Family Food for Moms Podcast I Inspiration for Family Cooking and Dining I How to Enjoy Special Meals Together

#52 Packed Lunches for Kids and Adults - Wholesome and Nutritious!

 Today I wanna talk about packed lunches - how to plan them, how to make them healthy using whole foods, and I’ll mention a few different ideas for them. This could be for your kids' lunches at school. It could be for your husband's packed lunch if you do that for him when he goes off to work. It could be for your own packed lunch if you go out to work or to anywhere else during the day, maybe for when you’re sitting in the car waiting for your kids from ballet or whatever it might be.
It can even be for at home - sometimes it helps to have meals prepared in advance, although those would more likely be something you're going to heat up at home, and that you've prepared beforehand. A packed lunch, however, would be something that can be eaten cold, and would generally be very hearty, nutritious, and delicious. 
We recently got a heatable lunch box for my husband and son who go to the office once a week. It’s very useful, because it gives you so many more options for things to do, and it's just like a steamer. You add your food to little stainless steel dishes, and then you put a little water in the bottom of the box, and you let it steam for half an hour to an hour to heat up the food. That way, there's no need to use a microwave or whatever else might be there. You can just warm it at your desk. This is useful because then you can pack any cooked ingredient that just needs heating. For today, though, I want to talk about items that you can put in a lunchbox that will be eaten cold. 

#51 More Fun Food Day to Celebrate - July to December

Today I’m going to be doing the second half of the year of fun food days to celebrate.
I'm working from a website called timeanddate.com. I’m going to mention some ideas for ways to celebrate days involving food from July to December.
I hope you have fun with some of these days! Choose which ones you want to celebrate.

#50 Lets talk about a Fabulous Ingredient - Parmigiano Reggiano!

 I'm going to be starting a new series, although it won't be consecutive. I'll just do an episode now and then on an ingredient that I think is very significant and is worth learning more about. Today we're going to talk about Parmigiano Reggiano, which is a wonderful cheese, and so valuable to our health. I want to talk more about its history, what it is, exactly how it's made, and what you can use it for, as using it in your food makes it truly delicious. 
So, let's get started. I love this cheese because it's a raw milk cheese - it’s made from raw milk. It's well aged, so it's got all the good stuff in it, and it's very delicious. I used to buy finely grated Parmesan cheese instead. It was just easier to have a jar of that in the fridge, and grab it whenever I needed to for pasta or other cooking. But then I realized that all you need is a tiny little grater and a block of Parmigiano Reggiano, and then you can get that good stuff very easily. You just use one of those small, fine graters to grate it over whatever you’re working with...

#49 Fun and Helpful Food Hacks to Use in Your Kitchen

Today, I thought it would be fun to talk about some kitchen hacks. These are all just quick, simple hacks that you may know about and some you may not, but it's always good to be reminded!
I'll do another few hacks in a different episode, but I hope there are some things that you can apply.
Send me your ideas if you have some. You can do that at karyn@familyfoodformoms.com. I hope you have a great cooking week!

#48 What to Make with Ground Beef - Tons of Yummy Ideas

Just to let you know I'll not be on next week, but I'll be back the following week!
 Today we're going to talk about all kinds of different meals that you can make from ground beef, (or beef mince as some people call it). Bolognese on pizza is one of my favorite - with pineapple and feta (shocking, I know!)
I'm sure many of these are familiar to you, but others you may not have heard of or tried before. I'm going to get creative myself, and try one of these that I haven't tried before, because ground beef is a good cheap meat to be able to buy. Let's get into it!
 
 
 

#47 What Do Chefs Cook on Trains?

 I've always been fascinated by dining cars on trains. When I was a little girl, we used to travel on a train quite often overnight. And the best part was getting to go to the dining car. And it was always so beautiful with this wood paneling and like velvet and the tables would be set with a big white tablecloth and a flower in a vase.
And then you could order just like you in a restaurant. And I always found this so amazing. Like you look out the window and there's a beautiful view going by while you eat your dinner. So I think it's the best place to have a meal, in my opinion, is on a train, in the dining car, especially when it's fancy.
So today for fun, I thought it would be great to look at what kinds of food you can get on a train. It's not particularly for us to learn from, although. There's definitely principles that we can draw from it, but it's more just for fun to get some ideas of what chefs cook on trains.

#46 Fun Food Days to Celebrate - January to June

 Today we're going to have a bit of fun with an episode on the fun days that involve food each month. I'm working from a website called timeanddate.com, f you want to look it up there, but I'm going to give you some of my ideas for each of the days.
So let's start with January. I'm going to do January to June today, and then I'll do July to December another time.

#45 Help Your Kids Enjoy Vegetables and Use Veg More in Your Cooking

 Today we're going to be talking about how to get your kids to eat more vegetables, and to enjoy them. Vegetables can be delicious, and I think that as adults we know when they aren't. We know when they're dry, chewy, or bitter - they're not good.
The goal is to make vegetables that we enjoy, and to help our kids to enjoy them too. We don't have to hide them away. Sometimes that works, but it's also good to know that they taste good and that we can enjoy them. It’s also different for different ages - you may need a different strategy for your young kids than for your teenagers. It's a good thing to start as early as possible with making vegetables a normal part of life, a food that your kids like just as much as any other food.

#44 Tips on How to Spend Less on Food in Your Home

We've talked before about unusual budget ideas for spending less in the kitchen. I want to revisit that with a few more ideas that I may have mentioned before, but it's always good to be reminded, right? 
When we talked about saving money in the kitchen, we said that cooking in bulk is definitely a good thing, although I do find it a little bit overwhelming to always cook in bulk. I'll choose certain things that I know freeze well, and that I'll use again to cook in bulk. Getting the meat and the vegetables in bulk often saves money. Plus, somehow, if you divide your meal into two, you get by with a little bit less for each meal, instead of having a little extra and it going to waste. Doubling up on a meal is a good thing to do, whether it's a soup, a stew, a casserole, or a lasagna - all of those freeze well for another meal. 
 
 

#43 What to Cook when a Member of Your Family needs Gluten-free, Dairy-Free or Other Special Meals

 Today, we're going to talk about some ideas for gluten free meals, meals for if someone doesn't eat dairy - maybe a breastfeeding mom - and meals for any kind of dietary restrictions. We’ll look at ideas that you can make either for the whole family, or for that particular person, and how you can make some meals in advance and freeze them. This is just to give you some ideas that you can use if this is the case in your family.