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

 I'm going to do two shorter episodes this week about hospitality. The first one will be tips about hospitality - what can make it easier for you, and the second one will be ideas that you can use for your meals when you have guests over. It’s always a good idea to have meals planned in advance, and we'll talk more about that in the next episode.

So, let’s talk about hospitality. It always works out a lot better than we expect, doe...

Today I want to talk about an unusual topic - how we can be inspired by meals in the Enid Blyton Adventure Books from the 1940s. She's the author of Famous Five. I’ve mentioned this briefly before in the episode on children's literature - how we can be inspired by what they ate. I've always been particularly fascinated by the food in the Enid Blyton books - the way they have the meals and what they eat, and I wanted to talk a bit m...

 Last week, we spoke about how to season your food amazingly, using spices and herbs, acid and citrus, and other flavors that you can add to make it delicious.

Today, we’re going to do a spices and herbs guide - a guide to which herbs and spices are good, which ones are best to have in your kitchen, and what to do with them.

We’ll also talk about which spices to use on which proteins, vegetables, or whatever else you're cooking.

 Lately we've been thinking about the best ways to help our health. Some of our family have had a little bit of eczema, and some other less obvious symptoms. I was looking at an Instagram reel about the healthiest food on the planet for people. It said it was human breast milk - obviously for when people are babies.

Then the things that mirror that the most in terms of their benefits and nutrients, et cetera, are fermented foods. ...

Today we're going to talk about seasoning. This is part of our series about skills that we should all learn in order to become better cooks. We’ll be talking about how to season different kinds of food, how to understand seasoning, and how to get the best results. 

Understanding seasoning means knowing how to effectively use salt, spices, herbs, etc in your cooking; understanding the role of saltiness, fat, and acidity like citrus;...

 Last time we talked about the new series that we're starting - cooking skills we should master for home cooking. When we've mastered these basic skills, it’ll make our general cooking much easier, more effective, and tastier. Last time was the introduction, and I went through all the things we're going to cover, though not necessarily in that order.

Today, we’re going to talk about heat control. I think that's one of the most valu...

 Today we're going to be starting a series on basic cooking skills that we should all master.

We’re going to do a number of episodes on this, and today I'm going to give you a bit of an introduction to what kind of things we’re going to talk about.

It's easy to feel nervous when attempting new things in the kitchen - new proteins or vegetables you haven't cooked before, new cooking methods, or using kitchen tools for the first ti...

Note: Only one episode this week as we have a CRAZY amount of stuff going on - I'll be back next Monday.  I appreciate all my loyal listeners!

Today I want to talk about what we've lost from food cooking and nutrition since the 1900s. Back then, food was a lot more nutritious, home cooked meals were much more common, and there was much less refinement and processing. My middle daughter has been doing some homemaking reading and stu...

In Episode 113, we talked about a meal planning method that our family's been using, which is based on who's cooking each night and what dishes they know how to cook. We discuss what our older children enjoy cooking, and then we plan together based on that. 

Today, I want to talk about a meal planning method based on themes. You set a theme for each evening; each day of the week, and then you do your planning based on that. For exa...

(Somehow this didn't get published yesterday.. but here it is :) Hope you enjoy! 

Today we're going to talk about how we break our meals into courses without making extra work for ourselves.

I find that eating meals in courses helps all of us to slow down and give our full attention to the dinner meal - to be fully present and to enjoy chatting with each other. It also helps the cooking to not be too hectic because things can be p...

Just one episode this week - I'll be back next Monday!

Today we're going to be talking about chef Rachel Ray. You may have seen her on the Food Network. She loves to do all her cooking from home. You can look her up on YouTube - she's lots of fun.

She's very much about taking things like fast food, or anything that you enjoy, like Chinese food takeout, and then recreating it at home using simple techniques. She makes a lot of comf...

Today we’re going to be continuing our theme on meaningful dinners with some practical ideas for things you can do.

So, we’re thinking about how to make dinner time meaningful, how to create meaningful memories, and to make it special. Here are some ideas to focus on connection, not perfection - making the evening meaningful. 

There are so many ways to make dinners meaningful, whether family nights or date nights. I find that as s...

 Today we're going to be talking about dinnertime in your family - what makes memories, what makes it meaningful, and what makes it special.

I've been feeling that lately I've been leaping up a lot in the middle of meals, both at lunch and dinnertime. 

What I really want is connected family mealtimes where we feel close, where the conversation is good and deep, and where it's a meaningful experience. Now, this can't happen at ever...

 Today we’re going to continue with our chef series - what we can learn from and be inspired by from famous chefs.

Today, we’ll talk about Guy Fieri. Guy is the host of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives from Food Network. He has a great love for American comfort food. He loves roadside diners and dive bars, and he travels around the country to find unique places that make local-inspired food.

He just loves to make ordinary dishes that...

 Today we’re going to continue the series about comfort food.

We've done French, Swiss and Italian comfort foods, and today we're going to talk about British comfort foods - all the yummy things that they eat that are easy to make.

 If you order a meal at a pub on the street, you'll probably order one of these things. They're easy to cook at home, and they're hearty, they help in the winter. In Britain there are a lot of rainy day...

Note: This is the last episode for 2025 - I'll see you again in January. Thanks for being part of my community - you are awesome! Happy Thanksgiving and a blessed Christmas to you and your family.

Today, let's talk about crockpots - slow cookers.

A crockpot is one of the most time-saving things, and I'm always surprised at how many people either don't have a crockpot, or they don’t know how to use theirs; they don’t know what to c...

Today we’re going to talk about what we can learn from Ireland, the green Emerald Isle, about food and nutrition, cooking and dining. Hopefully you can become inspired and get some good ideas from this episode.

Ireland's food and dining culture has changed a lot over the last few decades. It used to be very simple, hearty fare, and that's the sort of food we’re going to be looking at.

There'll be no Wednesday episode this week - ...