to push back a bit on this, but it’s really important to keep putting green foods in front of your kids, despite their protest. I personally make my kids (over 2) eat at least one bite.

Potatoes: Not necessarily the healthiest vegetable, but kids do need carbs to fuel their incredible energy. Unprocessed potatoes are natural and filling. Sweet potatoes are the most nutrient-dense and are a complex carb. Potatoes are very cheap per pound (less than $1) and easy to roast with a little butter or oil, salt, pepper and seasoning salt. They should be started early, since they will usually take longer than the rest of your meal. If you are in a hurry, try microwaving for 3-4 minutes before putting them in the oven to speed up their cooking process.

For our family, a home-cooked meal of chicken, vegetables and potatoes will cost around $10. Add in something fun, like watermelon, and you can still stay under $15.

Not bad for a family meal, right?

You can switch it up with these cheap ingredients instead of the potatoes:

• Pasta noodles (Hearty Chicken and Noodles Soup or chicken parmesan)
• Rice (chicken stir fry or just as a side)
• Homemade bread (it’s cheap and delicious! Try my Perfectly Homemade Dinner Rolls)
• Tortillas (chicken tacos)
• Tortilla chips (chicken nachos)
• Beans (buy them dried in the bag for a healthier, cheaper option)

Fast and Easy Family Meals

I like to make complicated meals because cooking is an art form. But, sometimes you are short on time. Making pretty or complicated food isn’t the point. Sometimes we hold ourselves back because we put too much pressure on the process.

I reached out to Krista Marshall, creator of Everyday Moms Meals, and she stated it perfectly: “Putting a delicious meal on the table to bring your family together can be the best part of a busy day. No matter how simple the meal might be, the most important thing is everyone sharing time with one another, creating memories.”

My personal go-to meals when I’m in a rush are spaghetti and tacos.

It’s also a huge time-saver if I have the chance to make meals ahead of time for the freezer to heat up on another day for dinner. Meatloaf, quiche and chili are a few of my top homemade freezer meals. Even just freezing the cooked meat can be a huge time-saver (like cooked ground beef for spaghetti or tacos). I also tend to put big batches of chicken or burgers on the grill if I can, saving part of the batch in the freezer for a future meal.

Special Family Meals

Sometimes you can splurge—in time or cost—and those are special family meals! While all family meals are important, the special ones can be the most memorable. Some of our favorite ideas for changing up the scene include:

• Outdoor (picnic blanket in the backyard before we had a patio set)
• Our local cinema bar and grille or drive-in movie theater
• Party platters (they love crackers, cheese, sliced meats and wings they can self-serve)

Get creative with your family meals!

When I was a kid, my family ate a lot of meals together. However, some of the most memorable family meals I participated in were at my friend’s house—her parents would let the teens plan a themed family dinner we prepared mostly unaided and presented to the rest of the group. We did a drive-in Dog ‘n Suds while on rollerblades, a very wild Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Tea Party and other creative themes.

Eat More Meals as a Family

So, how many meals should you eat as a family?

According to the FMI: As many as you can.

The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior (JNEB) recently published a review[2] that sorted through over 1200 studies to look for dietary outcomes linked to family meals. The review found studies agreed on a noticeably higher level of fruit and vegetables during family meals and a lower number of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Did you know September is National Fruit and Veggies Month too? So, take this as your reminder that the goal is  1-2 cups of both fruits and vegetables for kids aged 2-13. Planting a garden has gone far in getting my kids excited about trying vegetables. Having them help make the meal really helps them want to eat it–but that’s a whole other can of worms for another post.

Keep bringing your family together for meals and check out the Family Meals Movement for more ideas and information!

Additional Sources:
<sub>1. FMI Foundation. (2020). Home Cooking in America 2020, a Special Report based on U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends.
2. Robson SM, McCullough MB, Rex S, Munafò MR, Taylor G. Family Meal Frequency, Diet, and Family Functioning: A Systematic Review with Meta-analyses. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2020;52(5):553-564. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2019.12.012</sub> 

The post Get Your Crew Together: Science Says Family Meals are Important appeared first on MidKid Mama.

Pick and wash your greens. Remove any thick stems (especially for the larger, more mature leaves). Then lay them out on the dehydrator trays. Put the dehydrator on the lowest heat setting for herbs and let it sit for several hours or overnight.

The leaves will shrink and be very brittle. Stuff them into your cup for grinding/blending. Studies show, dehydrated leafy greens will retain quite a bit of the micronutrients, including high levels of carotene.

A whole cup stuffed with dried leaves will only end up about an inch or so full of powder. I’ve found roughly 1 teaspoon of powder equals about 10 large Swish chard leaves.

Surprisingly, Swiss chard powder has very little taste (even less than dried parsley). It can be used in place of parsley or in just about any sauce/puree without altering the taste much. I like to add it to sweet potatoes for my baby, top pizzas with it, add it to our pasta sauce, soups and more.

Of all the things I’ve dehydrated over the years, this is by far my favorite thing to do. It is easy and a very practical thing I use in so many dishes. I can never make too much Swiss chard powder!

This makes it so easy to sneak green nutrients into my kids’ foods. They eat their veggies, but this is just an extra boost. It’s really helpful for babies that don’t like green foods.

What do you like to dehydrate?

The post How to Make Swiss Chard Powder for Greens Boost appeared first on MidKid Mama.

I wanted to do a Hawaiian take on a burger and thought it would be perfect on our charcoal grill. I started with basic burger ingredients. My mistake was in adding too much Parmesan cheese (making the burgers prone to crumbling) and not freezing the patties (making them too soft).

Hawaiian Burger Recipe

Summery, tropical flavors and robust seasoning blend together for the perfect grilled burger.

Ingredients (with reduced Parmesean cheese)

• 1lb ground beef
• 1/4 cup pineapple, minced
• 2 Tbsp BBQ Sauce
• 1 Tbsp butter, melted but not hot
• 1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp fresh oregano (optional), minced
• 1/4 tsp salt

Mix the ingredients together well. Form into patties and place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Freeze for at least 1 hour (I skipped this step and my burgers fell apart on the grill). About 40 minutes before you are ready to cook the burgers, put the charcoal in the grill and add lighter fluid. Let the fluid soak for 15-20 minutes before lighting. Allow the grill to get hot and steady (about 20 minutes). Rub oil on clean grill grates before placing burgers.

I also added pineapple, onion and bell pepper shish kabobs on the side for topping the burger later. I topped with smoked Gouda cheese when the burgers were done and still hot.

Grill Tips: How to Save a Burger Sticking to the Grill

I knew it was bad as soon as I tried to flip them. Why are my burgers falling apart when I grill them? How can I keep my burger patties from sticking to the grill?

The bottom was done, but the insides were all soft and mushy. Too warm, too much Parmesan. They were falling through the grill slats. I quickly grabbed some aluminum foil and pushed the burgers back into a patty shape. I used the cheese to help hold them together.

The end result was delicious, but will be much better and easier next time when I follow these tips for grilling my burgers. I typically freeze my patties and they don’t fall apart, so this is my first time dealing with a mess on the grill like this!

Bob Ross used to say, “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents,” and I think this applies. Hopefully you can learn from my partial disaster.

Check out more burger recipes:

Apple Bison Jeans Burger

Little Swiss Sunshine Burger

Skewer Gonna Love This Burger

The post Charcoal Grill Tips + Hawaiian Burger Recipe appeared first on MidKid Mama.

Every time we go to the store, the kids want to look at the lobsters.

Knick really likes eating lobster.

Can you see where this is going? I couldn’t.

Knick randomly told me this week that we should cook a lobster over his spring break. I said no way. He said I could blog about it. I said I’d be more tempted to do it if he told me it was a lifeskill for the kids or preparing me for some kind of future survival (should our electronic grid ever crash and I need to catch lobsters to survive…haha).

But, the more I thought about it, the more my distant farm roots started speaking to me. Growing up, I was around chicken butchering and farm-like activities (though never very much part of the process). When I was about 8, my grandmother (who grew up and ran a farm) caught a catfish from our pond and then nailed its head to a board right in front of me, before skinning it and preparing it for dinner. My dad was not thrilled he lost a catfish, but it was an important experience for me. There is a value in knowing where our food comes from and trying to approach that process with dignity. It takes practice to grow, butcher and cook correctly.

So, after quite a bit of research, we cooked a live lobster as a family.

Lobster Recipe

Before I talk more about our process and experience, here is the recipe we followed. It is a mix between Cooks Illustrated and the advice of our local butcher.

Freeze the lobster for 20-30 minutes to stun. Just stick the whole lobster bag into the freezer. During this time, brown a few tablespoons of butter in a small skillet with breadcrumbs, parsley and chives. Set aside.

Drop stunned lobster into heavily salted boiling water in large pot for 5 minutes. Remove claws, placing them in a buttered cast iron skillet. Remove the tail and butterfly by slicing the softer underside and cracking the harder back shell. Run a skewer through the tail longways to stop it from curling up while roasting.

Coat with melted butter and then add salt and white pepper to taste. Add breadcrumb mixture on top and sprinkle with more chives. Place skillet in oven at 350° for 12 minutes or until tail registers 140°. You do not want to overcook or the meat will be tough.

Buttery Dipping Sauce for Lobster

I made up a dipping sauce that I think turned out pretty fantastic:

• 2 Tbs. melted butter
• 1 Tbs. Olive Oil
• 1 Tbs. Pinot Grigio (or dry white wine)
• Juice of 1 lemon wedge (1/6 of lemon) squeezed
• Dash of garlic
• Dash of cayenne
• Salt and white pepper to taste

Killing Our Lobster Humanely

We got our live lobster from Kroger. They offer a sustainable lobster program and have lobsters that are clearly active in their tanks. The kids helped pick out the lobster and were very excited about the whole process. They’ve been taking quite an interest in where their food comes from (garden, animal, etc.). They named our lobster Sam.

The guy who got our lobster out of the tank was from Boston. He told us lobsters are typically boiled alive because of the bacteria that replicates rapidly within them and can make you sick if there is any time between death and cooking. He suggested boiling the lobster for 5 minutes before roasting it in a butter sauce until cooked.

There is a lot of debate on how to humanely cook lobster. At first, I saw videos of chefs cutting the lobster through the head before boiling. This seemed like a quick death, but I later found out it only cuts through one major nerve ending (there are three total).

Scientists aren’t sure if lobsters comprehend pain or if they just feel stimuli to move away for survival (more like a large insect). It is a myth that lobster scream, since they don’t have the vocal ability to do so. They try to escape the pot, but the supposed screaming sound is the air escaping from under their shells. Regardless, many people are afraid they can feel the heat.

A device was recently invented that kills the lobster instantly through electrocution and kills the harmful bacteria, allowing them to be safely raw for 48 hours. What a genius invention. The next most humane way, as suggested by Cook’s Illustrated and other lobster professionals, was to stun them in a coma like state by freezing for 20-30 min and then placing them headfirst into the boiling water. This stops the lobster from trying to get out (they are stunned) and kills them almost instantly.

We put the lobster bag in the freezer for 30 minutes. I actually watched the lobster and it turned red almost the second it was in the water. It didn’t move, aside from some twitching that occurs with the death of most animals. It didn’t have time to scuttle around or try to get out.

It Shouldn’t Be “Scary”

I’m not going to lie…it took a lot for me to work up to the idea of killing something in our kitchen and eating it 30 minutest later. Butchered meat has never been a problem for me to handle. I have many family members that raise and show animals that are destined for the meat markets. I’ve cooked deer meat where I knew the hunter. But, I still like to be separate from the butchering process.

We’ve been watching Planet Earth a lot lately. The kids were uncomfortable at first with animals being hunted, but they’ve come to realize it’s part of the way other animals survive. Hiding death and predatory cycles from them won’t make it less true. Now they take an active interest in where their meat comes from like they do when we plant vegetables and harvest them later.

I wasn’t thrilled the Kroger employees kept bringing up the word “scary.” No. Lobsters are not scary. Cooking a lobster is not scary. My kids weren’t phased, but I don’t want them to be afraid of an animal unnecessarily.

Our checkout lady couldn’t believe we were taking home a live one. She said, “I hope the kids don’t know!” I said, “Oh they do, they helped pick him out!” She was horrified and then tried to scare one of the baggers with it.

The Kids Tried Something New

If you have toddlers, then you know how hard mealtimes can be. We try to get our kids to be willing to try anything and eat a lot of different things. I’ve found the more they are part of the process, the more things they are willing to eat. This was one more experience.

I was proud of Kaleb (our most easily scared kid right now) for wanting to see and touch the lobster. They both watched our process and tried the lobster more than willingly after it was ready. Neither one of them loved the taste or texture, but I was glad they tried it. I served our lobster with baked potatoes, pan-seared asparagus and small loaves of wheat bread.

The post I Cooked a Lobster for Spring Break appeared first on MidKid Mama.

Wondering why your mashed potatoes sometimes turn out with a strange texture?

If you’ve ever had “gluey” (or starchy), grainy, flavorless, watery, or lumpy mashed potatoes, then you know the woes of trying to create mashed potatoes from scratch. My grandpa always has made the perfect, buttery mashed potatoes that were perfectly smooth and surprisingly hard to replicate. At least, it was hard to replicate until I figured out the reasons his turned out well and didn’t just try to follow his recipe. Here is how you can get consistently good potatoes too.

You only need 3 Ingredients: potatoes, Blue Bonnet (or another margarine) and salt. Milk is optional and I often don’t add any. Blue Bonnet is my favorite margarine for flavor, but my grandpa always has said, “The cheaper, the better” in his opinion. You can use real butter, but it does alter the flavor quite a bit.

Picking the Potatoes

If you struggle to figure out potato-to-crowd ratios, try to imagine if your guests will eat a whole potato or not. I find that especially for Thanksgiving (when there are so many dish options!), potatoes can be almost half the number of people attending. Of course, this depends a bit on your potato size and how your audience eats.

When it comes to picking out potatoes in the store, it does actually matter:

• Get Russet or Idaho if Russet aren’t available
• Look carefully to make sure there is no greenish tint that would indicate they are not fully ripe (which always gives a poor texture) or that they feel “rubbery” (overly ripe) which can also affect the texture.
• Pick out medium-large potatoes that are all relatively the same thickness so they take the same amount of time to cook. If you are buying a bag, most are close to the same size.

The Amount of Butter

It will seem like a lot of butter when you are adding a stick or more, but you want to use about 2 Tablespoons per potato. You can always add a few less Tbs of butter and see how the flavor and texture is, since it is very easy to add more to hot, freshly mashed potatoes.

The Fool-Proof Mashed Potato Method

You need to start out by peeling and rinsing your potatoes. Do not cut them up. If you are in a big hurry, you can cut them in half and reduce your cooking time, but every time you cut, the potato is more exposed to water. Exposing your potato to too much water actually creates a glucose reaction that will give you “gluey” or starchy potatoes. You will need to boil them for 45 min-1 hour depending on the thickness of the potatoes. Use a big enough pot for all of your potatoes; your water needs to completely cover the potatoes. Add your potatoes when the water is boiling hard. Do not let your water get low during the boiling process; add a small amount (not enough to disrupt the boil) if you run low.

When you believe your potatoes are done, use a butter knife to stick straight into the center of the largest potato, disrupting it as little as possible. If you feel no resistance, the potatoes are done and should be drained immediately. You don’t want to overcook them, which can cause them to start breaking apart.

Drain your potatoes in a strainer and add them straight into a large mixing bowl with the butter. The butter must be added first because it actually coats the potato molecules and keeps them from having a starchy reaction (especially if you are adding milk). Mix in the butter to the hot potatoes and add salt. Use your beaters to get a smooth potato texture. If you see any potato flaws (dark spots or skin) remove them. Taste your potatoes to determine if you need more salt (good for Turkey or Chicken) or not (less salt for ham or saltier dishes). My grandpa always added a tiny bit of milk (like a Tbs or two), but I usually don’t. That is up to you, but milk quickly waters down the potatoes and makes them less rich in flavor, so only add a very tiny amount at a time until you are satisfied.

TLDR:

I know, there was a lot of information. If you don’t care about the why, here is the recipe for a family-sized serving for 4-5 people:

Fool-Proof Classic Mashed Potatoes

Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 1 Hour
Serves: 4-5

• 3 Russet Potatoes
• 6 Tbs Blue Bonnet
• Salt to Taste

Peel and rinse potatoes. Boil potatoes whole for 1 hour. Drain and add margarine immediately, mixing until smooth. Salt to taste.

Simple enough, right?

For other awesome Thanksgiving Recipes to complete your meal plans, check out these blog posts from some of my favorite mama writers:

Roasted Turkey
Home Made Dinner Rolls
Fresh Cranberry Orange Relish
Stuffing
Fruit Turkey Appetizer
Baked Corn
Corn Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Gluten Free Chocolate Cranberry Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
Spiced Cranberry Pear Dump Cake

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