Welcome to another week of Notes From the Kitchen Table!

I actually missed a week here, things have been busy. We’ve had house guests, theater auditions, scout and school camping trips, volunteer time, a birthday, and plenty more. The time gets filled so easily that sometimes I have to just push the pause button and take a break from anything extra.

The good news is that two of my girls auditioned and got roles in local theater productions this fall. (For a small town, we have an amazing local arts scene.) The bad news is that it’s two separate productions at two different locations with sometimes overlapping and conflicting rehearsal schedules. Sh*t’s about to get real as far as crazy schedules go!

I’ve learned over the years as a busy mom that pushing pause and taking breaks is really the simplest and often the best kind of self care. Especially when schedules get this busy, I have to take little breaks wherever I can find them. I think my kids have all learned this kind of self care skill too, they all really appreciate the value of down time and saying no, especially now that they are in high school and have a lot of demands on their time.

What do you do for self care? I’d love to hear from you.

In other news - we had a birthday this past week!

My oldest set of twins are 17. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been a mom for seventeen years. The time has flown by. I asked them if they wanted to do anything special for their birthday, but we’ve all been so busy lately that everyone agreed that a weekend of doing nothing was exactly what they wanted. So a weekend at home, pizza and pancakes, pool time and movies, and of course plenty of cake, was just what we all needed.

We have a birthday tradition at our house of a birthday pancake stack for breakfast, complete with candle and whipped cream and sprinkles. It’s a fun little way to start the day. I usually make homemade pancakes, but in extra busy years I have used frozen pancakes for this instead and the kids love it just as much.

What birthday traditions do you have at your house?

OK, what’s in this week’s issue:

I’m sticking with the birthday theme for some of the updates this week. For school lunch packing I’ve got some really simple lunches to show you for making a school day special occasion just a little more fun, plus my answer to a really common reader question about packing lunches ahead. We’re going to talk a little about birthday cake and birthday dinners, social media and blog post highlights, and of course updates on family meal planning.

Make sure you don’t miss a weekly update - click here to subscribe to my substack and you’ll get these updates in your inbox. The archive of all my weekly updates and past meal plans will always be available on the blog as well.

Let’s dig in!

Tip of the Week:

For this week’s tip I thought I’d talk about birthday cake, and how as busy moms we’ve really got enough going on without pressuring ourselves to feel like we have to make a homemade cake. Hop on over to this tip to read my thoughts about grocery store birthday cakes, and my favorite homemade cake recipe if you really do want to make one from scratch.

Ask Lisa - Reader Q&A:

My answers to frequently asked questions from social media, blog posts, and more.

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.

Lunchbox Inspiration:

Let’s talk about birthday lunches!

When kiddos have to be at school on their birthday, why not make their lunch just a little more special? It’s really easy to add a couple of fun little touches to a lunch to make it feel like a special occasion.

Simple birthday cupcake toppers stuck in a sandwich, maybe a fun cut sandwich, a cute napkin, an extra sweet treat - just a few ideas for how you can really quickly an easily make the birthday school lunch feel just a little more fun and special.

I shared a couple of examples of these ideas on my Instagram this week, so be sure to ➡️ check them out.

I also have a post on the blog with even more of my favorite tips for making lunch packing (and eating) just a little more FUN - great ideas you can use for birthdays, holidays, or any time you need to make school lunch time feel a little more special. ➡️ Check out this post and let me know what you think.

Featured Blog Posts:

Several posts I want to share with you this week!

I’ve already mentioned a few - the one about packing lunch ahead of time, and the new post about how to pack sandwiches ahead of time, AND the new post about how to pack some special fun lunches. (I have been busy!)

I’ve got a few more to share this week too!

I’ve been trying very hard to get better about writing down recipes of things I make regularly, and I’ve actually got a few new recipes posted for you.

• My egg bites recipe: one of my secrets for school day breakfast meal prep for high schoolers.

• Quick and simple homemade teriyaki sauce that is great on everything from chicken to tofu to veggies.

• A delicious Moroccan spiced pork shoulder, with my Moroccan inspired spice rub - one of my favorite meals for impressing dinner guests

Let me know if you try any of these!

Meal Planning Updates:

Last week’s menu is up on the blog. You can click here to go read that post, with links to some pics, a couple recipes, and a bit more detail about a few of the meals.

I never got around to sharing a meal plan for this week, since I skipped the newsletter last week. But I’ve been sharing a lot lately on Instagram and Facebook, so pop on over to either of those to see some pics of what we are having for dinners this week.

For the big birthday I wanted to try combining a couple of family favorites into one meal - so I made Chicken Parm Meatballs. I’m going to have to make this again soon to write down an actual recipe, because they were so good! I made lots extra (as I always do) because we love leftover meatballs! You can see the pic and description here, and hopefully I’ll get a recipe written soon.

Seriously how are we already looking down the barrel at October?

I like to do a rough meal plan for a month at a time. Those big ones often end up evolving over the course of the month, but I think it helps to at least start out with a big picture view of what we have going on during the month and what we want to eat, and then it’s easier to move things around than it is to start from scratch every week. I haven’t done my monthly plan for October yet, that month is kinda sneaking up on me. But hopefully next week I will have more info about monthly meal planning to share.

For now, I’ve got a list of a few things I am planning to cook next week, mostly items that were on my September plan but got kicked down the road due to busy schedules and calendar changes. Check this space next week to see if I figured it all out.

Ideas for next week’s menu:

• Some kind of whole chicken. Either Jamie Oliver’s chicken in milk, or maybe Samran Nosrat’s Buttermilk Chicken. I shared a post last week with favorite whole chicken recipes and I’ve been craving several of them ever since.

• Sheet pan sausages and veggies. I’m going to Costco this week and my family loves those chicken and apple sausages that they carry, and it’s an easy weeknight meal paired with some veggies and maybe pasta or rice.

• Pozole - this is a delicious Mexican inspired stew that we just love. I have a super shortcut recipe here that makes it a quick weeknight dinner and I think it’s just as good as the more time consuming original version. Depending on what chicken recipe I make, I might end up making a chicken pozole with the leftovers.

• I saw this chicken saag recipe from Nom Nom Paleo recently and I’ve been dying to try it, maybe just with rice or maybe with paired another vegetable curry.

• Our Friday pizza night is probably going to be frozen pizza because schedules are out of hand and I think I’ll be too tired to make homemade, but I’ll try to make a nice big salad with it.

• On the weekend, we’re thinking it might be time to start smoking some meat again, I’ve got some tri-tips and a pork butt in the freezer so we might do one of those. I love doing either of those with the Moroccan inspired spice rub recipe that I shared above.

Social Media Highlights:

I’m headed to Costco this week. I don’t go as often as I used to when we lived in the city because Costco is an hour away now, so it’s kind of a special field trip. I like to ask my followers what their favorite Costco finds are, and I always get some great suggestions of fun new things to look for. Take a look at the most recent Thread about that, and let me know if you have any other ideas to add. I would love to know what you buy at Costco. ➡️ Click here to read that thread.

I mentioned above that I shared some fun birthday lunches on Instagram if you want to check those out, and I’ve shared several of our recent dinners. Check out my Instagram feed to see those.

The other big social media news is that I’m back to posting on my Facebook page too! A lot of the content is the same as what I post on Instagram, but there may be some differences, and it’s another option for keeping up with the latest if you aren’t into Instagram.

Coming Next Week:

I realize now that when I pushed the pause button last week I never got around to sharing the things I said I’d share in this section last time. So here’s that list again and hopefully I’ll keep on track this time…

Next week I thought I would share some of my favorite protein packed lunch ideas, maybe school day breakfast suggestions, and some of my favorite household cleaning hacks. And always my quick tips, answers to reader questions, meal plan updates, and more. 

Be sure to check back and subscribe so you never miss an update.

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.

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Wishing you an easy week ahead!

– Lisa