Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Recipes I Miss Making!

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I don’t have time for this right now. But I wonder if you might? Here are some recipes I miss making!

None of these recipes is hard, which is why I felt that it was worth putting them into a list as a suggestion of recipes you might want to check out. These are some of the recipes I hope to make again once our little ones are a few years older!

Recipes I Miss

The salad dressing recipes above are sooooo much healthier than anything I can find at the store. That’s why I miss making them. I kind of just “don’t read the ingredient list” on the kind I’m buying right now, ha!

What’s fun is this:

While there are several recipes on my site that I find too complicated to ever attempt again (see that list here!), I’m looking and seeing that MOST recipes are still incredibly doable even during our busiest seasons in life!

Click on any of these links to get dozens of recipes that are easy, healthy, and fun for families!

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Back when I made everything from scratch…

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As I look over my list of recipes shared here, I am cracking up a bit about all I used to make back when I made everything from scratch.

There was (mostly) nothing wrong with what I did. But I will say that my focus was a little more on doing than being. I felt so accomplished when I made all these foods. But what was I missing out on by taking so much time on what wasn’t actually necessary??

Peace. Calm. Joy. Time. Energy. Love.

I became known as the mom who made all her food from scratch. I found that the title stung just a little. I didn’t want to be known for that. I wanted to be known for how I loved and cared for people. Thank God He continues to show me better ways and lean me more toward focusing on what is more important.

Is it ok to make everything from scratch?

Of course, if that is what God has called you to do. If food allergies make it necessary for your family. If you serve people because of it. There are all kinds of good and healthy reasons to make food from scratch.

But I don’t believe that I had healthy reasons. I think my reasons were prideful, and that’s the truth. Here’s part of a former “make it from scratch” list that now has me in shock:

You really should click on some of those and see what goes into making these. Some aren’t hard, and I actually might make some of them again, someday. But Tater Tots?? No. (They weren’t worth the effort.) Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns and Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns? No. (They weren’t that good, ha.) And Homemade Peanut Butter Captain Crunch?? Why did I actually try that one?

What we miss

Our older boys talk about our homemade tortilla days. Now those were worth making and I hope I can make them again someday!

These Pretzels are amazing and I WILL make them again when my hands aren’t so full.

We love this Ranch Dressing and it isn’t even hard to make. But I can’t keep up with it right now. Maybe again in a few years.

This Peanut Butter!!! Wow it is hard to beat!

It’ll be interesting to see, won’t it? What God will do a few years from now. What He has planned. What will matter and what will go by the wayside.

How grateful I am that we can all grow and change and that God stays the same while He grows and changes us!

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What to Add to Meat to Make it Stretch

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Looking for more ways to save money? Here are some ideas for what to add to meat to make it stretch.

I recently shared How to Save Money on Meat. These ideas have been working very well for me lately and I’ve been saving quite a bit on our grocery budget!

With these in mind, I’ve been considering more ways I can save.

What to Add to Meat to Make it Stretch

I had mentioned that we’re eating less beef. When we do eat beef, I’ve found that I can use much less ground or shredded beef in a recipe if I add any of these to the meat:

  1. Rice
  2. Beans
  3. Corn
  4. Tomatoes
  5. Extra veggies

Now, most of these are a no-brainer. We’ve been taught these tricks forever, right? Right. But I still feel like it’s worth a mention as I share a few specific ways we can stretch our ground beef (and shredded beef too!)

Recently I cooked three pounds of meat for tacos. I then put only about two cups of cooked meat into a bowl with a can of black beans, a can of corn, and a can of rotel. This was a delicious combination in our tacos that night, leaving all kinds of cooked meat left over for me to use in several meals in the future.

I used to employ these tricks a lot when our first set of kids was younger. Now that we have more mouths to feed, I’m implementing them again. And note this: while we are currently feeding a lot of small children again and I can get away with stretching meat because they are little, we are also still feeding at least 4 adults at every meal. These meat-stretching ideas are working just as well for the Bigs as they are for the Littles. No one is complaining about “mom holding back on meat.” Why? Because no one has noticed!

Make Meat Secondary

Typically, we think of meat as our main dish, then our carbs, veggies, and fruit as side dishes. But what if we change our thinking just a little bit and serve meat as a “side dish.” Or as an “add-in.”

I’m not willing to compromise our health and add a bunch of fillers or empty carbs to our diets in an effort to fill us but not nourish us. I’m simply looking for ways to stretch our meat into providing more meals! So adding nourishing add-ins like beans, rice, corn, and extra veggies to our meals really makes sense!

And don’t forget what I learned when I did the math here: Fruits and vegetables are actually not expensive. We can eat a lot of them and easily! stay within budget!!

Bonus

I’m finding that these meat-saving tricks are also simplifying my kitchen life. How? Well, I don’t have to cook as much meat. This means that I don’t have to plan ahead as much. It’s easier and faster to open a can of beans than to thaw and cook meat, right? Like, much easier and faster!

Keep sharing the ways you are saving too. I learn so much from you!

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How to Bake Cake in a Crock Pot (with spinach, of course)

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Too hot to turn on the oven? Here’s how to bake cake in a crock pot!

I’d like to say there was a day that “we needed cake” but did we actually need cake? Meh. Define “need.”

But on this day that we “needed cake” it was 101 degrees outside. So baking was a silly idea. “I wonder if my spinach in a cake situation would work in a crock pot,” thought I. With this in mind, I looked on the internet a bit and sure enough, it seemed quite doable.

Look at all the spinach that I blended into our cake. So did we need cake? Yes, because of the spinach.

This is what you need to know about adding spinach to cake:

  • You can’t taste it.
  • You can’t see it.
  • It makes the cake extra moist, which is actually better than eating a cake without spinach. True story.

I buttered my crock pot. It looked like this. And now you can see my crock pot stains. This thing is well-used.

I blended the cake ingredients along with the spinach, and poured in the batter which looked like this. See, you can’t tell there’s spinach in there:

Next, we worked a little crock-pot-cake magic. This calls for a paper towel, a wooden spoon to prop the lid, and then a lid placed cock-eyed over the paper towel and spoon. This lets the crock pot vent a bit while it bakes. We all need to vent sometimes.

At one point when I checked on my cake’s progress, my paper towels fell and got chocolatey. I share this picture with you to make you feel better about your messy towels if and when this happens to you:

After about an hour and a half, our house smelled amazing and our cake looked like this. The kitchen was still nice and cool while the oven sat alone and unused.

The babies were up from their naps at this point and it was time for dinner and an outing for the evening. So I left the cake sitting all night in the crock pot (lid on after it cooled). The next morning, I carefully loosened the edges and worked it out of the pot, turning it out like this:

Then I frosted the cake, which made the kids sing “Happy Birthday to Nobody” because why would Mom be making a fancy cake like this since it wasn’t anyone’s birthday?

Would you look at this amazingness? What spinach? I don’t see any spinach.

Listen, you have got to try this! Use a cake mix, use your favorite wholesome cake recipe, just add spinach to cake and then bake it in a crock pot to avoid the oven. We are huge fans! This cake is so moist and good!

How to Bake Cake in a Crock PotYum

How to Bake Cake in a Crock Pot (with spinach, of course)
 
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Author:
Serves: 16-24
Ingredients
  • 1 chocolate cake mix
  • 1¼ cups water
  • ½ 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 buttered crock pot.
  3. Lay paper towels to cover the top of the crock.
  4. Place a wooden spoon between the paper towels and the crock pot lid to allow for venting.
  5. Cook on Hi for one to one and a half hours or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  6. Once completely cooled, gently work the cake out of the crock with a spatula.
  7. Frost and serve!

How to frost your cake

I recommend this Chocolate Fudge Frosting (though I no longer make powdered sugar from sucanat like I used to, eeee).

My favorite-favorite is actually Cream Cheese Frosting.

And if you want to cut way back on the sugar, here’s a Stevia Sweetened Cream Cheese Frosting that is really good. Add a pinch of sugar to take away the bitterness without adding much sugar.

Last idea: Simply whip some cream like this and plop it on top. Super good!

But wait, there’s more. What if we topped it with Peanut Butter Cup Whipped Cream??!

Or this Peanut Butter Cream Frosting?!

Let me know which turns out to be your favorite!

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How to Save Money on Coffee

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It’s a necessity, right? I mean, I thank God for it every morning as I sip my steamy mug and talk with Him. Sooooo good, and my time with Him is rich. Here’s how to save money on coffee.

Perhaps you read about the day I spent $7 on a coffee. It was tasty and fun, and then it made me do some calculating. I couldn’t help myself. :)

Turns out, at home I spend about $1.00 to brew an entire pot of high-quality coffee. How?

I recently spent $10.48 on this bag of coffee at Sam’s. I didn’t take the time to measure each scoop to see how many pots of coffee this one bag would make, but I’m making a conservative estimate that it gives us at least 10 pots of coffee. Likely more! But to keep it simple, let’s say 10+ pots, which means that one pot full of coffee costs $1.00.

A dollar.

For an entire pot. This, without having to buy a “cheaper coffee variety” that doesn’t taste as good (sorry Folgers).

We use big mugs at our house. :) :) So one pot fills 4 mugs. $0.25 for a cup of coffee!

Now, we all add a little something to our cup of coffee. I just add half&half. Matt and the big boys add a shot of creamer. So should we then estimate that our cup of coffee costs a total of $0.35-$0.45??

How to Save Money on Coffee

Well, it seems that the best way to save money on coffee is to make it at home. It’s crazy cheap!!!! And oh so good.

To make it even more fun for our teen/adult sons and their friends who come over, we keep a variety of creamers (just don’t read the ingredient list and all is well) and sometimes a can of whipped cream for them to spray on top. Even with those splurges, the savings are huge compared to buying at a coffee shop.

Ever tried making this Chocolate Whipped Cream and scooping some into your coffee? Oh, it’s good! Here are more fun homemade coffee additions you might want to try.

What do you like to put in your coffee at home?

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Why Did I Spend $7 on a Coffee?

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This, my Why Did I Spend $7 on a Coffee? post, is the intriguing sequel to my previous Why Did I Spend $8 on a Watermelon? post. I bet you wonder what’s next in this series. (Spoiler: Why Did I Take a Nap?)

I did not, in fact, take a nap. That is why I needed coffee. Mmm-hmm.

Why Did I Spend $7 on a Coffee?

I’m here today to make some observations after recently buying an $8 watermelon and a coffee from Starbucks. But first, let’s talk about gas. That sounds fun, doesn’t it?

People are freaking out about the price of gas, basically making Facebook not fun anymore. I want to see pictures of your kids, not a picture of how much it cost to fill your tank this morning. By the way, ever filled the tank of a Ford Transit? That’s what we drive now to accommodate our entire tribe. I could take a picture next time I fill up, but wouldn’t you rather see this?

That’s four of our six littles walking into church one Sunday morning. It was the sweetest so I grabbed a picture. Five minutes later, our two-year-old melted down in the foyer and took off her shirt, refusing to let me put it back on. But this picture is sweet, isn’t it?

Back to the coffee.

Online and in-person, I’m hearing all the woes about the price of a gallon of gas, a gallon of milk, and a bag full of groceries. Indeed, inflation is real and we are all feeling the sting right now.

Meanwhile, for the past several years, people have been – without question – lining up at coffee shop drive-thrus as if paying $4 or $5 or more for one cup of coffee wasn’t strange, scary, or painful. Some do it daily, and now it’s an unquestionable part of their normal routine. I’m not criticizing as we are all allowed to enjoy our fun and our splurges!

But why aren’t people complaining about the cost of a coffee? Isn’t its cost outrageous too?

Recently I had a glorious day to myself in which I left all the littles in the care of friends, my husband, and our older sons. I ate a meal at a restaurant (all by myself), shopped at fun stores (all by myself), and went to a coffee shop (all by myself). It was quiet and wonderful and needed. I had been blessed with a gift card for the coffee shop (thanks, Mara!) so I walked up and ordered a large blended iced coffee with cream. I think the gal might have misunderstood some of my request (because most people add syrups and such so me asking for just cream always throws workers off a bit). “That’ll be $7.04 please.”

I didn’t argue and my gift card covered it, and I was super thankful for the amazing treat. But $7 for coffee with ice and cream? As I sipped its deliciousness, I mentally made a list of everything else I could buy with $7 because I’m so fun and practical like that.

A package of chicken. Two bags of apples. Three pounds of strawberries. Many pounds of rice. Three loaves of bread. I’ll stop (except for in my head – five pounds of mandarins, two pounds of hamburger, a big bag of frozen fruit…).

I think we are a funny people

I have inconsistencies too – some things I feel passionate about that completely contradict something else that I don’t even give a thought to. But it might be worth us all recognizing that there are things we spend too much money on while we complain about the cost of necessities like gas and groceries. Just something to think about.

Why did I write this post? I have no idea. My coffee cost seven bucks. It blew my mind because I can make an entire pot of high-quality coffee at home for about $1.00. :)  I couldn’t let it go. And now here we are.

Thanks for listening. I’m sorry I’m weird.

Coffee at home

Enjoy your coffee however you like it!!

Maybe you have the special coffee-shop coffees that you enjoy on the regular. Perhaps you have another non-guilty pleasure. I most certainly enjoy an occasional coffee from a shop as a splurge and treat every once in a while.

Here’s how we make our coffee at home, in all kinds of delicious ways. I calculate that each big mugful costs about $0.35, and that’s a price I can get behind! :)

Which of these cost me $7.00?? Ok, Laura. You can stop now.

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Why Did I Spend $8 on a Watermelon??

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I spent $8 on a watermelon, and I learned a thing or two. I figured it’s worth a conversation here.

Grocery prices are scaring everyone right now. I keep finding myself with the desire to stay calm and positive in the midst of the inflation storm and encourage others that there’s hope at the grocery store. I really do think we are all going to be ok! One day at a time, right? No need to panic. We can still be so thankful that we have plenty to eat. And there are still plenty of ways to save!

So about that watermelon…

Is it worth it to spend $8 on a Watermelon??

A few weeks ago, I was shocked that the watermelon at Sam’s cost $8! “No way,” I thought. “I’m waiting until they go down to at least $5!”

But then I wondered: Is that a thing anymore? Will watermelon ever be $5 again?

As I got closer to the melons I was talking myself out of needing/wanting it. I just didn’t feel I could justify it, even though it’s fruit, and therefore good for us. But then I saw how big these watermelons were (huge!!!). So I decided to go ahead and “splurge” on the $8 melon.

I spy a great big watermelon —>
(And corndogs, which makes you wonder why I overthought my watermelon splurge.)

The next day at home when I cut it all up to make it easy to serve at mealtime and snacks, here’s what I got…

Two 9×13 dishes plus a huge bowlful. It was an incredible amount of watermelon!!! Much to our delight, it was also super sweet and crisp. We ate on that watermelon for a week and a half.

The following week, I bought another watermelon at our local store “on sale for $4.” Guess what? It was less than half the size of my $8 melon. Hmmm…

I learned that I don’t have to always say no to a produce purchase just because its price looks higher than what I typically might want to pay. I need to consider:

  • how many meals and/or snacks we can get out of my purchase
  • how it will help me get good food into my kids
  • how it will provide easy side dishes or snacks that I can grab and put on high chairs and plates

That $8 watermelon provided for our family about 6 meals or snacks worth of provision. (We feed 10+ every day.) Since I spent a few minutes getting it cut and ready to serve, it also provided a really easy-to-grab side dish or snack option for us, which is especially helpful for me right now.

When the price feels high

It’s a good idea to consider:

  1. Fruits and vegetables are one of the best forms of nourishment we can put into our bodies. We need to buy them and eat them on the regular.
  2. What is the cost break-down per pound for the item? My $8 watermelon ended up being only about $0.40/pound. That’s cheaper than bananas. Who knew?!
  3. At the end of the day, I found that I’m actually only spending $1/day per family member to feed us a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Even when I buy more expensive fruits and veggies like organic greens and fresh berries.

Apparently, I can’t stop talking about how affordable fruits and vegetables are compared to most foods. I mean, what else can I fill and nourish my kids’ bellies with for $0.33/meal??

Long live the $8 (which is really only $0.40/pound) watermelon. Thank you for putting up with me. :)

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What Air Fryer I Recommend

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I’ve had multiple people ask me what air fryer I recommend. I’m finally getting around to sharing!

(I’m sharing my recommendation with Amazon links to make it easier for you to find. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)

What Air Fryer I Recommend

A few years ago, Matt and the kids got me this air fryer for Christmas. We have given this a big workout and WE LOVE IT.

The one drawback:

It isn’t big enough for our family. Ha, but do they make air fryers big enough for our family?? Others with large families – I’d love to hear what you use!!

I’ve been looking into this so that I can save time in the kitchen. This 10-quart air fryer looked pretty great, so I recently picked it up at Sam’s. WE LOVE IT.

There are fancier air fryers out there, but the simpler the better in my opinion. That’s why I’m drawn to this brand.

What we make in our air fryer

I’ll admit: most of what we make in our air fryer is from a bag. :) Chicken nuggets, fries, tator tots, and sweet potato fries.

Surprising items: We love to rewarm pizza in our air fryer. We also use it to warm up these burritos. And…we toast bread or bagels for 3 minutes in our air fryer. So we no longer use a toaster at all – we use our air fryer for all toasting needs!

Occasionally we make green beans in the air fryer like this.

Do you have an air fryer? What kind do you like? What do you make in your air fryer?

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Big Family Food: How We Afford Fruits and Vegetables

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Curious how we afford fruits and vegetables?

How We Afford Fruits and Vegetables

People keep telling me that fruits and vegetables are SO EXPENSIVE. That they can’t afford them. That I’m really splurging when I buy so much fresh fruit every month.

I couldn’t figure out if I was in denial about this or if maybe I’m so used to buying so much produce that I don’t “see the expense” anymore. Or, is it possible that fruits and vegetables really are affordable but the first look at their price scares some people? I really wasn’t sure.

So I did some fruit and veggie math.

We’re currently feeding ten people three meals each day. Our three littlest are ages 2, 1, and 1. Our four oldest household members are adults, so it balances out. :)

Our monthly grocery budget is $1,200. Of that amount, I calculated and was shocked to learn that only about $300 is spent on fruits and vegetables. (I looked online at all my Sam’s, Costco, and Walmart receipts, so handy!) I truly thought it would add up to more than that since my produce purchases are so frequent and big.

So I did the math again to double-check.

Sure enough, only about a fourth of our overall monthly grocery budget goes toward these, and I don’t hold back:

  • Frozen green beans
  • Frozen peas
  • Frozen corn
  • Frozen fruit for smoothies
  • Frozen hashbrowns
  • Fresh spinach (we go through at least one pound every week)
  • Fresh spring mix (we go through two pounds every week)
  • Fresh carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Fresh broccoli
  • Apples
  • Bananas
  • Clementines
  • Berries ( strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries depending on the season)
  • Melons (cantaloupe, honey dew, and watermelon depending on the season)
  • Grapes
  • Kiwi
  • Pears
  • Canned pumpkin
  • Canned peaches
  • Canned pears
  • Canned mandarins
  • Applesauce (a ridiculous amount of applesauce)

Where I landed after doing the math:

Feeding my family a lot of fruits and veggies is not expensive.

I sort of apologize for my geekiness, but as it turns out, I’m pretty excited that I went back and added it all up! Now I feel like I have an actual answer to the “fruits and veggies so expensive” claim!

If I’m spending $300 of our monthly grocery budget on produce – for 10 people for 30 days? This breaks down to just:

$1/person/day.

Which is $0.33/meal.

This, to fill our bellies with lots of fresh, frozen, or canned fruits and vegetables in a big variety of forms. That’s actually incredible, I think! Especially when our plates look like this:

Steamed broccoli, corn, raspberries, and nectarine on spaghetti night;
and no, I don’t put sauce on our baby’s noodles because I don’t want the mess. :)

This was our 8-year-old’s first serving. He had seconds of all you see here:

Here’s Matt’s plate the evening we celebrated Asa’s birthday with
smoked chicken, alfredo, and steamed broccoli:

One Sunday lunch was spinach on tuna sandwiches, watermelon, and guacamole.
This was our 6-year-old’s plate. She’s a pretty small eater. Unless it’s cake. :)
(But now, of course, I’ve been putting spinach our the cake so…)

Our three year old asked for spinach on the side with ranch and watermelon with his tuna sandwich that day. Not pictures, his tuna sandwich as he gobbled it down already.

This is my plate filled with Overnight Beef Roast, pears, peas, and baked beans. (In case you need to know, I didn’t actually cook it overnight. I cooked it all day and it was perfect for dinnertime!)

Here’s my plate showing our salmon burger meal with steamed green beans, corn, sweet potato fries, and a tiny bit of asparagus from our garden! (We each only got a little bit of asparagus.) ;)

PSA: The Avocado Mash cups at Costco or Sam’s are worth their cost in that they stay fresh in the fridge for a long time and offer an awesome, easy snack or side dish for babies and adults alike. Our littlest girls LOVE these and will each eat an entire cup with their meal. We bigger people like to eat them with chips. So good!

In case you need to see a chubby baby hand a couple more times:

So, can I afford $10/day to feed 10 people fruits and vegetables?

Absolutely. I can spend a dollar a day on each family member to keep us all nourished. I am shocked that it costs so little to buy so many varieties of fruits and vegetables every month. Is it possible that this food category is what actually costs the least instead of the most as we are all led to believe??

One more veggie-kid photo as we wrap up; here’s Keith after finishing his smoothie (filled with frozen fruit, fresh spinach, yogurt, and milk):

You should try doing the math to see how much you spend on fruits and veggies! Challenge yourself to be sure you’re filling everyone up on all the good stuff – it’s much less expensive than we think!

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Big Family Food: Morning Meal Prep

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Want to see what my morning meal prep looks like?

I’ve always been a planner-aheader. This has been mostly good for me except that God has had to teach me to also live in the moment and not always be working on or thinking about whatever needs to be done next. :)

As I’ve learned to chill out and to let go of what can’t get done (and know that what needs to get done will and what doesn’t won’t) – I’ve truly been grateful that being efficient in the kitchen is a strength God gave me. I have found that I have to be very organized and that I have to keep everything as simple as possible so that I can get everyone fed (and clothed, but you don’t want to see what our laundry looks like).

Here’s our current kid breakdown:

  1. Asa, 25, married and living in Lincoln
  2. Justus, 22, getting married in July!
  3. Elias, 20, a college senior living at home and working this summer
  4. Malachi, 17, a high school senior with a growing video production business
  5. Brayden, 8, a 3rd grader
  6. Bonus Girl, 6, a 1st grader
  7. Keith, 3, a preschooler
  8. Bonus Bonus Girl, 2, fit thrower, little mommy, and snuggler
  9. Bonus Bonus Bonus Girl, 1, mess maker, giggle box, and book reader
  10. Bonus Bonus Bonus Bonus Girl, 1, observer, stair climber, and toothy grinner

Well, all that to say: Whenever possible, I spend five minutes or thirty minutes or an hour in the mornings getting food ready for the day in whatever form I can. I do this:

  • After my morning coffee time with my Bible, prayer, and journal
  • If possible, before all the kids are out of bed, or at least when most of them are eating breakfast or happily playing
  • Before Matt leaves for work
  • And/or after my friend Pam arrives to help (she comes every weekday morning for two hours, and she’s a huge reason I am still alive, bless her dear heart)

Morning Meal Prep

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I might do during my morning meal prep time. Often it’s as simple as using the five minutes I have to unload and reload the dishwasher. Sometimes it involves cutting fruit or doing a quick clean-out of the fridge. Whatever it is, I find that if I have a minute to get something done, I need to take advantage of it!

One morning the three baby girls slept in until 8, which was amazing and unusual and I took advantage of it! I cut a watermelon and put it in the fridge for side dishes. I sliced kiwi for breakfast to have ready for all 6 littles. And I used up the avocados to make Guacomole to go with that night’s dinner.

Then, I put chicken thighs in a bag with dressing to marinade so that we could put it on our smoker that night for dinner.

Another morning I made a double batch of Peanut Butter Honey Rice Krispie Treats, which we enjoyed for breakfast the next two days. I also made a blender full of this smoothie so that Matt and I could just pour and drink as needed at lunchtime.

See the frost-covered ham in the above picture? Someone had given us that and I really needed to use it up! So I set it out to thaw so I could quickly slice and fry it for lunch later. Then I mixed up a crock pot full of Party Potatoes to cook while we were taking a walk and playing all morning.

I don’t usually make “big lunches” like ham and cheesy potatoes. But that day it just made sense and it wasn’t difficult, so I went with it. We were out taking a long walk all morning and got back just in time to be starving, so I was so glad to have this ready to go when we walked in!

We didn’t eat the entire hunk of ham, so while everyone was finishing lunch, I diced what was left and put it in the fridge for our next baked potato meal.

As it turns out, our baked potato meal was the next day.

Keith (3) was so eager to scrub potatoes, so I got a chair and put him to work the next morning. He was so proud!!

I let the potatoes sit, then turned the crockpot on high at lunchtime. They were cooked and ready for our baked potato dinner by 5:15!

I took advantage of a cooler morning and make some muffins and bread so we’d have easy breakfasts and snacks. With so many littles, having these bread items on hand is always very helpful!

I made a triple batch of Pumpkin Muffins (this recipe but without chocolate chips).

Then since I had a few more minutes and the ovens were already hot, I used our ripe bananas to make Banana Bread. See the loaf on the left? That was the pumpkin muffin batter that I had left after filling all my muffin pans!

One morning, we planned on walking and playing at a park all morning, so I planned ahead to have lunch ready to make right when we got home. I am so glad I did, as you’ll see a few pictures below. :)

I cracked a bunch of eggs into a bowl so we could quickly scramble them to go with pancakes at lunchtime.

I set out the pancake mix (a splurge from Sam’s, and it’s really good!), put the prepped eggs in the fridge, and put the skillets on the stove.

Well. It is a very good thing I had everything ready to cook when we got home from playing at the park. The kids were all beyond hungry (as was this mom) and the three baby girls completely melted down screaming at my feet while I scrambled eggs and flipped cakes. Poor dears.

Don’t believe one bit of sweetness you see in this picture. (I mean, they are super, super sweet. But in this picture they were also 100% unhappy.) Blondie Girl was throwing out lids as fast as she could and screaming with every throw. Brunette Girl, well, you can see her whole body was involved in the meltdown. And Baby Girl, oh she was banging that lid with all her might. Elias came home for his lunch break right then, shook his head with a grin, and grabbed the nearest screamer, bless him. We got lunch on the table quickly and then put everyone down for much-needed naps. Oy.

And that, my friends, is why I have to prep ahead in the mornings if at all possible. If I don’t, we still find something to eat, even if it’s stale cereal and mushy apples. Sometimes it’s cheese sticks and slices of turkey lunchmeat. Canned fruit is a lifesaver, so I buy it by the case.

But prepping anything I possibly can in the mornings makes our days a bit less stressful, so I do what I can when I can! :)

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