(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!
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?
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!
It’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).
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!
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.
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.com, thekitchn.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!
