Family Food for Moms Podcast I Inspiration for Family Cooking and Dining I How to Enjoy Special Meals Together

 Hurray! Our new recipe book is here - the first one to come out: Elegant Easy Appetizers!. Each recipe has only five ingredients, they're very easy to make, they look elegant, and they lift your meal to the next level.  I'll be taking a break from the podcast this week to celebrate Easter with family and friends. I'll be back on Monday 28th April! See you then. Picture your dining room table beau...

Do you ever feel overwhelmed or discouraged as a mom trying to feed your family healthy meals that are not going to take up too much time? I want to inspire you in the kitchen with ideas that are easy, and that can make mealtimes meaningful and special together. That's my goal here on the podcast.  Today, I want to talk about tons of ideas for what you can cook using chicken breasts. There are ski...

 We're doing a series on amazing ingredients that we love to use in cooking, ones that are so healthy, so good, and have such a rich culinary history. Today we're gonna talk about balsamic vinegar and its roots in Italy, how it's made, why it's good for you, and then what you can use it for. Balsamic vinegar is fascinating. It dates back to the Middle Ages, and some records suggest it was produced...

Today, we’re going to talk more about packed lunches, whether they're for your kids at school, your hubby or yourself at work, or even for pre-made meals at home. Last time I talked about taking the lunchbox that you’re going to be using, drawing the shape with however many compartments it has, and then choosing categories for each compartment. I mentioned the main method of carrying the food, whe...

 Today I wanna talk about packed lunches - how to plan them, how to make them healthy using whole foods, and I’ll mention a few different ideas for them. This could be for your kids' lunches at school. It could be for your husband's packed lunch if you do that for him when he goes off to work. It could be for your own packed lunch if you go out to work or to anywhere else during the day, maybe for...

Today I’m going to be doing the second half of the year of fun food days to celebrate. I'm working from a website called timeanddate.com. I’m going to mention some ideas for ways to celebrate days involving food from July to December. I hope you have fun with some of these days! Choose which ones you want to celebrate.

 I'm going to be starting a new series, although it won't be consecutive. I'll just do an episode now and then on an ingredient that I think is very significant and is worth learning more about. Today we're going to talk about Parmigiano Reggiano, which is a wonderful cheese, and so valuable to our health. I want to talk more about its history, what it is, exactly how it's made, and what you can u...

Today, I thought it would be fun to talk about some kitchen hacks. These are all just quick, simple hacks that you may know about and some you may not, but it's always good to be reminded! I'll do another few hacks in a different episode, but I hope there are some things that you can apply. Send me your ideas if you have some. You can do that at karyn@familyfoodformoms.com. I hope you have a great...

Just to let you know I'll not be on next week, but I'll be back the following week!  Today we're going to talk about all kinds of different meals that you can make from ground beef, (or beef mince as some people call it). Bolognese on pizza is one of my favorite - with pineapple and feta (shocking, I know!) I'm sure many of these are familiar to you, but others you may not have heard of or tried b...

 I've always been fascinated by dining cars on trains. When I was a little girl, we used to travel on a train quite often overnight. And the best part was getting to go to the dining car. And it was always so beautiful with this wood paneling and like velvet and the tables would be set with a big white tablecloth and a flower in a vase. And then you could order just like you in a restaurant. And I...

 Today we're going to have a bit of fun with an episode on the fun days that involve food each month. I'm working from a website called timeanddate.com, f you want to look it up there, but I'm going to give you some of my ideas for each of the days. So let's start with January. I'm going to do January to June today, and then I'll do July to December another time.

 Today we're going to be talking about how to get your kids to eat more vegetables, and to enjoy them. Vegetables can be delicious, and I think that as adults we know when they aren't. We know when they're dry, chewy, or bitter - they're not good. The goal is to make vegetables that we enjoy, and to help our kids to enjoy them too. We don't have to hide them away. Sometimes that works, but it's al...

We've talked before about unusual budget ideas for spending less in the kitchen. I want to revisit that with a few more ideas that I may have mentioned before, but it's always good to be reminded, right?  When we talked about saving money in the kitchen, we said that cooking in bulk is definitely a good thing, although I do find it a little bit overwhelming to always cook in bulk. I'll choose cert...

 Today, we're going to talk about some ideas for gluten free meals, meals for if someone doesn't eat dairy - maybe a breastfeeding mom - and meals for any kind of dietary restrictions. We’ll look at ideas that you can make either for the whole family, or for that particular person, and how you can make some meals in advance and freeze them. This is just to give you some ideas that you can use if t...

 Today, we're going to talk some more about what we can learn from World War Two about food and nutrition. One of the biggest takeaways for me is realizing how resourceful people became when they had to be. They grew the victory gardens. They substituted certain foods for other foods. When things were rationed or not available, they made their meals simpler. They cooked more from scratch. If ingre...

Our Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and Great Grandparents can teach us so much about food! The way our grandparents ate is a fascinating subject. It’s inspiring to learn from our grandmothers in the way they cooked food to bring good health to their families. Today I want to do the second part of What We Can Learn from our Grandmothers about Food and Cooking.  Our grandparents’ diets were shaped by w...

 Today we're going to talk about what we can learn from Enland about food and dining. England is quite fascinating. I always think of the famous five books by Enid Blyton and picture the children riding on their bicycles through the fields, having a picnic in the sunshine, enjoying the outdoors. Their picnic would have been packed by their cook at home and have things like meat pie, fruit cake, gi...

It's fascinating to think about nutrition and what food was available both during the World Wars and in the time after them, and about what our grandparents and great grandparents did to be able to feed their families nutritious food during those difficult times. Today we're going to talk about food and nutrition in World War II.

Have you ever wished you could dine out at a fancy restaurant with your hubby or with one of your children, but you can't leave home, maybe because it's just one of you at home, or you have a baby or kids that you can't leave, and no babysitter? Today we're going to talk about how to bring the fancy restaurant to you. This works great for a date night with your hubby, or for if you want to have a...

Today we're going to talk about what we can learn from Russia about food and cooking, traditions, they have.. I don't know a lot about Russia, but it's been fascinating researching this because they are such rich culinary and cultural traditions and I think there's so much we can learn from the way they do things. It's not an easy country to live in because of the extreme cold and other factors. S...

As busy moms, there's always something that needs cooking, there's always a meal that needs preparing, and so I'm sure you have found that bulk cooking helps with that - cooking more than one meal at a time, storing half of it, putting it in the freezer, and then the following time you only have to reheat it. I thought it would be fun to look at how cruise ships and restaurants do their bulk and t...

 Today we're going to talk about how to arrange a special dinner for your family on short notice. Lately I've been feeling like I'm missing all those wonderful Christmas meals that we had in December. We had some graduation meals for our kids. There were the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals. There were other celebrations. There was a birthday, and another birthday in January. There was so muc...

 Today we're going to be talking about what we can learn from the Amish about food and eating and dining. The Amish are a very healthy community because they eat very simply from food that they cultivate on their land and they have a huge amount of physical exercise having to look after their farms, grow their food and do a lot of manual labor that we would use machines for they're good at working...

Today I'm going to talk about some ways you can balance your blood sugar throughout the day. It's something I try to be aware of, and it's not easy for me to remember to do things the right way, but it makes a big difference to how I feel, and how much energy I have.  Making sure your blood sugar is balanced in the morning is the best way to have it balanced throughout the day.

Today, we're going to talk about date nights at home. My hubby and I often enjoy having our date nights at home. And for many years, we weren't really able to go out because our children were young and we didn't have babysitters that we wanted to use. And so we had date nights at home and they've been so amazing. Nowadays, we have older children, adult children. And so. We try to go out once a mon...