How to use leftovers to save your sanity

I love cooking and eating homemade dinners.

I also don't have time to cook dinner everyday. I am not home until 6:30pm a few days a week. My kids take the bus at 6:30am, which means bedtime is 7pm at our house.

It's difficult to make dinner, eat dinner and help everyone with their things in 30 minutes.

So I'm learning to prepare ahead. This is hard for me because I prefer to "wing it!"

Last week I prepared ahead for the evening grind by batch cooking on Sunday. Batch cooking is intentionally making enough dinner for leftovers. I like to call it "cook once, eat twice (or thrice)." My sister calls it "leftover lane."

Whatever you call it, leftovers can save your sanity if you are a working parent with minimal weekday cooking time.

Can you count how many times I served leftovers last week in the following menu?

Sunday

Lunch: chili (made a triple batch) + crackers + apples

Sunday dinner: ratatouille over polenta + bread + apple slices + green salad

Monday:

breakfast: German pancakes + apple sauce/butter

Lunch: leftover ratatouille

Dinner: leftover chili + healthy cornbread + green salad + apple slices

https://www.feastingathome.com/sheet-pan-ratatouille-served-3-ways/

Tuesday:

breakfast: triple batch oatmeal pancakes

lunch: leftover pancakes + fruit

dinner: grilled salmon (no recipe, just grilled it for 6 minutes without any seasonings)+ leftover pancakes from breakfast

Wednesday:

breakfast: no flour pumpkin muffins (Novembers cooking class!!)

lunch: leftover pumpkin muffins

dinner: leftover chili + baked potatoes + apple cake

note: we ate muffins for snack too and hardly had room for dinner!

https://www.ddinutrition.com/no-flour-pumpkin-muffins

Thursday:

breakfast: peanut butter oatmeal

lunch: leftover salmon + leftover chili (still lov'n the chili!)

dinner: broccoli cheese soup + bread from the store + apples

Friday:

breakfast: egg strata (trialing recipe for January's class)

lunch: tortellini tomato + sausage soup (from our best bites, love this recipe!)

dinner: cheese quesadillas + leftover broccoli cheese soup

https://ourbestbites.com/tortellini-sausage-soup/

Saturday:

breakfast: shaped Halloween pancakes (blogpost coming later in the week)

lunch: leftover sausage soup + bread + apple slices

dinner: mushroom stroganoff over whole wheat egg noodles + canned pears

Sunday:

breakfast: pumpkin muffins, apple muffins

lunch: leftover sausage soup + leftover noodles from stroganoff

dinner: meaty lasagna (planning to eat leftovers for dinner Monday)

I used leftovers as the main part of my meal 12 times last week. I don't usually write in my breakfast and lunch menu because I don't want to bore you. But I included it this week to show you how leftovers can save your sanity.

I challenge you to make a double batch of something you love and serve it for dinner twice instead of just once this week. If you love leftovers, let me know in the comments!

How to make dinner when your fridge is empty

When I lived in Salt Lake City, the grocery store was less than a mile from my house. I could walk there in 5 minutes. To get to the store at my new house, I have to drive for 15 minutes on a 35 mile per hour country road. Still not terribly far, but it feels like an ETERNITY to me.

Because the store feels light years away, I often run out of fresh food before I have motivation to make a MEAL PLAN and shop. Can you relate?

I know meal plans are so important, but sometimes I just don't have it in me. When this happens, I have a few dinner plans up my sleeve to save the day (or just to save family dinner): rice a roni packets with frozen veggies, pumpkin curry and white chicken chili.

What do you make when your fridge is empty and your gumption to grocery shop is gone? Let me know in the comments or send me an email! I reply to every response I get!

Here's what we ate last week:

Monday (didn't wanna shop) Pumpkin Curry + rice + frozen mangoes (tip: I keep whole ginger in my freezer and grate it frozen)

Tuesday (didn't wanna shop) Rice-a-roni + frozen broccoli + nothing else, that's all we had.

Wednesday (still didn't shop) White chicken chili + tortillas

Thursday: homemade cheese and pepperoni pizza

Friday: Corn + poblano soup (click link for photo, "from a chefs kitchen")

Saturday: ham and cheese sandwiches + chips + carrot sticks + apples

I really didn't have the motivation to cook last week!

Confession: I don't do this for my kids

You know all those cute lunches you see on Pinterest? The hard boiled eggs turned into penguins; melons cut into flowers; and animal face sandwiches?? I have to confess that I don't make that kind of thing for my kids on the regular; especially not in their lunches! Spending a lot of time on cute food makes me anxious. Here's why: it puts pressure on my kids to eat.

If I spend a lot of time making something specifically for my kids, I expect them to eat it.....and like it!! I'd be super frustrated if I spent 10 minutes making a penguin out of olives and eggs and it came home an uneaten stinky mess. If instead, I just make something I like, (or something simple in the case of school lunches), then it's not so heart breaking when my child decides not to eat. Why??, because I like the food, and I needed to eat (or it was just a PBJ in the case of lunches) - so it's not a waste of time and energy.

That being said, I do find joy creating fun food crafts WITH my kids. Having them create their own craft removes the pressure. It also gives kids a food activity to do at parties that doesn't involve eating a ton of candy (I'm talking about you "Don't Eat Pete" and "smartie BINGO").

So I thought I'd share a few preschool food crafts I'll be making with my kids this October. These crafts are easy, yummy, and can be prepared faster than a box of mac and cheese. Let me know if you try any of them out! nicolebuhlerRD@gmail.com

FALL TREE SNACK

MUMMY TOAST

GHOST TOAST

Another idea I saw online and loved!

Frankenstein toast with avocados on whole wheat bread! There's a lot of healthy ideas out there, let me know if you make any this holiday season!