There was a time at my kid’s schools that I had to adapt to peanut free lunches. It was a rude awakening considering they liked to eat peanut butter with apples, peanut butter on celery, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and honey on tortillas. Seriously, none of them ate deli meat or any of those expensive peanut butter alternatives. I was stuck.

Then one day it occurred to me that if I offered hot foods then it would open up so many more options. I realize that the food isn’t going to be super hot when they eat it, but they don’t care at all! In fact they prefer it.

So I ordered a couple of thermoses on Amazon and I often just heat up left overs to piping hot and put them in aluminum foil in the thermos inside of an insulated lunch box. Some options include Mac and Cheese, Pizza, Chicken Nuggets, anything they eat at home!

Once you think beyond the confines of cold lunches it isn’t too hard to come up with peanut free lunches for even the pickiest of eaters. I have to admit I haven’t done any hot lunches in a while because my daughter has been on a kick where she really loves having bacon and cheese inside a tortilla. I know that’s weird, but most days her go to is water, grapes (or other fruit), and a tortilla with a slice bacon and two slices of colby jack cheese topped with another tortilla.

So, for all of the desperate parents on Facebook asking about peanut free lunches, I hear ya. But I would encourage you to experiment with different things. Don’t worry about if it looks like a typical lunch. Your child may eat a yogurt, carrots, strawberry’s and edamame for lunch. Or maybe you have left over meatballs with a side of oranges and strawberries. If your kid likes it then who cares!  Sometimes you’ve got to think outside of the “lunch box”.

I hope these tips were helpful. For more kitchen related advice check out the whole 31 day series. Captain of the Kitchen at MessyMom.com.

J doesn’t eat hardly any sweets, carbs, or processed foods. He has lost 20 pounds and feels better overall since implementing this lifestyle per his doctors request. Breakfast is a snap because he eats eggs with a breakfast meat and drinks coffee. Dinners have been really simple. I just have to prepare a meat for the main course and veggies for a side.

Lunch is the kicker. Sandwiches and hot foods are pretty much out. That leaves salad. Lucky for J he genuinely likes salads. His favorite one is from a restaurant called Buffalo Rings and Things. He raved about it, told me what was in it, and I did my best to come up with a knock off. Here is my recipe

7 cups of mixed greens

1 sliced chicken breast

1/2 sliced avocado

1 sliced hard boiled egg

1 piece of bacon crumbled

1/4 cup of kalamata olives

1/4 cup bleu cheese sprinkled

1/4 cup blue cheese dressing

This is what his daily to go meals look like when he leaves for work.

Eggs in a mug, coffee with cream in a mug, and salad with dressing on the side in an 2 quart tupperware. We change it up sometimes, but for the most part this is the routine and it’s been working out well.

Tomorrow I’ll give some examples SJ’s lunch on the go. For the rest of the series Captain of the Kitchen. Check out the table of contents HERE.

It’s seems like there is a lot of buzz these days surrounding meal prep. I am not a fanatic about it, but I do a little bit of advanced cooking every week to have some protein ready for breakfasts and lunches.

The three items I always prep ahead of time are chicken, bacon, and hardboiled eggs.

1. Chicken

J loves this olive oil chicken from Kroger.

He likes the taste. I like that and the fact that I don’t need to thaw or season it.

You just throw it in the oven at 400 for 50 minutes. After it cools I put it in the fridge. I make enough to be able to chop up one breast for each week day.

2. Bacon

We buy our bacon in bulk from Costco because it is a staple in our house.

I used to fry bacon, until my friend who owned a restaurant taught me the superior method of using the oven. It’s so much more convenient because you just have to set it forget it.

To bake your bacon you set your oven to 375 degrees and lay the pieces side by sided on a non greased cookie sheet.

Then slide them into the oven for close to 15 minutes. Oven times vary so keep an eye on it after 10 minutes.

We use cooked bacon all week long in scrambled eggs, tortilla wraps, salads, you name it. Sometimes the kids will grab a piece and eat it cold like beef jerky.

3. Hard boiled eggs

I already went through my egg boiling process yesterday. I boil at least a half a dozen eggs each week.

They make great salad toppers, quick breakfast on the go, and my two youngest kids love them for snacks. When Ezie wants a hard boiled egg he asks for a “circle egg”.

That’s usually it for my weekly food prep. It’s not a ton of prep so it’s really manageable.

Check back tomorrow to find out how I use all of these ingredients for J’s favorite salad.

And to catch up on the rest of my 31 day series “Captain of the Kitchen” go to the table of contents page HERE.

I already mentioned the Three Little Pigs party when I talked about the pig cupcakes. The entire menu was  farm inspired.

I even had some adorable printables (that never got printed cough cough. Hey, nobody’s perfect).

Anyway, I knew I had to have deviled eggs, but struggled with getting them to be cooked thoroughly. Since google had failed me I figured I’d take it to Facebook and see what my friends suggested.

I had no idea just how many hard boiled egg experts there were and how passionate they would be about their method. Some friends argued amongst each other how long it should take or whether or not to cover the pot or cook them in a pan, or spin them to see if they stand up to. Two days and 45 comments later I still felt at a loss. One of my friends even gave their advice followed by, “but it looks like you must have it figured out by now” and I replied “Yeah, I figured out that I never want to make deviled eggs again!”

The party was a hit and deviled eggs weren’t all that pretty, but they were tasty and rapidly consumed.

A few days later there is a package at my door step. I didn’t remember doing any recent orders on Amazon, but I quickly ripped it open to discover an egg timer! It turns out my brother took it upon himself to order a hard boiled egg timer for me.

Now I make hard boiled eggs at least once a week! We just recently celebrated Ezie’s 4th birthday and I did deviled eggs yet again. So how come I went from swearing off hardboiled eggs to making them weekly?

Allow me to explain.

I already mentioned the egg timer. It works great. You put the eggs and the timer in a pot of water, turn on the burner and let them boil until the timer changes color to indicate your desired consistency. I prefer to allow the eggs to cook all the way through.

It’s that simple. Then place them in ice water.

The other game changing tool is the Ikea teaspoon.

I have to give my husband credit for discovering this trick. You roll your egg on a hard surface to crush the shell.

Then you slip that spoon in-between the shell and the egg and slide it around smoothly.

Once you’ve gotten the majority off you can easily peel away the rest.

Now I have become one of the countless individuals that knows exactly how to boil the perfect egg and I too am very passionate about my methods. I guess it’s not so hard after all.

This post is a part of a 31 day series called Captain of the Kitchen. You can read the rest HERE.

Chores are a big deal in our house and the kitchen is no exception. I know a lot of people are scared of having their kids help in the kitchen. Hot stove, sharp knives, garbage disposal, mixer!!! I get it. The kitchen can be a dangerous place.

The problem is we are doing a disservice to our kids by not giving them any responsibility in the kitchen. Part of teaching them what healthy living looks like includes being exposed to all the stages it takes to eat healthy. Ideally this would include planting and growing the food, but for those like myself who don’t live on a self sustaining homestead it can at least start with going to the grocery store (which I already talked about) or preparing meals and cleaning up in the kitchen.

Teaching kitchen safety and supervising is important, but don’t panic! If you let your child swim, go to parks, play sports, or ride in a car then you can stand the risk that is involved in letting them help in the kitchen.

Here is a list of ideas for kitchen chores for the age brackets that my three older kids fall in.

Age 3-5

• Put clean silverware away
• Help set the table
• Help bring in light groceries
• Throw away trash
• Stir ingredients while cooking
• Dump measured ingredients while cooking

Age 6-8

• Wipe down table and counters
• Sweep/mop
• Set the table
• Help bring in and put away groceries
• Help with baking in cooking
• Help rinse/dry dishes
• Empty trash and reline can
• Get snacks or drinks
• Make sandwiches

Age 9-11

• Do dishes/load dishwasher
• Put away dishes
• Pour drinks
• Scramble eggs
• Make simple meal like hotdogs
• Cut fruit while supervised
• Put away left overs
• Make coffee *Sorry, I have no shame. I taught my 9 year old to how to grind beans and use a french press.*

Those are just some ideas. They are meant to build on each other so the last age group can do all of the above.

Now here are a few tips to help implement the chores.

Keep your expectations realistic

I have very low expectations for toddlers and preschoolers. The point of chores at that stage in life is NOT for them to help you, but for you to help them so that they can help themselves (and you) when they are more capable. There are some toddler prodigies who can efficiently wipe down a table or do dishes, but it’s rare.

Don’t expect the same thing from each kid

Z loves helping me prepare meals and he’s mature and strong enough to take the trash outside and bring groceries inside. He is not so great however at dishes or wiping down counters. His sister is so much more thorough when it comes to these tasks. I want them both to have opportunity to learn each chore for later in life, but I mostly try to find their strengths and use that to everyone’s advantage.

Allow Yourself to have boundaries

Often times having kids help in the kitchen is more stressful than doing it yourself, not to mention more messy. In some cases it is a sacrifice to allow your kids to try certain tasks so that they can learn and be empowered. However, in real life and the real world there are times that I have to kick my kids out of the kitchen! I actually like not having an open floor plan for this reason. When I am having guests over I want to focus and I need to do it myself. So don’t feel like a horrible mom if you don’t need any helpers for certain jobs.

One final recommendation. If you want ideas to help your kids become more responsible and less entitled read Cleaning House by Kay Wills Wyma. I wrote a full review HERE. It is an excellent resource for moms, in my opinion.

I hope this post has been helpful in terms of knowing where to begin with kids in the kitchen. For more “kitcheny” stuff check out my series going on all month long here at Messy Mom.

Now that I’ve addressed just how horrible sugar is let’s talk about CUPCAKES! No, seriously, I hope I have stressed how I am not little miss organic health nut (although kudos if you are!).

Cupcakes are such a fun option for birthdays. Many times I bake them in lieu of a cake. For SJ’s 5th birthday which was a tea party theme, I got this pink cardboard cupcake stand on clearance and as you’ll soon see I have really gotten my use out of it.

The cupcakes had the most amazing light and fluffy frosting. I’ve wanted to share the recipe for a long time. It was also fun to make the display more enchanting by adding fake flowers with butterflies all around it.

The same cupcake stand was used for Ezie’s 3 little pigs party. I never thought of being able to use a pink for a boy party, but for 3 Little Pigs it totally worked!

Most recently we spray painted the pink cupcake stand black to use for Ezie’s batman party which worked out great.

The next birthday party will be Elle’s bumble bee birthday so I’ll be using the black cupcake stand again. I’m not quite sure what kind of cupcakes I’ll be baking yet, but I still have two weeks to think about it. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

I’ll admit all of these cupcakes were made from a store bought cake mix, but it’s the toppings that vary. Here are the directions for all three.

White Cloud Icing 

(from the kitchen of Melissa Griffiths at Blessthismessplease.com )

Pig Cupcakes

For little pig cupcakes all you need is pink frosting topped with pink wafer cookies cut into triangles for the ears, candy eyes (or you can just use chocolate chips), and a marshmallow cut in half with mini chocolate chips for the nose. Really easy, but stinking adorable.

Dye-Free Cupcakes

These are just regular old cupcakes where I used a cake mix and a can of frosting. What is special about them is that they are free of artificial dyes, preservatives, bleach, or flavors. I never realized how hard it was to find dye free foods until I started looking into it! I almost gave up until I found Pillsbury Purely Simples.

They have multiple options available at most grocery stores and they are not expensive. If you are ever looking for something more natural without baking from scratch I would definitely recommend it.

That’s all I’ve got for now as far as cupcakes, but for more kitchen related information check out the rest of my series Captain of the Kitchen going on all month long here at messymom.com. Thanks for stopping by!

There are many ways to make shopping with small children a pleasant experience for both a mom and her children.

For example, if you have an infant you can put the carseat on top. Just kidding. That’s not recommended. What was I thinking!?

Well, you could put the carseat in the cart. Although you may not have space for your groceries, but who needs groceries anyway. Oh yeah, I do. That’s why I’m here.

Anyway, once your baby is old enough you can just put the baby in the seat. Except I think these buckles were designed by Flat Stanley because for real they never fit my kids.

For multiple children you can simply put the baby in the seat, the middle aged children in the car, and the oldest can push. I can assure you that everyone will co-opera… HEY! WHAT ARE DOING!? GET YOUR BOTTOM BACK IN THAT CAR THIS SECOND YOUNG LADY!

Who am I kidding, the best way to make grocery shopping pleasant for both mom and children is to use Walmart’s online grocery pickup service. Trust me on this one. I have been using it for months and it’s changed my life. There are so many reasons you will love it. I narrowed it down to 10.

1. It will save you tons of time! One’s you start shopping online it saves your favorites. Most items I buy over and over so I just have to go through and click everything on my favorites list. Boom. Done.

2. You will save so much money. Not only from not falling for impulse buys, but also because it’s easier to compare the price per unit when you can see everything conveniently listed side-by-side.

3. They do substitutions. And if they do have to substitute something they’ll give you the bigger package at no extra cost to you! Oh yeah and they label it and they also label the fragile stuff. It’s awesome.

4. You CAN use your reusable bags if you want. This is me and my trunk full of reusable grocery bags after making a Walmart run.

5. You can bring your kids and live to tell about it. Photographic evidence here.

6. You can edit your order. If you already submitted your list, but realized you forgot something you can add it.

7. You can easily track your spending and shopping history This helps with budgeting, keeping track of your “inventory”, or if you ever need to return something. It’s all right there.

8. You can check and approve your produce. I’ve always been impressed with the produce they pick. On my account they know I prefer hard avocados and somewhat green bananas. If however you don’t like what they selected you don’t have to accept it and you will be refunded.

9. You can get $10 off for signing up under me. Even if you only do it once it’s worth it to get $10 right?

10. Also I get $10 off when you sign up using my link and you can do the same thing with your friends and save even more.

The way it works in case anyone is curious is you select a time for pickup. They are set up in one hour intervals so it’s pretty flexible.

Then they call you when it’s ready and you call them when you arrive. 

They bring all your groceries out and go over your order with you incase you aren’t satisfied. Then they load it up in your trunk all for FREE.

I know it sounds too good to be true. I am still pinching myself, but it is true. You really should give it a try.

You and your children will thank me.

Let’s start with a good laugh, shall we?

There are many different ways to go about putting together the family menu, but out of all the ones I have tried this is the strategy that has stuck with me. I love it for the many reasons listed below. Maybe you’ll love it too. Are you ready to hear what it is?

I use the calendar on my mac to schedule meals usually a week at a time. Really that’s all there is to it. You could use any electronic calendar. I know that it doesn’t sound very revolutionary, but it has been for me. Here is why it works better than other methods.

1. I have access to the menu at home and on the go because it’s on the phone and the computer (thanks to icloud).This comes in handy from time to time when I am away from home and forgot what I had lined up for dinner.

2. I can include links to the recipes.

It’s so easy to find the meal for that night and then click to see exactly what ingredients to add to the grocery list or what the recipe is when I need it.

99% of my recipes are online, but if it’s in a cook book you could just make a note of which book and what page.

3. It helps me brain storm. I like to change it up sometimes by looking through pinterest, but if I wanted to I could just repeat a previous weeks menu or even a previous months menu! I am often times in a rut so I just look through old menus and get inspired.

If you are looking for something in particular that you know you’ve cooked before use the search bar. Or you could just start typing and let the computer’s predictive text fill in the blank for you choosing from items you have added before.

Having all of my previous meal plans right there at my finger tips is extremely helpful.

4. I am not forced to stick to the plan. One of my favorite parts of this method is that I can easily shuffle the plan around by just dragging and dropping the menu items to a different day. So if we have an event I had forgotten about I can swap the menu with a simple click. If we ended up eating out at the last minute I can drag that meal to next week (assuming the ingredients aren’t about to expire). It’s great to have a plan, but life does happen and the ical menu plan makes it easy to adjust.

5. I can remember when I cooked something. This is seriously such a huge game changer for me.

How long has it been since I made pork chops? Oh 5 weeks? Time to put that on the menu again.

Or how about

How old are these leftovers? It’s right there on the menu. Oh yeah, I made this on Tuesday it’s still good!

I always forget when I made something and I love leftovers so the calendar menu plan has rescued me on many occasions.

6. I can see what is happening that week and plan accordingly. I have our family calendar color coded so for example family activities is orange and weekly menu is brown.*

Planning everything on the same calendar is convenient because if I see that I have a busy day scheduled I know not to plan an extravagant meal. I know I don’t need to cook dinner on the 12th because there is a spaghetti fundraiser at the church or if I see I have a busy afternoon on the 3rd it’s a perfect crock pot day. This is critical for meal planning success. Also, you get to see your day at a glance in the morning including what’s for dinner!

That’s pretty much it. You could get even more technical and use the alert option to notify you if you need to thaw something or start the crock pot. You could also use the repeat button if you wanted to make the same thing every other week or for example schedule tacos every Tuesday. Lastly you could use the notes option to remember whether or not you even liked it or if you modified something. The possibilities are endless!!!

That’s my Apple Calendar menu planning technique. In the future I would really love to record a screen cast because it would be easier to explain it that way, but for now I hope this little tutorial is helpful.

And for more kitchen tips check out my 31 day series Captain of the Kitchen here at messy mom.com

One way I’ve gotten my kid’s excited about fruit is by making fruit creations like this Bert and Ernie Z and I made out of mostly an orange and banana when he was 5.

I also have a tradition of making a theme fruit pizza for birthday parties. Here are just a few that I have created over the years.

*Updated to add this “E” fruit pizza for Ezie’s 7th birthday

Fruit Pizza

Today’s post is a part of a 31 day series called Captain of the Kitchen. To catch up on all the other posts you can find the table of contents HERE.

Elle turns 11 months old today, which means she is entirely to close to turning one.

And since she is pretty much a big girl now she is eating almost anything she can get her hands on. The girl will eat clumps of dirt if you when I let her. Her favorite things are berries, eggs, and pizza crust. I still have yet to introduce her to sweets. The no sweets rule has nothing to with the sugar project I talked about last week by the way. The first dessert comes on the first birthday. It’s how we’ve done it with all four kids. Well, with the exception of what my relatives have snuck to them behind my back. Don’t even get me started.

With my first baby I introduced rice cereal with breast milk and did everything by the book. Then I ventured out with baby number two and made my own pureed avocado for her first meal.

I did the same thing with Ezie and Elle, but at that point I was tired of trying to force the baby food. They usually didn’t like it, so it felt more natural to allow them to pick up soft solid foods and experiment with eating on their own.

Even though it seemed like allowing my baby to eat solids right from the get go was going smoothly, I wanted to be sure it was safe and healthy. So I did some research. It turns out there is a name for skipping baby food and going straight to table food. It’s called baby led weaning.

This sounded like a funny name to me because I am still breastfeeding. It really has nothing to do with weaning. I guess the name comes from England where weaning means something different.

To be clear, I am not anti-babyfood, so this isn’t some crunchy mom propaganda. It’s just that when you think about it, baby food hasn’t always been around. It wasn’t until the the 1920’s that jarred baby food was manufactured. This was back when mom’s were encouraged to introduce solids and supplements as early as 4 weeks. Now that it is recommended to wait until 6 months it is totally appropriate and normal for baby to want to grab, bite, and suck on table food.

So that’s the direction we’ve taken. Elle has had jars of baby food here and there because we get them free from WIC. She has always preferred solid food though. When she was 6 and 7 month old she started with cut up avocados, bananas, soft carrots, tiny bits of chicken and even sweet peppers to chew on when teething.

Sometimes I use the mesh bag feeder, but they are such a pain to clean and then I loose pieces, so usually I just give her the food. I am always monitoring her to make sure she doesn’t choke, but it’s incredible what babies can gnaw on with little to no teeth.

Definitely don’t take my advice without doing your own research and talking to your pediatrician. Different babies have different allergies and abilities. However, if you are curious about Baby Led Weaning and want to know more, check out babyjourney.net which has tons of information. Also if you want to know the benefits of starting with avocado check out my post about it here.

Lastly, this is day 10 of a 31 day series called Captain of the Kitchen. For the rest of the series find the table of contents here.