June 13, 2024 • 21 mins
We're starting summer by trying to survive lunch - because that’s where I seem to get tripped up. Having the right amount of options in the house to please and feed everyone three times a day is tough, so here are my best tips.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to and you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today's episode eighty seven Lunch Ideas
to Survive Summer. I am fresh off our first road
trip slash vacation of the summer and feeling all the
feels that come with that. I am genuinely so grateful
(00:27):
for the time we got to spend with family, those
memories that we made with cousins, and really grateful for
the things that felt very iconic to summer, like the
melti popsicle moments and the midday naps to escape the heat,
the late night card games. We really had such a
great time. But I'm also feeling that, oh, shoot, we
(00:49):
just got back into town. What am I making for dinner?
Feeling Luckily, I thought about this last week, and I'm
relying on my pantry to get a few easy, five
ingredient meals on the table this week. But one feeling
I'm also experiencing is that there's a lot of food
that happens in the summer. It feels like I'm going
through double the amount of food and groceries, and I
(01:10):
actually might be whether it's my kids friends spontaneously showing
up and clearing out the Costco hall of snacks I
just bought, or the fact that my eleven year old
will show up midday after he's been at the pool
and skateboarding and playing wiffle ball and remind me that
he is starving and needs to eat immediately when I
(01:30):
was just starting to think about dinner and that I'm
stressed that he's not going to want dinner. You guys
know what I'm talking about. So today I want to
discuss how we can specifically survive lunch during the summer months,
because that's where I seem to be getting tripped up.
That feels like the newest variable that's a bit different
from the traditional school year. But before we really dive
(01:51):
into that, let's do what we always do on this
podcast and start by giving you three ideas of recipes
that you could throw on your meal plan for the week.
These are all super easy, summer friendly meals. The first
recipe is my summer corn skillet with tomatoes and fetta.
This is a combo you're gonna want to memorize for
the summer. It's so simple, guys, It's five ingredients. You're
(02:15):
gonna add some corn, You're gonna add some grape tomatoes,
you're gonna add some fetta cheese, some lime, and one
other thing basil. Basil is the fifth thing. See, I
gotta memorize the formula because this is so delicious, something
about corn and lime, tomatoes, fetta, and basil. It's like
(02:36):
a match made in heaven. And I love making this
alongside some sort of easy protein. So think about salmon
that you put in the air fryer, think about chicken
that you threw on the grill, think about a rotisserie
chicken that came with your Costco order. This is just
a really nice, fresh, hearty side dish. You could even
(02:57):
add some bacon to it, or some priscudo if you
will wanted to, or panchetta if you really wanted to
kind of add a protein. But it's just my go to,
like summerside for a simple protein. We're making it this week.
I'm very excited because it is like summer on a
plate to me. Another recipe we're making this week are
my carnitas tacos. For many years, this was the most
(03:20):
requested recipe in my family. I think Big ZD has
now surpassed that. But these are so good. They are
so so so good. They've got orange juice in them,
which is kind of like the secret ingredient, but it
caramelizes and makes the meat really tender and sweet. I
have instructions on an in recipe club for how to
do these in the slow cooker or how to do
(03:42):
them mountain stovetop. But they are so good. It makes
a ton of meat. So we can do traditional tacos
one night, we can do burrita bowls the next night.
The meat lasts me for a while. In fact, sometimes
I'll do I'll throw it on nachos, which is really simple.
You could even do like a breakfast situation with like
like a little tortilla with some of the carnitas and
(04:03):
a Frida egg on top, like you can. You can
go crazy with all the different things you can do
with the meat. But the carnita's meat is so yummy.
And then we are doing for Father's Day, We're gonna
grow and make my honey mustard glazed grilled chicken and
or zoto. It's one of our favorites. It is just
a delicious marinade, super easy to pull together. Everybody loves it,
(04:26):
from the kids to the dads, and new or Zoto
just pairs so nicely. It's got peas in it. I
do a little bit of lemon. It's really simple, but
it's creamy and delicious and just a great side dish.
So there are your recipes for the week. You can
find and print them all in Recipe Club individually or
in our weekly meal plan with an easy to follow
shopping list that's always broken down by recipe. The best
(04:48):
thing by Recipe Club is that it fixes all of
those problems that drive you crazy about getting recipes online.
There are no banners or drawn out stories. It's just
the recipes you need. And our new site that will
launch into a few weeks also has all of the
major holidays broken down, so that if you're looking for
a menu for Father's Day or the Fourth of July,
I've got you covered. I am such a fan of
(05:10):
cooking from a printed recipe rather than my phone, so
whether I'm cooking for Father's Day or Fourth of July,
I just love having the printed copies of these stored
in a recipe binder. If you feel similarly, make sure
you check out our recipe Binder, which is the perfect
foundational piece for creating a place where you store all
of the recipes that you make most often. So you
(05:32):
can find more details about both Recipe Club and our
recipe Binder at Kelsey Nixon dot com. And don't forget
that you save twenty bucks when you bundle those two
items together. All right, let's jump into the back half
of the podcast and discuss lunch ideas to survive summer.
(05:52):
This week, I did some meal math. I had this
thought as I was placing my grocery order in car,
literally from the car while road tripping back home. I'm honestly,
what a world we live in that we can even
do that. But I realized that I have to order
more food than I usually do during the summer months.
(06:13):
I did the math, and I figured that at minimum,
you got to make twenty one meals a week. If
you feed yourself or your family breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
that's twenty one meals. That's a lot. But I want
to talk about maybe reframing the way we think about
all of those meals. During the school year, my primary
(06:33):
focus is on planning what to make for dinner, but
especially during the summer, dinner doesn't always have to be
the most elaborate meal. Summer kind of affords you the
chance to flip the script a little. Maybe this is
the season of a big, hot breakfast after your kids
get home from swim team in the early mornings, or
a lunch that might feel like dinner because you know,
(06:56):
you just have more energy to make an actual dinner
ish meal at noon instead of four thirty. I don't
know about you, but most days I feel less motivated
in the late afternoon, so this might not be a
great time to cook your biggest meal of the day,
at least on most days of the week at four thirty.
It's a reminder that you can flip the script and
(07:17):
that all meals are created equal. Dinner does not have
to be the star of the show during the summer.
It might be a summer of big breakfast or lunch
and more snacky dinners. So one thing you might do
if you're feeling stressed about lunch during the summer is
to consider focusing on making your main meal earlier in
the day. This is something we were kind of already
(07:38):
doing in the crazy month of May, as we were
having so many after school activities. And I'm here to
tell you, I am a fan of an early dinner.
You could call it lunch or early dinner, or maybe
even lenner. But this is one approach that could help. Okay, well,
let's talk about lunch actually now, because that's an approach.
But I want to get to the new gritty here.
(08:01):
One of the biggest things that saved me last summer
was making a lunch list. This might surprise you, but
I'm a list person. Probably does not surprise you. A
list that was visible for my whole family to see.
It was on our fridge and I actually put it
on the fridge freezer in the garage as well. And
(08:22):
this is what my lunch list looked like. I need
to do this. I'm doing this this week. In fact,
I literally recorded this episode, so I was like, Okay,
it's time for the lunch list, Kelsey. But I break
it down into categories fridge, freezer, pantry, and under those
three primary categories, I list things that I always have
on hand to eat for lunch. At the very top
(08:43):
of this list, I also put fruit, veggie protein please.
It's like fruit plus side, veggie plus side protein please.
Because now that my kids are getting a little older,
really just my oldest is the only one who's independently
making lunch for himself. But it's just a reminder that, like,
if you're gonna have something, if you're gonna have a meal,
try and just have one fruit and one veggie and
(09:04):
some sort of protein, like the most basic building blocks
of a sustainable meal. Under fridge, I want to give
you some idea. So the ide yeah, I mean it's
pretty self explanatory here is that there are different things
either in the fridge, freeze, or pantry that you can
have for lunch, and by seeing them written out, it
(09:25):
eliminates that decision fatigue of well, I don't know what
to make, I don't know what do we have, And
these are all things that I generally can have on
hand at all times. So I want you to notice
that there's not a ton of things under each of
these categories. You don't need ten things for each category.
That just contributes to the problem of trying to decide
(09:46):
what to make. So start with maybe I don't know
three to five things under each category. So under my
fridge category is case I is, I've always got some
sort of tortilla, some sort of cheese, and I usually
have some sort of shredded chicken in the fridge, usually
from rotisserie chicken. That's an easy one. Hummus peda with cheese,
(10:07):
salami and fruit. That's kind of a long one, but
that is like a snack, a snacky lunch that really
can be quite filling. We buy these things at Costco
called California Snackers. I don't know if they have them everywhere,
but they're essentially like salami and prolo and cheese and
that with hummus and peda. That I'm okay with that
(10:29):
if you want to have that for a hardy lunch,
knock yourself out leftovers, always reminding everyone that you can
have leftovers for lunch and deli sandwich. I usually have
deli meat on hand, you know, mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato,
stuff like that. Under our freezer category, I have frozen burritos,
(10:50):
frozen tiqutos, protein smoothies, because that can be great for
a nice midday lunch after you've been at the pool
and it's a hot day. Pot stickers, pizza nuggets, and
rice bowls. Now, I'm going to tell you a lot
of those things come from Trader Joe's or Costco or
whatever you can focus on how clean you want those
(11:14):
items to be, but I'm also just want to be
very realistic, like those are things that I rely on
during the summer to keep my people fed. There are
things that all eat, there are things that are delicious.
I'm hoping that this little reminder at the top of
the fruit veggie protein goes into play, because if you
are gonna have some frozen tiqutos for lunch, knock yourself out.
(11:36):
But you know what would be really awesome is if
you grabbed a couple of strawberries and a couple of
baby carrots as well and round it out that meal pantry.
Peeb and Jay my girls in particular Big Fan Peep
and Jay, I've got pasta with sauce, ramen, and mac
and cheese. So those are when Ollie comes to me,
(11:58):
because he's the one who most offs and does and says,
I'm so hungry, what's for lunch? I say, look at
the lunch list, what do you want? And then he'll say, oh,
I think I want to do a sandwich or a
deli sandwich. Then I say, okay, make it. And that
is where we're trying to really lean into this idea
of independently making food for yourself because I've only got
(12:21):
him a couple more years, and when he leaves the house,
I want him to at the very least feel confident
and making himself a sandwich. So it's never too early
to start. Remember, do not make that list too long,
because we all hate having to make decisions. You do,
your eleven year old does your seven. Everyone hates having
to make decisions. But as you're placing your grocery order
(12:44):
for the week or writing at your shopping list if
you still like to shop in person, review your lunch
list because you will likely need to buy more food
as the summer progresses. You'll notice that some of these
things aren't as big as of a hit as others,
Like maybe your kids will decide they hate peanut butter
and jelly. This has happened to me before. You can
take them off. You can take them off the list,
but it helps you and your kids at home with
(13:07):
that decision fatigue during the middle of a hot summer
day when you know they need a meal. Let's talk
about snacks for a minute, because I feel like snacks
can be a pain point during the summer. It's very
easy for the snack situation to get out of hand
really quickly during the summer months. So I want to
offer up a few suggestions. If you have a disappearing
(13:30):
popsicle problem like I do, consider setting a limit and
making it visible when they've used up their daily allotment.
Now this might be specific to the age of my
especially my girls who are seven and four. They if
I'd let them, they'd eat ten popsicles a day each.
So last summer, what we had to do is I
(13:51):
got these little popsicle magnets and they would ask for
a popsicle, and when they had a popsicle, they could
have two a day, so really generous. Here. I would
take that popsicle magnet move from the side of the
fridge to the front of the fridge, so they had
a visual queue I've already had my popsicle, my morning,
(14:12):
my mid morning, and my afternoon popsicle or whatever it is.
That is one thing I've done. It worked pretty well.
You know, they still asked for more, but still it
was something like some sort of visual queue that oh wait,
I've already had one of those, and this is how
many I get a day. Another thing I've done in
the past it didn't work quite as well as my
kids had like a chor chart during the summer and
(14:33):
I had put on their like sweets or something like that,
and I checked when they'd had it. But there's something
that that popsicle magnet really helped my younger girls when
it comes to bulk snacks. This was huge. I had
to make this adjustment last year because like many of you,
I'm sure you guys want to be the type of
household where kids gather, right we all. I don't think
(14:54):
that that's something that a lot of us share in common,
but it can be demoralizing when you have just it's
been to Costco and spent three hundred dollars on snacks,
and you know, the bike gang pops over and they
go through your beef jerky in about seven minutes that happens,
and you're like whoa, whoa, whoa wait wait wait wait.
(15:14):
So I had to do this thing last year where
when I would come home with the bulk snacks, I
could not keep the bulk boxes in the pantry. I
would have to put smaller amounts in the pantry and
keep the bulk boxes elsewhere in like my laundry room.
And then as needed. I would kind of refill the
smaller baskets, but there's something about containing them in a
(15:39):
smaller container that reduces the amount of free for all
that can happen very quickly. And I am happy to
feed my kids friends snacks, but you know what I'm
talking about, Like, you can have a whole box of
twenty four mini chips and they are gone like that,
So having six out might make people be like, oh,
(16:00):
maybe I'll get something else. Anyways, that's something to consider
if you're a bulk snack buyer. Another huge thing for
that really helps me with snacks is to make healthy
snacks more visible, mainly fruit in the center of the
kitchen island, like a bowl of clementines or apples, or
(16:21):
if I pull grapes out. I swear if it's there,
kids are more likely to eat it. And it just
comes down to making it more easily accessible. So consider that.
So as I wrap up just a few thoughts on
feeding your kids lunch during the summer, remember that summer
cooking is just a season. It's okay if it looks
(16:42):
a bit more different than the school year. I still
like to aim for connecting with my family once a
day over a meal. It's really what I aim for,
but that might be more realistic in the summer at
breakfast than at dinner. Be willing to be flexible and
accommodate works what works best for your face. All right,
let's finish with the weekly Gimme five. These are five
(17:03):
things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week.
First on the list is Skull King. This is our
favorite family card game to play when we get together
as an extended family. We look forward to busting it
out every time, and we have so much fun. We
get very competitive. I still am not totally sure I
totally understand the rules. I always lose, but it is
(17:26):
a blast. It's a Grandpa Beck game. If you know
that brand. They make the funnest games, and Skull King
happens to be a family favor for us right now.
Another thing that was so great this week was my
sister bought this almost like a portable karaoke machine. It
was like very packable, very small, but we used it
for the cousin Talent Show and it was such a hit.
(17:48):
Super easy to pack, two mics, the sound quality was great.
It syncs up with Bluetoothed and my kids had a
blast with it. Roll on sunscreen application. Okay, so at
pools every so often that have a policy for no
aerosol sunscreen, and I think it's because it makes the
(18:09):
water really murky, do you know what I'm talking about. Regardless,
sometimes I just feel like my kids get better coverage
when I'm using more of a lotion based sunscreen. And
my sister had this roll on sunscreen applicator. I swear
I saw it floating around Instagram last year, but she
had it and I got to use it for the
first time. So cool. So you take your favorite lotion sunscreen,
(18:33):
you squeeze it in and it rolls on really good coverage,
the easiest way to apply non aerosol sunscreen. My kids
aren't screaming and it are resisting at least. Really cool product.
So I came home and bought one immediately. Number four
is a grilling basket. So we are moving into grilling
(18:54):
season and I love to grill veggies on the grill,
but it can be a little cumber if you're trying
to grill small veggies like mushrooms or asparagus, even like zucchini.
And I finally invested in a grilling basket at the
end of last summer, and it's the best, even small
pieces of meat. It's a great way to kind of
(19:15):
get that a little char and heat them up without
making a mess in your girl so loving my grilling basket,
was so happy to pull it out again this week.
And then the last thing I want to mention forgive
me five is a super easy last minute Father's Day gift.
So we have done this in the past. My kids
(19:35):
what they really want is one on one time with us.
That's when it comes to like an experience based gift.
They love spending one on one time with meat or
their dad. So my kids are each giving their dad.
I'm recording this a few days before Father's Day a
gift card for a daddy date and I let them
(19:56):
pick where they got the gift card too, and it
was really fun. So like, for whatever reason, my daughter
Nora thinks that Olive Garden is the greatest restaurant in
the world. She loves the breadsticks, They've got this cake
she likes, and she is going to go on a
daddy date with Robbie to Olive Garden. So we got
an Olive Garden gift card. She's making a homemade card,
(20:18):
and that's what she's going to give her dad. Penny,
my youngest, loves a movie. Loves a movie, the popcorn,
the whole thing. So we got a little gift card
to go see a movie with just her and dad.
And then Allie, my eleven soon to be twelve year old,
he's like, let's just get I just want to get
something for Dick sporting goods. I want to go. He
(20:38):
loves to shop with his dad, mostly for baseball stuff.
So we just did that and what it really represents
is one on one time with dad, and I know
that that will mean a lot to him, and it's
a great thing for our kids to give him, you know,
as opposed to a hat that says World's Greatest Dad.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's what
we decided to do. So hopefully that gives you some ideas.
(21:01):
If you're looking for a last minute Father's Day gift,
you can run to Target or even on Amazon. You
can buy gift cards and that can be a sentimental,
thoughtful gift that works in a last minute situation. All Right,
that's it for today, you guys. Make sure you're subscribed
to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.
This podcast is always meant to be just a quick
(21:22):
twenty to thirty minute listen while you map out your
meals for the week, and support helping you set up
a simple dinner system. Next week, I'll be diving into
a summer birthday party menu. Allie's turning twelve and we're
getting ready for that. I'm excited to tell you what
we'll be making. I want to thank you so much
for listening today. I'm so glad you're here. Until next time,
happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and look forward to chatting with
(21:44):
you all next week.
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to and you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today's episode eighty seven Lunch Ideas
to Survive Summer. I am fresh off our first road
trip slash vacation of the summer and feeling all the
feels that come with that. I am genuinely so grateful
(00:27):
for the time we got to spend with family, those
memories that we made with cousins, and really grateful for
the things that felt very iconic to summer, like the
melti popsicle moments and the midday naps to escape the heat,
the late night card games. We really had such a
great time. But I'm also feeling that, oh, shoot, we
(00:49):
just got back into town. What am I making for dinner?
Feeling Luckily, I thought about this last week, and I'm
relying on my pantry to get a few easy, five
ingredient meals on the table this week. But one feeling
I'm also experiencing is that there's a lot of food
that happens in the summer. It feels like I'm going
through double the amount of food and groceries, and I
(01:10):
actually might be whether it's my kids friends spontaneously showing
up and clearing out the Costco hall of snacks I
just bought, or the fact that my eleven year old
will show up midday after he's been at the pool
and skateboarding and playing wiffle ball and remind me that
he is starving and needs to eat immediately when I
(01:30):
was just starting to think about dinner and that I'm
stressed that he's not going to want dinner. You guys
know what I'm talking about. So today I want to
discuss how we can specifically survive lunch during the summer months,
because that's where I seem to be getting tripped up.
That feels like the newest variable that's a bit different
from the traditional school year. But before we really dive
(01:51):
into that, let's do what we always do on this
podcast and start by giving you three ideas of recipes
that you could throw on your meal plan for the week.
These are all super easy, summer friendly meals. The first
recipe is my summer corn skillet with tomatoes and fetta.
This is a combo you're gonna want to memorize for
the summer. It's so simple, guys, It's five ingredients. You're
(02:15):
gonna add some corn, You're gonna add some grape tomatoes,
you're gonna add some fetta cheese, some lime, and one
other thing basil. Basil is the fifth thing. See, I
gotta memorize the formula because this is so delicious, something
about corn and lime, tomatoes, fetta, and basil. It's like
(02:36):
a match made in heaven. And I love making this
alongside some sort of easy protein. So think about salmon
that you put in the air fryer, think about chicken
that you threw on the grill, think about a rotisserie
chicken that came with your Costco order. This is just
a really nice, fresh, hearty side dish. You could even
(02:57):
add some bacon to it, or some priscudo if you
will wanted to, or panchetta if you really wanted to
kind of add a protein. But it's just my go to,
like summerside for a simple protein. We're making it this week.
I'm very excited because it is like summer on a
plate to me. Another recipe we're making this week are
my carnitas tacos. For many years, this was the most
(03:20):
requested recipe in my family. I think Big ZD has
now surpassed that. But these are so good. They are
so so so good. They've got orange juice in them,
which is kind of like the secret ingredient, but it
caramelizes and makes the meat really tender and sweet. I
have instructions on an in recipe club for how to
do these in the slow cooker or how to do
(03:42):
them mountain stovetop. But they are so good. It makes
a ton of meat. So we can do traditional tacos
one night, we can do burrita bowls the next night.
The meat lasts me for a while. In fact, sometimes
I'll do I'll throw it on nachos, which is really simple.
You could even do like a breakfast situation with like
like a little tortilla with some of the carnitas and
(04:03):
a Frida egg on top, like you can. You can
go crazy with all the different things you can do
with the meat. But the carnita's meat is so yummy.
And then we are doing for Father's Day, We're gonna
grow and make my honey mustard glazed grilled chicken and
or zoto. It's one of our favorites. It is just
a delicious marinade, super easy to pull together. Everybody loves it,
(04:26):
from the kids to the dads, and new or Zoto
just pairs so nicely. It's got peas in it. I
do a little bit of lemon. It's really simple, but
it's creamy and delicious and just a great side dish.
So there are your recipes for the week. You can
find and print them all in Recipe Club individually or
in our weekly meal plan with an easy to follow
shopping list that's always broken down by recipe. The best
(04:48):
thing by Recipe Club is that it fixes all of
those problems that drive you crazy about getting recipes online.
There are no banners or drawn out stories. It's just
the recipes you need. And our new site that will
launch into a few weeks also has all of the
major holidays broken down, so that if you're looking for
a menu for Father's Day or the Fourth of July,
I've got you covered. I am such a fan of
(05:10):
cooking from a printed recipe rather than my phone, so
whether I'm cooking for Father's Day or Fourth of July,
I just love having the printed copies of these stored
in a recipe binder. If you feel similarly, make sure
you check out our recipe Binder, which is the perfect
foundational piece for creating a place where you store all
of the recipes that you make most often. So you
(05:32):
can find more details about both Recipe Club and our
recipe Binder at Kelsey Nixon dot com. And don't forget
that you save twenty bucks when you bundle those two
items together. All right, let's jump into the back half
of the podcast and discuss lunch ideas to survive summer.
(05:52):
This week, I did some meal math. I had this
thought as I was placing my grocery order in car,
literally from the car while road tripping back home. I'm honestly,
what a world we live in that we can even
do that. But I realized that I have to order
more food than I usually do during the summer months.
(06:13):
I did the math, and I figured that at minimum,
you got to make twenty one meals a week. If
you feed yourself or your family breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
that's twenty one meals. That's a lot. But I want
to talk about maybe reframing the way we think about
all of those meals. During the school year, my primary
(06:33):
focus is on planning what to make for dinner, but
especially during the summer, dinner doesn't always have to be
the most elaborate meal. Summer kind of affords you the
chance to flip the script a little. Maybe this is
the season of a big, hot breakfast after your kids
get home from swim team in the early mornings, or
a lunch that might feel like dinner because you know,
(06:56):
you just have more energy to make an actual dinner
ish meal at noon instead of four thirty. I don't
know about you, but most days I feel less motivated
in the late afternoon, so this might not be a
great time to cook your biggest meal of the day,
at least on most days of the week at four thirty.
It's a reminder that you can flip the script and
(07:17):
that all meals are created equal. Dinner does not have
to be the star of the show during the summer.
It might be a summer of big breakfast or lunch
and more snacky dinners. So one thing you might do
if you're feeling stressed about lunch during the summer is
to consider focusing on making your main meal earlier in
the day. This is something we were kind of already
(07:38):
doing in the crazy month of May, as we were
having so many after school activities. And I'm here to
tell you, I am a fan of an early dinner.
You could call it lunch or early dinner, or maybe
even lenner. But this is one approach that could help. Okay, well,
let's talk about lunch actually now, because that's an approach.
But I want to get to the new gritty here.
(08:01):
One of the biggest things that saved me last summer
was making a lunch list. This might surprise you, but
I'm a list person. Probably does not surprise you. A
list that was visible for my whole family to see.
It was on our fridge and I actually put it
on the fridge freezer in the garage as well. And
(08:22):
this is what my lunch list looked like. I need
to do this. I'm doing this this week. In fact,
I literally recorded this episode, so I was like, Okay,
it's time for the lunch list, Kelsey. But I break
it down into categories fridge, freezer, pantry, and under those
three primary categories, I list things that I always have
on hand to eat for lunch. At the very top
(08:43):
of this list, I also put fruit, veggie protein please.
It's like fruit plus side, veggie plus side protein please.
Because now that my kids are getting a little older,
really just my oldest is the only one who's independently
making lunch for himself. But it's just a reminder that, like,
if you're gonna have something, if you're gonna have a meal,
try and just have one fruit and one veggie and
(09:04):
some sort of protein, like the most basic building blocks
of a sustainable meal. Under fridge, I want to give
you some idea. So the ide yeah, I mean it's
pretty self explanatory here is that there are different things
either in the fridge, freeze, or pantry that you can
have for lunch, and by seeing them written out, it
(09:25):
eliminates that decision fatigue of well, I don't know what
to make, I don't know what do we have, And
these are all things that I generally can have on
hand at all times. So I want you to notice
that there's not a ton of things under each of
these categories. You don't need ten things for each category.
That just contributes to the problem of trying to decide
(09:46):
what to make. So start with maybe I don't know
three to five things under each category. So under my
fridge category is case I is, I've always got some
sort of tortilla, some sort of cheese, and I usually
have some sort of shredded chicken in the fridge, usually
from rotisserie chicken. That's an easy one. Hummus peda with cheese,
(10:07):
salami and fruit. That's kind of a long one, but
that is like a snack, a snacky lunch that really
can be quite filling. We buy these things at Costco
called California Snackers. I don't know if they have them everywhere,
but they're essentially like salami and prolo and cheese and
that with hummus and peda. That I'm okay with that
(10:29):
if you want to have that for a hardy lunch,
knock yourself out leftovers, always reminding everyone that you can
have leftovers for lunch and deli sandwich. I usually have
deli meat on hand, you know, mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato,
stuff like that. Under our freezer category, I have frozen burritos,
(10:50):
frozen tiqutos, protein smoothies, because that can be great for
a nice midday lunch after you've been at the pool
and it's a hot day. Pot stickers, pizza nuggets, and
rice bowls. Now, I'm going to tell you a lot
of those things come from Trader Joe's or Costco or
whatever you can focus on how clean you want those
(11:14):
items to be, but I'm also just want to be
very realistic, like those are things that I rely on
during the summer to keep my people fed. There are
things that all eat, there are things that are delicious.
I'm hoping that this little reminder at the top of
the fruit veggie protein goes into play, because if you
are gonna have some frozen tiqutos for lunch, knock yourself out.
(11:36):
But you know what would be really awesome is if
you grabbed a couple of strawberries and a couple of
baby carrots as well and round it out that meal pantry.
Peeb and Jay my girls in particular Big Fan Peep
and Jay, I've got pasta with sauce, ramen, and mac
and cheese. So those are when Ollie comes to me,
(11:58):
because he's the one who most offs and does and says,
I'm so hungry, what's for lunch? I say, look at
the lunch list, what do you want? And then he'll say, oh,
I think I want to do a sandwich or a
deli sandwich. Then I say, okay, make it. And that
is where we're trying to really lean into this idea
of independently making food for yourself because I've only got
(12:21):
him a couple more years, and when he leaves the house,
I want him to at the very least feel confident
and making himself a sandwich. So it's never too early
to start. Remember, do not make that list too long,
because we all hate having to make decisions. You do,
your eleven year old does your seven. Everyone hates having
to make decisions. But as you're placing your grocery order
(12:44):
for the week or writing at your shopping list if
you still like to shop in person, review your lunch
list because you will likely need to buy more food
as the summer progresses. You'll notice that some of these
things aren't as big as of a hit as others,
Like maybe your kids will decide they hate peanut butter
and jelly. This has happened to me before. You can
take them off. You can take them off the list,
but it helps you and your kids at home with
(13:07):
that decision fatigue during the middle of a hot summer
day when you know they need a meal. Let's talk
about snacks for a minute, because I feel like snacks
can be a pain point during the summer. It's very
easy for the snack situation to get out of hand
really quickly during the summer months. So I want to
offer up a few suggestions. If you have a disappearing
(13:30):
popsicle problem like I do, consider setting a limit and
making it visible when they've used up their daily allotment.
Now this might be specific to the age of my
especially my girls who are seven and four. They if
I'd let them, they'd eat ten popsicles a day each.
So last summer, what we had to do is I
(13:51):
got these little popsicle magnets and they would ask for
a popsicle, and when they had a popsicle, they could
have two a day, so really generous. Here. I would
take that popsicle magnet move from the side of the
fridge to the front of the fridge, so they had
a visual queue I've already had my popsicle, my morning,
(14:12):
my mid morning, and my afternoon popsicle or whatever it is.
That is one thing I've done. It worked pretty well.
You know, they still asked for more, but still it
was something like some sort of visual queue that oh wait,
I've already had one of those, and this is how
many I get a day. Another thing I've done in
the past it didn't work quite as well as my
kids had like a chor chart during the summer and
(14:33):
I had put on their like sweets or something like that,
and I checked when they'd had it. But there's something
that that popsicle magnet really helped my younger girls when
it comes to bulk snacks. This was huge. I had
to make this adjustment last year because like many of you,
I'm sure you guys want to be the type of
household where kids gather, right we all. I don't think
(14:54):
that that's something that a lot of us share in common,
but it can be demoralizing when you have just it's
been to Costco and spent three hundred dollars on snacks,
and you know, the bike gang pops over and they
go through your beef jerky in about seven minutes that happens,
and you're like whoa, whoa, whoa wait wait wait wait.
(15:14):
So I had to do this thing last year where
when I would come home with the bulk snacks, I
could not keep the bulk boxes in the pantry. I
would have to put smaller amounts in the pantry and
keep the bulk boxes elsewhere in like my laundry room.
And then as needed. I would kind of refill the
smaller baskets, but there's something about containing them in a
(15:39):
smaller container that reduces the amount of free for all
that can happen very quickly. And I am happy to
feed my kids friends snacks, but you know what I'm
talking about, Like, you can have a whole box of
twenty four mini chips and they are gone like that,
So having six out might make people be like, oh,
(16:00):
maybe I'll get something else. Anyways, that's something to consider
if you're a bulk snack buyer. Another huge thing for
that really helps me with snacks is to make healthy
snacks more visible, mainly fruit in the center of the
kitchen island, like a bowl of clementines or apples, or
(16:21):
if I pull grapes out. I swear if it's there,
kids are more likely to eat it. And it just
comes down to making it more easily accessible. So consider that.
So as I wrap up just a few thoughts on
feeding your kids lunch during the summer, remember that summer
cooking is just a season. It's okay if it looks
(16:42):
a bit more different than the school year. I still
like to aim for connecting with my family once a
day over a meal. It's really what I aim for,
but that might be more realistic in the summer at
breakfast than at dinner. Be willing to be flexible and
accommodate works what works best for your face. All right,
let's finish with the weekly Gimme five. These are five
(17:03):
things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week.
First on the list is Skull King. This is our
favorite family card game to play when we get together
as an extended family. We look forward to busting it
out every time, and we have so much fun. We
get very competitive. I still am not totally sure I
totally understand the rules. I always lose, but it is
(17:26):
a blast. It's a Grandpa Beck game. If you know
that brand. They make the funnest games, and Skull King
happens to be a family favor for us right now.
Another thing that was so great this week was my
sister bought this almost like a portable karaoke machine. It
was like very packable, very small, but we used it
for the cousin Talent Show and it was such a hit.
(17:48):
Super easy to pack, two mics, the sound quality was great.
It syncs up with Bluetoothed and my kids had a
blast with it. Roll on sunscreen application. Okay, so at
pools every so often that have a policy for no
aerosol sunscreen, and I think it's because it makes the
(18:09):
water really murky, do you know what I'm talking about. Regardless,
sometimes I just feel like my kids get better coverage
when I'm using more of a lotion based sunscreen. And
my sister had this roll on sunscreen applicator. I swear
I saw it floating around Instagram last year, but she
had it and I got to use it for the
first time. So cool. So you take your favorite lotion sunscreen,
(18:33):
you squeeze it in and it rolls on really good coverage,
the easiest way to apply non aerosol sunscreen. My kids
aren't screaming and it are resisting at least. Really cool product.
So I came home and bought one immediately. Number four
is a grilling basket. So we are moving into grilling
(18:54):
season and I love to grill veggies on the grill,
but it can be a little cumber if you're trying
to grill small veggies like mushrooms or asparagus, even like zucchini.
And I finally invested in a grilling basket at the
end of last summer, and it's the best, even small
pieces of meat. It's a great way to kind of
(19:15):
get that a little char and heat them up without
making a mess in your girl so loving my grilling basket,
was so happy to pull it out again this week.
And then the last thing I want to mention forgive
me five is a super easy last minute Father's Day gift.
So we have done this in the past. My kids
(19:35):
what they really want is one on one time with us.
That's when it comes to like an experience based gift.
They love spending one on one time with meat or
their dad. So my kids are each giving their dad.
I'm recording this a few days before Father's Day a
gift card for a daddy date and I let them
(19:56):
pick where they got the gift card too, and it
was really fun. So like, for whatever reason, my daughter
Nora thinks that Olive Garden is the greatest restaurant in
the world. She loves the breadsticks, They've got this cake
she likes, and she is going to go on a
daddy date with Robbie to Olive Garden. So we got
an Olive Garden gift card. She's making a homemade card,
(20:18):
and that's what she's going to give her dad. Penny,
my youngest, loves a movie. Loves a movie, the popcorn,
the whole thing. So we got a little gift card
to go see a movie with just her and dad.
And then Allie, my eleven soon to be twelve year old,
he's like, let's just get I just want to get
something for Dick sporting goods. I want to go. He
(20:38):
loves to shop with his dad, mostly for baseball stuff.
So we just did that and what it really represents
is one on one time with dad, and I know
that that will mean a lot to him, and it's
a great thing for our kids to give him, you know,
as opposed to a hat that says World's Greatest Dad.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's what
we decided to do. So hopefully that gives you some ideas.
(21:01):
If you're looking for a last minute Father's Day gift,
you can run to Target or even on Amazon. You
can buy gift cards and that can be a sentimental,
thoughtful gift that works in a last minute situation. All Right,
that's it for today, you guys. Make sure you're subscribed
to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.
This podcast is always meant to be just a quick
(21:22):
twenty to thirty minute listen while you map out your
meals for the week, and support helping you set up
a simple dinner system. Next week, I'll be diving into
a summer birthday party menu. Allie's turning twelve and we're
getting ready for that. I'm excited to tell you what
we'll be making. I want to thank you so much
for listening today. I'm so glad you're here. Until next time,
happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and look forward to chatting with
(21:44):
you all next week.
Host
Kelsey Nixon
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