Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Big Family Food: My Big Costco Experiment

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Slowing but surely, I’m figuring out more time and money-saving grocery shopping methods. Check out my big Costco experiment! I’m learning so much!

In this post, I shared that I had tried ordering all of my non-perishable Costco products online and letting them ship it all to me for free. Sounds so smart, right??? Yes. What a great way to avoid having to fill so many carts at Costco, right??? Yes. And this way, all of my non-perishables would land on my porch (with free shipping) and all I’d have to do in-store is buy fresh and frozen food. Maybe I could even get away with just one heaping cart, right??? Yes.

BUT WAIT.

One of you left a comment here to share that when ordering online, the prices are slightly higher than when purchasing in-store. I had no idea! And then I decided that I wanted to know how much more. Because if it wasn’t significant, I figured that my newly-discovered online-ordering method might be a huge time-saving help even if it did cost a couple of bucks more overall.

My Big Costco Experiment

The next time I was able to go back to Costco, I bought everything (and I do mean everything, as you will see in the pictures below) perishable and non-perishable. I filled an orange cart (you know the ones?) and I thought I was going to have a disaster in which everything on that orange cart would topple over onto the aisle as I turned. The stress – it was too much! WHO CARES if it costs more online, thought I. I can’t even fit everything I need onto this huge orange cart! I decided that I would go back to ordering online just to save the headache!

Hmmm. But then later, I pulled out my receipts for in-store purchases and compared several items to the online prices. Well, would you look at that??

Almost every online item costs around $1.50 more than the same item when purchased in the store. Some cost over $2.00 extra. This really adds up since I buy so many items!! I didn’t price check every single product from my past online order, but last time I shopped online I ordered 19 things. If I paid $1.50 more per item, that added up to $28.50 more compared to when I buy them in the store. Yikes, no thank you. I’d rather buy food with that $28.50!

So, now what?

Well, I think I figured out something that might work!

See, I can only make it to Costco about once each month if that. So when I go, I have a really long list of items that I need. If I’m by myself, there’s no way I can fit everything I need into one cart, or even onto one big orange cart. But here’s a plan that will be less stressful, I believe, than trying to Tetris everything onto an orange cart before it topples over.

I’m going to need to fill a cart, check out, unload into our van, then go back into Costco for round two. Ha! Sound like a ridiculous plan? Of course it’s ridiculous. But I think that’s where I’m at.

My New Costco Plan

  1. Walk into the store, take a deep breath, and shop for all non-perishables. Clothing, paper products, canned goods, boxed snacks and chips, baking products, applesauce, and whatever else doesn’t require refrigeration or extra care.
  2. Check-out, load the van, then go back in.
  3. Take a bathroom break.
  4. Eat a hotdog and drink a big cup of water.
  5. I’m not even kidding. This job makes a person need some major sustenance and $1.50 for the big dog/drink combo is pretty rockin’.
  6. Grab an empty cart again and fill it with all the fresh produce, frozen foods, refrigerated foods, and bread products that we need.
  7. Check out again, load the van again, open the box of Kombucha I just bought, and drink a bottle for refreshment and survival.

When packing our van, I usually fill a cooler bag full of meat and cheese, and a second cooler bag full of perishable produce.

This particular Costco trip, pictured above, filled the back of our Ford Transit! This was an exceptionally large shopping trip because we had a lot of events I needed to prepare for, as well as the need to fill our fridge/freezer/pantry at home for normal use. I got:

  • Cheeses and crackers to serve for refreshments after Justus’ senior vocal recital
  • Oat milk, Nature Valley snacks, olive oil, and a few other items for Kelsey (Justus’ fiance) and her roommates
  • Chips, bottles of water, and paper products for Malachi’s Homeschool Melodrama performance nights (each parent signed up to provide items for concessions)
  • Pork butt to make a pulled pork meal to feed the Melodrama group during a dress rehearsal
  • Apples, grapes, mixed greens, spinach, blueberries, and raspberries
  • Shredded cheese, kombucha, and Naked drinks to share with our college kids in apartments
  • Oats and bagged granola
  • Frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, and tilapia
  • Hamburger meat and chicken thighs
  • A few other odds and ends that I’ve forgotten and these:

These are for our 6yo and 2yo for Justus and Kelsey’s wedding this summer! What an amazing find at Costco!

Am I the only one?

So, what do you think about my Costco experiment? Have you ever had to go in twice in order to successfully make all of your purchases without items falling out of your cart?

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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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Big Family Food: Snacks I’ve Made Recently

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Did you see my post about Meals I’ve Made and Served Recently? Today I’m sharing some snacks I’ve made recently. These fly out of the kitchen at this house, that’s for sure!

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little desperate for more good foods for my kids to snack on. The problem is that I really want them to eat mostly healthy, homemade snacks (instead of foods like purchased crackers or granola bars), but I don’t have much time to make the good stuff. And when I do have time to make them, we go through them really quickly!

This is all a very good problem to have, of course. And I give my kids lots of fresh fruit for snacks (which is nourishing and super quick and easy!). But I’ve needed other snack options, and I need them in large volume. So I’ve tried to put together one or two snack options each day recently, and of course, I make a huge batch so I can freeze extras or simply in hopes that they will last us at least two days, ha!

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One day, I had several dozen eggs so I decided to see if the babies would eat boiled eggs for snacks.

This was a no-go all the way around. But bless them for trying (and smearing boiled egg all over the high chair tray and table). Never fear, I used all the remaining eggs to make Angeled Eggs – a rare treat around here (you know, because it takes like three entire steps to make this luxurious, gourmet food). :)

The above picture shows you part of our lunch the day I tried the boiled egg snack. We had Angeled Eggs, strawberries, apples, carrots with ranch, and good ol’ beef hotdogs.

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I made a quadruple batch of Mudballs one morning. These turned out to be very popular with every kid and adult too.

Friends came over to play that afternoon. By evening, the container looked like this:

And by the next day, they were all gone. :) Looks like I need to make these more often!

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I made a huge pot of Tapioca Pudding one day, which is delicious and great for snacks and even breakfast. But I don’t really have time to stand at the stove and stir the pudding for as long as it takes to make such a huge batch, so I won’t likely be making this very often. (I used over a half-gallon of milk in this batch so it took quite a bit longer to cook.)

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Since the Mudballs were such a hit (and also gone quickly), a few days later I quickly stirred together a double batch of No-Bake Snickerdoodle Bites. This recipe makes up for the extra time it took to make the above pictured Tapioca Pudding. The cookie dough bites are ridiculously fast to make and I don’t have to stand at a stove to make them. Truly, get yourself the ingredients for these No-Bake Snickerdoodle Bites. They are so tasty, filling, nourishing, and easy.

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Another day I made a batch of these Peanut Butter Muffins. These are different from regular muffins in that they are grain and dairy-free. We don’t have any grain/dairy allergies at our house, thankfully. I make them because they are full of protein!

The best thing about these muffins is that they are very filling. So they last a little bit longer than other batches of muffins I make!

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We are provided a lot of free cereal because three of our little ones are a part of the WIC program. So I used some Chex cereal to make a big container of Chex Mix. The kids love this!

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Banana Bread is always a hit around here! And while we do eat a lot of bananas, somehow we still often have over-ripe bananas too. So this is perfect.

I love how all of these snacks that I’ve been making double as great breakfast food too!

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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Big Family Food: How to Use Produce Before it Goes Bad

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Here are some suggestions for how to use produce before it goes bad!

Obviously, my biggest tip is: EAT IT.

Great post. See ya next time.

But I actually have a few other tips too, simply because I realized that as I regularly buy my big family such a large amount of fresh produce, I also have a system for how we eat it all up to avoid anything going bad. If only everything could be turned into banana bread like over-ripe bananas!

First, a look at my produce selections

I frequently buy a large quantity of fresh fruits and veggies each time I go to the store. My hauls look something like:

Typically, I load my carts with:

  • Berries
  • Apples
  • Bananas
  • Clementines
  • Pears
  • Grapes
  • Mixed Greens
  • Nectarines
  • Kiwi
  • Carrots
  • Broccoli
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Cucumbers
  • Whatever is in season and for sale at a good price

How to Use Produce Before it Goes Bad

We usually go through what you see in each of those pictures in about a week or a week and a half. Here’s my system to eat it before it goes bad:

  1. We eat the berries first. These are the most sensitive and tend to go bad quickly. We try to eat all of our berries within just two days, and usually, it’s not a problem because we love berries! If they do begin to go bad, I freeze them for smoothies so that they don’t go to waste.
  2. We start on the grapes next. They’ve stayed good in the fridge while we’ve worked our way through the berries. If they begin to get squishy, I freeze them for smoothies.
  3. Mixed greens get eaten within a week, otherwise they get slimy. We go through two pounds every week by eating them in these smoothies and these. So they almost never have a chance to go bad at our house.
  4. We’ve been eating on the bananas all along, but we never feel urgency to eat them quickly because we love over-ripe bananas in smoothies and muffins. Sometimes I buy extras just so we’ll have enough to use in these recipes. ;)
  5. Clementines are also being served all throughout the week after the berries are finished off. We find that they taste best if eaten within one week, but sometimes they last longer. If they start to get hard (or mushy), I peel and freeze them for smoothies like this.
  6.  Meanwhile, the pears, kiwi, and nectarines have ripened and are ready to eat. We start slicing these to put on our plates at every meal. If we can’t get through all the nectarines before they turn mushy, I slice and freeze them for smoothies.
  7. The potatoes, broccoli, carrots, onions, and cucumbers have kept just fine, so we just use these as needed without much worry.
  8. The apples are usually just fine too, although we have found that if we haven’t eaten them in a few days, they stay crispier if we refrigerate them. If we do happen to have any grainy apples, I blend them and make Applesauce Bread.

What do we do when the produce has run out and we haven’t made it back to the store?

We open cans of fruit (in 100% juice) like pears, peaches, and pineapple. This gets us through until we can make a run to the store.

What about other veggies?

We keep frozen green beans and peas in the freezer at all times. That way, if I’m out of fresh vegetables, I can quickly steam something from the freezer.

What do you do to keep produce from going bad?

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What to Do With Overripe Bananas

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Need any ideas for ways to use your overripe bananas? Here’s a quick list of our favorite banana recipes!

We love it when our bananas become over-ripe. Otherwise, how could we make these great recipes?

What to Do With Overripe Bananas

Look through these and try them all!

Yum

 

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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: Ways I Can Cut Our Grocery Budget

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We eat big around here. Are there even ways I can actually cut our grocery budget?

This is what I’ve been exploring lately. What are some ways I can cut our grocery budget without causing more work or frustration?

I was so positively challenged by Reanna’s comment on this post:

If you are considering ways to save on your grocery budget you might consider buying more in “ bulk” and less single serving items. I’ve never bought individual applesauces, or other single serving items. I also only buy simple snacks such as fruit or crackers. We mainly concentrate on eating more during mealtime and not snacking as much. Snacks can be very expensive!

I 100% agree with her idea to avoid single-serve items, and I used to shop and serve food in just the ways she described. But with caring for so many little ones all while trying to keep up with our big kids (we’re planning another wedding, eeee!) – I have resorted to all kinds of convenience food items just to survive. (Our three littlest babies are each about 9-months apart in age, our three-year-old is potty training, and three days every week we enjoy our former foster babe, another three-year-old oy!)

My first thought when I read the comment was, “Yes, but not right now. Maybe after we get through this season.” But then I let her ideas simmer a while and I started to think about ways I could make some money-saving changes.

What I need to consider before I decide to cut our grocery budget:

  • Is the money-saving change worth the time and energy it will take to make up for the convenience?
  • Will it be worth the messes it might make? (We are already drowning in baby-made messes around here.)
  • Is the cost savings enough to make a substantial difference? (As in, will I spend $6.50 instead of $7.00 but create a significant amount of additional work for myself? If so, saving $0.50 will not likely feel worth it.)
  • Will any changes I make mean that we are eating less nourishing foods overall?

A word about snacks:

Well, three words about snacks: We eat them. A lot of them. Not all of us though – here’s how it works at our house!

Our three-year-olds, two-year-old, and one-year-old kids eat several snacks throughout the day. I would have some incredibly grumpy babies if I didn’t give them a mid-morning muffin (or something similar) and some berries. Sometimes I actually feel like all I’m doing is figuring out yet another good snack I can offer to truly hungry little ones.

I give them substantial meals, of course, but their little tummies can only handle so much at a time. We go through grapes, berries, apple slices, granola, cereal, and muffins like crazy – all eaten between meals.

Now, on the other hand, I almost never give our 6-year-old and 8-year-old snacks between meals. They are expected to eat their fill during meal time and I’ve found that if they eat a snack, they don’t eat a good meal later (which makes them need a snack later, which makes me want to cry later, truth). So the snacking is limited to the kids under 3 – and also to the hungry mom who rarely has time to sit and eat a full meal, thank you for understanding.

Ways I Can Cut Our Grocery Budget

I feel a little bit silly that I haven’t actually looked at cutting such obvious grocery spending options for so long. On the other hand, this mama is tired, has a lot of meetings, and hasn’t had quite enough sleep for approximately 1,460 nights in a row. So that’s why I’m so grateful that Reanna suggested that I consider a different way to shop and serve food.

I discovered peach cups and pear cups and applesauce squeezies a couple of years ago, loved how handy they were, and never looked back. And with that, I never really looked again at the price comparison either. Until I was challenged to consider the necessity of extra spending.

Pear cups cost $0.13/ounce. But a can of pears costs $06.7/ounce – half the cost of the convenient cups. Peaches? Same story. Half the price to buy a can instead of the little cups.

When we hit the road or need to pack food to eat at a soccer game or at the park, the cups will be wonderful and helpful with so many kids. But at home? I can easily open a can and dole out the peaches or pears in little bowls.

IT’S SO OBVIOUS. But I’ve been tired. So.

Meanwhile, the applesauce.

For the past three years, I have been buying cases and cases of applesauce squeezies. These gems are so helpful I can’t put it into words. And what happens when I give my littlest kids a bowl of applesauce? You don’t want to know, but I’ll tell you anyway. They paint with it. On their shirts, hair, feet, and under the table. I learned the hard way not to give them a bowl of applesauce, and there are too many of them eating (read: painting) at once to help them all eat it in a clean way.

Squeezies though? I can hand them out, and actually leave the room to go potty by myself. This is a miracle and though shalt not take my applesauce squeezies from mine house.

But do I need them forever and always? As it turns out, my 6 and 8-year olds are quite handy with a spoon. I can easily serve them applesauce in a bowl and save money on an entire case of applesauce squeezies every week. How about that? A jar of applesauce is $0.5/ounce while the squeezies are $0.15/ounce or more. Triple the savings! And if I’d ever get back to canning applesauce again, well, that’ll save even more.

What else can I cut or change?

I already buy almost everything in bulk. At Costco, at Sam’s, and through Azure Standard. And when I consider all the needs of our day, plus my lack of time to make more of our food from scratch, I’ve had a difficult time knowing what else I can cut.

But one thing I’ve committed to, besides buying fewer individually packaged fruit options, is to buy fewer individually wrapped items in general.

The only time I truly need individually wrapped snacks is when we go to tennis matches, soccer games, or other trips and outings. My goal right now is to keep items like this on hand but to save them for outings instead of resorting to handing them out at home during snack time.

Here’s a post filled with easy food ideas to pack and take to games and events.

What I don’t plan to change now (or ever?)

As I’ve shopped lately and done some price comparisons, here are some foods I’ve decided to continue to buy for the sake of convenience, even though they are a little more pricey.

  • Diced Ham – For $0.24/ounce, I can buy a package of ham that’s all cut and ready to dump into an egg casserole or this soup. A whole ham costs about $0.14/ounce. But I have to cook it and cut it (which is fine when I make a whole ham for a meal and use the leftovers in soup and such). Having the diced ham in my freezer ready to help me put a meal together in 5-minutes is worth the extra cost by far!
  • Frozen Shredded Hashbrowns – I buy 4-pound bags of Mr. Dell’s hashbrowns for $0.7/ounce. I can buy a bag of yellow potatoes for $0.4/ounce. Dude, gimme both. :) Those frozen hashbrowns save me so much time and make meal prep so very easy! They are delicious and the Mr. Dell’s brand includes only potatoes. So I feel great about using them for many of our meals. And whole potatoes? We use those too, and they are also an inexpensive convenience food in my book. But only when I make them like this or this.
  • Pre-Made Pizza Crust – I keep these in the freezer at all times. Do I know how to make pizza crust? Yes. Is it hard? No. But right now it’s fantastic to go to the freezer and grab crusts already made for me. I then grab a couple of cans of pizza sauce, shredded cheese, and whatever other toppings I have on hand. We quickly make pizza and it’s super easy. It’s also a lot cheaper than ordering pizza.”
  • Shredded Cheese – Talking about the shredded cheese for pizzas reminded me of the beauty of the gift of bags of pre-shredded cheese. I used to buy huge blocks of cheese and my kids would shred it in our food processor. Gone are the days. My bigs are either gone or don’t have time, and I have decided not to give my babies a cheese grater. Smart, eh?Grating cheese would never happen if I had to wait until I had time for the task. So bagged shredded cheese it is! Are there ingredients added to the bag to keep the cheese from clumping together? La-la-la! I can’t hear you, I don’t know what you’re talking about… :)

Well, I’m quite sure that as I consider ways I can save, I’ll be able to add to this list. Any other ideas you all want to throw out there?!

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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. :)

 

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

The Only Muffin Recipe You’ll Ever Need

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What if we really only need one muffin recipe to get us through our muffin making needs?

Yum

Will we really never need another muffin recipe (besides this one) for as long as we all shall live?

Ok, fine. Not really. Man shall not live on one muffin recipe alone. I have 40+ more muffin recipes that we can enjoy here. Some of them even have cheesecake baked on top. So yeah. We’ll need those.

But if you were to look through all 40 muffin recipes, you would likely notice a theme. A similar grouping of ingredients in a very similar proportion.

It was while throwing together muffins one day that I realized: When making muffins, I pretty much make the same recipe every time. I just tweak it slightly depending on what kind of muffin I’m making.

AND THEN, that day I decided to just make one big muffin batter (I quadrupled my ingredients) – but create a variety of different muffins all with that same batter.

Eh?

Here’s what I did:

  1. I measured oil, eggs, milk, sour cream, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into my mixer.
  2. These are ingredients used in every single muffin that ever lived.
  3. I didn’t actually measure. I don’t measure. I eye-ball. I don’t know where my measuring spoons are and the kids ate my measuring cups.
  4. I mixed my ingredients and since I’m a big believer in making one big mess and turning out a large quantity of food (instead of making a small mess over and over and over every day), I “measured” my ingredients x4.
  5. I scooped the batter into 24 muffins plus one loaf pan.
  6. I finished off a container of shriveling blueberries onto the top of seven muffin batter cups. I sprinkled chocolate chips onto the top of 11 more. I left six muffins plain.
  7. I stirred freeze-dried strawberries into the loaf pan of batter.
  8. I baked the muffins and the bread.
  9. My family at the muffins and the bread and now I need to sweep my floor.

Muffin crumbs, man. Have you ever fed muffins to an 8yo, a 6yo, a 3yo, a 2yo, and a 1yo? Muffin crumbs are everywhere.

And now for the only muffin recipe you’ll ever really need.

I’m going to write the ingredients for us in large batch quantity. That way we can use this recipe to make many muffins of all different varieties. One big mess, lots and lots of crumbs. I mean, muffins.

The Only Muffin Recipe You’ll Ever Need

The Only Muffin Recipe You'll Ever Need
 
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Author:
Serves: 30
Ingredients
  • 4½ cups whole grain flour
  • 1 cup sugar, brown sugar, or sucanat
  • 1 Tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 4 eggs
  • ½ cup sour cream (optional, but makes the muffins moist!)
  • ¾ cup melted coconut oil
  • 2 cups milk
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients together by hand or with a mixer.
  2. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups or loaf pans.
  3. Add any fruit, nuts, or chocolate chips you would like.
  4. Bake bread at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Bake muffins at 400 degrees for 20ish minutes.

This recipe makes approximately 24 muffins and 1 loaf of quick bread. Or 36 muffins. Or three loaves of quick bread. Or 12 muffins and 2 loaves of quick bread.

Plus lots of crumbs when you feed them to babies.

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Big Family Food: The DISHES!!

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I’m not sure. Can we even talk about our Big Family Food Journey without taking pictures of all the dishes? Eeek.

What you see pictured above is what our kitchen almost always looks like by lunchtime. It looks that way again after dinner and confession: I almost always leave the kitchen looking like this disaster when I go to bed at night. Yowza.

Why do I do this? Why do I not wash all the dishes after dinner? BECAUSE I AM TIRED. And because my hands are literally always full. Yes, I sometimes “wear” our littlest babe, but usually one of our other babies wants to be held too. So I am almost always working with just one hand.

Therefore, I go to bed and the kitchen is usually a disaster.

Where is the help?

Ah, the help is helping alright. They are holding kids, chasing kids, keeping kids alive, and even changing diapers (awesome daddies in training!).

This is my all-time favorite picture of Elias and baby Keith!

And of course, Matt is surrounded by babes from the minute he walks in the door each evening until we put them all to bed each night.

Sometimes in the evening, if all the kids are being held/watched by Daddy and the big bros (and their fiance/girlfriends or whoever is at the house at the moment) – I can get the dinner dishes done before bed. But usually, the dishes have to wait until morning.

How I take care of the dishes

Besides neglecting them? Ah yes. It’s this:

My typical routine is to get our 6 & 8-year-olds off to the school bus in the morning at 7:10 (which stops a block from our house, praise God!), settle in our 3-year-old with a show, drink my coffee, and read my Bible/journal, then tackle the kitchen before our baby girls are ready to get out of their cribs. (Usually, Matt has fed the littlest baby a bottle in the wee morning hours and she goes back to sleep. I take sippy cups of milk to our one and two-year-old girls at 6:45 when I go in to wake up our 6yo for school. So the baby girls enjoy their milk and sleep again until around 8:00.)

While it would be wonderful to wake up to a clean kitchen to start each new day, that’s just not how it works for us right now. So after my coffee/Bible time, I fill the dishwasher and run it. (We usually run a full dishwasher twice every day.)

Please don’t cringe when you look at my dishwasher loading methods – I know it’s horrendous! But I don’t care, because there are way more important things to care about. :) The top is filled with sippies, bottles, and coffee mugs and then I usually haphazardly throw cooking utensils on top. They all get clean, and they don’t care if they are unorganized so neither do I. (I do also have a third rack above this one, which I use for lids.)

Once the dishwasher is loaded, I hand wash the big bowls and pots from the night before.

After Malachi gets home from his morning classes, he unloads the dishwasher and we start over again with snack and lunch dishes. Eat and repeat. :)

Someday, I’ll have more kitchen help again!

When our older four boys were all still living at home and capable, I almost never had to even wash a dish! We got into a system where they would all take turns loading and unloading the dishwasher, sweeping, and wiping everything down. Now, three out of the four have graduated and moved on, leaving only Malachi (now 17) at our house. (Justus, our college senior, actually lives at home this year too, but he’s almost never here. When he is though, he’s always grabbing a baby so I can get something done!)

Malachi can’t take on all the chores that his brothers left behind, tho he really is a super help to me in many ways and always does what he can. Also? He’s running a videography business, taking college classes, is in a melodrama, is playing tennis and soccer, and for some reason, he also likes to hang out with friends from time to time.

—> We hire a lot of help now – I’ll share about that in another post! <—

I could have taken a lot more pictures of all the dirty dishes at our house. But why? Why would you want to see that? You don’t want to see that. Trust me on this. :)

Stay tuned for more from our Big Family Food series.

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Big Family Food: Meals I’ve Served Recently

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Want a peek at some of the meals I’ve served to my family and to guests within the past few weeks?

You’ve taken a look at some of my recent grocery shopping trips. Plus, throughout this Big Family Food series, some of what I’ve shared includes:

This post will show some picture examples of what some of our meals have looked like!

Meals I’ve Served Recently

One Sunday morning, I filled a crockpot with this Hearty Bean Casserole, then served it for lunch with a variety of fresh fruit I had just picked up. It was such a pretty buffet because of the colorful fruit. Also, it is worth noting that everyone who was skeptical of trying this casserole for the first time ended up loving it. :)

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Tuesday nights we usually feed around 12 people (7 adults), or sometimes more if Elias and his roommates come over from his apartment on campus. One Tuesday recently I made two pans of Simple Pizza Chicken Bake. I served it with a variety of fruit and veggie options. Plus I had just made a big batch of Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins so I set those out too.

Our 6-year old does so much better at mealtime if I let her choose from the offered fruits and vegetables instead of just presenting her with a plate. Also, I had our 8, 6, and 3-year-olds help me make the Simple Pizza Chicken Bake and the Flourless Chocolate Banana Blender Muffins. When they feel ownership in the meal, they eat it better. :)

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Elias turned 20 in January so he invited several friends over for a big Waffle night. I got zero pictures of the huge buffet full of waffles, toppings, bacon, and egg casserole. But I did remember to ask Malachi to step back and snap a picture of our full loving room. Nights like these are my favorite. :)

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On Wednesday afternoons, I leave my littles with sitters so I can go hide at the library to work for four quiet hours. I go home refreshed from the fun of writing (in the quiet), and you can be sure that there are three babies ready for mama to hold them when I walk through the door.

Therefore, I try to have dinner ready, or almost ready before I even leave for the library. Otherwise, I go from quiet to chaos very quickly, trying to make dinner while holding three babies and answering “urgent” questions from the 3, 6, and 8yo kiddos. Here’s what I made one Wednesday before I left: Crock Pot Taco Pasta (it cooked all afternoon while I was gone), green beans, pineapple, and grapes.

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The Wednesday after that, before leaving for the library, I put together six pizzas (from crusts that I’d purchased and frozen). I slid them into the oven and simply turned on the oven to bake once I got home at 5:00. Magic. I pulled out fresh spinach and ranch dressing while the pizza was baking and the kids ate “salad” as an appetizer. :)

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Here’s a meal I put together on a day I had meetings and needed something quick to warm up later at mealtime.

The day before, I had made seven pounds of hamburger in my Instant Pot (I love this method!) so I set aside a couple of pounds and turned it into a pan of Sloppy Joes. Just before time to eat that night, I quickly steamed some frozen peas and warmed some white queso for anyone who wanted to drizzle it into their sloppy joe. This particular night I didn’t offer many side dish choices because I knew everyone liked/would eat this simple meal and I didn’t want to work harder than necessary. :)

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I mentioned above that Tuesday nights we typically need a bigger meal because we feed more adults. This meal was perfect for that because it allowed people to choose which soup they wanted, but the toppings and sides went with either soup. (Chili and Simple Ham and Potato)

It was also perfect because I was able to dump all the ingredients for both soups into crockpots earlier in the day while the babies were all eating lunch. They cooked all afternoon (the soups, not the babies) and at dinner time I stirred them and served them with strawberries, grapes, and raspberries.

Meanwhile, our two-year-old was melting down (my precious way of saying that she was screaming, stomping on my feet, and grabbing my legs) while I was trying to put all of this together. Why was she mad? Because I wouldn’t let her eat cookies. Raise your hand if you’re a mean mom like me. ;)

This is why I don’t have time to shower.

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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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The Easiest Spicy Ham and Potato Soup (Crock Pot Recipe)

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I wanted to call this easy Spicy Ham and Potato Soup “Dump Soup.” But that didn’t sound appealing. So I took out the “dump” – good call, right? Still, you should know that all we have to do to make this soup is “dump” the ingredients into the crockpot. SO EASY.

Yum

This Spicy Ham and Potato Soup is basically this soup remade. I cut out some steps and made it in the crockpot. You’ll love how much easier the revisions make this recipe!

Also, you should know that I’m obsessed with this soup. I almost never eat seconds of any meal. But when I make this soup, I eat thirds. Aren’t you proud?

The Easiest Spicy Ham and Potato Soup (Crock Pot Recipe)

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The Easiest Spicy Ham and Potato Soup (Crock Pot Recipe)
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 8-ounces cream cheese
  • 16-ounces pepper jack cheese
  • ¾ cup sour cream
  • 1 cup half-and-half or whole milk
  • 10-ounce can Rotel (diced tomatoes and green chilies)
  • 1 pound ham, diced or cut into small bites
  • 3-4 cups frozen hashbrown potatoes
  • 32-ounces chicken, beef, or vegetable broth
Instructions
  1. Put all ingredients into a crock pot.
  2. Cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours.
  3. Occasionally, stir the soup to help distribute the cheeses.
  4. Just before serving, use a whisk to smooth the melted cheese.

I love eating this soup just as it is. Some in my family love to added shredded cheese and fritos. The pepper jack cheese in this soup gives it a nice, spicy kick that is so amazing!

If you make this soup with frozen hashbrowns (I like Mr. Dells brand as it contains only potatoes) it is extra easy to put together!

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