Ask Lisa #03

Reader Q&A

Here’s where I answer your questions! I get questions all the time from readers about all kinds of things I share - lunch packing, cooking, meal planning, organization, and more. Each week I am sharing my answers to one of your questions. Make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter so you never miss my weekly reader Q&A.

Have a question for me? Comment below or drop me a message on social media.

This week’s question:

Q: How do I keep sandwiches from getting soggy when I pack them ahead of time?

A: This is another one of the questions I get the most when I talk about packing lunches ahead, so I guess it must be a common problem for a lot of you. If you struggle with how to pack lunches ahead of time I am so here for you. This is my thing!

I pack sandwiches days in advance all the time, I definitely have some tricks that can help! They mostly come down to putting just a little more thought into the construction of your sandwich, and what ingredients and methods are causing it to be soggy. I’ve put all my best tips for packing sandwiches ahead of time in a whole new blog post for you. I promise you that you will definitely want to try these tips because packing lunch ahead of time is one of the best things you can do to make school day mornings easier and less stressful. ➡️ Click here to read that post now.

If you want more tips about packing all kinds of lunches ahead of time, you’ll definitely want to hop over and read this post with all of my tips, because packing lunches ahead is such a time saver and a massive school day morning stress reliever that it’s worth figuring out a few little tweaks to your lunch packing to make this work for you. ➡️ Click here to read that post now.

Have a Question?

Ask me anything. Do you need lunch packing advice or meal planning suggestions? Or do you have other food or family management related questions? My goal is to be your resource for tips and advice - from a mom who has been there, and done that.

Reply to this email, post a comment, or hit me up on social media, and your question could be featured in next week’s newsletter.

Don’t forget to follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads for daily tips and inspiration.

➡️ Follow Me on Instagram | ➡️ Follow Me on Facebook | ➡️ Follow Me on Threads

Wishing you an easy week ahead!

– Lisa

Ask Lisa: #02

Real answers to your questions, from one busy mom to another.

This week’s question:

Q: How do I plan family meals when one of my kids is such a picky eater?

A: I see this question so much in social media and parenting groups.

It can be really hard to manage family meal planning when some of you like a wide variety of foods and some of you have a very limited list of what feels safe to eat, but I have figured out several ways to navigate this that work for my diverse family.

Here are my top suggestions:

1) Make deconstructed meals.

Plan to make the foods you like to eat and cook, but figure out how to deconstruct the components of that meal and serve it as a make-your-own bar style of dinner.

The easiest example of this is instead of a loaded one pot pasta with the noodles and sauce and meatballs and veggies all mixed together and topped with cheese, serve all of those components separate. If someone just wants pasta with cheese, they can do that. If someone wants just meatballs and sauce and veggies but no pasta they can do that. But if the meal you wanted was all of it together, then you still get to have that.

Everyone is happy.

Other ideas for this type of meal include taco bar, baked potato bar, ramen soup bar, rice bowl bar. Make a list of all the meals you like and see how many you can figure out how to separate into a deconstructed bar. You’ll probably be surprised at how many you come up with.

Cooking this way is also awesome for meal prep, because if you’ve made extra of the separate components each night, then you can easily combine those things in new ways for probably several more different meals. You can even incorporate this strategy into your meal planning, so that you are planning ahead to cook extra of some basic components.

2) Have an available safe food for the picky eater.

I always try to make sure there is something available for the meal that my pickiest eater will eat.

If I really wanted to make that one pot pasta or a loaded casserole or spicy gumbo, then I will always have something available that is separate. This brings us back to my tip above about making extra.

Did you know that plain pasta and rice freeze really well?

Make extra when you’re cooking and freeze some in single serving portions. Then you can always pull out a bag of cooked pasta for that one kid who is going through their “nothing but buttered noodles” phase. I also recently discovered these pouches of single serving pre-cooked pasta and I always make sure I have some in my pantry. My picky eater makes this for herself often, just a minute in the microwave and a little butter and she has a dinner she is happy with.

3) Let them eat cereal.

There. I said it. Maybe an unpopular opinion? But I don’t care what your mother-in-law says, a bowl of Cheerios is not an unhealthy dinner. I don’t buy cereal that I’m not ok with my kids eating, so super sugared cereals aren’t an option here, but a healthier whole grain cereal is always an available meal choice.

Teach them how to slice a banana, or have some cut fruit or a container of blueberries available. Have them set their place and bring their cereal bowl and a pitcher of milk and their fruit to the dinner table and eat it with the rest of the family. They are getting a balanced meal, and they are still learning about healthy eating by seeing what you serve and what the family is eating. Nobody is feeling shamed for their food choices, and you’re not feeling guilty about them not getting a healthy meal.

I can almost guarantee you that eventually they will feel brave enough to try what the family is eating because you are leading by example and without pressure or shaming.

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Have a Question?

Ask me anything. Do you need lunch packing advice or meal planning suggestions? Or do you have other food or family management related questions? My goal is to be your resource for tips and advice - from a mom who has been there, and done that.

Reply to this email, post a comment, or hit me up on social media, and your question could be featured in next week’s newsletter.

Don’t forget to follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads for daily tips and inspiration.

➡️ Follow Me on Instagram | ➡️ Follow Me on Facebook | ➡️ Follow Me on Threads

Wishing you a delicious and stress-free week ahead!

– Lisa

Ask Lisa: #01

Real answers to your questions, from one busy mom to another.

Since I've started sharing the lunches I pack for my kids, I get a lot of questions about how I do things. One of these days I will write a post with all of the frequently asked questions. There is one question that I get more often than any other, by far... 

What do you do to keep the apples from turning brown?  

It's a funny thing, it's not something I ever thought about until people starting asking.  Brown apples was something I had never had a problem with. But it seems to be a pretty common problem, so I wanted to try to figure out why. 

My first answer was:  I do nothing. 

I assumed it was maybe the type of apples I was buying.  

I buy only organic apples, and I tend to go for the more tart varieties, like Fuji or Gala. But then I heard from folks that they purchase those kinds too, and they turn brown.

I can literally cut apples and store them in the fridge for days without them turning brown. 

Why do my apples not turn brown?

Then one day I quickly cut up an apple with a regular table knife.  And the apple turned brown very quickly.  It occurred to me, maybe the knife had something to do with it.  I almost always cut them with a very sharp knife, but that day I hadn't. 

So I did a little experiment. 

These two apples were both cut 24 hours before the picture was taken.  

The one on the left was cut with the table knife. The one on the right was cut with a very sharp chef's knife.  I think it's a pretty big difference between the two. 

So there you have it - maybe the knife is the difference.

Because really, there is nothing else I do to them other than cut with a good sharp knife.

The apple on the left was cut three days before, the one on the right was cut just before the picture was taken. Not much difference. 

Get yourself a good knife and a good sharpener, and maybe you'll never have to hassle with brown apples again.