January 9, 2025 • 20 mins
With the holidays all wrapped up, we're talking about getting back into your weekly dinner routines to kick off the new year. In this episode, I talk about how restarting these routines helps get my family back to the table on a regular basis for those weeknight dinners.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
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 one hundred and twelve,
how to refresh your dinner routine. It's our first episode
after the holiday break, and I'm so happy to be
back here. I hope you had a really nice holiday.
We had mostly highs, some lows which came in the
(00:28):
form of the stomach bug, and it sounds like nearly
half of the country dealt with that this holiday season.
But we in our household are fully recovered. Hopefully we've
got some immunity for the stomach bug. Moving forward, my
kids are back in school and we are ready to
take on twenty twenty five. It's a new year, and
there is lots of talk about resolutions, goal setting, even
(00:50):
words for the year, and it really is a good
time for resetting and self reflection. And you guys know
this about me, I happen to love it. I like,
maybe January's my favorite month. That's not much. I love it.
I really love fresh starts. But whether your personality is
like mine and it loves the practice of goal setting
or not, I think this is a great time to
(01:12):
think about whether or not you're satisfied with your routine
surrounding cooking and breaking bread with your people. So today
we're going to chat a bit about how you could
re establish or refresh some of your dinner habits and
routines to maybe make dinner feel a little easier in
twenty twenty five. But first, we're going to run through
(01:33):
three simple recipes you could throw on your meal plan
for the week if you're stuck trying to decide what
to make for dinner. So first up, tie peanut noodle salad.
I really love this because it's a hardy enough salad
that I can it passes as dinner. And we're we're
like kind of recovering from all the comfort food situation
of the holidays, and so everyone seems to be fine
(01:56):
with like hardy salads and deconstructed salads in my house
right now, so I'm leaning in. The thing I love
so much about this recipe is the peanut dressing. It's
like next level delicious. In fact, I think I'm going
to make a double batch and then just use it
on some lunch salads throughout the week as well. But
super good. My girls love noodles, so they probably won't
eat the full composed salad, but I can make the noodles.
(02:17):
It works in the salad, it works for them, and
it's just delicious. We are going to make. Oh, this
is a new recipe, my spiced chicken and yogurt sauce.
This is inspired. If you've ever been to New York
or you're familiar with New York, there's something called the
Hawal Carts and it's like really great Indian food. Lots
of times you can get it just in carts on
(02:37):
the side of the street. There's now a restaurant called
the Hawal Guys, and it's just it's delicious. It's very
very good. And what it is is it's kind of
spiced chicken and it's served typically with crisp lettuce, tomatoes,
and this yogurt sauce that is so so good. So
I'm making that this week. I am doing a lot
(02:58):
more with yogurt sauces because I like the added protein
that it gives, like instead of like a vinagrette or
something like that. And so I'm excited to make this.
I haven't made it for my kids yet, but I
think that they're really gonna like it. So I tested it,
made it for Recipee Club and it's so good, so
I'm hoping I can make my kids believers as well.
(03:20):
And then third, we are doing a veggie for Tata.
This is this recipe is becoming infamous, Like it's so good.
It's a five ingredient recipe. I like to get all
the ingredients to Trader Joe's, but you can absolutely get
the ingredients at other grocery stores. I just like their
unexpected cheddar cheese that goes in this. But we are
(03:43):
back on our breakfast for dinner HAC like that is
once a week. My kids really look forward to it,
and I don't know why, but it's like easier to
comprehend in my brain. So we're going to do breakfast
for dinner one night, and I like the veggie for
Tada because probably only three of us will eat the
veggie for tis. My kids will have waffles and bacon
and stuff like that, but it will be great meal
(04:05):
prep for breakfast for the days that follow. So there
you have it. 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 broken down by recipe. If
you are looking for a simple dinner system for the year,
make sure you consider taking advantage of our twenty five
percent off an annual membership in twenty twenty five promotion
(04:28):
that we currently have running Recipe Club. Really, it helps
you decide what to make for dinner, and it supports
you getting it on the table. New recipes are at
it every month to our vast recipe library. In addition
to weekly meal planning emails that you get specifically designed
for your busy families, what you get in the email
is reflected in the membership. We also have a drag
(04:49):
and drop meal planning tool where you can customize shopping
lists and take advantage of one click grocery shopping if
you want to take a look at what you already
have on hand and find meals that way. There's never
really any batter I add snow long blog posts, drawn
out stories. It's really just the recipes you need to
get dinner on the table. I have done my best
as an overwhelmed mom myself to build the most helpful
(05:10):
meal planning tool, so make sure you take advantage of that.
It's running through the end of the month, and let's
do this. Let's jump into the back half of the
podcast and discuss getting back on track with a dinner
routine or refreshing the routine that you maybe already have.
(05:31):
Like many of you, I feel like I'm just barely
coming up for air after the holidays. And while I
love the holidays and the traditions and all of the
memories made my goodness, they throw a wrench into any
sort of routine and just kind of create chaos. And
usually by the first week of January, now I find
myself craving structure and routine. But that can also feel
(05:53):
overwhelming when it's like, oh, I got to do all
the things, and really, I just wish I could kind
of snap my finger and have all of the holiday
decorations and lingering art projects magically put away into organized bins,
and all those new toys that they acquired at Christmas
put away into systems that are going to stick with
my kids, and you know, all that stuff. But let's
(06:15):
be honest, a dinner routine is super important when it
comes to getting us back to the table and having
regular dinners again, because dinner never goes away and the
holidays always throws us out of our regular dinner routine.
I'm okay with it because we are making memories around
(06:35):
different tables with our extended family members and our cousins,
and that is great. But I still just value it
too much to have the ritual in our household of
having regular dinners. So this is a great time to
kind of reflect what is working, what isn't working, what
do we want to change this year? And this is
(06:56):
what I want to talk about today. So if you
want to re establish some sort of a routine but
you are kind of dragging your feet because it feels
too hard and your brain is not working at full
capacity yet, I want to offer a couple of really
simple suggestions today. First of all, this might be my
motto for twenty twenty five. I don't know that I've
totally decided yet, and that is start small. If you've
(07:20):
fallen out of a routine, Please do not plan to
make seven home cooked meals this week. It's you won't
do it. I won't do that. Set yourself up to
succeed by keeping it simple, even just one meal a
week where you all sit down and have dinner on
a Sunday. Start there and then build, or if you
feel like you can confidently say Okay, we're gonna eat
(07:42):
three nights this week, start there, but don't don't try
and like completely revamp it so that it's so unrealistic
that you immediately feel like you fail. So that could
look like, I'm going to make these three recipes and
then on Friday we're order pizza. On one of those nights,
we're gonna have leftovers, and on another one of those
(08:04):
nights we are going to do breakfast for dinner, or
you know, raid the freezer section of Trader Joe's, or
go out, go out. Just start small. Don't overly commit
at the very beginning of the year unless you feel
confident you can pull it off, but set yourself up
to succeed. Next, make it fun. What do I mean
(08:28):
by that? Think of something that will make it fun
for you to get to the table. I oftentimes compare
this to the idea of exercising or working out, because
that is usually not very fun for me. But if
I am setting a goal or want to increase the
likelihood that I'm going to move my body, something that
(08:48):
might make it more fun is getting a pair of
new running shoes, or getting a pair of new wireless earphones,
or maybe it's you making it fun because I'm gonna
walk with a buddy or something like that. It doesn't
always have to be something you buy, but think about
(09:09):
what you could do to make it fun. So when
it comes to dinner, that could look like maybe getting
a set of new place mats or dishes. Maybe it's
introducing a new tradition where your family shares they're high
and low from the day. Some families call it a
rose and a thorn, and my family we call it
the sweet and the Sour. We've also used Brooke Romney's
(09:29):
Modern Manners book in the past to read through each night.
I just keep it right in the center of my
kitchen island because we tend to eat it on the
kitchen island most nights, and part of our family ritual
of dinner is flipping the page and reading through one
of these manners. And that's been really fun. But this
year we're going to start something back up that we
(09:51):
tried a year or so ago, and that is candles.
I am setting an intention to light candles at dinner.
Is often I think about it like I really want
to make an effort my kids. It's like this cozy
family dinner. I don't like overhead lights. And if you
know me, well you know that it's something nice about
lighting candles for dinner. And it doesn't have to be
(10:13):
a fancy dinner. My goodness, you can be having grilled cheese,
but it sets the mood. And if you live with
a four year old, they're gonna be so excited to
blow those candles out when the dinner is over. But
I want to do that. I want to do that.
In fact, it's on my list. Trader Joe sells really
affordable no drip taper candles, and I'm going to get
someone I go today so that we can kick that
(10:34):
back up again. Okay, number three, except that you will
need to do some planning. No one is casually plans
family dinner and has a ton of success. I'm sorry
you guys. I hate to tell you this. You're gonna
have to do some planning. So this is what I
think is the best way to approach that. Just first
(10:55):
of all, you got to accept it. Say, I get it.
I'm gonna have to do some planning, but I know
this is gonna make my life easier and I know
that I'm going to be happy that I did this,
so I'm just gonna I'm gonna do this. I suggest
setting a time each week to make meal plan. Whether
you want to create an alarm in your phone to
remind you to do that, or maybe you want to
(11:15):
stack this on top of another habit that you know
you always do. Decide when it's going to be and
I find that I have the most success when it
is at the exact same time each week. It will
help you so much, I promise, I promise. When you
do that, you're going to sit down. You're going to
look at your family calendar. You're going to see what
(11:36):
you have going for the week. Do you have a
lot of sports for your kids, Do you have some
church obligations, do you have pta obligations? Is everyone going
to be home every night of the week. So first
you're going to determine how many nights are actually going
to cook, and then you are going to open your fridge, freezer,
(11:57):
and pantry and look at what you already have on
hand and see if any of that can be clues
for what you are going to cook. Like if you've
got chicken that's going to go bad, you should look
for a chicken recipe. If you don't have anything in
your fridge, freezer, or pantry, then go to Recipe Club
and just follow our meal plan for the week. But
even with Recipe Club, you can go in and put
(12:18):
the ingredients that you do have on hand and it
will populate the recipes that you can make from the club.
So just make an effort to do that' se at
the same time. Each week, show up, look at your
family calendar, look at what you have on hand. Then
you're going to select recipes. So if you determine that
you're cooking three nights that week, select three recipes, and
(12:38):
then you're gonna place your grocery order. If you're one
of the people who still likes to grocery shop in person,
great decide when you're going to do that. If you
order groceries for pickup or delivery online like I do,
then you're gonna place that grocery order right Then you're
going to do it, and you've got a plan. It
takes about ten minutes and it is going to relieve
(13:02):
so much stress. Other approaches you could take is you
could decide, you know, my family doesn't really care about
variety We're going to do the same meal plan every
other week for the next two months. And I'm going
to do two meal plans, and we're gonna have grill
teaese on this day and pot roast on Sunday and
(13:23):
tacos on this day. And I just am gonna wash
and repeat this. That's the way you could simplify it.
But think about your family, makeup what's important to you
and what can you easily do with the consistency. But
I do highly recommend carving out time to make a
weekly plan. All right, you've got this dinner isn't going anywhere.
(13:44):
You have to make it for a really long time.
So it's worth investing in establishing some systems to not
only make it easier, but to make it more meaningful.
Because while the recipes are a critical part of making dinner,
they are the most important part. And you guys know
I feel that way. What's most important is create getting
a set time for you to connect with your people
as often as possible, and to support that ritual so
(14:06):
that when they leave the nest, they remember breaking bread
with her family around the table. All right, let's finish
how we always finish by running through five things that
make my life easier or more enjoyable. This week, I
call this my Gimme five and this this is a
great list. Okay, let's start with this. I have decided
(14:29):
that I want to be more protein aware. I know
that protein is a hot topic, and it has been
for a couple of years. I have friends who count
their protein each day and they track it. I am
not interested in that, but I am interested in being
more protein aware because I know it's really good for
me and it's good for my entire family. So I've been,
you know, putting together some snacks, some higher protein breakfast,
(14:51):
even thinking about how much protein's going into dinner. And
when you are increasing your protein, you might think about
protein powder or protein bars. And I found an awesome
protein bar this week that I'd never heard of before.
It's called David Protein Bars. I got them on Amazon.
And if you were someone who's done any researcher on protein,
you know that an ideal high protein snack is one
(15:15):
where if it has twenty eight grams of protein, it
should have less than ten times at a mountain calories,
so it should have less than two hundred and eighty calories.
And these bars, this one in particular. I like the
cookie dough flavor. Twenty eight grams of protein, one hundred
and fifty calories and zero grams of sugar. I don't
even know how they do that, but they honestly taste
(15:36):
pretty pretty darn good. I mean, they're not a Snickers bar,
but they're pretty good. And if you're looking for some
more protein options at the top of the year, it
might give those a try. They were helpful to me. Okay, next,
let's talk about some kitchen things. So this is very basic,
but there's no better time to get back to the
basics than January. After being at my mom's for the
(15:58):
holidays with my sister, I have decided that I needed
to reinvest into very foundational things in my kitchen. A
pepper grinder, because mine died. It died in December. Like,
I'm so proud of this thing, this pepper grinder. It's
like twelve dollars on Amazon. It's wood, and it had
(16:21):
been going for the better part of four or five
years and it was fine. I like the way it
looked and it was so cheap, but it like it
literally fell apart, and so I haven't had fresh cracked
pepper and it's been driving me crazy, and I finally
decided to do the thing that I tell other people
to do, invest in a good pepper grinder. And the
brand I bought forgive me, I might butcher this pyot
(16:44):
pog peu geot. Sorry, guys, I don't know how to
say that, but it is a classic pepper spice grinder brand.
I had one years ago, like for the first probably
ten years marriage, I had one and it was awesome,
and then in one of our moves, I don't know,
it disappeared. So I just bought a new one. I
(17:06):
bought a new pepper grinder. It's really pretty, and boy
does it give me a nice fine like it just
feels good in my hand. So I got one of those.
And then my mom and my sister loved this thing
called a salt pig. Have you ever heard of this before.
It's essentially like a little dish to hold kosher salt
(17:27):
by your like everyday cooking station. And I have just
like a little marble bowl that I use. But the
reason this is so great is that it holds a
ton and it's like big enough you can put your
hand in there and after cooking, and my mom's I
was like, Okay, I gotta get one of these. So
the brand is Emil Henry and so I'm going to
kind of refresh my salt and pepper station at the
(17:48):
top of the year. And my pepper grinders got here.
My salt pig comes tomorrow and I'm excited about that. Okay. Next,
I mentioned this wipe auple place mats. This can be
a great thing if you were looking for something to
get you more excited about family dinners. We have these
wipeable place mats that have turned into First of all,
I just like because we eat at our family island.
(18:11):
I like that by setting the island, by setting down
a place mat, it feels a little bit more intentional,
like we're sitting down to dinner. And this can be
a great job for a kid. So my daughter Nora
loves this job, so she will take these. They're like
a vegan leather round place mat, and she sets everyone's
setting table setting before we eat. And because you can
(18:32):
wipe them off, you can literally run them under the
water and wipe them off, and they are just great.
I really loved them. And when we got back and
we started doing chor charts, and she was like, Oh,
I get to do the place mats and I was like, oh,
this is such a good thing. So wipeable place mats
also all might give me five. And then finally, my
favorite planner is Golden Coil, best planner ever. I just
(18:53):
got my new one for the year and it feels
like coming home nice thick paper. It's my favorite layout.
It that it's a small business run by two sisters.
They I don't think anyone does planners better love mine,
and I'm so excited to begin planning my year. All right,
that's it for today. Make sure you're subscribed to the
podcast so that you never miss an episode. Remember this
(19:14):
podcast was created so that you could have a quick
twenty to thirty minute listen while you map out your
own meals for the week. For me, listening to a
podcast while I meal plan has always been part of
my own simple dinner system, and so I try to
put out something that's a really good fit for that
each week. Next week, I can't wait to chat about protein.
We are going to dive into some really realistic and
(19:37):
simple ways to get more protein in to become protein aware. Right,
I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not pretending to be, but
I know there's a lot of people who are like, yeah,
i'd probably get some more protein, So we're going to
dive into that, all right. 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
you all next week. The Silliest Pat
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 one hundred and twelve,
how to refresh your dinner routine. It's our first episode
after the holiday break, and I'm so happy to be
back here. I hope you had a really nice holiday.
We had mostly highs, some lows which came in the
(00:28):
form of the stomach bug, and it sounds like nearly
half of the country dealt with that this holiday season.
But we in our household are fully recovered. Hopefully we've
got some immunity for the stomach bug. Moving forward, my
kids are back in school and we are ready to
take on twenty twenty five. It's a new year, and
there is lots of talk about resolutions, goal setting, even
(00:50):
words for the year, and it really is a good
time for resetting and self reflection. And you guys know
this about me, I happen to love it. I like,
maybe January's my favorite month. That's not much. I love it.
I really love fresh starts. But whether your personality is
like mine and it loves the practice of goal setting
or not, I think this is a great time to
(01:12):
think about whether or not you're satisfied with your routine
surrounding cooking and breaking bread with your people. So today
we're going to chat a bit about how you could
re establish or refresh some of your dinner habits and
routines to maybe make dinner feel a little easier in
twenty twenty five. But first, we're going to run through
(01:33):
three simple recipes you could throw on your meal plan
for the week if you're stuck trying to decide what
to make for dinner. So first up, tie peanut noodle salad.
I really love this because it's a hardy enough salad
that I can it passes as dinner. And we're we're
like kind of recovering from all the comfort food situation
of the holidays, and so everyone seems to be fine
(01:56):
with like hardy salads and deconstructed salads in my house
right now, so I'm leaning in. The thing I love
so much about this recipe is the peanut dressing. It's
like next level delicious. In fact, I think I'm going
to make a double batch and then just use it
on some lunch salads throughout the week as well. But
super good. My girls love noodles, so they probably won't
eat the full composed salad, but I can make the noodles.
(02:17):
It works in the salad, it works for them, and
it's just delicious. We are going to make. Oh, this
is a new recipe, my spiced chicken and yogurt sauce.
This is inspired. If you've ever been to New York
or you're familiar with New York, there's something called the
Hawal Carts and it's like really great Indian food. Lots
of times you can get it just in carts on
(02:37):
the side of the street. There's now a restaurant called
the Hawal Guys, and it's just it's delicious. It's very
very good. And what it is is it's kind of
spiced chicken and it's served typically with crisp lettuce, tomatoes,
and this yogurt sauce that is so so good. So
I'm making that this week. I am doing a lot
(02:58):
more with yogurt sauces because I like the added protein
that it gives, like instead of like a vinagrette or
something like that. And so I'm excited to make this.
I haven't made it for my kids yet, but I
think that they're really gonna like it. So I tested it,
made it for Recipee Club and it's so good, so
I'm hoping I can make my kids believers as well.
(03:20):
And then third, we are doing a veggie for Tata.
This is this recipe is becoming infamous, Like it's so good.
It's a five ingredient recipe. I like to get all
the ingredients to Trader Joe's, but you can absolutely get
the ingredients at other grocery stores. I just like their
unexpected cheddar cheese that goes in this. But we are
(03:43):
back on our breakfast for dinner HAC like that is
once a week. My kids really look forward to it,
and I don't know why, but it's like easier to
comprehend in my brain. So we're going to do breakfast
for dinner one night, and I like the veggie for
Tada because probably only three of us will eat the
veggie for tis. My kids will have waffles and bacon
and stuff like that, but it will be great meal
(04:05):
prep for breakfast for the days that follow. So there
you have it. 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 broken down by recipe. If
you are looking for a simple dinner system for the year,
make sure you consider taking advantage of our twenty five
percent off an annual membership in twenty twenty five promotion
(04:28):
that we currently have running Recipe Club. Really, it helps
you decide what to make for dinner, and it supports
you getting it on the table. New recipes are at
it every month to our vast recipe library. In addition
to weekly meal planning emails that you get specifically designed
for your busy families, what you get in the email
is reflected in the membership. We also have a drag
(04:49):
and drop meal planning tool where you can customize shopping
lists and take advantage of one click grocery shopping if
you want to take a look at what you already
have on hand and find meals that way. There's never
really any batter I add snow long blog posts, drawn
out stories. It's really just the recipes you need to
get dinner on the table. I have done my best
as an overwhelmed mom myself to build the most helpful
(05:10):
meal planning tool, so make sure you take advantage of that.
It's running through the end of the month, and let's
do this. Let's jump into the back half of the
podcast and discuss getting back on track with a dinner
routine or refreshing the routine that you maybe already have.
(05:31):
Like many of you, I feel like I'm just barely
coming up for air after the holidays. And while I
love the holidays and the traditions and all of the
memories made my goodness, they throw a wrench into any
sort of routine and just kind of create chaos. And
usually by the first week of January, now I find
myself craving structure and routine. But that can also feel
(05:53):
overwhelming when it's like, oh, I got to do all
the things, and really, I just wish I could kind
of snap my finger and have all of the holiday
decorations and lingering art projects magically put away into organized bins,
and all those new toys that they acquired at Christmas
put away into systems that are going to stick with
my kids, and you know, all that stuff. But let's
(06:15):
be honest, a dinner routine is super important when it
comes to getting us back to the table and having
regular dinners again, because dinner never goes away and the
holidays always throws us out of our regular dinner routine.
I'm okay with it because we are making memories around
(06:35):
different tables with our extended family members and our cousins,
and that is great. But I still just value it
too much to have the ritual in our household of
having regular dinners. So this is a great time to
kind of reflect what is working, what isn't working, what
do we want to change this year? And this is
(06:56):
what I want to talk about today. So if you
want to re establish some sort of a routine but
you are kind of dragging your feet because it feels
too hard and your brain is not working at full
capacity yet, I want to offer a couple of really
simple suggestions today. First of all, this might be my
motto for twenty twenty five. I don't know that I've
totally decided yet, and that is start small. If you've
(07:20):
fallen out of a routine, Please do not plan to
make seven home cooked meals this week. It's you won't
do it. I won't do that. Set yourself up to
succeed by keeping it simple, even just one meal a
week where you all sit down and have dinner on
a Sunday. Start there and then build, or if you
feel like you can confidently say Okay, we're gonna eat
(07:42):
three nights this week, start there, but don't don't try
and like completely revamp it so that it's so unrealistic
that you immediately feel like you fail. So that could
look like, I'm going to make these three recipes and
then on Friday we're order pizza. On one of those nights,
we're gonna have leftovers, and on another one of those
(08:04):
nights we are going to do breakfast for dinner, or
you know, raid the freezer section of Trader Joe's, or
go out, go out. Just start small. Don't overly commit
at the very beginning of the year unless you feel
confident you can pull it off, but set yourself up
to succeed. Next, make it fun. What do I mean
(08:28):
by that? Think of something that will make it fun
for you to get to the table. I oftentimes compare
this to the idea of exercising or working out, because
that is usually not very fun for me. But if
I am setting a goal or want to increase the
likelihood that I'm going to move my body, something that
(08:48):
might make it more fun is getting a pair of
new running shoes, or getting a pair of new wireless earphones,
or maybe it's you making it fun because I'm gonna
walk with a buddy or something like that. It doesn't
always have to be something you buy, but think about
(09:09):
what you could do to make it fun. So when
it comes to dinner, that could look like maybe getting
a set of new place mats or dishes. Maybe it's
introducing a new tradition where your family shares they're high
and low from the day. Some families call it a
rose and a thorn, and my family we call it
the sweet and the Sour. We've also used Brooke Romney's
(09:29):
Modern Manners book in the past to read through each night.
I just keep it right in the center of my
kitchen island because we tend to eat it on the
kitchen island most nights, and part of our family ritual
of dinner is flipping the page and reading through one
of these manners. And that's been really fun. But this
year we're going to start something back up that we
(09:51):
tried a year or so ago, and that is candles.
I am setting an intention to light candles at dinner.
Is often I think about it like I really want
to make an effort my kids. It's like this cozy
family dinner. I don't like overhead lights. And if you
know me, well you know that it's something nice about
lighting candles for dinner. And it doesn't have to be
(10:13):
a fancy dinner. My goodness, you can be having grilled cheese,
but it sets the mood. And if you live with
a four year old, they're gonna be so excited to
blow those candles out when the dinner is over. But
I want to do that. I want to do that.
In fact, it's on my list. Trader Joe sells really
affordable no drip taper candles, and I'm going to get
someone I go today so that we can kick that
(10:34):
back up again. Okay, number three, except that you will
need to do some planning. No one is casually plans
family dinner and has a ton of success. I'm sorry
you guys. I hate to tell you this. You're gonna
have to do some planning. So this is what I
think is the best way to approach that. Just first
(10:55):
of all, you got to accept it. Say, I get it.
I'm gonna have to do some planning, but I know
this is gonna make my life easier and I know
that I'm going to be happy that I did this,
so I'm just gonna I'm gonna do this. I suggest
setting a time each week to make meal plan. Whether
you want to create an alarm in your phone to
remind you to do that, or maybe you want to
(11:15):
stack this on top of another habit that you know
you always do. Decide when it's going to be and
I find that I have the most success when it
is at the exact same time each week. It will
help you so much, I promise, I promise. When you
do that, you're going to sit down. You're going to
look at your family calendar. You're going to see what
(11:36):
you have going for the week. Do you have a
lot of sports for your kids, Do you have some
church obligations, do you have pta obligations? Is everyone going
to be home every night of the week. So first
you're going to determine how many nights are actually going
to cook, and then you are going to open your fridge, freezer,
(11:57):
and pantry and look at what you already have on
hand and see if any of that can be clues
for what you are going to cook. Like if you've
got chicken that's going to go bad, you should look
for a chicken recipe. If you don't have anything in
your fridge, freezer, or pantry, then go to Recipe Club
and just follow our meal plan for the week. But
even with Recipe Club, you can go in and put
(12:18):
the ingredients that you do have on hand and it
will populate the recipes that you can make from the club.
So just make an effort to do that' se at
the same time. Each week, show up, look at your
family calendar, look at what you have on hand. Then
you're going to select recipes. So if you determine that
you're cooking three nights that week, select three recipes, and
(12:38):
then you're gonna place your grocery order. If you're one
of the people who still likes to grocery shop in person,
great decide when you're going to do that. If you
order groceries for pickup or delivery online like I do,
then you're gonna place that grocery order right Then you're
going to do it, and you've got a plan. It
takes about ten minutes and it is going to relieve
(13:02):
so much stress. Other approaches you could take is you
could decide, you know, my family doesn't really care about
variety We're going to do the same meal plan every
other week for the next two months. And I'm going
to do two meal plans, and we're gonna have grill
teaese on this day and pot roast on Sunday and
(13:23):
tacos on this day. And I just am gonna wash
and repeat this. That's the way you could simplify it.
But think about your family, makeup what's important to you
and what can you easily do with the consistency. But
I do highly recommend carving out time to make a
weekly plan. All right, you've got this dinner isn't going anywhere.
(13:44):
You have to make it for a really long time.
So it's worth investing in establishing some systems to not
only make it easier, but to make it more meaningful.
Because while the recipes are a critical part of making dinner,
they are the most important part. And you guys know
I feel that way. What's most important is create getting
a set time for you to connect with your people
as often as possible, and to support that ritual so
(14:06):
that when they leave the nest, they remember breaking bread
with her family around the table. All right, let's finish
how we always finish by running through five things that
make my life easier or more enjoyable. This week, I
call this my Gimme five and this this is a
great list. Okay, let's start with this. I have decided
(14:29):
that I want to be more protein aware. I know
that protein is a hot topic, and it has been
for a couple of years. I have friends who count
their protein each day and they track it. I am
not interested in that, but I am interested in being
more protein aware because I know it's really good for
me and it's good for my entire family. So I've been,
you know, putting together some snacks, some higher protein breakfast,
(14:51):
even thinking about how much protein's going into dinner. And
when you are increasing your protein, you might think about
protein powder or protein bars. And I found an awesome
protein bar this week that I'd never heard of before.
It's called David Protein Bars. I got them on Amazon.
And if you were someone who's done any researcher on protein,
you know that an ideal high protein snack is one
(15:15):
where if it has twenty eight grams of protein, it
should have less than ten times at a mountain calories,
so it should have less than two hundred and eighty calories.
And these bars, this one in particular. I like the
cookie dough flavor. Twenty eight grams of protein, one hundred
and fifty calories and zero grams of sugar. I don't
even know how they do that, but they honestly taste
(15:36):
pretty pretty darn good. I mean, they're not a Snickers bar,
but they're pretty good. And if you're looking for some
more protein options at the top of the year, it
might give those a try. They were helpful to me. Okay, next,
let's talk about some kitchen things. So this is very basic,
but there's no better time to get back to the
basics than January. After being at my mom's for the
(15:58):
holidays with my sister, I have decided that I needed
to reinvest into very foundational things in my kitchen. A
pepper grinder, because mine died. It died in December. Like,
I'm so proud of this thing, this pepper grinder. It's
like twelve dollars on Amazon. It's wood, and it had
(16:21):
been going for the better part of four or five
years and it was fine. I like the way it
looked and it was so cheap, but it like it
literally fell apart, and so I haven't had fresh cracked
pepper and it's been driving me crazy, and I finally
decided to do the thing that I tell other people
to do, invest in a good pepper grinder. And the
brand I bought forgive me, I might butcher this pyot
(16:44):
pog peu geot. Sorry, guys, I don't know how to
say that, but it is a classic pepper spice grinder brand.
I had one years ago, like for the first probably
ten years marriage, I had one and it was awesome,
and then in one of our moves, I don't know,
it disappeared. So I just bought a new one. I
(17:06):
bought a new pepper grinder. It's really pretty, and boy
does it give me a nice fine like it just
feels good in my hand. So I got one of those.
And then my mom and my sister loved this thing
called a salt pig. Have you ever heard of this before.
It's essentially like a little dish to hold kosher salt
(17:27):
by your like everyday cooking station. And I have just
like a little marble bowl that I use. But the
reason this is so great is that it holds a
ton and it's like big enough you can put your
hand in there and after cooking, and my mom's I
was like, Okay, I gotta get one of these. So
the brand is Emil Henry and so I'm going to
kind of refresh my salt and pepper station at the
(17:48):
top of the year. And my pepper grinders got here.
My salt pig comes tomorrow and I'm excited about that. Okay. Next,
I mentioned this wipe auple place mats. This can be
a great thing if you were looking for something to
get you more excited about family dinners. We have these
wipeable place mats that have turned into First of all,
I just like because we eat at our family island.
(18:11):
I like that by setting the island, by setting down
a place mat, it feels a little bit more intentional,
like we're sitting down to dinner. And this can be
a great job for a kid. So my daughter Nora
loves this job, so she will take these. They're like
a vegan leather round place mat, and she sets everyone's
setting table setting before we eat. And because you can
(18:32):
wipe them off, you can literally run them under the
water and wipe them off, and they are just great.
I really loved them. And when we got back and
we started doing chor charts, and she was like, Oh,
I get to do the place mats and I was like, oh,
this is such a good thing. So wipeable place mats
also all might give me five. And then finally, my
favorite planner is Golden Coil, best planner ever. I just
(18:53):
got my new one for the year and it feels
like coming home nice thick paper. It's my favorite layout.
It that it's a small business run by two sisters.
They I don't think anyone does planners better love mine,
and I'm so excited to begin planning my year. All right,
that's it for today. Make sure you're subscribed to the
podcast so that you never miss an episode. Remember this
(19:14):
podcast was created so that you could have a quick
twenty to thirty minute listen while you map out your
own meals for the week. For me, listening to a
podcast while I meal plan has always been part of
my own simple dinner system, and so I try to
put out something that's a really good fit for that
each week. Next week, I can't wait to chat about protein.
We are going to dive into some really realistic and
(19:37):
simple ways to get more protein in to become protein aware. Right,
I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not pretending to be, but
I know there's a lot of people who are like, yeah,
i'd probably get some more protein, So we're going to
dive into that, all right. 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
you all next week. The Silliest Pat
Host
Kelsey Nixon
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