77 // Get Simple Meal and Snack Ideas Without Scrolling
Simple Meal & Snack Ideas
Your 1-2 Step to Simplify Feeding Your Family
Feeding our family can feel really hard, especially when we are in a season when we have less capacity to meal plan or prep, cook or clean. So, although Muffin Club filled that gap for me amidst my third pregnancy and postpartum, what I see to matter most to the thousands of moms signed up is the fact that it simplifies alllllll the ideas.
In this episode, we chat about how we can:
Save ourselves from the countless hours spent scrolling social media
Translate recipe ideas into healthy habits
Learn to habit-stack, even in seasons of survival mode
You can still sign up for Muffin Club to get your hands on one, actionable recipe each week. Join us here!
Have more questions about Muffin Club? Get them answered here.
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Feeding our family can feel really hard, especially when we're in a season where we have less capacity to meal plan or prep or cook or clean. And that's why when I was preparing freezer meals for my third postpartum during my third trimester, I realized that I also needed to really be prepping items.
[00:00:17] For breakfast lunches and snacks, not just the dinner meals, because since I was gonna be solo during the day with three kids to feed, I knew that I was going to need simple ideas that required very little mental energy or physical capacity to prepare those, especially when I was up all night with a newborn, and yet still loving on two other littles during the day.
[00:00:38] That's why in this episode we're gonna chat. Simple meal ideas that you can find without having to scroll social media for hours on end. And we're also gonna talk about how you can create healthy habits, even when you're in a season of survival. The way I was when I first launched Muffin Club. And third, we're gonna talk about how you can begin thinking through habit stacking for 2023, so that when you hit January and when you decide on maybe some new habits that you want to begin upholding for your family, you know exactly where to get started without feeling overwhelmed.
[00:01:14] Hey mama. I'm Ashley and welcome to the Veggies and Virtue Podcast. In this podcast you'll find simple menu. Kitchen organizational systems spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence based in grace laced. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen.
[00:01:32] As a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, I want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long. Pull up a stool at my kitchen counter and let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the meal times, messes moments, and ministry of.
[00:01:54] I wanna paint a familiar picture for you that is not too far off of where I found myself when I was pregnant with my third child. My son Owen, and I already had the girls at home ages. Let's see, I guess would've been just four and two at the time, and. It just, it had felt like for the last four years, feeding had been really hard, and between both the girls having different breastfeeding issues and picky eating habits of their own, I felt like the, I had.
[00:02:22] To relearn how to feed my kids multiple times now, between the baby lid weaning and the pures and the infant feeding and the breastfeeding into toddlerhood. And I felt like we had finally gotten to this point where I had some good staples that I could work with that I realized nutritionally felt sound and I felt good about, and that there were love foods and preferred foods I could offer my kids with.
[00:02:47] However, the issue that I found myself falling into that I know so many of the families I work with also find is that when we get these go-to staples so often, it can almost perpetuate this rut because it takes us so long to get there and it takes us so long to find this place where feeding doesn't feel so hard, and that we finally have some easy wins to reach for, that we begin defaulting to those staples, and so often we think.
[00:03:15] The obvious next step is to go scroll social or to go on Pinterest and start saving all these different new ideas. But what we don't see is how we're introducing too many wild cars at once. And then we're wondering why we're frustrated and why we wanna give up, and ultimately why we go back to. Old staples that we just know and love and can default to for being options that don't cause us or our kids quite as much stress.
[00:03:49] So while in last week's episode I shared what Muffin Club is and what you can expect from it, how the idea came up and how I got started with that idea, I want you to kind of think of that. The baseline, that's the place that's so easy to get in a rut. We find some healthy spinach muffin for our kid that they'll eat.
[00:04:11] It's an easy snack. It's not too cumbersome to make. It has ingredients that we already have on hand at our house, and so we start defaulting to it. And while that snack in and of itself, or you know, whether we offer it for breakfast or with lunches or whenever it may be, may be a nourishing option, we're running the risk.
[00:04:32] That, and you've likely heard me say this before, but we're running the risk that our kid's gonna burn out on it. Just as, as adults, we can often get really excited about a certain idea and a certain, you know, meal choice and eat it repeatedly. Eventually we're just kind of over it. And so if you don't begin seeing how to apply the stuff that we're gonna talk to about today, to broaden your reach and expand on the options and ultimately add that variety that you want and that your child nutritionally needs this stress free option that was once a staple eventually is where you also get stuck.
[00:05:10] And so I want you to think about how Muffin Club is really a micro cos. for so many of the things that we need to be practicing with in our home so that we don't get stuck in a rut with feeding, and that we do feel equipped and able to carry out all those different things that we want for our family with feeding without the overwhelm.
[00:05:31] So the first step that you can really take and identify in this process. Finding something that works for your family. And again, I'm gonna use Muffin Club as the microcosm throughout this week's example and several of the weeks to come because I think it's such an obvious example of how all these skills and strategies really layer and as we'll get into in a little bit habit stack so that things don't feel overwhelming, but we can gradually add variety through the things that we know already.
[00:06:04] Being things like muffins, and I think this is one of the I the reasons why Muffin Club has been so appealing to so many thousands of families over the year is because it's something we feel like we can do. We see that muffins, check the boxes on a lot of the criteria that we're trying. To satisfy when coming up with meal and snack ideas, but if we just arbitrarily find an idea here or hear of something there, we are getting ahead of ourselves rather than being strategic so that our new ideas can compliment our existing habit.
[00:06:40] You want simple, healthy, kid approved meal and snack ideas, but you're feeling tired of scrolling, social screenshoting, a recipe idea, repeating ideas only to feel annoyed that your inspiration rarely leads to execution. As moms, I know we want to offer nourishing variety to our kids, but how do we get away from offering the same few foods on repeat?
[00:07:00] When the busyness of our lives demands routine, Friend, I get you and I understand the. Because as a busy moment through myself, I have had to spend years finding the strategies and assistance to simplify meal times. Some of you may remember that before my son was born, I shared a simple idea that I was going to start remaking muffins in anticipation for my postpartum muffins, for something that I knew our family could enjoy any hour of the day or night.
[00:07:24] By pre-selecting healthy recipes to make ahead and freeze, I knew that this was one simple. Stacks that I could actually achieve even when very pregnant with two extra little kids helping in the kitchen. Fast forward four years later, and this is still something that you all ask me about again and again and again.
[00:07:41] Tens of thousands of you have joined me over the years for muffin clubs as we bake together and spend time. Lightning. Our mental lot is moms one small sustainable pad at a time. I would love to have you come join me for this year's Muffin Club kicking off November 11. All you need to do to sign up is to go to veggies.com/muffin club.
[00:08:01] It's going to be really simple recipes with ingredients that you already have our hand, including all of my family's favorite seasonal flavors of mine, things like pumpkin, apple, and cranberry orange. So be sure to get signed up@veggiesandvirtue.com slash.
[00:08:20] So what I want you to think about is what is the criteria that you're considering when it comes to the things that already work for your family? For me, some of the criteria in coming up with these muffin ideas was simply bringing it down to a muffin. I knew I wanted something that was really convenient.
[00:08:36] Ideally, one-handed that I also enjoyed as a mom, so that at any hour of the day I could eat it and enjoy it, whether I was up in the middle of the night and had a just really high appetite from breastfeeding. Or I needed something because I hadn't had time to eat breakfast before. We were going to one of the newborn pediatrician appointments and I needed to grab something to go with me, or equally in feeding my kids, I needed something that was really convenient that I could throw in a snack bag to send with them to preschool or that I could offer.
[00:09:03] After school when I may have been busy feeding the baby or changing a diaper or doing something like that. Additionally, with the ages and stages my kids were at having something that was pretty autonomous. It didn't require a lot of hands on effort for me because even some things like yogurt or a string cheese or some of these things that I would say could easily be a staple, they still require a child to open some packaging or supervision from choking.
[00:09:29] Like a string cheese or the spill and the mess factor of yogurt that I may or may not have had the capacity to wanna clean up. And so I wanted something that my kids could be autonomous with. And so often thinking of those things like convenience and autonomy, and yet also the versatility that they work for me, they work for my kids, They work for for different times of day.
[00:09:49] All of these things are things that we consider. When we come up with what are those things that just work for our family right now? And again, it doesn't have to be muffins for you. I know for thousands of you, you do enjoy muffins, and especially as it gets colder out, there's just something really calming and comforting about the idea of baking, whether you choose to do it with your kids or not.
[00:10:09] But I want you to think about what's that criteria to consider as you go into finding new. Because something that was important to me were all those factors. And so for me, I did boil it down to if I could just make one muffin recipe a week, have one batch now that we could enjoy and freeze one batch for later, that would satisfy my needs now, but it would also accomplish what I need moving forward.
[00:10:33] And so that was some of the criteria that I needed to think. Additionally, I didn't wanna have to go out and buy a bunch of bougie ingredients. I wanted to have things that were already on hand, just the staples in my pantry, in the fridge, the eggs and the almond milk, and the oats, and the cinnamon, and the baking soda, and the brown bananas.
[00:10:50] These things that we always have in our home. And so that was something that was important to me. I didn't wanna have the stress of trying to procure these odd ingredients, especially when we aren't even near most of the grocery stores that carry those items. So I wanna encourage you, as you think through adding.
[00:11:06] Meal and snack ideas run through your list of what criteria do you even consider, because whether it's a muffin or a granola bar or a breakfast bake or a cookie you make for after schools or smoothies or whatever it might be that you're needing additional ideas for, think about what already works.
[00:11:23] Think about those staples that you could very easily run the risk of getting stuck on because they just work so well for you. For me, with the. I realized that this was something that I could begin habit stacking so that it felt like I was running on a autopilot and that made feeding my family not always feel like so much work.
[00:11:47] Even in those seasons of survival when I was extremely pregnant or postpartum, because I think that's what so many of us are after. It's not the item itself that we're getting stuck in a rut with. We're seeing that this habit works, serving this food works. So step one is I want you to think about why is it that versatility, that convenience, the ingredients you're using, what aspect of that item that you run the risk of getting inre.
[00:12:16] is something that just works for your family. And then step two is thinking through that simple meal or snack idea that works for your family. Identify what is the habit required. To offer such a meal or snack because if we begin scrolling social or going on Pinterest, and again, I don't have anything against either of these platforms.
[00:12:37] I'm active on both of them, and I think they both have a time and a place. But so often what I see is that as moms we're overwhelming ourselves with ideas. Thinking that it's a shortage of ideas, a shortage of snack ideas, a shortage of recipe ideas. That is why we're struggling. And I'm here to tell you it's not because we have a shortage of ideas, it's because we have too many ideas and yet we don't understand the habits required to accomplish them on a regular basis.
[00:13:06] And again, we're gonna go into talking about how Muffin Club is a microcosm for so many of these different things. But today, I really wanna focus. First, identifying what those simple meal and snack ideas are, and second, identifying what is it about those. If you can separate the, the food item as a noun, and second go into the action, that is the habit being the verb.
[00:13:38] that is required to serve those. So I'm gonna walk through it In the example of Muffin Club, as I mentioned, when I kicked this off four years ago now, I said, I am going to commit to making one recipe one day a week for eight weeks. That's what I did at the time. I had two months left of my postpartum. I knew I was in that third trimester, and I knew that.
[00:14:01] the noun of what I wanted, The qualities that I was trying to consider being those ones of muffins that I already mentioned, that was the noun, That was the object that was going to be the result of my efforts. But the verb required to accomplish this habit was baking one recipe one day a week for eight weeks.
[00:14:21] I felt that that was something that I could commit to, and it. Broken down in such a way that it accomplished that autopilot approach to feeding that is so often what we're after and is so often why we default to those go-to snacks and staples because it gives us the perception of autopilot. So I want you to begin identifying those foods that help you run on autopilot and the actions.
[00:14:48] That are involved in that autopilot approach, and so with Muffin Club, I could see how there was that habit stacking I could make one muffin recipe. With that, I understood the time that rose were required. I understood. just the different elements of what I was going to need in terms of, you know, was this something I could do with my kids or not?
[00:15:10] Sometimes that was, you know, capacity and hormones dependent, but I knew the ingredients that I needed to have and it was carving out. I know what works is muffins. I know what will work in the season ahead will be muffins. So now I have to look at how do I make these muffins in a way that's sustainable and I can have it stack amidst what I'm already doing.
[00:15:32] So back then it was every Monday I'd have a make it Monday, and some weeks I would do it on my own over nap time. Sometimes I would do it at night, but having that one simple action step was something that I could autopilot that every Monday I was gonna bake a match. A batch of. And the next Monday I would do it again.
[00:15:52] But the pivoting that happened here, the habit itself was making muffins every Monday, and that was something I needed as a repeated task to help me accomplish it. But where the variety came in is I wasn't making the same muffin recipe every week. I was adding variety. And some weeks it was a sweet potato muffin.
[00:16:11] Some weeks it was a pumpkin muffin. Some weeks it was a zucchini chocolate chip and. I didn't have to have all the muffin ideas. I didn't have to scroll for hours. All I had to do was say, I'm gonna try this one, this one week, and I'm gonna try 'em all. And for us, we already kind of had these ones that we knew were our go-to favorites.
[00:16:29] So it was really easy to pull up. Eight ones that sounded pretty good to me. And those are the recipe ideas that I do include in Muffin Club. And I've obviously changed the layout of it a little bit to do six seasonal ones in the fall and the winter, and then six different ones in the spring, summer, just to kind of fit those seasonal flavors that so many of us want.
[00:16:48] But what I want you to think about is how can you begin doing this so that you see it's possible? To start to build the right habits and that you can begin feeling inspired and want to create the habits yourself because it is so achiev. Baking one muffin, one batch of muffins or two if you choose to, you know, batch prep and, and freeze the batch for later.
[00:17:13] But I want you to see how habit stacking can really start to help perpetuate some of those habits so that we're not getting ourself in a rut. We're not just reaching for the same muffin recipe that we make every Monday, and we make the same breakfast cookies every week, or we make the same fill in the.
[00:17:31] each and every time we do that habit, we begin to see that we can build and feel motivated to keep repeating the process, repeating the verb, and having that ongoing exposure to that food that we know is just an easy win with our kids. But in the process, we are building more habits and ultimately adding additional variety.
[00:17:54] So that's really what I want for you as you move into 2023. I think Muffin Club gives everyone such a good opportunity to have that accountability. And that energy around something like Muffin Club being this arbitrary microcosm to just motivate us to keep repeating the process, keep looking at the criteria that works for your family, and that plays into those meals and snacks that you're offering so that you can begin to cycle through those things so that you're not stuck in a rut, but you can operate on autopilot.
[00:18:27] With a sense of ease. And so if you're not signed up for a muffin club yet, of course I would love for you to come join us. I think it's an awesome opportunity for you to begin incorporating more of those simple meals and stack ideas, but not getting overwhelmed with an excess of just random recipe ideas.
[00:18:44] Instead, you're gonna see how it's really intentional to fit that framework of being a meal or snack idea that works for your family, and to begin habit stacking the process. It is conducive with your family's life. So if you're not yet signed up, make sure that you come to veggies and virtue.com/muffin club.
[00:19:04] Get signed up and you'll get each of the weekly recipes one at a time so you have the recipe to get started with and the repeated behavior to help Habit Stack week after week to help you feel like you can accomplish this that much easier.
