source: Rob Ireton

With chefs like Shaina and Aimee participating alongside frugalistas like Carrie and Amy and real food advocates like Katie, I felt like I stuck out a bit from that very first month as the blogger who was just trying to find my way in this crazy healthy eating journey (although I think most of the other bloggers would say that they too feel like it’s a journey!).

However, over the last two years, I’ve made a ton of progress. I started making many of our pantry staples from scratch, taught myself to cook (and found that I actually enjoy it) and welcomed my kids into the kitchen on a more regular basis.

In fact, I would have loved to write this post as a pat on the back as I looked back over the last two years and the progress I’ve made, but a funny thing happened: I got pregnant.

And with this pregnancy came food aversions so strong that I literally could not look at certain foods (namely, vegetables) without feeling the need to run to the bathroom. Out of all the tasks I needed to juggle in the midst of morning sickness and exhaustion, cooking was the one that literally turned my stomach…and therefore the one that I gave up.

I was actually in the middle of a Whole 30 when I got the welcome but surprising news that I was pregnant, and the morning sickness increased at such an alarming rate that I quit the challenge suddenly (after planning to continue throughout my pregnancy). I went from cooking three amazingly delicious and healthy meals a day to avoiding the kitchen at all costs, and on an emergency trip to the grocery store for convenience foods, I felt a little bit of pride when my husband said, “It’s been so long since we’ve had processed food that I don’t even remember what we used to eat.”

Thankfully, a few of our dear friends from our Classical Conversations group provided meals for our family so that they were at least getting a couple healthy, homemade meals a week, but other than that we pretty much lived on boxed and frozen foods.

It got so bad at one point that one morning as I was making french toast and escalloped apples for the girls and I for breakfast, my oldest sat at the breakfast bar across from me and sighed, “It’s really good to have you cooking again.”

Here’s the thing: I know women deal with morning sickness every day, and many of them still manage to feed their families healthy, whole foods anyway. I’m not saying it can’t be done; I’m just being honest that it wasn’t something I could do. Or maybe more accurately, it wasn’t enough of a priority for me to push through the nausea and exhaustion to do anyway.

And you know what my biggest takeaway from that was? It’s okay.

In our quest to provide healthy meals for our families and our research into the dangers of processed foods, it can be easy to become very, very fearful. It’s easy to become obsessed with food choices and to feel like our children are doomed to get cancer or become obese if we dare to let them have even a tiny bit of high fructose syrup. And it’s easy to make healthy eating our idol, the thing we count on to keep our children healthy and safe, when really there’s no guarantee of that this side of heaven.

I still believe that high fructose corn syrup and food dyes are bad. And I still very much believe that whole foods are good.

But I also think it’s important to show ourselves (and even more importantly, others) grace in this area. It’s okay to have pizza night once a week, to scale back your home cooking or to eat out more often during times of crisis. It’s okay to do the best you can and let go of the rest.

I am so thankful that my morning sickness is disappearing. While I was afraid that my food aversions and “lazyness” would last forever, I’m finding myself excited to head back into the kitchen to cook for my family. And I’m craving veggies like there’s no tomorrow.

I could have lived with guilt over the frozen lasagnas my family was eating while I was curled up in a ball on the couch, but I chose to let go of it and admit that we weren’t eating an ideal diet instead. And honestly? I think that’s healthier for all of us than the alternative.

Eat Well, Spend Less

Read everybody else’s two year updates as well:

• Aimee from Simple Bites
• Amy from Kingdom First Mom
• Carrie from Denver Bargains
• Jessica from Life as Mom
• Katie from Kitchen Stewardship
• Shaina from Food for My Family

Do you struggle with guilt over food choices?

This month’s Eat Well, Spend Less theme is the embracing the transition from winter to spring in your kitchen!

For better or worse, snacktime is a big deal in our house, and our girls look forward to their mid-morning and post-quiet time snack every. single. day.

Since we’re already preparing three meals a day, delicious homemade snacks are more of a special treat than an everyday occurrence, and we rely on fresh fruit and veggies most of the time instead. (Which often means simply grabbing an apple from the produce drawer.)

That said, I love the idea of making a variety of yummy fruit salads, dips and frozen pops to expand the variety of fruits and veggies they’re eating on a daily basis, and below is a list of 46 delicious snack ideas as we head into spring and summer. Some are pure fruit while a few have added sugar; some can be tossed together in a minute or two and others take a little more time but can be made ahead of time. Whichever ones you choose, you’re sure to find a few to add to your snack rotation!

Fruit Salad

• Monkey Salad
• Tropical Fruit Salad
• Juicy Fruit Salad
• Couscous & Fruit Salad
• Rainbow Fruit Kabobs
• Fruit and Cheese Kabobs
• Fruity Waffle Cups

Dried Fruit & Veggies

• Dried Strawberries
• Apple Chips
• Salt and Pepper Zucchini Chips
• Crispy Baked Sweet Potatoes
• Baked Spinach Chips
• Krispy Kale Chips

Fruit Dips

• Cream Cheese Apple Dip
• Fruit Kabobs with Cupid’s Fruit Dip
• Honey-Yogurt Fruit Salad Dressing
• Sweet Sour Cream Sauce
• Coconut Fruit Dip
• Peanut Butter Dip
• Raw, Chocolate ‘Caramel’ Dip
• Maple Whipped Cream

Veggie Dips

• Dill Veggie Dip
• Avocado Dip
• Garlic Lime Hummus
• Edamame Hummus

Salsas

• Strawberry-Mango Salsa
• Fruit Salsa
• Cucumber Salsa
• Chunky Salsa
• Chili’s Copycat Salsa
• Fresh Mango Salsa

Frozen Treats

• One-Ingredient Banana Ice Cream
• Frozen Grape Pops
• Frozen Nutty Banana Treats
• Chocolate Banana Pops
• Frozen Smoothie Pops
• Mango-Cilantro Popsicles
• Tropical Fruit Punch Popsicles
• Creamy Strawberry Lemonade Popsicles
• Pomegranate, Raspberry, and Nectarine Popsicles

Smoothies

• Mix & Match Fruit Smoothies
• Peach Freezer Smoothies
• Avocado-Banana Smoothie
• Strawberry-Limemade Slush
• Fruit & Yogurt Smoothie
• Cran-Raspberry Smoothie

Eat Well, Spend Less

For more spring food tips, be sure to visit the other Eat Well, Spend Less bloggers:

• Aimee from Simple Bites
• Amy from Kingdom First Mom
• Carrie from Denver Bargains
• Jessica from Life as Mom
• Katie from Kitchen Stewardship
• Shaina from Food for My Family

What’s your favorite way to serve fruits or veggies for snacktime?

Have you seen this handy dandy banana slicer? The gadget itself may seem a little silly since people have been slicing bananas with a simple knife for centuries, but the reviews on it are well worth your time!

In our house, we add banana slices to pretty much everything — oatmeal, yogurt, granola, cereal, french toast, pancakes, waffles and more. I personally prefer my banana slices cut in half circles rather than straight slices, and because of that, I started slicing them with this simple method below.

This isn’t a revolutionary tip, but my husband thought it was pretty cool when I showed him how I do it, so I figured I’d share it with you as well!

First, break the peel at the top and remove one strip of the peel.

Then, holding the banana in your hand, slice your banana in half lengthwise. Ignore the fact that I completely forgot to do this when my husband was snapping these photos!

Finally, slice the banana in the peel, dumping the slices on top of your yogurt/french toast/whatever when you’re done.

The peel provides a firm surface for slicing the banana and you never have to touch the banana itself with your hand! For me, it’s also faster and easier than trying to peel the banana first and slice in the air, and it saves the extra dishes of slicing on a plate or cutting board.

How do you slice your bananas?

Serving your family “real food” is important, but how do you do it without breaking the budget or sacrificing taste? This week’s bundle includes the resources you need to eat delicious, whole foods on a budget. Packed full of recipes and tips, it’s sure to be a go-to resource in your kitchen. And this week only, get all 5 ebooks for just $7.40 (a savings of almost 90%)!

With your purchase, you’ll get all five of the following ebooks:

• Real Food on a Real Budget by Stephanie Langford
• Real Food…Real Easy by various authors
• Real {Fast} Food by Trina Holden
• Sourdough A to Z from GNOWFGLINS
• Treat Yourself by Kate Tietje

Get yours today!

The Eat Well, Spend Less bloggers are joining together this month for a fun Q&A! We each posed a question to our fellow bloggers, and we’re sharing those answers in our posts.

Last month, I shared a bit about my own strategies for learning to cook, but I wanted to know where other people turn with cooking questions:

What is your favorite resource when you’re unsure how to do something? What resources to do you recommend to friends/family/blog readers who are looking for cooking how-tos?

Amy from Keeping the Kingdom First:

I’m definitely a fan of Google when I’m unsure how to prepare something or need a quick idea. Right now the resource I have been sharing with friends and family is Easy Homemade! I have recently purchased a second copy to give to my mom and plan to buy more to give to the couples I know are getting married this year.

Aimee from Simple Bites:

I don’t particularly love the generic, semi-homemade recipes Google pulls up in its early searches, so I’ll add the name of a blogger or website in with my ingredient or recipe query. For example, if I type in “Steamy Kitchen Kimchi”…boom, the first hit is Jaden’s recipe AND a step-by-step video. I respect Jaden and know her recipes to be reputable, so there’s no second-guessing my search. I’ve a broad enough knowledge of food websites and food blogs to head to the right niche for topic-specific searches.

Jessica from Life as Mom:

Google is my friend. If I’m not sure how to prep a certain vegetable, which is often the case with our weekly produce box, I will google the vegetable and find out all kinds of recipes and information about the item. Before that I used the Food Lover’s Companion, a great encyclopedia of ingredients and methods of cooking.

Carrie from Denver Bargains:

I don’t think I have a go-to resource for learning how to do specific things – if it’s a technique I’m after, I usually Google it and watch a video.  But, if I’m looking for a specific recipe that I’ve never cooked before, Cook’s Illustrated is my go-to resource when I want to know for sure a recipe will be good!

Shaina from Food for My Family:

There are a few resources that I will look at first before anything else. First, if you want to give a gift to someone who needs help in the kitchen, a Cook’s Illustrated membership is definitely worth the price. They have instructional videos and step-by-step photo guides for all sorts of different cooking techniques, recipes, and more. They are thorough in their explanations and descriptions, and it’s easy to follow. For the old school crowd, two of my favorite cookbooks from them are the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook and The Science of Good Cooking. Both are extremely good resources for having in the kitchen.

Continuing on the old school track, I find books like Ruhlman’s Ratio and Twenty great resources that will continue to give beyond the first read-through.  I’d also recommend The Flavor Bible and Cheryl Sternman Rule’s Ripe.

On the internet side of things, blogs are always a great resource, but it can be difficult to vet quality with so many of them. I personally like to turn to community sites like Punk Domestics, Food52, and Chow or sites with proven history like Epicurious when I have specific questions on cooking  techniques or I’m searching for new recipes or information.

Katie from Kitchen Stewardship:

I’m a fan of Google searches for any question in any area of my life!

For reader questions, I take them really individually. I end up sending people to Heartland Renaissance for sourdough questions and slow cooker yogurt, to GNOWFGLINS.com for a lot of traditional foods prep, culturing/fermenting, and dehydrating questions, and now Aimee for her wonderful “how to make stock taste good” post. I really just fly by the seat of my pants a lot and stumble along!

Want to know more kitchen tips and frugal ideas?

We’re taking this Q&A around the blogosphere this week. Each of the Eat Well, Spend Less bloggers posed a different question about how we feed our families and stay under budget. The answers are fascinating! Hop around and see what deep, dark secrets we’re revealing.

• Aimee from Simple Bites
• Amy from Kingdom First Mom
• Carrie from Denver Bargains
• Jessica from Life as Mom
• Katie from Kitchen Stewardship
• Shaina from Food for My Family

As funny as it sounds, one of the hardest box foods for us to give up was Kraft Macaroni & Cheese!

What can I say? We grew up eating the stuff, and it was something we all enjoyed. Our first few attempts at homemade mac and cheese did not go well, so we stuck with the box for quite awhile even after I’d started making a lot of other things from scratch.

And then I found this recipe and began tweaking it, and everything changed.

This is now a staple in our home, and we haven’t seen the blue box in many months. In fact, I make double the sauce each and every week and store half in a jar in the fridge so we can make a second batch later in the week. That makes it even easier than the stuff out of the box since we just dump the sauce into the hot noodles and stir!

Homemade Macaroni & Cheese

Ingredients:

• 16 ounce box of noodles, preferably whole wheat
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cups milk
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• italian bread crumbs optional

Directions:

(Click here to add this recipe to your Plan to Eat account.)

What boxed foods are you reluctant to give up? Do you have a macaroni and cheese recipe you love?

Although we’ve been waiting anxiously for a significant snow storm this winter (and are more than a little jealous of our neighbors to the north who got a real live blizzard last week!), we have been lucky enough to get a few snow showers since Christmas, and this hot chocolate has become one of our favorite “snow day” treats!

It comes together quickly on the stove, and while sugar is sugar, I feel better about serving this homemade treat (with whole milk, fair-trade cocoa and just a few additional ingredients) to my girls than the stuff that comes in little packets. And it’s a whole lot cheaper too!

Easy Homemade Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/3 cup water
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Combine cocoa powder, sugar, salt and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 1-2 minutes, stirring often.

Add milk and cream and continue heating over medium-low until hot.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.

Makes 4 servings.

Variations:

• Add a pinch of cinnamon or (my favorite) cayenne pepper for a little spice.
• Use almond or peppermint extract instead of vanilla.
• Top with whipped cream.

Click here to add this recipe to your Plan to Eat account.

I pretty much consider coffee to be one of life’s greatest simple pleasures, and over the past year, that’s evolved from a love of coffee in general to a love of lattes in particular.

My husband surprised me with an inexpensive latte maker last year, and while it makes a tasty espresso, the milk steamer/frother is just meh. (And I actually just replaced the latte maker, but more on that another day!)

For a while I tried just adding cold milk to my espresso, but lukewarm lattes aren’t quite as tasty as their hot counterparts, and I began looking into alternatives for steaming and frothing my milk.

However, the reviews on pretty much every device out there are iffy, and I just couldn’t bring myself to add one more kitchen gadget to my cabinets, so I started heating my milk in a saucepan.

I then realized I didn’t even have to sacrifice my froth. It turns out that you can get milk pretty frothy with a good ol’ fashioned whisk, and while it may not be perfect coffee house froth, it’s definitely good enough to serve at home.

Every afternoon I sit and sip one of these cinnamon lattes…with extra foam, please!

Cinnamon Latte

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. coffee or espresso
• 6 oz. milk
• 1 cinnamon stick
• sugar or stevia to taste

Directions:

Add cinnamon stick and sweetener to your favorite mug. Brew your coffee or espresso and immediately pour into the mug.

In a small saucepan, heat milk over medium low until steaming. Whisk briskly and then pour over coffee.

Optional: If you prefer, heat your milk in the microwave instead of the stovetop.

Enjoy!

Join us over the next few months for even more quick tips from a minimalist kitchen!

This week’s BundleoftheWeek.com collection includes five amazing resources to help you run your home more efficiently! Covering everything from organizing your schedule and household records to meal planning, cleaning and budgeting, this bundle is the perfect collection to help you keep your home resolutions.

And it includes Easy Homemade. Even if you’ve already bought Easy Homemade, the rest of these ebooks are well worth the $7.40, but if you haven’t yet picked it up, that’s icing on the cake!

Get all 5 of these ebooks for only $7.40 (a savings of over 80%) for one week only:

Organizing Life as MOM by Jessica Fisher
Designed to equip you and inspire you to get your act together, Organizing Life as MOM includes inspiration to simplify and focus on the most important things in your life. You’ll find real life help in organizing your different roles and responsibilities, 130 printable pages to help you keep track of all the comings and goings of your household, fillable forms you can tailor to your needs and your home, and tips for putting together a household notebook.

Easy. Homemade. by Mandi Ehman
Easy Homemade: Homemade Pantry Staples for the Busy Modern Family features more than 60 tried-and-true recipes for homemade kitchen staples that can be made with basic ingredients and don’t require a lot of time. In addition, Mandi offers kitchen tips, information about choosing various ingredients, and more to empower your busy family to make your favorite pantry staples from scratch!

Plan It, Don’t Panic by Stephanie Langford
In Plan It, Don’t Panic: Everything You Need to Successfully Create and Use a Meal Plan, Stephanie helps you: find a meal planning method that suits your family best, work with special dietary needs, become a grocery-shopping ninja, make the most of leftovers, organize and store your recipes, and more. She also shares tips and strategies to help you perfect your meal planning style plus printable planning pages and 4 weeks of real, whole food meal plans.

28 Days to Hope for Your Home by Dana White
In 28 Days to Hope for Your Home {Not for the Mildly Disorganized}, Dana draws on her own experiences as a former slob, offering a practical guide to help you discover hope for a real change in your home. Broken down into 28 baby steps, this ebook will help you develop four basic but essential home management habits. You’ll also find practical tips to keep you from giving up, bonus sections with realistic strategies for laundry management, meal prep, and decluttering, and insights into why these habits are a struggle for so many of us!

Hybrid Homemaker by Melissa Gorzelanczyk
The Hybrid Homemaker: A Guide to Personal and Financial Freedom is full of tips and strategies to show you — step-by-step — how to get out of debt, stick to a budget, make money doing what you love, shrug off the world’s burden of doing it all, figure out what matters to you and create a home where beauty and happiness appear through your actions.

The Homemaking bundle is only available through 8am EST on Monday, 1/28. Click here to get yours today.

Although I dreamed of being the perfect housewife and stay-at-home mom — keeping a clean, organized home, cooking healthy, delicious meals…and always with a smile on my face — none of it came easily to me. Least of all the cooking part.

I truly hated to cook, but it wasn’t the actual cooking I hated; it was the not knowing what I was doing. I had questions about every single recipe I tried (at the time, “Google it” was not part of my vocabulary, so I called my mom…every night). And I ruined a ton of meals, which I also hated, not just because it made me feel like a failure but because I was wasting so much food in the process.

Over the years, I kept trying (my family insists on eating, after all), and I slowly got a few recipes under my belt that I felt fairly confident preparing…except sometimes I would still mess those up too!

A year or so ago, I finally accepted the idea of “baby steps” and started focusing on mastering just one new thing at a time. I began to understand the why behind a lot of the things we do in the kitchen, which was an important step for me.

When I began writing Easy Homemade last summer, it made a lot of my friends laugh: “Mandi is writing a cookbook? Will the real Mandi please stand up?”

But learning to make each of those items — which involved a lot of experimentation, quite a few disasters and understanding the why behind each recipe — made such a big difference in my kitchen journey. It gave me a confidence in the kitchen that I don’t think I would have gained in another 10 years of preparing regular meals.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still not a chef by any means. These days I often Skype Shaina with my questions (although not as frequently as even a few years ago!), and I still make mistakes. But I finally feel like I’m over the hurdle. I can salvage most mistakes, even when I realize an important ingredient is missing halfway through. And trying a new recipe or technique no longer intimidates me.

If you find yourself in that same place, I recommend starting with the basics: Take some time to make sauces, salad dressing, condiments and spice blends. Smell the spices and try to identify the flavors in your favorite foods. Create a roux and turn it into a basic white sauce.

Often, we approach cooking from scratch from the opposite direction — starting with recipes that use premade ingredients and assembling them — but if the thing that’s holding you back is not having a good understanding of how and why things work in the kitchen, starting with the basics can be a big confidence booster!

I dove right in while writing the ebook, but you can start with one little thing at a time. How about homemade brownies for dessert this week?

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Ingredients:

In a medium bowl, mix sugar, flour and cocoa. Add butter, eggs and vanilla extract and beat for 3 minutes.

Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Drop several teaspoons of peanut butter across the top of your brownie batter and swirl with a knife.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool for 20-30 minutes before cutting. {If you can resist!}

Click here to add this recipe to your Plan to Eat account.

Resources & Coupon Codes

Looking for a little help in your journey? Save 30% off Easy Homemade or Better Than a Box (from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship) with coupon code EZHMDEAL:

In Easy Homemade: Homemade Pantry Staples for the Busy Modern Family, I share more than 60 recipes for homemade kitchen staples as well as kitchen tips, information about choosing various ingredients and more.

Katie’s Better Than a Box: How to Transform Your Processed Foods Recipes into Whole Foods Favorites is more than just a recipe book; it’s a tutorial in real food cooking, reverse engineering processed foods, and creative recipe development. Katie’s strength is showing you why and how things work in the kitchen, and this ebook is her best yet!

Eat Well, Spend Less

For more tips on getting back to the basics, be sure to visit the other Eat Well, Spend Less bloggers:

• Aimee from Simple Bites
• Amy from Kingdom First Mom
• Carrie from Denver Bargains
• Jessica from Life as Mom
• Katie from Kitchen Stewardship
• Shaina from Food for My Family

What is your favorite thing to cook “from scratch”?