Heavenly Homemakers

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Summer Supper Ideas and Recipes

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When it’s nice outside, we go outside. Too many times I find myself stumped as to what to make in the evening to fill up our hungry bellies. So I’ve put together a nice list of Summer Supper Ideas and Recipes for all of us to reference as needed!

Summer Supper Ideas and Recipes

1. Pancakes and Eggs, with fresh fruit and lots of bacon

How to make this meal quick and easy:

2. Grilled Chicken, with mixed greens, veggies, and fresh fruit

How to make this meal quick and easy:

3. Tuna Salad, with fresh fruit, grape tomatoes, and lettuce

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • I almost always have my kids grab 4-6 cans of tuna and mix it up for the family while I’m doing something else that needs to be done.
  • We serve our Tuna Salad on whatever odds and ends of bread, tortillas, or crackers we have around. (Or if I’m in a hurry, I just grab a fork and eat it as-is!)

4. Baked Potatoes in the Crock Pot or Instant Pot, with whatever toppings we have available

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • I have each of my kids scrub a few potatoes early in the day so they can cook in the crock pot and be ready for lunch or dinner.
  • We grab leftover ham, taco meat, or roast beef from the fridge and warm it up to serve on our potatoes along with butter, sour cream, and cheese.
  • I almost always steam frozen peas to serve with Baked Potatoes, which takes about 2 minutes.

5. Grilled Hamburgers or Hotdogs

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • I like to make patties ahead of time, then throw them on the grill for a quick lunch or dinner. Our favorite recipes are Make-Ahead Parmesan Burgers or Cheddar Ranch Burgers.
  • I buy several packages of Nitrite-Free Beef Hotdogs at the store to keep in the freezer so I can grab them out and grill them quickly for summer lunches.
  • I set out fixin’s and everyone builds their burger or dog the way they like!

6. Beanie Weanies

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • I have a supply of Nitrite-Free Beef Hotdogs in the freezer so I can grab them out and thaw them in hot water when we need a quick meal.
  • I have a supply of Organic Baked Beans in my pantry so that if I don’t have to make Simple Baked Beans from scratch, I can grab a few cans and make a meal!
  • I slice fruit and get out carrot sticks to complete this simple meal.

7. Tacos

How to make this meal quick and easy:

8. Instant Pot Meals

Take a look through all the Instant Pot Recipes we’ve posted so far! I have been amazed at how much time my Instant Pot has saved me. Whatever I make in my Instant Pot, I serve with a quick salad and veggie and food is on the table so quickly! During the summer, I especially love that using my IP keeps from heating up the kitchen!

Our favorite Instant Pot Recipes so far:

9. Special Salads

Salads are great because we get so much nourishment from them, we can use garden fresh veggies, and we avoid heating up the house! But salads are only great as meals if they are hearty and filling.

Here are our favorite Hearty Salad Recipes:

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • I try to have Homemade Bacon Bits cooked and in the freezer to grab out for easy salads.
  • During all the months of the year that fresh lettuce is not growing in our garden, I keep a package of Organic Mixed Greens in the fridge. Then, when we want to make a salad, we just grab the greens and add whatever we want!

10. Stir Fry

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • I make a large batch of this Stick of Butter Rice so we can stir it into our fried veggies. (We often serve our stir-fried veggies with whole wheat spaghetti noodles, but we love rice with them too!)
  • I use whatever veggies we’ve picked from our garden, received from Bountiful Baskets, or purchased at the farmer’s market to make super flavorful, nourishing Stir Fry! And I usually throw in a big handful of fresh spinach too. :)

11. Grilled Salmon

How to make this meal quick and easy:

  • If I haven’t thawed our salmon ahead of time, I dunk the package into hot water and they thaw super quickly!
  • I serve a simple salad and whatever fresh veggies and fruit we have on hand to complete this simple meal.

12. Pizza on the Grill

Cooking pizza outside on the grill keeps the oven off and the house cool!

Need more ideas?

Check out this list of 50 Crock Pot recipes! Make these in the morning and have an oven-free dinner ready in the evening!

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Summer Lunch List of Ideas

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School is ending. This means that we need a Summer Lunch List. Why? Because children cannot live on sandwiches alone. We’re sure to lose our meal-planning brains by June. And we all just need a cheat sheet. Here it is!

Summer Lunch List of Ideas

  1. Bean and Cheese Burritos – Make a big batch and freeze them to rewarm quickly as needed.
  2. Meat and Cheese Burritos – Make a big batch and freeze them to rewarm quickly as needed.
  3. Black Bean Salsa – Take a few minutes to put this together, refrigerate, then pull it out and serve with chips.
  4. Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas – These only take about 15 minutes to put together from start to finish. Make them ahead and bake as needed.
  5. Chicken Salad – Serve on bread, crackers, or tortillas.
  6. Tuna Salad – Serve on bread, crackers, or tortillas.
  7. Sloppy Joes – Serve on buns or with tortilla chips.
  8. Taco Salad – Let everyone build their own as they like.
  9. Simple Chicken Cheeseballs with a Kick – Perfect with these smoothies.
  10. Black Bean Chicken Nachos – These come together surprisingly fast.
  11. Grilled Pizza Tortillas – Fast and easy!
  12. Quesadillas – Add torn spinach to these to “sneak in veggies.“
  13. Easy Cheesy Bean Dip – I love it when lunch includes a chip and a dip.
  14. Pizza Boats – You can grill these if you want to avoid the oven. :)
  15. Creamy Mac and Cheese – Have you tried making it this way? Amazing.
  16. Beanie Weanies – A kid favorite at our house.
  17. Guacamole – With chips. And smoothies. It’s lunch and I love it.
  18. Simple Last Minute Nacho Plate – Perfect when they’ve played outside all morning and come in starving.
  19. Sliced Ham – Tastes so good with potato salad.
  20. Simple Crock Pot Pizza Casserole  – Take 5 minutes to put this together in your crock pot during breakfast; then serve it at lunchtime!
  21. Turkey and Cheese Melts –  Use leftover bread or buns, top them with lunch meat and cheese, then melt them under a broiler for 2-3 minutes.

Convenience food back-up ideas:

At this point in my life, I try to keep some of these on hand for super quick meals:

  • Hotdogs
  • Frozen pizza
  • Chicken nuggets
  • Sandwich makings

Keep any or all of these on hand for easy lunch sides:

  • Baby carrots (I like the petite carrots – they are sweeter and easier to eat!)
  • Grape tomatoes
  • Mini sweet peppers
  • Sugar snap peas
  • Strawberries
  • Blueberries
  • Blackberries
  • Raspberries
  • Unsweetened Applesauce
  • Bananas
  • Grapes
  • Oranges
  • Clementines
  • Fresh Spinach or Mixed Greens
  • Sliced apples
  • Sliced peaches or nectarines
  • Steamed peas (frozen peas cook very quickly!)
  • Sliced cucumbers
  • Sliced sweet peppers
  • Raw broccoli “trees”
  • Cut cantaloupe
  • Watermelon wedges
  • Sliced pears
  • Pineapple chunks
  • Steamed green beans (frozen green beans take just a few minutes, but can cook themselves while you get the remainder of lunch ready)

Bonus Tips:

If you have Homemade Ranch Dip (storebought works too!) or Hummus on hand, these can be thrown onto the table quickly to help get the veggies down!

These smoothies go with just about any lunch and are super refreshing in the summer.

What are your favorite lunch ideas for summertime?

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Inexpensive Meals I Made From Costco

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Grocery prices are on the rise. That’s why I am so encouraged to share these delicious, inexpensive meals I made from Costco groceries!

We really can be more cheerful about grocery spending, friends. Yes, some prices have gone up. But we can still make very reasonably priced meals for our families. And we can still even serve them WITH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

You know I had to say that, right? :)

Sometimes we think that we need to compromise on healthy foods in an effort to save money. Not so, not so. Let’s keep eating good food and know that we can focus on nourishment too!

I have become curious as of late, so I decided to spend some time breaking down the cost of some of the meals I made after a big Costco trip. I was so excited to see that every meal I made was still incredibly reasonable.

I typically feed a minimum of 10 people at each evening meal. Depending on our adult kids’ schedules and the friends they have with them, often we feed 15 or more at dinnertime. This makes my cost breakdown even more exciting. :)

If you’d like to take a look at the list of food I recently bought, you can check that out here.

Inexpensive Meals I Made From Costco

1. Chicken Salad on Croissants

I used canned chicken and croissants that I got at Costco to make a delicious meal of Chicken Salad on croissants with spinach. We had this with fresh strawberries, raspberries, and carrots. The cost for this meal was right around $18 for 10 of us to eat!

2. “Homemade” Pizza

We used the pizza-making-kit from Costco to have a pizza night. Everyone loved this! We made four pizzas and ate them with these nourishing smoothies. Total cost for this meal was only $17. Amazing, right? But wait, it gets better…

Only our six littles were home when we first had this meal, so we ended up having enough leftovers to stretch these pizzas into two meals. So my $6.97 pizza kit lasted us for two meals, which was awesome on the budget, and also because having pizza leftovers is soooo nice to pull out on a busy day!

($17 divided by 2 meals equals $8.50 per meal to fill my family with pizza and a nourishing side. SO AMAZING!)

3. Smoked Chicken

We marinated Costco boneless chicken thighs in barbecue sauce, then threw the chicken on the smoker. We ate this with steamed green beans, buttered corn, baked potatoes, and grapes. The total cost for this meal was $26.

Sound like an expensive meal? Maybe. But it was a full night with many of our bigs and their significant others being home. Plus some family friends and my niece joined us. So we actually fed 16 people that night – 10 adults and 6 kids. $26 for a meal like this!! It breaks down to just $1.62/plate.

4. French Toast

The cinnamon streusel bread from Costco makes the most wonderful French toast!! We use eggs from our neighbor and made this meal with sausage links and sliced pears (or another choice of fruit the kids grabbed). The total cost for this meal was $19 for 12 people, $1.58 each.

I hope this cost breakdown encourages you as it does me!

Want to make these meals cost even less?

All of these meals can cost even less if you make more of the foods from scratch. My current season in life gives way to me purchasing some convenience foods (like croissants and other breads, some boxed foods, and canned items). But to save more money:

1. Make Chicken Salad from a cooked whole chicken. Save the bones to make broth for another meal or two. Instead of buying croissants, make bread like this. Or homemade, easy Pita Bread. So much more money saved!

2. Make homemade pizza crust like this. You can make these ahead of time and freeze the extras for an easy meal later.

3. Watch for meat mark-downs! I recently found chicken thighs marked down for quick sale at Sam’s. I bought all I could!

4. Make homemade bread or simply skip the special cinnamon streusel bread to use a less expensive variety to make French toast. Skip the sausage in the meal and just enjoy eggs as protein. :)

What inexpensive meals have you made lately?

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Stay tuned for more Big Family Food posts, where I share all about how I make food for our big family! And read here to catch up on other posts in this series you may have missed. :)

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$5 Family Supper Club – Join Us!

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Now introducing: our $5 Family Supper Club!

Grocery prices are on the rise. But we don’t have to despair!

We did some research, we did the math, and we came up with 10 entire tasty meals you can make for your family that will only cost $5 (or maybe even less)*.

*prices as of May 2022

Join our $5 Family Supper Club!

This is for real – we’re going to tell you how you can feed a family of four for just $5! These meals aren’t fancy, but they are delicious and easy.

Have more than 4 people in your family? Me too, times a lot! ;) No worries! The more you stretch these meals, the more you’ll save! Simply adapt these plans and recipes to suit your family’s needs.

What about allergies?

Most of these meal plans and recipes are naturally gluten-free and dairy-free or can easily be adapted without increasing much in cost. I LOVE THIS!!!

Are you ready to join the club?

We want to save you some grocery money, and we want to bless you with a little pile of resources to make it fun and easy to save. So along with the meal plans and recipes, we’ll give you these too:

 

EVERYONE is affected by the increase in grocery costs right now. Please help us spread the word about these awesome free grocery-saving resources! Join us here:

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Big Family Food: Total Grocery Spending for April 2022

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I decided to keep a running tab of all of our grocery spending for April. Ready for the great big break-down?

We are currently a household of 11. This includes 5 adults and six littles. Most days we feed extras like a fiance and a girlfriend of our boys #2 and #3. Plus any others we are blessed to enjoy at mealtime or after ball games!

Throughout the month, I typically:

  1. Head to Lincoln one time to stock up at Costco and Sam’s.
  2. Place several Walmart Pick-Up orders to supplement the fresh produce and other groceries we need.
  3. Get local milk at a farm once each week.
  4. Pick up WIC items and a few other groceries at a local grocery store close to our house.

Here are more specifics about what I bought and spent during the month of April 2022:

Walmart Pick-Up

In order to keep up with all of the fresh produce we eat at our house, I have been placing a Walmart Pick-Up order a few times each month. My friend Pam comes to help me with the kids each morning, and she is awesome enough to grab my pick-up orders when I schedule them right before her time to come over.

Walmart Pick-Up April 6: $112 

Walmart Pick-Up April 12: $167 – I was prepping for a huge Easter dinner, so this order included candy for our Easter egg hunt plus some treats to supplement our big meal.

Walmart Pick-Up April 29: $127 – Justus graduated from college on the 30th, so along with fresh produce, I ordered brats and other food we needed to feed people who came to his reception.

Local Grocery Store

We have a very nice store just a few blocks from our house. They are great, however, their prices are usually higher so it’s hard for me to justify doing much shopping there since we buy so many groceries.

I run there a couple of times each month, though, to grab a few needed items, to take advantage of sales, and to get WIC items. (Three of our foster daughters qualify for WIC, which provides them with free formula, milk, cheese, cereal, produce, and a few other items. This is a huge blessing!)

Since these trips are short and sweet, I try to take one or two littles with me so they can have a fun outing and learn a little bit about shopping and obeying at the store. Here’s a summary of our April Grand Central Trips:

Grand Central April 3: $15 – I ran in and grabbed milk because we were almost out!

Grand Central April 11: $42 – I picked up all of our WIC items for the month, plus filled in a few gaps by grabbing some buns and frozen items we needed. WIC covered most of our cart that day, praise God.

Local Farm Milk: $40 – We are in a group that takes turns picking up farm-fresh milk each Tuesday. We get 2-gallons each week, and it is incredible milk!

April Trip to Lincoln

Costco – $420

  • Bottled water
  • Olives
  • Granola Bites
  • Strawberries
  • Blueberries
  • Clementines
  • Apples
  • Pears
  • Canned chicken
  • Tortilla Chips
  • Gogurt
  • Heavenly Hunk snacks
  • Coffee
  • Olive Oil
  • Sugar
  • Brown sugar
  • Almond butter
  • Bread
  • Brat rolls
  • Croissants
  • Boxes of chips
  • Frozen pizza
  • Tilapia
  • Chicken thighs
  • Chicken nuggets
  • Mozzarella cheese
  • Cheddar jack cheese
  • Applesauce squeezies
  • Yogurt squeezies
  • Kombucha
  • Italian dressing
  • Mustard
  • Fruit bars
  • Cinnamon streusel bread
  • Pizza making kit (with four crusts and sauce)

Sam’s – $229

  • Boneless chicken thighs marked down!
  • Red grapes
  • Frozen cheese curds
  • Frozen orange chicken box
  • Case of canned baked beans
  • Case of canned corn
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Sliced pepper jack cheese
  • Sliced colby jack cheese
  • 2-pack of whole wheat sandwich bread
  • Turkey lunch meat
  • Potato salad
  • Pepperoni
  • Mixed greens
  • Spinach x2
  • Bananas
  • Half and half
  • Sour cream
  • Hamburger patties
  • Hamburger buns
  • Applesauce
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Fish sticks
  • Raspberries
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Apple juice

Total Grocery Spending for April

$1,152 

I try to keep our spending under $1,200 each month, so mission accomplished. We fed guests, we ate well, and as far as I can remember, we didn’t eat out at all this month.

Wait. I was sick one day so Matt ordered pizza while caring for so many littles while Mommy was in bed. :)

Care to share what your grocery spending was for April?

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Tips to Save Time in the Kitchen

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Since 2007 I’ve been sharing tips for how to save time in the kitchen. Here are some of my best!
Now that it’s 2022 and we’ve added more amazing kids to our family, I find that I continue to find more and more ways to use my time as wisely as possible.

My current favorite ways to save time in the kitchen:

Here are some additional time-saving ideas – in case you want to be awesome and make Cinnamon Rolls and Granola:

I’ve been buying granola as of late and the only cinnamon rolls we eat are ones I bought at Christmas-time from my nephew and nieces who were baking to raise money to buy more chickens for their family project. :)

So apparently that’s my newest time-saving tip: Buy it from someone else, ha. Goodness, how far I’ve come. I’m the one who used to make everything from scratch. I don’t even remember that old me anymore. :) I don’t have any guilt over this – the old me or the new me. That’s God at work, people. :)

Still, we are eating quite a lot of nourishing foods each day, even if we do compromise here and there.

What are some of your time-saving tricks?
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Add Spinach to Cake (It Tastes AMAZING!!!)

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It’s true. I add spinach to cake now. We will get greens into these kids, will we not?!

Look at this and tell me that you see spinach:

Right? And neither did he:

Now, he is a 3-year-old. Therefore, he also eats the occasional dirt or piece of tortilla that has been stuck under his car seat since last Christmas. So can he really be trusted?

Look at that face. If he can’t be trusted, who can? Though he is not to be trusted with choosing an outfit. It was snowing the day he was determined to wear these swim trunks. Why? Because they had sharks on them, which perfectly matched the sharks on his shirt. Obviously.

So about adding spinach to cake. I got the idea from Justus’ fiance.

She can absolutely be trusted. With food, with picking outfits, and of course, with picking a husband. She’s a keeper.

One day in my kitchen she saw me making these smoothies (yes, she already knows we’re weird and she still wants to marry into the Coppinger family). She was like: “Hey, did you know you can add spinach to a cake mix? I saw it on a reel!”

Fascinated, and seeing as I am in a desperate way to get as many nourishing foods into my kids as possible, I decided to pick up a cake mix the next time I was at the store. (<— Read that sentence again. Weirdest thing I’ve ever typed. Hahahahaha. Who even am I anymore?)

Yes, I picked up a cake mix. To help us eat greens. Yo. Betty Crocker gets salad into the children. We love her.

There’s the blender filled with spinach, oil, and water. If that doesn’t look like a delicious cake waiting to happen, I don’t know what does.

Then, in went eggs and cake mix.

It’s a cake mix? It’s a smoothie? No one actually knows what this is.

In fact, Malachi (our 17-year-old) watched in horror as he saw me blend this up and then pour it into a cake pan. “Mom, what are you doing??!!”

Poor kid. He knows his mom is tired. He really thought I’d lost my mind (some more). He thought I was pouring smoothie into a pan and putting it into the oven.

So then I told him what I was actually doing and he was disgusted that he’d seen the entire thing transpire. Not knowing there was spinach in the cake would have been much better, thought he. But alas, the damage had been done. He’d seen the spinach get blended into the cake. He left for soccer practice full of skepticism.

Would you look at that? It’s just a chocolate cake. Full of spinach that no one can see. Bah.

I frosted it, you know, just to add more sugar to our nourishing cake. What in the world. I then took a blurry picture.

Let’s take another look at that first taste-tester, shall we?

Can you see a slight green tint within the chocolate? No, you cannot. Only because you know it’s there do you think that you see greenish-brown.

Below you can read about how you can also put greens into your cake. We have all lost our minds. I guess we don’t care if our kids eat the sugar as long as they are also eating salad??

How to Add Spinach to CakeYum

5.0 from 4 reviews
Add Spinach to Cake (It Tastes AMAZING!!!)
 
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Author:
Serves: 15
Ingredients
  • 1 chocolate cake mix
  • 1¼ cups water
  • ⅓ cup olive oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 3-4 cups fresh spinach
Instructions
  1. Blend everything up in a high power blender.
  2. Pour the batter into a 9x13 inch baking pan.
  3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  4. Allow cake to cool before frosting.

And that’s how it’s done.

Will this be a way I frequently get greens into my children?

I don’t think that it will. But then again, I’m kind of on a roll with thinking of new ways to add veggie nourishment to our food. Wonder what else I can add spinach to?

Oh, in case you’re wondering…

Malachi’s Response:

He loved this cake and couldn’t get over it. “It’s so good! How is it this good?!” said we, between bites of cake.

I bet he’ll never be skeptical again when I put green stuff into a cake pan.

Listen, we all loved this cake. We decided that spinach makes it extra moist. I dare you to try it. :)

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Easy Recipes and Tips to Help Keep Food Costs Down

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With grocery prices going up, we can still keep food costs down. Here’s how!

For my own sake and for yours, I decided to do some digging. I wanted to put together a thorough list of recipes and meal/snack ideas to help us all keep our food costs down.

First, do not despair

Media wants us to panic. I feel that we really have no need to worry! Sure, grocery prices are up and may still climb. But we can make this work!

Next, some ways to save big bucks:

Here are some of my initial ideas for saving some money on groceries. None of these will likely work for everyone, but maybe you can find one or two that work for you.

  1. Garden if you can. Or purchase from a gardening friend.
  2. Raise your own meat and eggs if you can. This is a no-go for most of us, but perhaps you know some local farmers you can buy from.
  3. Take advantage of any and all offers of free or inexpensive food you might have available to you. We often have friends with extra garden produce to give away. We also have friends with fruit trees and they tell us to come “have at it!”
  4. Make food from scratch if you can. See lots of great and easy recipe ideas below!
  5. Avoid processed food if you can. Packaged convenience foods can really deplete our grocery budgets. Consider other easy-to-make meals (recipes below).
  6. Buy and eat “in season” produce. The prices of fresh fruits and vegetables are still very reasonable and one of the best ways to get nourishment! Don’t buy into the lie that fruits and veggies are too expensive.
  7. Frozen fruits and vegetables are very reasonable in cost! Take advantage of this as a way to keep buying and eating healthy foods.
  8. Don’t let food go to waste. If produce is going bad, freeze it to use in broth (veggies) or smoothies (fruit). Save leftovers and be creative in how you use them up.
  9. Take advantage of “loss leaders” at grocery stores. Our local stores are still offering great sale-priced items to get us into the stores, and I bet yours are too! Take advantage of these and stock up when you find a great sale.
  10. Look for items that have been marked down. I almost always check the meat section at our grocery stores to see what might be close to expiring and therefore marked down. I save a lot of money this way and have freezer space to keep the meat good until we need it.

Easy Recipes to Help Keep Food Costs Down

I’ve noticed that the cost of prepared baked goods has gone up. Instead of buying them, I’ve been making inexpensive recipes like this for my family:

Muffins

Easy-to-Make Breakfast Breads and Bars

Cereal prices seem much higher than normal, so consider these fun ideas:

Homemade Cereal – Easier than you think!

Inexpensive Meal Ideas:

Meals you can make instead of buy:

These meals are not necessarily the cheapest to make compared to those listed above. But these are less expensive to make from scratch compared to buying them premade or compared to eating out.

Grocery Shopping Tips:

If you’re looking to save money, here are some foods you want to stock up on and some foods you might want to avoid.

Buy This:

  • Fruit that is in season and/or on sale
  • Chicken legs
  • Whole chicken
  • Boneless chicken thighs or breasts
  • Ground turkey or chicken
  • Ingredients for homemade baking: flour, sugar, honey, spices, oil, baking powder, salt
  • Oats
  • Rice
  • Potatoes
  • Pasta
  • Pasta sauce

Avoid This:

  • Fruit that is out of season
  • Ground beef (buy this when it’s on sale to use sparingly as it is significantly more than ground turkey)
  • Cheese and cream cheese (we eat a lot of cheese, but I’ve been trying to use it less in our meals overall to save a few bucks)
  • Premade baked goods (with the exception of bread and buns which are still reasonably priced)
  • Frozen meals

What are your go-to meals that are money savers?

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The Easiest Way to Make Hamburgers

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This really is the easiest way to make hamburgers. I’ll grill them in the summertime, otherwise I will forevermore do this!

The Easiest Way to Make HamburgersYum

Short answer: Bake them.

Not because we’re afraid to fry them. But because we don’t want to stand at the stove to fry them. It’s messy. It takes maintenance. We don’t have time to maintain our patties, am I right? The patties must maintain themselves.

I love buying a package of hamburger patties at Costco. I set them out all afternoon and they are semi-thawed by 4ish. I cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper and place the partially thawed patties on the pan.

I bake them at 350 for about an hour. If I remember, I flip them all over halfway through their baking time. But if I don’t, I don’t. Why? Because we don’t have time to maintain our patties. Our patties must maintain themselves.

Now. My pictures are ugly. These patties do not look done, but they are done and you’ll be able to tell that your patties are done with they are sizzly and brown.

Right out of the oven, I put some sliced cheese on the hot patties for those who prefer cheeseburgers. Some in my family like Colby jack. Some like pepper jack. I like mine cheeseless.

Dinner is served with burger fixins, fries in our air fryer, carrot sticks, pickles, and baked beans.

Leftover patties (if there are any) warm up quickly for lunches, and I’ve been known to pull one out of the fridge and eat it cold when I simply need sustenance. Apparently, not only do I have time to maintain my patties, but I barely have time to maintain myself. So a cold leftover burger patty fills my belly. With a glass of this, of course. :)

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Big Family Food: Making the Meal Stretch

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Today we’ll talk about Making the Meal Stretch as I share our Big Family Food Journey. But this post could also be titled: Feeding Picky Kids. See also: How to Add a Big Variety of Fruits and Vegetables to the Table. Sounds like we have a lot of ground to cover today!

What I am about to share will tell you how we regularly:

  • Feed our big family without making a huge portion of the main dish for every meal
  • Accommodate picky eaters, and…
  • Provide lots of fruits and veggies for our crew.
  • Bonus: This stretches the grocery budget too!

Another Bonus: This method works for families of all sizes, small and large!

Big Family Food: Making the Meal Stretch

Even though we typically feed 8-15 or more at every meal, I don’t always make a double or triple batch of our main dish. That could get really expensive! So instead, I often make one large main dish and then provide a big variety of nourishing sides to fill us up!

Here’s a list of items I might pull out to serve with the main dish we have prepared. Typically I prepare (or simply pull from the fridge or pantry) four or five of these:

For instance…

Here’s an example of some food I set out to serve with a 9×13 Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole one night. We had company, so there were 18 of us eating. (Note: Several were little ones who ate very small portions.) With our casserole, I served:

  • a pan of warm homemade rolls
  • a pot of steamed green beans
  • a pot of buttered corn
  • a plate of clementines and kiwi
  • and a plate of sliced cheese.

Not pictured from this meal: corn, rolls, and casserole. Plus the adorable face of our 2yo. :)
Everyone got full and we even had a little bit of corn and casserole leftover.

Stretch the Meal, Accommodate the Picky Eaters

If I set out 4-5 of the above-listed items to go with our meals, I tell the kids to pick 2-3 (or more if they want). This has worked so beautifully because in the case of our foster/adopted kids, letting them choose their sides gives them a sense of control when so much of their life has felt out of control.

But I don’t let them rule the show. As in, I don’t let the kids ask for something that isn’t already an offering on our buffet.

If I’ve set out the main dish, a bowl of grapes, sliced apples, steamed broccoli, and mixed greens with ranch – they don’t get to turn up their nose and ask for a pickle or a PBJ. I know what all of our kids like and don’t like. So I know that the choices I set out WILL accommodate all of the kids’ preferences in some way. I have them choose at least one fruit and one veggie from the choices provided and that’s that.

See how this stretches the meal?

I feel like I’ve talked more about accommodating picky eaters than I have about stretching the meal to feed 10-20 people. So let’s talk a little bit about how my method of serving several side dishes makes our main dish stretch farther!

If I were to make a Simple Ham and Hashbrown Casserole and serve it with a salad – we would run out of casserole after everyone had only one small or medium-sized helping. But if I make a Simple Ham and Hashbrown Casserole and set it out with:

…then everyone can help themselves to the casserole, and fill up on all/some of the sides that are available. (Just like the example I shared above when we served one casserole to 18 people.)

Yes, sometimes I make a double batch of the main dish – 2 big casseroles, an extra huge pot of soup, or several pounds of meat. But this can really eat away at our grocery budget and typically it means I fight more food battles with the littles. Making one biggish portion of our main dish and serving a big variety of sides works much better for us!

Samples of Making Our Meals Stretch

Here are some examples of what I might serve with main dishes to stretch our meals.

Roast with:

Taco Meat with:

  • Tortillas and Chips
  • Black Beans or Refried Beans
  • Stick-of-Butter-Rice
  • Corn
  • Salsa
  • Avocados
  • Lettuce
  • Tomatoes
  • Olives
  • Cheese
  • Pineapple
  • Grapes

Hearty Bean Casserole with:

  • Biscuits or Muffins
  • Apple slices
  • Clementines
  • Salad
  • Grape tomatoes

Hamburgers with:

Pizza with:

If I make these smoothies, I don’t typically set out anything else. They include greens and fruit, so that covers everything!

Spaghetti with:

  • Steamed broccoli
  • Fresh greens with ranch
  • Corn
  • Sweet peppers
  • Cantaloupe
  • Pears

Grilled Chicken with:

  • Peas
  • Fresh greens with ranch
  • Raspberries
  • Pickles
  • Bread and butter or muffins

In some ways, it might seem easier to some to make a main dish with just a couple of sides and call it good. But that doesn’t work for my family. There are too many of us and many of my little ones and teens are picky. I’ve found that I fight fewer food battles by setting out several sides. Plus most of these sides don’t take any effort to put on our counter for our kids to pick from!

It’s really very easy.

Fruit mostly just has to be washed and served. Or if I need to cut or slice it, I try to do it ahead of time and just pull out a bowl of cantaloupe or watermelon, etc. at mealtime. Veggies just have to be steamed and served. Pickles come in a jar. Muffins have already been baked – I just take the lid off the container. Easy, easy, easy!

Stay tuned for more Big Family Food posts, where I share all about how I make food for our big family!

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