November 28, 2018

10 Faves: Gifts for Moms 2018

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

Allbirds wool loungers, incredibly comfortable all-wool shoes to wear around the house.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

The softest, most luxurious faux fur poncho for the walk to school.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

Lovely cookies that are almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

The book she’s been dying to read, or another notable one she’s been eyeing.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

A chic tassel that will give her purse an instant upgrade.

Cookbook Gift Guide 2018 by The Naptime Chef

One of the most inspiring baking books of the season, she’ll be whipping up cakes in no time!

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

A ultimate blend for a long, relaxing tub soak.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

Amazing face oil that makes skin positively glow. Every drop is pure luxury!

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

A lovely waterbottle for toting around in her purse.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Moms 2018

The most gorgeous scented candle that smells like the Maine woods in deep summer.

 

November 27, 2018

10 Faves: Gifts for Best Friends 2018

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

A truly amazing product that leaves you with the softest feet EVER!

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

The newest book from one of her favorite mystery authors.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

A super fun traveling jewelry box for all of her adventures!

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

Big Block French Kitchen Soap for all of her pot scrubbing needs and that even makes the kitchen sink look chic.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

Gorgeous hand-painted notepads for writing lots of notes about important things.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

A fabulous cookbook all about feeding friends and loved ones with yummy, easy recipes.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

The world’s coziest fleece for everyday hanging out and running errands.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

An awesome card deck she can use every day for alignment, love, and growth.

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

Hands down the coolest French bag company – the possibilities are endless!

The Naptime Chef Gift Guide for Friends 2018

The most gorgeous table linens, because she always entertains in style.

November 26, 2018

10 Faves: Gifts for Kids 2018

Give 5 Year Olds:

Naptime Chef Gifts for Kids 2018 The BEST cozy sweatshirt for winter.

Naptime Chef Gifts for Kids 2018Timelines of Everything, because curious kindergarteners want to know!

Naptime Chef Gifts for Kids 2018

Yummy candy to remind them of summer.

Naptime Chef Gifts for Kids 2018

Construction and demolition all in one game, need I say more?

Naptime Chef Gifts for Kids 2018

Emoji punching balloons for hours of fun.

Gifts for 10 years +:

Naptime Chef Gift Guides

A super cool portable speaker that pulses with their music and is totally waterproof.

Naptime Chef Gift Guide 2018

A belgian waffler maker for making Saturday morning waffles.

Naptime Chef Gift Guides

A Rockets of Awesome box full of fun clothes she’ll wear over and over.

Naptime Chef Gift Guides

An Ozo Bot, the coolest robot she play with for fun while honing her coding skills.

Naptime Chef Gift Guides

Greenglass House, a riveting mystery full of ghosts, magic, and more!

November 15, 2018

5 Easy Tips for Relieving Holiday Stress

(Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Mirum, and all the opinions expressed and photographs are my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that make The Naptime Chef possible.)

Halloween is ovah and it’s time for the real holiday season to kick into high gear! For most of us busy parents that very sentence strikes mild panic into our hearts. Are we really read for hosting relatives/decorating/wrapping/socializing and the like? How on Earth will be handle it all? Don’t get me wrong, I love and adore the holiday season, but it is definitely not the most laid-back time of the year.

So! Today I’m here with five easy ways to relieve holiday stress. These are some easy peasy quick-fixes that will help the next two months go off without a hitch. Promise!

5 Tips for Beating Holiday Stress | The Naptime Chef

1. Plan Menus NOW: I know menu planning is not necessarily everyone’s favorite topic. However, planning menus for Thanksgiving, cocktail parties, Christmas Dinner, kids parties and more makes such a difference. Can you envision the difference between “oh, I’m making potatoes and cocktail nuts for Thanksgiving!” and opening your cupboard and fridge for the ingredients…versus running to the store the day before, sharpening your elbows and hoping for the best while you sweat it out in the crowds?! Advance planning helps you get ingredients in the cupboard, the right cookbooks pulled from your shelf, and all the worrying out the way. Ahh, now doesn’t that feel better?

5 Tips for Beating Holiday Stress | The Naptime Chef

2. Pick three simple recipes for breakfast and lunch and put them in rotation. Planning the big celebratory meals is fun, but planning breakfast and lunch can be an afterthought. Yes, leftovers are always an option, but what about the kids? And your great Aunt who just came to town? Many mouths to feed! Pick three recipes everyone likes, buy the ingredients, and get them in heavy rotation. Soups, hearty salads, and paninis are popular choices in our house!

October 27, 2018

The 2018 Cookbook Gift Guide

Here is an ongoing list of our Cookbook Gift Guide for 2018!

Cookbook Gift Guide 2018 by The Naptime Chef

Fantastical Cakes by Gesine Bullock-Prado, ideal for the the aspiring cake baker.

High Alpine Cuisine

High Alpine Cuisine by Marla Meredith. Perfect for those who love mountain food!The Ultimate Kids' Cookbook

The Ultimate Kids’ Cookbook by Tiffany Dahle. A great family cookbook, especially for young kids!The 30 Minute Mediterranean Diet

The 30-Minute Mediterranean Diet Cookbook by Deanna Segrave-Daly and Serena Ball. The best collection of healthy, delicious recipes we’ve ever seen!

Keto Soups & Stews

Keto Soups & Stews by Carolyn Ketchum. A collection of tasty soups any eater would love, but are great for those on a keto eating plan.

Cooking with Scraps

Cooking with Scraps by Lindsay-Jean Hard. A fascinating book full of enticing recipes that can be made with food scraps!

Pie Squared

Pie Squared: Irresistibly Easy Sweet & Savory Slab Pies by Cathy Barrow. A charming collection of sweet and savory square pies that are perfect for the whole family.

Everyday Dorie

Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook by Dorie Greenspan. Dorie’s lovely collection of recipes from around her home table.

Israeli Soul

Israeli Soul: Easy, Essential, Delicious by Michael Solomonov & Steven Cook. An amazing collection of Israeli-inspired recipes anyone can make.

 

October 27, 2018

3 Food Blogging Questions with Katie Workman

The Mom 100 | The Naptime ChefIt’s been so much fun having Katie Workman as one of our fall features for Cookbook Club! Today Kelsey & Katie settled in for a little chat about food blogging and all that it entails!

Kelsey: What inspired you start food blogging?

Katie: When my first book, The Mom 100 Cookbook, was coming out, I wanted to create a place to live online to go with the book, and also have a sort of portal to talk to and hear from like minded cooks and readers.  I think the blog kind of ebbed and flowed for the first few years, but a few years ago I started to get a lot more serious about it, and have been much more consistent about blogging a few times a week, and upping my photo game.  It was a little like, Go Big or Go Home at that point, and I wanted to try and go big!

Kelsey: Do you ever order take-out or do live in the world of the “merry home cook” all the time?

Katie: PLEASE!  If I don’t have sushi at least a couple of times a week I start vibrating. I think I might be made of mercury at this point, there is so much raw salmon coursing through my veins. And I live in NYC, with teenage boys and their friends, so thank god for take out pizza.

Kelsey: Fess up – what’s your favorite and least favorite thing about food blogging?!

Katie: My favorite thing is hearing from readers, with a question, a comment, and in the best moments people telling me that they loved something and so did the people who ate it.  That’s amazing, and I never tire of it.  The best thing that happened to me lately was that a reader asked me if I could fix it so they recipe intros would be printed out along with the recipes because my writing was very important to them.  I almost wept.

What is annoying is trying to understand what the hell google wants at any given moment in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so that my recipes come up at the top of search when people are looking for a lasagna or whatever they are searching for.  The wisdom always changes, the search engine gods change their minds all of the time, and most of the time I just focus on the writing and the food, and let the cards fall where they may (but there is still a whole lot of tagging and back end stuff to deal with).

Thanks, Katie!

September 23, 2018

Katie Workman for The Snack Cookbook Club

The Snack Cookbook Club

We are thrilled to feature Katie Workman for the next few weeks for The Snack Cookbook Club. (Sign up here!)

Today we are sharing the first of three features… and don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter to enter the giveaway which will be running all week!

The Mom 100 | The Naptime Chef

TLSN: It’s that very special time of year…back-to-school season! I know you can relate. You wrote two awesome books designed to help parents with their family cooking goals. Can you share your concept of Fork in the Road, which is a concept that stretches throughout both works and your website?  
KW: The Fork -in the- Road concept addresses the need to adapt a recipe to suit the needs of a family where picky palates are prevalent.  Basically a recipe is made, fairly simply,  up to a certain point.  The some of the dish is removed (think plain pasta sauce, pita chips, simple sautéed chicken cutlets), and set aside for the kids or those with milder palates.  Then, you continue on with the rest of the dish, adding some additional ingredients and flavors for those with more adventurous palates.  The result is that you get to make one dish for the whole family, everyone is sharing the same meal, but the grown ups (and maybe some of the kids!) are eating something with more interest, more sophistication, while the kids are eating a great meal that doesn’t push them past their limits.  No more short order cook!  And hopefully this serves as an opening for you to encourage your kids to try the more sophisticated version, and expand their horizons.
TLSN: It’s not just dinner! Family cooking also entails breakfasts and lunches. They are equally as important and often entail strategic cooking. How do you approach that in addition to dinner time?
KW: Prep, prep, and prep some more!  I am a huge fan of having an arsenal of pre-prepped ingredients at the ready – minced herbs and garlic, chopped onions, peeled carrots, juiced and zested citrus and so on.
Dinner Solved | The Naptime Chef
TLSN: How do you keep up your cooking momentum when you feel fatigued/burnt out? Where do you seek new inspiration for recipes and family food once your regulars are all played out?
KW: I look everywhere, from restaurants to prepared food counters to magazines to online sources to social media.  there is absolutely no shortage of inspiration out there!
TLSN: What are you working on now and where can we find you showcasing your work? All busy parents will benefit from your ongoing help!
KW: I am always adding new recipes and posts to my blog, themom100.com, and I send out a weekly newsletter with meal plans, and other recipe round ups.  I also write a weekly column for Associated Press, which is carried in dozens of print papers and online newspaper sites.  I freelance regularly for a lot of other outlets as well, many online, such as Simplyrecipes.comthekitchn.com, and CommunityTable.com.  And of course I am very active on social media, especially instagram where I can be found at @katieworkman100.  And you can always google me!  I’m google-able!
TLSN: Thanks for stopping by Katie!