Claim OwnershipFamily Food for Moms Podcast I Inspiration for Family Cooking and Dining I How to Enjoy Special Meals Together
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Hi friends! I’m Karyn and this is the Family Food for Moms podcast. We’re talking about inspiration for family cooking and dining.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed or discouraged as a Mom trying to feed your family healthy meals. Would you like to be inspired in the kitchen. Would you like your mealtimes to be full of joy, fun and healthy delicious food.
Come hang out with me on the Family Food Podcast so I can inspire you to bring the purpose and inspiration back into your family meals. We’ll learn about food from our grandmother’s ways of cooking, from other cultures and from ancient traditions. And in the process, we’ll make the family table a special place that you and your children will remember forever.
I help Moms feed their families nourishing, delicious food, find purpose in their cooking, learn from past generations and other cultures; and celebrate special meals together through practical advice, tips, inspiration and encouragement.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed or discouraged as a Mom trying to feed your family healthy meals. Would you like to be inspired in the kitchen. Would you like your mealtimes to be full of joy, fun and healthy delicious food.
Come hang out with me on the Family Food Podcast so I can inspire you to bring the purpose and inspiration back into your family meals. We’ll learn about food from our grandmother’s ways of cooking, from other cultures and from ancient traditions. And in the process, we’ll make the family table a special place that you and your children will remember forever.
I help Moms feed their families nourishing, delicious food, find purpose in their cooking, learn from past generations and other cultures; and celebrate special meals together through practical advice, tips, inspiration and encouragement.
120 Episodes
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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. We've always had yogurt, sometimes raw yogurt. We have raw milk, we love aged cheese, and we also get lacto-fermented pickles and sauerkraut at the whole food store.
However, I wanted to look into making those things at home, as then they’d be cheaper, and I want to finally get over my fear of making them. I decided to finally take the plunge!
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; using herbs; using spices; and knowing how to layer your seasoning throughout your cooking time. We’ll look at how to season your proteins, vegetables, starches, soup, and sauces correctly. You need to develop the skill of being able to taste food and then adjust it, knowing what needs to be added. We’ll also look at how to avoid some common seasoning mistakes.
So, what enhances flavor? The top five things are salt - that enhances your flavor, fat, which carries your flavor with it, acidity, which brightens and balances your flavor, heat or spiciness, which adds something exciting to the taste, and then aromatics, which build depth.
Let's chat more about seasoning!
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 valuable things to learn, especially when you're cooking on the stove top. We’ll learn what the differences are between things like a gentle simmer versus a rolling boil. What’s medium heat, and when do you use it? What’s high heat and when do you use it?
A lot of common mistakes in cooking are heat mistakes.
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 time, like a slow cooker or air fryer. Actually, though, a lot of these things are not as scary or intimidating as they seem.
It's a good idea to have a bit of extra time on your hands when you’re practicing new cooking skills. Then you're not learning a new skill in the rushed stress of the day's cooking, but rather doing it at a time where it doesn't matter if it goes wrong. That way, there's less pressure on you, but the skills will help you when you do want to cook with them.
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 studying as part of her course this year. One of the books she’s reading is Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beaton, first published in 1861. It contains a lot of recipes, but also a lot of text about homemaking and cooking, how to plan it and execute it.
I was just thinking about how differently we cook and eat these days. We’re really afraid of food that's what I would call decadent. We want to just do chicken breasts or lean meat, and we do the same things over and over again. I don’t know about you, but in our family, probably because it's cheapest, we repeatedly use chicken breasts and ground beef, and most of our meals are made up of those. Yes, it's good because it's cheaper, but existing on muscle meat is really not good for us.
So, I wanted to talk about some things that I feel like we've lost. I love looking at old menus from the 1900s from various countries, and just seeing how they ate - It's quite amazing. If you factor in that they didn't have snacks, and that they had all their meals really full and nutritious, then it makes a bit more sense. I'm going to talk about what things we've lost since those times from cooking, food, and nutrition.
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 example, you could do French or Greek themed food, or a baked potato bar, or a takeout evening. You can vary this as much as you like.
What's very helpful when you’re planning like this is a master list. I have a printable for you for this.
You can download and print your blank Meal Planning With Themes sheets to fill in at familyfoodformoms.com/meals.
(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 prepared or finished off a little bit at a time for each course.
I'm going to talk about different ways that our family do meals with courses. Sometimes it's relaxed with an activity, and sometimes it's formal. We’ll also talk about how we break down the meals.
Today I want to talk about what we've been eating lately, a bit about our current menu planning method and how we decide what meals to have each week. We've been trying to involve the kids in cooking, and to be more organized and orderly in the way we plan our meals.
At the beginning of the year, I made a master plan for our meals, and now each week we take that and set up our weekly meal plan from it. Let's chat about it!
Today we're going to be talking about food from the Caribbean. What’s Caribbean comfort food? What can we learn from Caribbean cuisine? I find it quite fascinating what they eat out there.
They have some things that are quite unusual, and some things that are perhaps familiar, but it’s definitely different to living on the mainland.
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 comfort food. We’re going to mention some things that we can learn from her as a chef, and then we’ll talk about some particular meals she makes, and what she does to make them her signature food. Let's get started.
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 soon as I start to make an effort, the ideas come. When I'm feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, I don’t have many ideas, but somehow putting on some soft music, dimming the lights, and setting the table beautifully helps already to bring that family closeness and connection.
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 every single meal, obviously, but I do want to make sure that every week or two we have an extra special meal so that we can feel connected as a family and make some memories.
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 are easy to cook, and to elevate them. He has many of what he calls “Guy-ifie” dishes. So, there's a lot we can learn from this inspiring chef. Let's get started.
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 days. So, here we go with some British comfort foods that you can try at home.
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 cook in it.
Hopefully, after this episode, you'll know a lot more, and you'll feel confident in using a crockpot.
One of the great things about a crockpot is that they're so cheap to buy. They're one of the cheapest kitchen appliances there is.
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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 - I'll be back next Monday.
Don't forget about our recipe book Elegant Easy Appetisers available here.
Today we're going to be talking about some of my favorite side dishes to cook with a meal. We’ll look at some examples of side dishes, mainly from a few English countries, and maybe a couple of others. Generally they’ll be ones that are familiar, and you just need to be reminded of.
My favorite kind of side dish is steamed vegetables. These are very simple to make. There are green beans, chopped butternut squash or sweet potato, long stem broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. All of those work so well simply being steamed. The cheapest way to do this is to use a steamer tray that’s like an insert. It’s made from stainless steel, and it has holes in it.
Steaming vegetables is one of the healthiest ways to eat them. That way, they retain the most nutrients, and they retain the most flavor because it's not boiled away.
Today we're going to talk about what we can learn from India about cooking; dining and good nutrition - from the grandmothers and from the culture. It's really fascinating to see how they go about cooking and the relationship they have with food.
Indian cuisine is very interesting. It's fresh and spicy, made with whole foods as well as medicinal ingredients. Indian cooks cook slowly, paying attention to the order and the process of cooking.
I hope you're feeling inspired to try some Indian recipes!
Today we’re going to be talking about Swiss comfort food. Swiss comfort food is like no other, and Switzerland is so well known for its cheese and its chocolate. In a book by Weston Price, that famous dentist who toured the world, he talks about Swiss people many generations ago who lived on healthy, thick bread and cheese in the mountains, and how healthy their teeth were.
There’s so much about Swiss cheese and European cheese that’s so good for us, and they have amazing comfort foods made from cheese, like Swiss fondue, etc. We're going to talk about some of those. Then chocolate, of course, is a wonderful snack, especially Swiss chocolate. It just tastes the best - it's so good! I love the cute little chocolates that they decorate with Swiss chalets and Swiss snowy mountain scenes. You don't have to cook chocolate, and it's definitely a Swiss comfort food.
I want to give you some ideas for lunches and snacks on the go. These are great for if you're a mom that's fetching and carrying your kids to and from school, extra-mural activities, or sports games, or for anytime you want to take food with; sometimes for your kids as well, and sometimes just for you. Sometimes you need something to eat in the car while you wait, or maybe you're just going to be away from home and you'll need to eat.
Even if you're just at home working, sometimes it's better to prepare food the night before, or in the morning, so that when you're hungry and you want to grab something, it's there ready for you to eat. Somehow, if food is prepared in advance, and if we've put a little thought into it, we’re less likely to grab something unhealthy, or something that doesn’t have enough nutrients.
We need to plan carefully to get the right nutrients when we're always busy - like most moms are - or often on the run.
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