We are halfway there. Thanks so much for reading. Can’t wait to finish out the month with yall.
Since becoming a mom, I think I’ve cooked less and less. I prefer simple meals or take out or Publix rotisserie chickens. I’m tried throughout the day. When my husband is home I want to do other things other than just stand in the kitchen and crank out a week’s worth of food.
I know cooking is healthier and easier on the budget for the family – but goodness, tough to get in the kitchen and do. Especially when half of my people around the table may not even eat it.
But, part of my responsibility (in our family) is to cook and make sure we have food to eat. My mister will cook but he is usually at work until dinner time, but he always gets up with the boys and gets them breakfast. I’m extremely blessed – also, with a nearby Publix or Trader Joes.
So, how do I welcome my misters with food? I thought I would be a wife and a mom who always had a homecooked meal on the table. Usually I was that kind of wife, but I’m not that type of mom. I mean, we eat every night. But only a few days a week is it a fresh homecooked meal.
Here are my tips:
Little Caesars Pizza.
Publix: bagged salad mixes, chicken tenders or rotisserie from the deli.
Dollar menu items.
Bagged veggies with sweet potatoes
Instant Pot
Crock Pot
A local food delivery or pick up service (we found a local place that has freezer meals on hand you can pick up. And a friend of mine does this as well).
Cereal.
Eggs, fruit, grits
Trader Joes freezer section.
Hope these items help you offer hospitality to your family by getting food on the table. What are your quick go-to food helps?
On a post about food, and it is my son’s birthday, and I’m not cooking anything. Nope. We are going out for donuts, then going to a fun lunch, picking up his Publix birthday cake, then going to a friends for small group. I’m getting off easy.
But, sitting around a table is more than just food. Yes, I love to cook. One of the ways I learned to cook was from my mom being disabled and unable to much of my growing up. So, she would tell me what to do and I would cook it. Or I learned it from watching my Granny and Papa or learning how to scale fish and cook a mean french fry at the Suwannee River with weeks away with my Papa.
But, I learned to love to cook for others when I got to know a family in college. I got to be a part of their celebratory meals and their every day meals. Knowing recipes that family members loved. Knowing what would please the ones they loved. Sitting down at a table in their home and talking for house over good food and good wine. Or just good old sweet tea.
The meal is more than just food. It is life for the soul of many.
Food and celebrations always go together in my book. From the start of life to the end of life and everywhere in between. And even with so many of the food restrictions that some people have because of their health or other priorities, Danielle Walker has made cooking for celebrations easier than ever.
While stocking a grain free kitchen takes money, if you are cooking for others with special needs, the effort will always be appreciated.
Danielle is an expert in the blog world of specialty diet cooking. I just recently listened to a Happy Hour podcast with her that was helpful to understand how she started cooking this way.
I look forward to diving into this cookbook – the pictures make my mouth water! I’m so thankful for storytelling and beautiful photos in cookbooks. Danielle gets it!
So, go ahead and pre-order this cookbook and get on it – especially if you have these special needs
I love just giving you a quick glance into our little world – and what things actually make me giddy. I love holding my littles hands (when I’m doing it for fun, not for discipline because they ran away), I love friends who are great accountability partners and share their lives with me, I love celebrating friends who excel in their hobbies, I love sticking my feet in the sand at a beach.
Here are some lovelies around the internet that might make you Friday just a bit brighter, too.
If you love Alaska, love adventure, love a story of a father and daughter taking risks, learning about each other, and all the emotions that go with it – you will love James Campbell’s new book Braving It. Parenting isn’t easy. And the Alaska wilderness with a teenager isn’t easy. But, this story holds truths about love and the nature of relationships that most will find compelling.
Trying to fit in more salads on our table – so this post was not only pretty but also inspiring.
I love Pinch of Yum food and also this post: about soaking up summer in all of its glory. Summer looks different than I thought it would with kids and a working husband. My mister always reminds me to change my expectations.
This has summer written all over it: and I want to eat it right now! Maybe I’ll make some rosemary olive bread this wknd
Thanks to Blogging for Books for Braving It – all opinions are my own
I’ve been blogging for 12 years now. I have grown so much in every way over the past twelve years, and so has my blog. It has had many different names, and many different functions. One of the first blogs I had was “Kims State of Food” which you can still go find on Blogspot. The reason I created that blog was because my college girls that I was hanging out with in the RDU area wanted the recipes I was cooking for them. This was an easy way to do it so I wasn’t writing the recipe down 20 different times.
I’ve learned so much over the years with food blogging and some about food photography (still SO MUCH TO LEARN about both), but thought I would share a few tips and send you a few of my favorite sites.
Cook what you love. If you are cooking what you love, that will come across in your recipe writing. You need to be excited about what you are wanting others to make in their kitchen, or no one will want to make it.
If you can, cook and photograph your food in natural light. Now that I have kids it isn’t always that easy, and sometimes that places we live don’t have good natural light options. But, do what you can, and make do. Or just take your food and food props outside! Have your children help you! It may get them to eat more healthy food that way!
Keep learning. Read cookbooks, take TONS of photos, cook lots of food, and keep studying, study other blogs, find a blog you love (or many) and see what they are doing. Fuel your creativity!
Below are some of the best sites I’ve found for food photography:
I wouldn’t say my kids are picky, but they just aren’t the most well-rounded eaters. They could eat fruit and most veggies all the time – but to get them to eat meat is another matter all together. They eat breads and most pastas, and definitely baked goods, but anything outside of chicken nuggets (and those even occasionally) or maybe a cheeseburger (if they eat half of one) is harder to get them to eat.
What’s a Mom to do?
Look to other moms and try things that might or might not work, and hope they work. My friend Jeni that I interviewed a few weeks ago has a great blog full of tasty and healthy recipes and she cooks for her 4 kids a lot. So, this week when I have sworn off fast food I needed some quick go-to meals for them.
She recommended some crescent ham and cheese rolls that she makes for her daughter. My kids will eat anything they can dip: broccoli in ranch dressing, fruit in just about anything including CFA sauce, and these they ate right up when I gave them some honey mustard to dip these rolls into. Never underestimate the power of dipping sauce.
Kid-Friendly Ham & Cheese Rolls
Recipe Type: Lunch
Cuisine: Kid Lunch
Author: kd316
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 8
Easy quick ham and cheese roll ups
Ingredients
1 roll refrigerated crescent rolls
about 4 slices honey ham
1/4 cup shredded cheese
salt and pepper
Instructions
Preheat oven according to rolls pkg directions.
Pull apart ham slices and put a little ham and cheese in each crescent roll.
Roll up and place on ungreased baking pan.
Top with a little salt and pepper for extra savory seasonings.
Bake according to directions.
Let cool. The inside filling will be too hot for most kids right out of the oven.
Serve with their favorite fruits and vegetables and of course dipping sauce.
