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Prep Day Breakfast Sandwiches!

March 6, 2023

Healthier ingredients and saving money at the same time?! YES please! Let’s have a quick prep day and make our own breakfast sandwiches for the freezer!

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Begrudgingly becoming a meal planner…

If you have been around since I began this blog (9 years ago!), you know that in those earlier years, I would often field the question of “how do you meal plan” by telling you that I didn’t. I worked from home, and had babies at home, and I feel like most days back then, I was flying by the seat of my pants! There is absolutely nothing wrong with that if it is working for you. And it actually did work for me…until it didn’t. As the girls have gotten older, even though I still work from home, we are pulled away from home more often between school, after school activities, friend’s houses, and teens that want to “do something fun this weekend,” that I need to have meals more thought out. We probably have more down time than the average American, and so I can confidently say that if I’m finding meal planning helping our schedule, I would imagine so many of you would benefit from some meal planning hacks…like make ahead breakfast sandwiches!

Move over McDonald’s!

I started making these little breakfast sandwiches in bulk when we had a number of days or weekends where we had to “be somewhere,” or in a car earlier than our usual, and I still wanted something filling and healthy for my family to eat. When life gets busy, it is ok to not want to compromise on the food filling up your family. In fact, it is in those busy seasons that your family needs nutrient dense, healthier food that counts the most! Those little fast food Sausage McMuffins with Egg are such a convenient idea, but not only can we save money by making our own (I’ll break this down for you later!), our bodies are going to feel SO much better when we fuel with ingredients that are sourced well too.

Let’s start with the eggs!

I just love this little time saving hack! There is nothing fancy here – just a sheet pan of seasoned whipped eggs in the oven for 15 minutes, and you can cut up the squares into whatever size you want! Simply whisk the eggs in a large mixing bowl with seasonings of your choice, and pour into a buttered sheet pan. I kept the seasonings in the eggs pretty basic in the recipe card below, but you can read the “Notes” section at the bottom of the recipe card for ideas to dress up your egg squares with sautéed veggies, or other seasonings.

Baking and slicing your egg squares

Once the eggs have baked for 15 minutes, you’ll want to let them cool for a bit – they will come out of the pan easier this way, and you will be able to slide it onto a cutting board for easy slicing too. The beauty of making your own is getting to control the size of your egg squares. If you have littles in the house, and are using something like my little breakfast biscuits, or a pancakes for the sandwich part, you can make the egg squares smaller. If you are using something larger, like the Trader Joe’s gluten free English muffins shown in the pictures of this post, or are using larger waffles or pancakes for the sandwich, you can make your egg squares bigger.

Next, let’s talk about sausage options!

I like to use the grass-fed ground beef from the cow that we purchase every year. It is super affordable, packed with so many vitamins, minerals, and compounds that you just won’t get out of conventional beef. It is also really easy to season like sausage using my sausage seasoning blend that is in the recipe card below. But there are other options too! If you have access to quality pasture raised pork or pork sausage, or even if you have access to ground turkey, lamb, or venison, you can make your own using the sausage seasoning in the recipe card below. You may also be able to find a decent breakfast sausage at the store. Brands like the Swaggerty’s Natural or Swaggerty’s Natural Sage sausage, or even the Jenny-O turkey sausage, may not have all the added benefits of a pastured meat, but the ingredients are super minimal, and it is a great option for those of you that don’t have a pastured meat source available to you.

Now for the “bread” part of the breakfast sandwich…

There are really quite a few options here! And there is something for everyone – no judgement either way. There are going to be people reading this post that under no circumstance want to homemake any sort of baked good or bread, and I would rather you use a store bought English muffin with decent ingredients than go to McDonald’s! So here are some choices for both sides – my “everything from scratch” crowd, as well as my friends that just want to grab something from the store:

Homemade GF biscuit :: Whether you use my GF/DF Butter”milk” Biscuit from my cookbook “The Little Lunchbox Cookbook” (pictured below), or my GF Savory Spinach & Cheese Breakfast biscuit recipe from the blog, biscuits make a great vehicle for a breakfast sandwich! Or maybe you have a favorite breakfast biscuit recipe in your house that you can use!
GF Pancakes or Waffles :: Other than my biscuit recipe, my GF/DF protein waffles recipe is probably the one I use the most for these breakfast sandwiches, on a weekly basis. I typically make a double batch of the waffles for Sunday breakfast weekly, so I have leftovers available for quick sandwiches during the week. These waffles really taste so good as a breakfast sandwich versus a sweet breakfast waffle! You can use pancakes too! Probably the easiest and fastest recipe to knock out a bunch for the freezer would be my Paleo Pancakes from my cookbook, “The Little Lunchbox Cookbook.” Or maybe you have a household favorite pancake recipe you can use!
Store bought English muffin :: Examples that I have checked out are the Trader Joe’s or Udi’s Gluten Free English Muffins. One of the biggest reasons I took most of the pictures for this post using a store bought English muffin is to show my cooking-hesitant or baking-hesitant friends that you can still do this thing. As I said above – there will be zero judgment in this space, and I found them pretty tasty and convenient too! (Please note that typically, gluten free store bought breads like these English muffins have a much better texture when toasted – you can toast them on the same day you prep your items! I don’t have a toaster, and I tend to use my large electric skillet to toast a bunch at a time!)
GF Bread/Toast :: As simple as this sounds, this is a very easy and tasty option too. Costco always has a good GF bread option, and quite frankly when it comes to GF bread, toasted is the way to go anyway for the texture, so you might as well make a breakfast sandwich from them! We also love the homemade GF bread mix from Bob’s Red Mill – this is the closest you will ever find me to making homemade GF bread because making GF bread from scratch is SO. HARD! This mix is very fast and easy to use.

So let’s break down the price…

I actually set out to figure out the price per breakfast sandwich with the intention that I was going to have to make my case for you wanting to make these breakfast sandwiches based solely on the fact that they have better ingredients than, say, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg from McDonald’s. As it turns out, I’m spending $2.13 for a breakfast sandwich that I can truly feel good about, and the McDonald’s where I live sells a Sausage McMuffin with Egg for $4.49. I don’t even want to know where the eggs and sausage come from on that McDonald’s sandwich, and the biscuit ingredient list is long (not to mention has gluten which wouldn’t work for some people anyway!). (Keep in mind these prices will vary from state to state, and country to country. If you live in a country where a certain type of meat, like lamb, is easier to get, or more cost effective than pork or beef, then use that – I get this comment from many of my readers outside of the States! I live in Michigan, USA, and grass-fed beef is pretty easy to access, and really quite affordable when bought as a side of beef from a local farmer. That is not the case everywhere. You may raise your own chickens or have access to quality farm-raised eggs at affordable prices – do that if you can! You may also not have access to English muffins that are affordable or have ingredients that you can have – quite frankly, making your own pancakes, waffles, or biscuits is even more cost effective anyway!)

1 English Muffin
- 1 Trader Joe’s English Muffin: $1.00/English muffin
- 1 Udi’s English Muffin: $0.96/English muffin
2 egg squares (16 eggs divided into 24 squares is about 1 1/2 eggs for 2 squares):
- Sam’s Club Pasture Raised Eggs: ($5.92/18 eggs = $0.33/egg x 1.5 eggs = $0.50 for 2 egg squares
- True Goodness Meijer Pasture Raised Eggs: ($4.99/doz = $0.42/egg x 1.5 eggs = $0.62 for 2 egg squares)
- Vital Farms Pasture Raised Eggs: ($7.09/doz = $0.59/egg x 1.5 eggs = $0.89 for 2 egg squares)
1 sausage patty (1 pound meat made into 8 patties)
- Grass-fed Ground Beef Sausage Patty: $5/lb x 8 patties = $0.63/patty (I can get a side of a grassfed cow for my freezer every year for under $5/pound here, but that is definitely not the case everywhere. I made this meat at $5 per pound for easy math)
- Swaggerty’s Natural Sausage Patty: $3.68/lb x 8 patties = $0.46/patty
- Jennie-O Ground Turkey Sausage Patty: $4.49/lb x 8 patties = $0.56/patty

Ok, ok, you’ve convinced me…now how do I store them?!

I’m so glad you asked! Because I was super shocked that the eggs squares froze and un-thawed well. They really do! My suggestion would be to freeze in individual sandwiches, OR just freeze the components. I tend to choose to re-heat my breakfast sandwiches in the oven. If I’m going to spend the money on pasture raised eggs and sausage, there is no way I am going to kill off all those good things in the microwave, as convenient as that is. I pop the cold sandwich or the components for the sandwich on a sheet tray and put that in the oven cold. Then I pre-heat to 350 degrees and by the time it pre-heats and then bakes a good 5 minutes, they are nice and hot to serve.

On-the-go storage options!

Here are some options for those of you that need your breakfast sandwiches to be on-the-go. Obviously a re-useable container is the most eco-friendly, but if you can’t bring something like that along because you need to save space, need a smaller option to store away, or need something that you can throw away, I have found these to work well!

The “If You Care” Brand parchment paper or sandwich wraps will keep your sandwich warm and the bread tasting great, and you can throw it away too. They are even compostable!
Beeswax wraps are great if you want a re-useable option that stores away easier than a large re-useable box or lunchbox. Just fold it up and slip it back in your purse or bag and you can rinse it off at home later. They wrap around a sandwich SO nicely, and keep it warm and the bread texture great.

15-MINUTE SHEET PAN EGGS

Here is the recipe for the eggs. Again, these freeze up in squares so nicely, and warm up in the oven with great texture! You could even do 2 sheet pans at a time and bulk up your freezer stash when eggs are on sale, or when those farmers have them priced well in the in-season summer time!

Print Recipe

Sheet Pan Baked Eggs for Prep Day Breakfast Sandwiches!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter for the sheet pan
16 pastured eggs
1/3 cup coconut milk or raw milk
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
black pepper to taste
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and butter a large sheet pan/jelly roll pan. The eggs will puff up so make sure to butter the sides too so they don't stick. If you can't have butter, avocado oil or ghee should work.
Vigorously whisk all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until smooth, and then pour the seasoned eggs into the buttered sheet pan.
Bake the sheet pan eggs at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. You can cut the eggs right there in the pan, or you can wait for them to cool, and scoop the egg rectangle out onto a cutting board to cut. I like to run a spatula under the eggs to be sure none of the bottom is sticking.

Notes

You can definitely dress these eggs up or down! This is a pretty basic recipe. Add cooked & crumbled sausage, sautéed veggies, and/or shredded cheese of your choice. The Viola Life coconut based cheese works well if you are not able to have dairy. We like the sheep’s milk or goat’s milk cheeses since that is what we tolerated best.
To freeze the eggs, cut them up into squares after they have cooled completely, and store in freezer bags flat. They really do thaw out and re-heat well and keep their taste and texture!

DIY SAUSAGE PATTIES

And for those of you wanting to experiment with making your own sausage patties, get ready to save some money and have super delicious sausage too!

Print Recipe

Homemade Sausage Patties

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp marjoram
Pinch cayenne pepper to taste or leave it out if you want to keep the heat down
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 – 1/2 tsp pepper
1 lb pastured ground pork or grassfed ground beef ground lamb, venison, turkey etc work too
1 tbsp butter to cook in

Instructions

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the seasonings together until combined, then add the ground meat to the bowl. Mix the meat with the seasoning blend until combined.
Form patties out of the meat, and cook in a hot skillet coated with butter. I get 7-8 patties out of each pound of meat, but you can make your patties as large or small as you want.
This recipe doubles and triples well, and the sausage patties freeze well both uncooked, and cooked.

More real food recipes you might like!

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Healthy Cocoa Nib Granola Bars :: Fast prep, nutrient packed, and gluten & dairy free!

February 7, 2023

These healthy cocoa nib granola bars are nutrient packed to keep the kids full and focused, are fast to make, and taste like a chocolate chip granola bar!

Healthy Cocoa Nib Granola Bars :: Fast prep, nutrient packed, and gluten & dairy free!

Active kids and a brand new protein packed granola bar!

My youngest came home from a gymnastics meet not long ago telling me about this chocolate chip granola bar that her teammate was munching on after the competition. She was so intrigued, and wondered if we could get some! I pulled up some nutrition facts on various popular granola bar brands, and asked her if she thought these ingredients would help an athlete recover from the kind of practice and meets that she puts in. Corn syrup and/or sugar, soybean oil, rice and oats were really the only “real” ingredients, along with some preservatives in most of the brands we checked out. Zero protein source to help her muscles recover, rancid oil that would increase inflammation in her already worked-out body, and junky sweeteners…I know of exactly zero children that need a blood sugar spike like that. We decided together that those store bought bars are not exactly the “recipe for recovery” for any growing kid, let alone an active athlete.

So let’s make some!

I have plenty of granola bar recipes between the blog and my cookbook, but I have never done a “chocolate chip” granola bar. I had 2 main goals for this recipe.

First…it needed to be fast and easy to make. I know, I know…maybe my priorities are a little flip flopped. But if it is fussy to make, even I’m not going to make it on the regular. I am just as normal of a mom as it gets, with a busy work schedule, kid schedule, and everything in between. As much as I love the kitchen, I don’t have time for time consuming recipes every week.
And secondly, it needed to have a fantastic macro-nutrient balance. Protein, fats, and carbs…growing kids need them all. We don’t want a carb-heavy granola bar. I wanted something not only great to pack for a hungry gymnast after a meet, but something to pack in a lunchbox that would help the kids focus at school too!

Cocoa nibs versus chocolate chips

Cocoa nibs are little shaved pieces of the actual cocoa bean that chocolate is made of. They are high in antioxidants and minerals, but because they don’t have the sugar added like a piece of chocolate does, they are bitter. Incredibly, when you mix cocoa nibs into a recipe with a natural sweetener like honey and the coconut sugar, they taste just like chocolate! I have nothing against chocolate chips here and there. If you want to use a mini chocolate chip, go for it! But give the little nibs a try, especially if the kids are going to eat these regularly! I have taste-tested these granola bars on more than just my “real food kids” and they have passed with flying colors!

Where is the protein coming from?

The biggest challenge in re-creating a “typical” chocolate chip granola bar is finding the protein source. Those store-bought bars are all rice and oat. There is nothing wrong with whole grain oats! But I wanted to add protein without compromising the flavor and texture. My newest baking protein source in the last year are these hemp hearts that I get at Costco. A whopping 10 grams of protein in just 3 tablespoons is an incredibly easy way to get some protein into something like a granola bar! I also added almond flour which makes the texture great. If you are at a nut free school, simply swap the almond flour ground up seeds of any kind – I would stick with sunflower seeds if you don’t want to change the color too much. Pumpkin seeds are great too, but they are green and might turn some kids off.

The Method :: The granola bar mixture

Earlier I told you that one of my goals in this granola bar recipe was to have an easy, fuss free, fast prep. If it is a drag to make, I know that I am not going to be motivated to make it on the regular! For these granola bars, you will simply mix up the dry ingredients in a bowl, and then stir in the melted liquid ingredients. It takes minutes!

The Method :: Granola bar molds or baking pans

I am pretty obsessed with my granola bar molds. I have had them for over a year, and I find myself making granola bars way more often because of how easy and *perfect* the shape comes out! I have both large granola bar molds, and recently got these minis because I think they make the perfect little snack bite for younger kids in lunchboxes! You can see the size of the mini’s in the picture below. Sometimes when I pack a larger one in my youngest’s lunch, she gets too full to eat the other items in the box because my granola bars are so packed and filling! To get the granola into the molds, just press the mixture in with a spoon. If you don’t have molds, you can use a parchment lined baking square. You’ll lift the square out of the pan when it cools and cut the bars into the shape you want.

So…did the swap make the cut?!

See the smile on that face?! She has been pretty pumped to have these granola bars for a snack in her lunchbox, and told me she can’t wait to pack it for her next meet! If you have kids that are used to regular, store-bought granola bars, you may want to bump up the honey or coconut sugar a little bit. As is, they taste like a treat to my kids, but they don’t get a lot of sugary foods.

Let’s talk about the size of this recipe!

This recipe makes…a lot of granola bars! I purposely did this because I was finding that with recipes like my Paleo Granola Bars, I was doubling them anyway so that I didn’t have to make them as often. You can certainly halve the recipe if you don’t want as many, but they do keep in the pantry for months, or you can freeze them if you like. This recipe makes 2 pans of my mini granola bar molds, and 2 pans of my large granola bar molds!

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Healthy Cocoa Nib Granola Bars :: Nutrient packed and gluten & dairy free!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

3 cups oats
1 cup shredded coconut
¾ cup hemp hearts
½ cup almond flour
½ tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
¾ cup cacao nibs
2/3 cup coconut oil
½ cup coconut sugar
½ cup honey
1-2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees. If you plan to use granola bar molds, place them on a baking sheet. If you are going to use a baking pan, you can line two 8×8 or 9×9 baking pans with unbleached parchment paper so the paper hangs off the sides (This helps pull them out of the pan to cut them easier later).
Put the oats, shredded coconut, hemp hearts, almond flour, cocoa nibs, sea salt, and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Melt the coconut oil in a small sauce pan until it is liquid, and then add the honey and coconut sugar to melt. Add the vanilla extract and then mix the melted liquid ingredients completely into the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl.
Press the granola bar mixture into your granola bar molds, or into your baking pan. I use the back of a spoon to press them into a granola bar mold. When I make granola bars in a baking pan, I use the bottom of a measuring cup to press the mixture in.
Bake the granola bars at 325 degrees until golden on the top. For these small granola bar molds, it takes 15 minutes. For these larger granola bar molds, it takes 25 minutes. The baking pans should take between 25-30 minutes.
Let the granola bars COOL COMPLETELY before taking them out. You'll be able to pop the granola bars out of the molds. If you are using a baking pan, pull the parchment paper up to take the granola bars out of the pan, and then cut them with a long sharp knife.

Notes

I use these hemp hearts from Costco, but there are other brands, and you can price compare what works best for you!
If you can’t have coconut, or don’t like the taste, you can swap the coconut shreds for more oats, and the coconut oil for butter if you can have dairy, or avocado oil. I don’t taste the coconut in these bars, but I know some might!
If you are at a nut free school, swap the almond flour ground up seeds of any kind – I would stick with sunflower seeds if you don’t want to change the color too much. Pumpkin seeds are great too, but they are green and might turn some kids off.

More real food recipes you might like!

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Creamy Roasted Rutabaga Soup :: Gluten & Dairy Free

January 31, 2023

Roasted rutabaga soup is beautiful simplicity, and a super kid friendly creamy soup way to get mineral rich veggies in!

Creamy Roasted Rutabaga Soup :: Gluten & Dairy Free

Beautiful simplicity…

If you haven’t noticed from the last year of recipe posts on the blog, our family is most definitely knee deep in pre-teen and teen years. I’m so happy to hear from so many of you with teens, that you are pumped about the help you are getting from this space as my girls make their way through their teenage years. It’s interesting though…when I really stop to think about it, we aren’t truly doing a whole lot differently than when they were very little. Sure, we have to double (and triple!) the portions and recipe sizes for bigger kids, but my M.O. has always, always been…beautiful simplicity.

Nourishing soup for ANY age!

Because those big kids in the picture above? They still eat the same power packed soups that I fed them as little ones. The pictures below? Dear momma with little ones at home, please let this be your inspiration…and motivation! Those babies in your house are absolutely *blank slates* for developing taste palates! I’m gonna get all tough love on you, and promise that if you skip the toddler puffs and cereal, and go for the beautiful simplicity of a little mug of veggie soup, you will be rewarded with older kids that actually *ask* for certain veggie soups in their thermoses for school lunch. My 3 very different personality kiddos are living proof! So let’s learn how to make a very simple veggie soup that your little ones (and you too, momma!) can sip from a mug, slurp up from a bowl, or lick off a spoon!

Why rutabaga?

Well other than the absolute budget saver that this simple root veggie is, rutabagas are packed with fiber and vitamin C. They have the perfect balance of minerals including potassium which so many of us and our kids need more of! The slow burning carbohydrates give busy, growing kids the energy they need, and that coupled with a load of antioxidants? Well, let’s just say sometimes I think the humblest of foods sometimes don’t get enough credit!

Yes, rutabagas are absolutely divine!

At least when you know how to cook them they are! Rutabagas are just like every other root veggie, in that when you roast them, you’re going to get a slightly sweet, very satisfying starchy taste, that any little one that hasn’t been inundated with sugar will find very, very appealing. And when you blend it up with some bone broth? Those natural, slow burning starches make for a smooth, creamy, very potato soup like texture, and a sweet root vegetable flavor. So let’s learn how to make roasted rutabaga soup!

The Method :: Prepping the veggies

To get your soup started, peel and chop your rutabaga. The skin is super thin, so a simple peeler is all you need. And since this soup gets completely pureed in the end, no precision cutting skills are needed here! Just a coarse chop, and you’re ready to roast. This bods well for busy families, new mommas with active toddlers, and those newer to cooking!

The Method :: Roasting the veggies

Once the veggies are chopped, transfer them to a large baking sheet. If your baking sheets are smaller, simply use two of them! Toss the veggies with melted butter or olive oil and sea salt, then let the oven do the rest! While your veggies are roasting, you can change the baby’s diaper, read the toddler that book, or *gasp!* take that shower you have been trying to get in all day!

The Method :: Finishing the soup

When the veggies are soft and starting to caramelize, you can blend it with your bone broth and a little cream or coconut milk. That is literally it! You get to control the texture and thickness! Add or subtract more or less broth to get a thicker or thinner soup.

Tips for feeding soup to little ones

Here are some thoughts to keep in mind when serving soup to babies, toddlers, and younger children!

Serve the soup at a cooler temp than you would probably enjoy the soup. Hot soup is very intense for little ones, and I always found that they ate soup better at pretty close to room temp. That might gross you out, but they will eat it better! You can cool it off with an ice cube, or pop it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes.
Try different serving vessels! Most little ones like to “do it myself” so try a very small tea cup with a straw or small spoon. Or a smaller bowl. They may even prefer to drink it from a cup or sippy.
Some little ones love to dunk! Make some grilled cheese and cut it into strips for dunking, use some crackers or pita bread, or toast up some tortillas in a hot pan as “chips” to dunk.

Don’t forget about the school aged kids and teens!

These are the soups that my kids live for! Easy to eat and super yummy! The girls used to pack straws with their thermoses of soup when they were younger. My teens either drink it right out of the thermos like a cup, or pack a spoon now. But the possibilities are endless, really. Pack whatever sides and protein they need to go with it! Below are chicken quesadillas from dinner and some apples. My teens packed some more chicken quesadillas, as well as guacamole to dip the quesadillas in.

Serving suggestions and freezer friendly tips!

I just love soups like this for the versatility and because they freeze for later use so well. When I had very little ones at home, those 2 points were game changers. If your little one loves this soup, it is versatile enough to serve in a little mug with a plate of eggs for breakfast, or in a bowl with some grilled cheese dunkers for lunch! And if you want to double up and freeze, that just makes life that much easier during busy weeks that you don’t have time to be in the kitchen. I like using these SOUPER freezer cubes for soups that I want to portion out for little ones.

Print Recipe

Creamy Roasted Rutabaga Soup :: Gluten & Dairy Free

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 small/medium onions coarsely sliced into strips
3 cloves of garlic peeled and left whole
1 rutabaga peeled and cut into 1-inch sticks
½ large head of cauliflower coarsely chopped
4 tbsp olive oil or melted butter I like to use a combination of both olive oil and butter for the flavor
1 ½ tsp sea salt
1– 1 ½ quarts bone broth depending on how thick you want the soup
¼ cup coconut milk if you tolerate dairy, cream or milk works too
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees
Toss the onions, garlic, rutabaga, and cauliflower on a large sheet pan with the olive oil and sea salt. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, until the veggies are soft.
Blend the roasted veggies in a high speed blender with the bone broth and coconut milk until smooth. If you do not have a high speed blender, you can pour the veggies and broth into a large soup pot and blend with and immersion blender.
Season the soup with sea salt and pepper to taste. I like cracked black pepper to garnish, or a drizzle of olive oil.

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Creamy Sausage, Potato, & Spinach Soup :: A Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana Done Gluten & Dairy Free!

January 16, 2023

This creamy sausage, potato, & spinach soup is a Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana with all of the creamy flavor, and none of the gluten and dairy!

Creamy Sausage, Potato, & Spinach Soup :: A Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana Done Gluten & Dairy Free!

Cold weather comfort food, and a teen favorite!

Earlier this fall, my 13 year old had a potluck to cook for at school. We scanned the sign up, and noticed it was fairly “Italian” themed with different pastas and salad. When I saw the section that asked for someone to bring soup, I thought I’d show my middle schooler the delicious comfort of an old Olive Garden restaurant favorite, with a healthy real food spin of course!

A new teen hit with an old restaurant favorite

She helped me make that “Zuppa Toscana,” and I’m telling, you those middle schoolers licked every last drop clean! Creamy sausage and potatoes…what teenager wouldn’t love that?! We have made it a number of time since, and the girls have claimed this as one of their favorite winter soups now, so I just had to share!

The Method :: Brown the Sausage

You’ll start your Zuppa Toscana by browning some sausage in a soup pot. I like to use a little of the bacon grease leftover from the weekend to cook in to add even more flavor to the soup, but a little butter or olive oil work great too. And speaking of options, you have choices for the sausage too! If you have a local farmer that you like to support, you can get either their ground sausage, or get plain ground pork and season it yourself! I have an MSG free and sugar free Sausage Season Blend on the blog! There are even some store bought sausages that aren’t so bad in the ingredient department if you look around. At our home, we tend to use our grassfed ground beef from the cow we get for the freezer each year, and season it with my own Sausage Season Blend. If you have ground venison, turkey, or chicken, that does work too!

The Method :: Cook the veggies

After you brown the sausage, you’ll scoop the meat out with a slotted spoon, leaving behind all of the cooking fat. Use this flavorful cooking fat to sauté your veggies in. This step gives a yummy caramelized flavor to the veggies that will flavor the broth – don’t skip this step!

The Method :: The Potatoes & Creamy Broth

Once your veggies have softened, you’ll stir in some garlic and flour of your choice to coat the veggies. I use a GF flour blend. I would not try using almond or coconut flours as these will not yield the same texture results for the broth. The flour gives the broth a rich, velvety texture that will mix with the coconut milk or cream at the end to create a super creamy, decadent broth. After you stir the flour in, you can pour in the broth and toss the potatoes in. You’ll simmer this until the potatoes are soft, stirring along the way.

The Method :: Finishing the Soup

Once your potatoes have softened, you can stir in the spinach to wilt and also the coconut milk to add creaminess. You have some options here as well. I like to use baby spinach since I always have a large box of it on hand, and it wilts super quick. Baby kale works well too. If you want to use large kale, you’ll want to add it in while the potatoes are cooking for the last few minutes so the tougher kale has a chance to soften. If you don’t need to be dairy free, you can swap the coconut milk for cream or milk. If you are using raw cream or milk, be sure to add it after the heat is turned off so you don’t ruin the beautiful health benefits of the raw dairy!

Leftovers!

The leftovers of this soup are…incredible! The flavors marry over time and just get better the next day. So plan this one into your dinner, and you can have it for lunch the next day, or pack it in the kids’ thermoses for school the next day! My teen and tween in particular ask for this in their lunchboxes a lot lately. I’m not a fan of freezing soups that have potatoes – they just don’t have the same texture when they thaw out, and I wouldn’t waste it. Make enough for the week and leftovers and enjoy. It’s simple enough to make on a monthly or bi-weekly basis if the family loves it that much!

Print Recipe

Creamy Sausage, Potato, & Spinach Soup :: A Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana Done Gluten & Dairy Free!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp bacon grease butter, or olive oil to cook in
1 lb ground sausage of choice See Notes for options
1 large onion diced
2 large carrots peeled and diced
1 celery stalk diced
4-5 cloves of garlic minced
¼ cup GF flour blend
1 ½ quarts bone broth
4 large yellow potatoes cubed in ½ inch pieces (ends up being about 4 cups of cubed potatoes)
4 cups baby spinach or baby kale chopped small
1 cup coconut milk or cream
Sea salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

Melt the bacon grease in a soup pot over medium high heat, and brown the sausage. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sausage from the pot once it is browned, leaving the cooking fat behind in the soup pot. There needs to be a good tablespoon of fat in the pot leftover from cooking the sausage – if there isn’t, add a little more bacon grease, butter, or olive oil so you can cook the veggies.
Over medium heat, saute the onion, carrot, and celery in the leftover sausage cooking fat with a pinch of salt, until the veggies are soft and sweet, around 7 minutes or so.
Add the garlic and flour and cook for 1 minute.
Add the bone broth and potatoes, stir to combine, and put the lid on your pot. Bring the soup to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are very soft – about 10 minutes. Stir the soup every few minutes to be sure the potatoes don’t stick to the bottom.
Once the potatoes are soft, stir in the cooked sausage and the chopped spinach to wilt in. If you are using kale, you’ll need to cook it down a few minutes to soften.
Turn the heat off, add the coconut milk, and then salt and pepper the soup to your taste.

Notes

You can use farm-bought, store-bought, or homemade ground sausage. I typically use my own DIY sausage seasoning blend mixed into ground beef actually, since we get a grassfed cow every year and our freezer is stocked with grassfed ground beef. The blend also works in ground pork if you have access to good ground pork. If you are a deer hunter, ground venison would work nicely!

More real food recipes you might like!

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How To Make Gluten Free Pizza

January 9, 2023

Learn how to make gluten free pizza with this fool-proof method that works every time!

Weekend play…and weekend pizza night staples!

We went from blizzard conditions during the holiday, to a mid-winter thaw in a matter of weeks! This spot that we trudged through in shin-high snow just a couple weeks ago, made the perfect stone throwing spot to explore this weekend. And while our weather seems to be ever-changing, our weekend pizza night rarely changes – and I can’t wait to share with you how we have been making gluten free pizzas for about the last year!

An old recipe made even better

Years ago, I created a gluten free pizza crust that we used a bit when the girls were little. Back then, gluten free flour blends were really hard to come by, and were not very affordable. I typically bought separate gluten free flours, and had to figure out the right ratios. I kinda sound like one of those people that is telling the stories of walking up hill to school, in two feet of snow, both ways, don’t I?! But it’s true. Gluten free baking has come a *long* way, and it is much easier to manage, with more affordable, more readily available gluten free flour blend options that easily swap cup for cup for regular flour.

Over a year in the making!

This pizza crust has been tweaked and tweaked for over a year, and finally this summer, I really feel like I found the right consistency and baking method. I can’t wait to share this with you, because I know that pizza night is important. It is ok to make the decision to make healthy food, real food, whole foods for your family, and still want to enjoy pizza night. This pizza method is simple enough to get on the meal plan for pizza night on the weekly – and any leftovers pack up great for school lunchboxes too!

The Method :: Waking up the Yeast

Before you get the ingredients into your mixing bowl, you’ll want to get the water, yeast, and sugar mixed together. This will “wake up” the yeast. It only takes a few minutes, and you can get the rest of the ingredients into the bowl while the yeast is sitting in the sugar water. The top of the mixture will foam if your yeast is alive, looking like this picture below.

The Method :: Proofing the Dough

YES, gluten free flour can proof, and expand, just like regular flour! Once you whisk the dry ingredients into the bowl, you’ll add some olive oil, an egg, and also the yeast/water mixture, and stir to combine. You can see how the dough expands in just a half hour of resting. You can let your dough proof for 30 minutes, or you can make the dough in the morning quick, and let it proof all day. This is what I typically do!

The Method :: Forming the Crust

Once the dough has proofed, you can pre-heat your oven and get your crust onto the pizza pan. I like to make two 10-inch pizzas, but this dough does all fit on 1 pizza pan to make a 14-inch pizza. Gluten free dough is sticky. Do NOT add more flour! You need the moisture or the crust will be dry. In fact, you’ll be adding more moisture, because I have found the best way to get the pizza crust formed is to use oiled hands! And a lot of it! Pour olive oil into the palm of your hand, and don’t be shy! Rub the oil in your hands, and then form the pizza dough into the shape you want on a parchment paper lined pizza pan. The extra olive oil will keep the dough from sticking to your hands, and it will also allow the crust to crisp up (not to mention taste amazing!). Once you form your pizza crust, sprinkle the top with sea salt and garlic powder. I like to be sure the edges get completely covered so that the edges of the crust taste amazing – like breadsticks!

The Method :: Par-Baking the Crust

Once you shape the crust, you’ll bake it without any toppings on it for about 12 minutes. This will “set” the pizza crust so it isn’t just a sloppy dough, and you can slide the parchment paper out from underneath the pan. You’re going to be baking this crust at a very hot temperature on the LOWEST rack that your oven can go. This will make the bottom of the crust crisp. Alternatively, if you have a convection setting on your oven, you could use that and keep the pizza on the middle rack. Once you par-bake the crust, and take the parchment paper out, you can add your toppings before baking the pizza the rest of the way!

So let’s talk about those toppings!

I wanted to show you some of our favorites here, but really if your kids are used to pepperoni or just cheese, then go for it! Sometimes we do that too, and I just make sure that we have a big Caesar salad or platter of veggies and dip on the side to get a few veggies in! You can see my original Caesar dressing here, or my dairy free Caesar dressing here. And here are some great dips for a veggie platter too!

And what about the cheese?

I wanted to briefly mention that if you have been around here for a while, you know that we don’t tolerate dairy well! So how do we do pizza night? Well we have a couple of favorite ways. One way is actually to go cheese free completely. We top the pizza with meat & veggies before the par-bake, and then drizzle olive oil and sea salt when it is finished. It is like a focaccia bread, and is SO good. Another option is the Violife coconut oil based “cheese.” It is dairy free, and we get it at Costco. We also like to use Manchego, which is a sheep’s milk cheese. Sheep’s milk and goat’s milk are different than dairy from a cow, and some people that can’t tolerate regular dairy, can tolerate goat’s milk products!

The Method :: Finishing the Pizza

Once you add the toppings to your par-baked crusts, you can pop them back in the oven on the lowest rack for another 10 minutes, or until it is done to your liking.

Print Recipe

Gluten Free Pizza

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

1 ½ cups warm water not hot or boiling
2 tbsp organic cane sugar
1 tbsp active dry yeast
3 cups Namaste GF Flour Blend
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder plus more for sprinkling the top of the crust to taste
1 tbsp aluminum free baking powder
1 tsp sea salt plus more for sprinkling the top of the crust to taste
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 egg
1/3 cup olive oil plus more for covering your hands to spread the dough out

Instructions

Proof the Dough

Give yourself 30 minutes to let the pizza dough rest before baking. You can also let it sit all day if that works better for your schedule. I tend to make the dough in the morning quick, or when I have a minute before I pick kids up from school sometime in the afternoon, but you can also make the dough, let it rest for 30 minutes and then bake.
To make the dough, first wake up the yeast by mixing the warm water, cane sugar, and yeast in a pyrex measuring cup. Set this mixture aside while you put the rest of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl. This will give the yeast time to “wake up” – it will get foamy at the top and smell yeasty if it is good yeast. See the picture above to see what it should look like.
Mix the water/sugar/yeast mixture into the mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients until everything is combined. Put a lid on the bowl, or cover it with a towel. Let the dough rest at least 30 minutes, or up to all day if you need to make it in the morning. The dough will get bigger in size after resting (see the pictures above)

Make and Par-Bake the Crust

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees, and put the oven rack on the lowest spot it can go.
Line one or two pizza pans with parchment paper. 1 pan will yield a large, 14-inch pizza. Or you can make two 10-inch pizzas.
If you are doing 2 pizzas, divide the dough in half, and scoop the dough onto the middle of the parchment paper on the pizza pans. If you are doing 1 pizza, scoop all of the dough onto the middle of the parchment paper.
Next, you’ll form the crust into the shape you want. To keep the dough from sticking to your hands, pour a good palm-full of olive oil in your hand, and rub into both hands. Form the dough into a circle. It will seem like a lot of oil on your hands, but trust me, this is ok! And even good! It crisps up the dough and makes it so flavorful.
Once you have formed your pizza crust into the shape you want, sprinkle sea salt and garlic all over the crust, making sure that the edges of the crust where the toppings don’t go get the most so that the edge of the crust is super yummy and flavorful.
Bake the crust(s) at 450 degrees for 12 minutes. Take the pans out of the oven, and use a spatula to lift the crust up and pull the parchment paper out. Leave the crust on the pizza pan without the parchment paper.

Put the Toppings on the Pizza & Bake

Put your toppings on the par-baked pizza crust and bake at 450 degrees for another 10 to 15 minutes to the done-ness that you like.

Notes

This recipe works with a regular, conventional oven, but if you do have the option on your oven to convection bake, it does help make the crust even crisper!

More real food recipes you might like!

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Mayo Roasted Chicken :: The most flavorful & tender roasted chicken – EVER!

January 3, 2023

This rotisserie style roasted chicken is the most flavorful & tender roasted chicken – EVER!

Mayo Roasted Chicken :: The most flavorful & tender roasted chicken - EVER!

Winter Storm Elliott – and I’m finally blogging!

So, we live in a part of the US that doesn’t get a whole lot of storms with “names,” if you know what I mean – no hurricanes or tropical storms here! Sure, we get completely dumped on with lake effect snow every winter, but it doesn’t usually make national news. The week before Christmas, our little corner of the world DID, in fact, make the news, as we experienced a “Bomb Cyclone,” and an actual named winter storm/blizzard that came our way! My little people are Michigan born and bred, and *love* the snow – so they were pretty much in seventh heaven for this experience with all the snow play they could endure!

Hunkering down and perfecting recipes!

Over the past couple of months, I’ve taken a little blogging break to refresh, as well as recipe test and perfect some new content for you! The winter storm had us pretty homebound for a number of days, and I was able to get some real work done – including a this recipe that I have been working on for a YEAR!

A pretty hefty claim….

The *most* flavorful & tender chicken – EVER. I know that is a lot to claim, and I can truly say that after a year of working on this recipe, I use this chicken method almost every week now, simply to hear the rave reviews from my family, and completely devoured chicken every single time. Picture the most tender, flavorful rotisserie chicken made right in your home! It is truly mouthwatering – and I don’t say that about a lot of chicken recipes. But there are a couple of very simple secrets to getting the flavor, and I’ll show you just how to do it!

Flavor and Moisture Secret #1 :: The Salt Brine

I know what you’re thinking...I don’t have TIME to brine! I’m not talking about a fussy water bath, or salt water brine here though. This is literally rubbing the whole chicken in a ton of sea salt, and letting it sit in the salt all day. It’ takes minutes to prep – if that. You’ll rinse and pat dry your chicken, then set it up on a wire rack. Then sprinkle all the sea salt over the skin, and inside of the cavity of the chicken. The salt will get drawn into the chicken making every. single. bite – insanely flavorful. Like the best rotisserie chicken. This “dry brine” method is something I have done with my Thanksgiving turkey for years, and it really works well for a whole chicken too!

Flavor & Moisture Secret #2 :: Mayonnaise

I know, I know…but hear me out. Typically we butter or olive oil the outside of the bird, correct? Mayo is really just olive oil, seasoning, and a little egg…basically the same fatty covering to encourage a crispy, roasted skin! The mayo makes the *best* protective coating for the chicken to get brown and crispy, and it tastes so good too! I add just a few herbs – you can use whatever you want! Then rub down the chicken and it’s ready to roast. If you don’t happen to keep mayo in the house often, butter will work as well. If you have the mayo – try it at least once! You won’t be sorry!

Flavor & Moisture Secret #3 :: The Roasting Method

My original roasted chicken recipe is a more low and slow method. It uses liquid in a pan with a lid to do more of a “braise” than a true roast. It works well for pastured chickens that are lean, but it does take all afternoon to cook. Great for a Sunday…not so great for a weekday! This roasting method works just as well with lean, pastured chicken, but it is more of a higher intensity heat for a shorter duration. The sea salt brine locks in moisture – and I promise you will not have a dry chicken here! Simply roast the chicken for a little over an hour, and you’ll be good to go.

Flavor & Moisture Secret #4 :: Let the Chicken Rest

I’m making a whole separate section for this step because I want you to figure this time into your “cooking” time. Once your chicken reaches an internal temp of 165 degrees within about 1 hour and a half, then you want to pull the chicken out to rest for a full 30 minutes before carving it. FIGURE THIS INTO YOUR COOKING TIME so you aren’t disappointed when you have to wait another half hour for dinner! It is worth the wait to let all of those juices redistribute into the bird so that when you DO carve the chicken, it is so juicy and not dry at all.

How do I use this roasted chicken?

Dear momma, this is a GREAT prep day chicken for your week. Sure, it makes a yummy Sunday dinner, but you can make one or two of these chickens on the same day and use it like you would a store bought rotisserie chicken.

Top your salads for lunch
Pack it like a deli meat sandwich for the kids’ lunchboxes
Use it to toss in a stir fry or soup for dinner

Tools you might be interested in!

Because I know I’ll get some questions about the pan & wire rack, what kind of mayo I used, and even meat thermometer recs, I’m going to leave those right here!

For 1 whole chicken, a “quarter” baking sheet and wire rack work great! If you are doing 2 chickens, you’ll use a larger sheet pan.
I get my avocado mayo at Costco. Most regular grocery stores where I live carry these healthier oil mayos now, but look around and see what you can find. You could also make your own! I have a classic mayo recipe in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!
If I could become a spokesperson for this little smart meat thermometer…I would! And I don’t particularly like “selling” things! This “Smart MEATer” would be fun to put on your birthday list for this year. I just pop it into the breast before I put the chicken in the oven, and it alerts my phone of the internal temp, and how long it will take to reach 165 degrees! That is a game changer, and takes the guess work out of how many pounds equals how many minutes! See the image below to see how small this thermometer is, and how it goes right into the meat so easily.

Print Recipe

Mayo Roasted Chicken :: The most flavorful & tender roasted chicken – EVER!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

1 – 5 lb whole chicken
1 ½ – 2 tbsp sea salt
¼ cup mayo soft butter or olive oil will work here too
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp coconut aminos

Instructions

Dry Brine the Chicken:

Cover your chicken in salt for at least 4 hours before cooking. This is called a dry brine. I salt my chicken in the morning and leave it uncovered all day until ready to cook for dinner. You can even do this up to a day in advance.
To do the salting (dry brine), rinse your whole chicken and pat it dry with a paper towel. Cover the chicken skin with the sea salt, including sprinkling some of the salt on the inside of the chicken. Leave the chicken on a wire rack on a small baking sheet. The chicken will drip some of it’s liquid, so it is best to not just set it on a plate, or it will sit in all the liquid and the bottom skin will not get nice and dry to crisp up.
Leave the chicken UNCOVERED in the fridge to brine. The chicken will need to be at ROOM TEMPERATURE before roasting, so be sure to take it out of the fridge an hour or so before roasting.

Prepare the Chicken for Roasting:

Once the chicken has brined in the salt all day, AND has come to room temp for at least an hour, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees for a conventional oven, or if you are convection/air frying do 400 degrees.
DO NOT rinse the salt from the chicken. I promise it will not be too salty – chicken needs the seasoning, and the salt was pulled into the chicken meat so that every single bite is flavorful.
Mix the mayo, garlic powder, thyme, and coconut aminos in a small bowl, and then brush over the outside of your ROOM TEMPERATURE chicken (top and bottom).

Roast the Chicken:

Roast the chicken at 425 degrees for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 40 minutes depending on the size. Use a thermometer to get the internal temperature to 165 degrees. I recently got a Meater, and it just stays in the chicken while it cooks, and tells me on my phone when it is done – SO nice!
Once the chicken has roasted and reached 165 degrees internally, pull the chicken out from the oven and let it rest on the counter for 30 minutes before carving. If you cut the chicken right away, the juices will leave the meat, and it will dry out. This resting time allows the juices to redistribute – it is SO worth the wait so count this time into your cook time so you aren’t disappointed when you can’t eat it right away!

More real food recipes you might like!

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Lunchbox Packing Tips for Back to School

July 13, 2022

Start your child off on the right foot for eating lunch at school with these easy to follow, practical tips for lunchbox packing!

Lunchbox Packing Tips for Back to School

Back to school lists

Pencils, paper, glue, scissors, markers…it’s enough to make your head spin, isn’t it?! Honestly I don’t remember supply lists being this intense as a kid, but I probably wasn’t paying much attention to it either! We love our teachers though, and really want them to have all the tools they need to help our kids be at their best for school, and I think sometimes the school lunch thing gets a little over looked.

It really does matter

And I say this with all the love that I have for you dear momma. Because I know there is a lot on your plate, and I know what it is like to be an overwhelmed mom. But even more important than the brand of pencil that the teachers want your kid to have for the school year, is having a child that is well fed for a full school day. It’s that whole hierarchy of needs thing, ya know? If a child is hungry, they can’t focus for squat, and that fancy paper or folder you bought for them isn’t going to matter if they can’t make it through their afternoon. Those school days are long for any school aged kid, and we want to set them up for success with full bellies and fed brains so they can make it through.

Sustainable lunch packing rhythms

What goes into their lunch does matter, but, especially for any moms reading this that are newer to having school aged children, I want to help you be successful at lunchbox packing for the whole school year – not just the first week. So let’s dive into some practical thoughts I have for you, now that I have 2 middle schoolers and my last little one in elementary school!

Give your child time to practice using their lunch gear

Multiple years of being room mom in early elementary classrooms has taught me many things – and one of them is this tip! If you are reading this post and it is summertime, purchase your child’s lunchbox now so that you can pack it up for your summer outings (or even just lunchtime at home!) to practice how to use it! Latches, zippers, pouches, buttons, lids – those take time for little hands to figure out, and it will save them time when at school. Also be sure they know how to properly close their water bottles so you don’t end up with a soggy backpack on the way home! If you need lunch gear suggestions, take a peek through my Lunch Gear Resource Guide! It’s free!

Consider lunch gear & foods that don’t involve a lot of separate containers to open & close

Speaking of practicing lunch gear! One thing I have noticed in these classrooms, is that kids with lunches packed in multiple food containers, or lunches packed in containers with multiple compartments that need to be opened and closed, took longer to eat. If you are in the market for lunch gear, and have little ones, this is a good thought to consider before buying. If you need some lunch gear recs, here is my Lunch Gear Resource Guide with multiple suggestions to help you decide!

Pack familiar food

If you have been around here for a while, you know that I am all about helping your children become adventurous eaters! However, the first week of school is not the time to try out new foods. Think about your little one’s first days of school – even the entire first year or so. There are so many new things going on, rules to remember, friends to meet – it is SO. MUCH. Their little brains can only regulate so much at once! You throw a new food on top of all that and they may think “Hmm, I just can’t do one more new thing right now, and this feels scary, so I’m just not going to eat it.” And it really could be something they would like if they weren’t so overwhelmed! Just try new stuff out at home first. Serve it for dinner, and the talk about how you would like for them to help you pack it in their lunchbox some time.

Understand your child’s school snack and lunch schedule

This is a big one because everyone’s school schedule varies. Does your child have a morning snack time? When is snack time in relation to lunch time? This will all determine what and how much you pack for lunch. You know your child best. If the kids have a snack at 10 and eat lunch at 11:30, then perhaps you need to make the snack small so they are still hungry to eat their lunch at 11:30. Or maybe you split the lunch up into 2 smaller meals so they get part of their lunch at snack time and the other part at lunch. They may have lunch closer to 1pm, so you might want their morning snack to be a mini meal so they can make it to 1pm. Also find out how much time your child will have to eat that lunch. This will help you pack accordingly. Regardless of how we feel about a 10-15 minute lunch time (I think we would all agree that is pretty rough for a little kid!), if that is how it is at your school, you’ll want to be sure to pack easy to eat foods that pack a filling punch so your child is ready to focus for the rest of the school day.

The 2-minute lunchbox tour

Before packing that lunchbox into their backpack, open it up and show your child. Ask them what they think are the foods in there that will help them feel good for the afternoon and focus for school. Help them learn where the protein is, and important bites that will help them so they can start there. That way, if they don’t have time to finish, they will have at least gotten something filling in. This 2-minute lunchbox tour can happen the night before while you are packing the lunchbox together, or it can happen in the morning before you pack it up in their backpack! Before you know it, they’ll have so much more body awareness and independently know what kind of foods help them feel their best.

Macro balance

And speaking of foods to help them feel their best! Every child has different macro ratio needs – but all the macros matter for growing kids. So just take a quick scan of the lunchbox each day and be sure it’s all in there – fats, protein, and carbs. It all matters! If you need some great balanced lunchbox inspiration to see some examples, you can check out my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook! Inside there are 60 different lunchbox examples, all balanced with what your child needs to get through their day.

My child is coming home with a lot of leftover food consistently – what should I do?

Kids’ appetites can ebb and flow depending on growth spurts, illness, life changes, sleep, etc. Noticing some food coming home every once and a while is normal, but if they are bringing food home day in and day out, here are some things to think about:

Re-evaluate your child’s snack and lunch time schedule, and portions. Is your child eating a big morning snack only to have lunch an hour later? Are the portions you are sending realistic for your child? How long are they allowed for eating? Re-visit the above section called “Understand your child’s school lunch and snack schedule,” where you will find more information on addressing each of these.
Help them realize their hunger after school. If they are crabby or emotional in the car on the way home, seem sleepy, or tell you they are “starving,” and you notice they didn’t each much of their lunch, help them make that connection! Kids aren’t always body aware enough to realize that not eating lunch is why they feel so crummy. Present it nicely – no shame. But remind them they will feel so much better when they focus on their food at lunch time.
Ask them why! “Hey, I noticed that there is a lot of lunch left in your lunchbox – did something happen at lunch time?” Don’t make them feel badly for not eating – just ask them. There may be a good reason!
Chatty Kathy’s or Ken’s! Sometimes that reason is that you might have a “Chatty Kathy” or “Chatty Ken!” Ask them who they sat with at lunch. This age does not understand the time management of lunch at school yet. Help them understand that with time, they will learn how to manage talking with their friends AND eating at the same time! Sometimes just making them aware is all you need to do.
Reconsider hard to eat foods for little ones. As a health food leaning blogger, you know that I value getting veggies into kids. But there are so many ways to do it in an easy to eat way, OR maybe save larger veggie portions for at home when they have more time. Your goal in a school lunchbox is to get the most nutrient dense food into your little one in the amount of time that they have to eat. It is easier to eat cooked veggies versus raw, so my kindergarteners were rarely bringing raw veg and dip or salads. They were bringing blended soup purees to slurp with a straw, or leftover roasted veggies from dinner. Or frozen veggies that thaw. It is faster, and easier to eat, which leaves them less stressed.
Help them prioritize with the 2-minute lunchbox tour. Leftover food is going to happen sometimes, but I’d rather them leave the strawberries than leave the sandwich – you know what I mean? That is the reason for the 2-minute lunchbox tour! See the above section about the 2-minute lunchbox tour and learn how to help your child learn what part of their lunch will help them feel their best for the afternoon so they start with eating that first.
Some foods are just “at home foods.” Listen, my kids adore sardines and liver pate – but I’m not going to do that to them! Unfortunately, to most children, those are just really weird foods to pack, and it might make your child uncomfortable if they are constantly getting questions about unfamiliar foods. I’m definitely not saying pack junk food every day! But I am saying, if there is a food that is consistently coming home, check with your child and see if they are not comfortable with bringing it to school. I think I ask my girls yearly if they really do want me to pack tuna salad for lunch – one of their favorites, but clearly doesn’t smell the best! Every year they surprise me by saying they want it, but I am perfectly fine with making certain food “at home food.”

Tips for navigating lunchbox questions at school

It’s inevitable, that if you focus more on whole foods in your child’s lunchbox, you are bound to get a few wandering eyes and curious kids asking your child questions about their lunch. Here is how we have approached that at our house.

Remember that kids are genuinely curious. Especially for younger children that truly aren’t at the “peer pressure” age yet, they might just truly wonder what it is! This age group is so blunt, aren’t they?! If they have never seen something before, they have no filter, and they are going to ask! Remind your preschooler through 2nd grader this, and help them understand that some kids might not have had the chance to try that food yet! In fact, I have found that the kids asking these questions are the ones coming to school with the same thing for lunch everyday…perhaps they are even wishing that they could have a variety of lunch like that.
Ask them how they feel about the food. I always ask this question when one of the girls says “so and so asked what this was.” Nine times out of 10, when I ask them how they feel about “that green soup” or a pinwheel roll up, or even olives, my girls have answered, “well I love it” about that food. So we talk about that! Just because other kids might not like something, or don’t know what it is, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it! Positively start teaching them about gently standing up for themselves by eating foods they enjoy, even if others think it’s strange.
“At home foods” are ok! In the section above, I described some examples of “at home foods” that we have labeled in our house. Leaving some of the “less popular” healthy foods for at home, is totally fine. We want our children to be confident in their food choices, but we don’t have to cross the line!

Questions?

I’m all ears! If I didn’t hit on a lunchbox issue that you are having, please ask! And if there is something not listed here that you have found helpful with lunchbox packing, please share! Teachers, we want to hear from you too!

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Prep Day Instant Pot Shredded BBQ Chicken

July 5, 2022

Save money using a whole chicken on your prep day for shredded BBQ chicken to use for salads, sandwiches, and baked potato toppers!

Summer vibes

All the sun, all the sand! Our barefoot days spent on the shore of Lake Michigan in the summer is what gets us through the snowy winters here, and this summer is no different! The weather has been incredible…which also means I don’t want to be inside cooking meals all day!

Growing tweens and teens nutritional needs

If you have been around here as long as this blog has been around, you have truly watched my girls grow up. I started this blog when my third born was just a baby, and you’ve gotten to witness so many seasons of their growth. In the last few years, I’ve slowly started a bit of a larger gear shift as my oldest went through her tween years, and then turned 13 this spring. Now, with my second born right smack dab in her tween-hood, I feel like I’m seeing a pattern in nutritional needs of these rapidly growing, hormone-shifting years. Protein. And a lot of it. Sure, this age needs some really good, healthy fats for their ever-changing hormones and growth spurts – in fact it is vital. Hormones *need* fats to work. But I am also seeing even more importantly that their growth spurts and rapid metabolisms need protein, or they will eat you out of house and home!

Keeping the tweens from being starving!

I remember the moment I decided I had to change *something.* My oldest was a tween, and I literally couldn’t keep satisfied – she was always hungry! She was growing out of shoes left and right, and within one school year grew at least 5 inches. I was feeding her the same sort of meals as I always had, with larger portions, and making sure there was healthy fat at each meal. What I noticed was that on days that we had more protein on the plate, she was happier and more satiated. I started working on getting more meat into specifically our lunch meals, and it really helped during those growth spurting tween years. (Side note! YES pastured eggs are a great source of protein as well, and we use them for my younger two – but my oldest cannot have them other than in baked goods so that source is out for her!)

Saving your budget with a whole chicken

With an increased need for quality protein in my growing kiddo’s diet, I changed a few things around, and started focusing on using whole chickens for meal preps. We already had our half grassfed cow in the freezer at around $4 per pound (an absolute budget lifesaver!), but I didn’t want to be blowing my budget in cuts of chicken day in and day out. I needed something to pull for meat every day without cooking every day too! The budget savings in using a whole chicken at $4 per pound or less, versus cuts of chicken at over $6 per pound – well that is a no brainer.

More than just the meat!

Of course the tender, juicy chicken meat off the bone is by far superior to cuts of chicken, but you also get to use the leftover chicken juices (called meat stock), as well as the bones to make bone broth – practically free broth to use for weekly soups, stews, gravies, and cooking veggies or rice in! When your whole chicken is done cooking – whether that be in a slow cooker, oven, or Instant Pot, just strain the juices off and you’ve got yourself a nutrient packed stock for cooking with – without having to buy it at the store!

Let’s talk BBQ Sauce before we get to the chicken!

For this post, and for most of the summer, I like to use my super quick 5-minute BBQ Sauce. It stirs up in a jar in literally minutes, and it tastes so good! If you prefer a more fruit sweetened sauce, try my date sweetened BBQ Sauce here – it blends up in a blender in just minutes without cooking too! Or, if you have a store bought version that doesn’t have a bunch of junk ingredients, that works too! There are plenty of brands out there now that have made BBQ sauce from the store healthier without using high fructose corn syrup, dyes, and preservatives. Since we are talking a bit about budget saving in this post, I’ll recommend trying to make your own, and saving the money!

The Method :: Cooking the Whole Chicken

My goal in this meal prep recipe is to make the prep part as simple as possible, so that you will want to do this regularly, instead of just one time! Since the purpose of this whole chicken is to be shredded up with BBQ anyway, I don’t even spend time fussing with seasoning the chicken. We are essentially boiling/poaching the chicken plain. That way, the meat stock leftover in the pot is a perfectly beautiful, unseasoned but flavorful blank slate that you can use for anything you want. To get started, fill your Instant Pot liner with a couple cups of water and fill with carrots, onion, and celery – this veggie mix along with the chicken will flavor the stock beautifully. Add the chicken to the water and veggies, and pressure cook on the poultry setting for 28 minutes. After the chicken pressure cooks, let the pressure release naturally for about 15 minutes before opening the lid and getting the chicken out. Be sure to strain off the liquid (meat stock) to use for soup or cooking veggies/rice in this week!

The Method :: Shredding the Whole Chicken

Once the whole chicken has been cooked, you can pull the meat off the bones as soon as it is cooled off enough to handle. Sometimes I don’t have the time to wait, and I’ll use some tongs or put some rubber gloves on to get it done! Put all of the meat from the chicken into a large bowl and shred with 2 forks. You could blend with a hand mixer if you want too – it really does work!

The Method :: How to Turn the Shredded Chicken Into BBQ Shredded Chicken!

The only thing left to do is stir in the BBQ sauce at this point! Use as little, or as much as you want! For this 5 pound chicken, I did use an entire pint of my 5-Minute BBQ Sauce. You may also need to salt and pepper your chicken to your taste since we did not season the whole chicken, and chicken tends to be bland without. It is truly a blank slate – make it taste how your family likes it!

How to serve your shredded BBQ chicken!

For this post, I’ve shown you how to use the BBQ chicken for sandwiches, but there are a couple other ways I like to serve it too! One of the girls’ favorite ways is over baked sweet potatoes. It changes up the starch from bread, and adds a veggie in there too! My kids will eat the chicken cold in a lettuce wrap as well. Another option is mixed into a salad, or you can go with the classic bun (we like the GF buns from Trader Joes’), pita (we like the GF pitas at Costco from BFree), or wraps!

Print Recipe

Prep Day Instant Pot Shredded BBQ Chicken

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 cups water
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots peeled and coarsely chopped
2 stalks of celery coarsely chopped
1 Whole chicken between 4-6 pounds, rinsed
1-2 cups BBQ sauce of choice I like to use a pint of my 5-minute BBQ Sauce
Sea salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

Put 2-3 cups of water into your Instant Pot liner, along with the veggies, and then the whole chicken on top.
Close the IP lid, seal the valve, and press "Poultry." Bring the time up to 28 minutes. The IP will start on its own, taking about 5-10 minutes to come to pressure before counting down the 28 minutes of pressure cooking time.
Once the chicken is done pressure cooking, let the IP sit for 15 minutes to naturally release some of the pressure. After waiting 15 minutes, release the rest of the pressure from the valve, and transfer the whole chicken to a large dish or plate to de-bone. Strain the juices (called meat stock) and use those for any soups, stews, stir fry, or cooking veggies/rice in another time!
De-bone the whole chicken, and then shred the meat in a large bowl using 2 forks. Once the chicken is shredded, stir in the BBQ sauce, and then season with salt and pepper to your taste.

More real food recipes you might like!

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can cook your whole chicken using the slow cooker, or the oven!
Instant Pot Bone Broth
Instant Pot Potato Salad
How to make Prep Day Hard Boiled Eggs
Prep Day Paleo Crispy Chicken
Veggie Loaded Taco Meat for Taco Night
Mahi Fish Taco Loaded Buddha Bowls

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Simple Prep Day Paleo Crispy Chicken Fillets

April 18, 2022

These simple, crispy chicken fillets are the Paleo answer to making healthy, delicious meal prep day success!

Simple Prep Day Paleo Crispy Chicken Fillets

The race to the finish line!

We are a week back into school since Spring Break, Easter has come and gone, and I really feel like we are starting to see that finish line to the school year in the distance! Those of you that have been around these parts long know that I just love our summers at the beach, and while we are definitely routine keepers around here, taking a couple months off in the summer is balm to our souls. One thing I have learned in the years since I have had kids in school is that May is….crazy! I don’t think there is one day that doesn’t have *something* on the calendar for me every May, and that means I’ve got to have a plan to keep us fed without compromising, and also without being in the kitchen all day.

Back to the basics

Something that helps me keep whole foods on the table during busy seasons, is having the protein figured out and prepped ahead of time. It can make all the difference in the world in faster, easier meals. For instance, getting a dozen hard boiled eggs made quickly every Sunday, makes school morning breakfast additions so fast so that I don’t have to rely on convenience breakfast staples like boxed cereals that don’t have the nutrition, and won’t keep my kids sustained all morning. Likewise, I have found if I have a protein like chicken or beef made up ahead of time, I eat lunches better while the girls are in school. Let’s face it – it is so easy to skip it or just grab quick little things when busy during the day when the kids aren’t there to force the stop for lunch….*Guilty as charged!* So if I get some chicken prepped ahead of time, I’ll add it to a salad for lunch, or as a side to veggie soup, and I’m way better at getting lunch in.

Not just for lunch meal prep!

But wait! Having a simple protein prepped or even just this method in your back pocket for a busy weeknight can make dinnertime such a breeze. Add this simple crispy chicken to a skillet filled with a veggie stir fry, or a pot of pasta and cream sauce, and dinner is so satisfying without having been in the kitchen all day!

Key players and keeping it simple

I don’t think there is anyone that would turn down a piece of crispy chicken…super flavorful outside, juicy inside – what’s not to love?! But the dredging, and the egging, and the flouring…most of us don’t have time for that other than special occasions. This lightly breaded chicken gets crispy without the fuss, and with just a couple of ingredients. Salt and pepper whisked with a simple sprinkle of cassava flour is as easy as it gets! I love cassava flour for a few different reasons. Even if you are not paleo, or need to avoid gluten, cassava flour is a great pantry addition that will help you keep your ingredients on rotation, so your family is getting variety. The cassava plant is a root vegetable, and the flour is quite literally just the plant, dried out and ground into flour. It is very absorbent, which makes for a nice crispy outside, and the health benefits from the natural pre-biotic fibers are so good for the gut too!

The Method :: Prepping The Chicken

I did photograph this entire crispy chicken method, but let’s not complicate this. Prep the chicken into the sized pieces that you prefer. I’ll show you what I typically do here, but you can make the pieces bigger or smaller, depending on what you are using the chicken for. I like to rinse, and then pat dry the chicken with a paper towel. I don’t even use an extra plate (less dishes, less kitchen time, amiright?!) – just rinse, pat dry, and place on your cutting board. I like to fillet the chicken thin, so I typically cut the thicker top half off to fillet, and leave the smaller bottom half as is. Sometimes I’ll fillet the bottom half as well.

The Method :: The flour coating

This cassava flour breading is as basic as it gets, though so flavorful. If you plan to use your chicken for a stir fry, you could add some ginger. Or if you are using it for a pasta meal, add some Italian seasoning! Just whisk the flour with the seasonings in a small dish, and then coat the chicken. I don’t even use a different plate or bowl – just toss it all right on the cutting board.

The Cooking Oil…

Before we move onto actually cooking the chicken, let’s talk about what to cook it in! I prefer a super hot, cast iron skillet with coconut oil. You’ll want to pick a very high heat stable cooking fat, that is also healthy and not filled with inflammatory fat that will cause free radicals in your body. Oils like canola or peanut oil do very well with high heat, BUT they are so inflammatory, and they will inflame the body when eaten on the regular. Healthier fats like coconut oil, ghee, or avocado oil also tolerate the high heat well, but are so incredible for your health. The feed your brain, your hormones, and actually work to keep inflammation down. I use a nice big chunk of the coconut oil in a large cast iron skillet, and get a really nice, crispy crust on the chicken!

The Method :: Cooking the Chicken

Once your coconut oil is heated, pull the chicken pieces right from the cutting board into the oil. You’ll want to keep some space around the chicken, so you may need to work in batches if your skillet will not hold them all, or if you are making a larger quantity of chicken. Allow the chicken to cook, undisturbed, for a good 3-4 minutes so that the golden, crispy outside can develop. If you start moving your chicken and it is sticking, you probably have not let it cook long enough to develop the crust. Flip the chicken, and cook another 3-4 minutes, until the chicken is golden and crispy on the other side and cooked through. I like to transfer the cooked chicken to a wire rack so it stays crispy.

The possibilities are endless!

Here are some ways that I like to use my crispy chicken, both for lunches or dinner!

Salad topper
Stir fry
Pasta dishes
Sandwiches or lettuce wraps
Sliced as guacamole dippers – my kids love this in their lunches
Or just eaten plain with sides!

Can I use chicken thighs?

110% yes! (Can you tell I’m a thigh girl?!) The method is the same, though you won’t need to use as much cooking oil since chicken thighs lend some fat as they cook very easily. If you prefer thigh meat, definitely use that! It is so good crispy and then used in all of the applications above for meal suggestions.

Print Recipe

Simple Prep Day Paleo Crispy Chicken Fillets

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

3 large chicken breasts
¼ cup cassava flour
Heaping teaspoon sea salt
½ tsp black pepper
¼ cup coconut oil

Instructions

Rinse the chicken breasts in cold water, and pat any excess water off using a paper towel. Place the chicken breasts on your cutting board as you go.
Fillet your chicken breasts so they are thinner, and spread them out on the cutting board. I like to cut the breast in half horizontally first so the smaller end is one fillet, and the top half gets filleted into 2.
In a small dish, whisk the cassava flour, sea salt, and pepper and then sprinkle half of the mixture over the chicken breasts. Rub the flour around the tops of the chicken, and then flip them over. Sprinkle the other half of the seasoned flour on the chicken, and then toss the chicken on the cutting board to coat evenly.
Heat the coconut oil in a large skillet over high heat. Bring the temperature to medium-high heat, and add the coated chicken to the hot oil, making sure to leave some space around each fillet. You may have to work in batches. With my 12 inch cast iron I can do this in 2 batches.
Once the bottom of the fillet is golden brown (this takes 3-4 minutes), you can flip the chicken to cook on the other side for another 3-4 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken. Properly cooked chicken should have internal temp of 165 degrees. I don't test this, but you can.
Once the chicken is cooked through, place them on a plate or drying rack to rest a few minutes before cutting. If you are storing your chicken for meals for the week, you can let it cool, and store in an air tight container. If you are adding your chicken to a dish or skillet meal, you can add it right in, or slice and add it it!

Notes

Avocado oil would be a good neutral oil to cook in as well. Olive oil and butter will tend to smoke/burn at the higher heat so I prefer the coconut oil. You can use refined coconut oil if you don’t like the taste of coconut oil. I love the mild sweetness it brings to the chicken.
Season the flour however you wish! I like to add smoked paprika sometimes, or ginger depending on what I am using the chicken for.

More real food recipes you might like ::

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Simple Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs

March 28, 2022

This simple, no fuss, fool-proof Instant Pot hard boiled egg method is sure to become a part of your weekly prep day to set you up for easy grab and go meal add-in’s!

Prep day staples to make meals run smoother

Just about every time I post one of our breakfast bar mornings to my Instagram, I’ll get a private message or 2, and some comments asking how I do the hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot. I never really gave thought to posting this, since it seems so simple, but truly, these are the kitchen tasks that make the meal plans we do during the week flow so much faster – in other words…this is how we do real food for real life families!

So let’s talk about what a Prep Day is in my house

For me, Prep Day is hardly a “day,” so let’s just get that out there! I know there are people that truly spend an entire day prepping food for the week or month, and I think that is great. Do what works for you. For me, I’ll pick a 2 hour spurt during the week (typically on Sunday’s, but this changes depending on the time of the year). During that 2 hour spurt of the week there are a few tasks that I *always* do (like these hard boiled eggs), and a task or 2 that will be specific just to that week, or maybe dedicated to replenishing a monthly pantry item like granola bars.

What in the world do you do with a dozen hard boiled eggs in 5 days?!

In my family of 5, this dozen eggs sometimes doesn’t even make it to the 3rd day, but let me give you some ideas! If you have a bigger family, by all means batch this up more!

Easy breakfast addition or breakfast bar item to go with muffins or breakfast cookies
Quick lunchbox add-in to go with everything from a soup or salad to leftover pancakes from the weekend to make a “breakfast for lunch” lunchbox
Fast morning or afternoon snacks
Egg salad for lunch or dinner
Crumbled onto a salad at dinner for extra protein for growing kids
Deviled eggs for a fun and easy addition to a charcuterie board lunch or dinner

So now that you know how to use them, let’s talk about what kind of eggs to use!

I’ll keep this as short as I can, because truthfully, I want you to use whatever are the best eggs that you can afford. However, I was reminded this week that some people may not understand the difference between cage free, free range, pastured, organic, etc when it comes to eggs, and I want to be sure you know! Because when you know better, you can do better, right? No beating yourself up – just work on fitting into your budget what you can. Obviously the best bet is going to be a local, pastured egg from chickens on pasture around where you live. Whether that be a friend down the street or a local farmer, these eggs will be the best nutrition for your family. Eggs with bright orange yolks are indicative of nutrients in the grasses and bugs that the chickens were eating. You’ll notice that conventional store bought eggs have a pale yellow yolk, and those eggs just don’t have the levels of nutrients that a pastured egg does. Unfortunately many may be tricked by the verbiage “cage free” because it sounds like the chickens are treated pretty great as they are not in a “cage.” Tricky, tricky wording because technically cage free chickens still can be kept inside with a certain about of space per chicken, and may not even get to feed on grasses or bugs at all. Chickens were meant to be on grass eating from the ground, giving their eggs the most optimal levels of nutrients. My recommendation would be to look for at the very least “free range,” and at the very best “pastured.” If you have further questions on this, please as in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer! I would also encourage you to visit your local farmer’s market to ask your local chicken farmers questions about how their chickens live and about their eggs – 9 times out of 10, farmers just love to talk about their chickens – especially if they are raising them right!

How to make Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs

***First, you’ll fill your Instant Pot with a cup of water and place a steamer basket or the trivet your IP came with into the bottom of the pot. I love the steamer basket because at the end, I just pull the whole basket of eggs out and dunk them into the water

***Second, you’ll put the IP lid on and close the valve. Press “Manual” on the IP and bring the time down to 5 minutes. The Instant Pot will beep, and then take a few minutes to come to pressure before counting down the 5 minutes.

***Next, after the Instant Pot pressure cooks the eggs, you’ll release the valve right away, and pull the steamer basket out of the IP to dunk into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking. If you are using the trivet, you’ll have to use a tongs to individually take the eggs out, which is totally fine. I just use a large mixing bowl in the sink to fill with cold water.

***Finally, after the eggs cool off for a few minutes, you can crack and peel them. I have left the eggs in the cold water up to an hour and that is fine too, although I have found they peel the best right away. Peel your eggs and store them in an airtight container in the fridge.

Get the kids involved in prep day!

Making the weekly hard boiled eggs is actually a fantastic way to get the kids in the kitchen. If you have little ones, have them help you peel the eggs – they will love this task! If you have older children, put this kitchen task on their plate entirely from start to finish. It is great life skills for when they are older, and they will feel proud contributing to the family. I’d even let them make some deviled eggs to get fancy if they love those!

Tips for introducing eating hard boiled eggs to little ones

Hard boiled eggs were one of my girls’ favorite finger foods as toddlers. They were an easy, compact protein for on the go little people, and I have a few ideas to make the introduction even more fun! Little kids *love* to be in charge. It all starts with letting them help you make the eggs, and for little ones this will mean gently placing the eggs in the IP, and maybe even helping you press a button or 2. Little ones also love peeling eggs – let them help you! Get a little egg cutter to make the prep a little safer (the egg cutter pictured below is one that I have had over a decade and I couldn’t find it, but there are so many in the stores, and if you like the Prime stuff, here are some to choose from there!), and let them cut the egg how they like – their choice. Let them sprinkle a little sea salt on the egg too!

Print Recipe

Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

1 cup water
12 uncooked eggs

Instructions

Add 1 cup of water to the bottom of your Instant Pot stainless steel pot, and place a steamer basket, or the trivet in the bottom of the pot.
Put up to 12 eggs into the steamer basket or on the trivet, close the lid of the IP, and seal the valve so it is closed.
Turn the IP on, press "Manual," and bring the time down to 5 minutes. The IP will beep, and then take a few minutes to come to pressure before counting down the 5 minutes.
Once the 5 minutes of pressure cooking is done, open the valve so the pressure releases, open the lid of the IP, take the steamer basket out, and place the steamer basket with the eggs into large bowl of cold water. I just fill a large mixing bowl with cold water in my sink. If you are using the trivet, you'll have to use tongs to pull out each egg and drop them into the bowl of cold water.
Let the eggs sit in the cold water at least a few minutes, though sometimes I forget about them for up to an hour. The eggs will peel the best after just a few minutes, but it still works if you have left them longer.
Once the eggs have cooled in the cold water for a few minutes, you can peel them. Store your hard boiled eggs in an air tight container up to 5 days in the fridge.

More real food recipes you might like! ::

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Easy Paleo Granola Bars :: Oat Free, Gluten Free, Dairy Free

March 9, 2022

These yummy oat free Paleo granola bars are a snap to prep in the blender, quick to bake, and even easier to eat!

Easy Paleo Granola Bars :: Oat Free, Gluten Free, Dairy Free

Moving week…and snack short-cuts!

It’s *finally* here! Moving week! It’s been a long year as we awaited our house to finish, and I’m getting ready to get these boxes we have been surrounded by into their final destination! Which means…I won’t have a whole lot of time in the kitchen, or be able to find much of anything until we get unpacked. I decided to get a few things stashed in the pantry that we can grab easily while we are moving, and I even got a new kitchen find to make the granola bar making process even faster!

Meet my new $13 kitchen friend!

Seriously, this is the best 13 dollars I’ve spent in a long while! I would even say life changing status that compares to the Instant Pot. If you have ever made granola bars before, you know that in a pan, the edges tend to get slightly more cooked than the middle, and sometimes the cutting process can lead to some crumbs. These little silicone granola bar pans literally solve all of those problems, and truly the end result is perfectly shaped, perfectly cooked bars every. single. time….and I’m so here for that!

Let’s talk about the ingredients!

While we aren’t a “paleo” exclusive house, I do like to keep ingredients on a rotation so we aren’t just eating the same ingredients all the time. Most granola bars have an oat base, and since we do oats in other places throughout the week from baked oatmeal to breakfast cookies, I wanted to make this staple, easy to make bar without oats to change the nutrient profile up a little bit. You can swap the nuts for whatever nuts that you have on hand – and I do think that if you are nut free you can use all seeds. The combination power packed nuts, seeds, and coconut, makes for a balanced fuel for everyone in the house!

The Method :: Mix the Dry Ingredients

No hand chopping here! This whole granola bar mixture can be done right in your food processor! Put all of the dry ingredients into the food processor, and pulse about 4 long pulses, just to mix everything up and give a coarse “chop.” The pieces should look about like this ::

The Method :: Mix the Wet Ingredients

Next, you’ll want to melt the honey, coconut oil, and almond butter in a sauce pan, and pour into the food processor. The wet ingredients are what gives the “stick” to the granola bar to bind the pieces together, so you really shouldn’t try to adjust the amounts of these, or you’ll end up with a crumbly mess if you use less, or a gooey mess if you use more. Pulse the food processor to combine the dry pieces with the wet ingredients. You can pulse until the pieces are still on the visible side, or until they are very small and unrecognizable. I like to go somewhere in between – I do have “coconut chip” detective that will refuse the bar if she can “see” the coconut chips – but she has no idea they are there in this form (and she is the biggest fan out of everyone of these bars btw!)! The mixture should look like this ::

The Method :: Assemble and Bake

Again, I think the $13 investment in the silicone granola bar pans is so worth it – I am kicking myself for not getting one sooner! I think I would even pay double that for this convenience. Simply spoon the mixture into each well, and press it down firmly with the pack of your spoon. If you are making the bars in an 8×8 pan or a 9×9 pan, line the pan with parchment paper first, and then pour the mixture in. You’ll want to press the mixture down as firmly as you can before baking.

Snack ideas and storage

Once the bars cool completely, they pop out of the silicone liner so easy, and you can store them in an airtight container in the pantry up to 3 months. Use your paleo granola bars for easy lunchbox add-ins or a quick snack with a side of fruit or veggies and dip! And for those of you with little ones at home, the *best* part about making your own granola bars is that you control the size. You can easily cut these bars into “bites” which is how I often still pack them for my 8 year old’s lunchbox. A full bar makes a good snack for her, but she doesn’t need all of that with other things in a full lunchbox too. My older girls do, though, so we keep the full size in the pantry, and I cut them to the size I need!

Print Recipe

Easy Paleo Granola Bars :: Oat Free, Gluten Free, Dairy Free

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

1 cup walnuts
1 cup cashews
2 cups coconut chips coconut chips are the bigger flakes – not tiny shredded coconut for this recipe
½ cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup flax seed meal
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp coconut sugar
1/3 cup raw honey
¼ cup coconut oil
2 tbsp almond butter

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees and place your silicone granola bar liners on a baking sheet. If you don’t have granola bar pans, you can use an 8×8 or 9×9 pan and cut them, just line the pan with parchment paper.
Put the walnuts, cashews, coconut flakes, pumpkin seeds, flax seed meal, cinnamon, sea salt, and coconut sugar into your food processor, and do a long pulse about 4 times to mix the pieces and break them up a bit. You can see what this should look like in the image above labeled “Mix the Dry Ingredients.”
Put the honey, coconut oil, and almond butter in a small sauce pan and melt over medium heat, stirring along the way.
Once the liquid ingredients are melted, pour them into the food processor with the dry ingredients, and pulse the ingredients to your desired consistency, making sure the wet ingredients have fully incorporated. If you want bigger pieces, pulse less times. If you want to make the pieces smaller so you can’t “see” them as much, pulse a bit longer. You can see what this looks like in the image above labeled “Mix the Wet Ingredients.”
Spoon the granola bar mixture into your silicone granola bar pan rectangles. Press the mixture down to pack it in tight using the back of your spoon. If you are using a square baking pan, pour the mixture into the parchment paper lined pan, and press firmly into the pan.
Bake the granola bars for 20 minutes, until lightly golden, for a slightly crunchy/slightly chewy granola bar, or 23-25 minutes, until darker golden brown, for a crunchy granola bar (similar to the texture of a Nature Valley Crunchy Honey Oat bar). I happen to love them crunchy, but both ways are fantastic! Let the bars cool completely before taking them out of the pan so they have time to harden. If you take them out while warm, they will fall apart.

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Copycat Trader Joe’s® Everything But the Bagel Nut Duo!

February 5, 2022

All of the yummy “Everything but the Bagel” flavor with a cleaner oil and no corn syrup! Copycat that Trader Joe’s® Nut Duo for your own pantry!

Copycat Trader Joe's® Everything But the Bagel Nut Duo!

A Trader Joe’s® trip, and a fun, new snack!

Every first of the month, a couple of friends of mine and I hop in the car and head out for our monthly Costco and Trader Joe’s trip! We live a good 45 minute drive from the closest of either of these stores, so we make a morning of it once a month, and try to stock up until the next month. I am not a huge TJ’s shopper – I’ll grab a couple things here or there, but every once and a while I’ll find a fun snack, and this month was one of them. I was cautiously hopeful as I turned the bag of the TJ’s “Everything But The Bagel” Nut Duo to check out the ingredients…because my usual disappointment with these kind of stores, and these kind of snacks, is that the oils used are junk, and there is usually added sugar. This one checked both of those disappointing boxes, and I set the bag back down. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fun flavor that those nuts could be though….

A new kitchen experiment!

While I continued my shopping, I passed the spice isle, and decided to grab the “Everything but the Bagel” seasoning, and just try to make my own. Trail mixes are so easy to put together, and while the convenience of grabbing a bag off the shelf is always nice, making my own would save the budget *big-time* (because these specialty items are always over-priced), and I could also add a healthy snack to our pantry rotation on a regular basis instead of just once, because the ingredients are fantastic when you make it at home!

Why do food companies use these ingredients, and why do we want to avoid them?

Cheap and readily available. It really boils down to the dollar bill. Cheap oils like sunflower, soy, and safflower oils, as well as sweeteners like corn syrup are so cheap and easy to get, that it really hits the bottom line for these companies in a good way for their profits. When it comes to sweeteners, corn syrup is as cheap as it gets, and it tastes super sweet, so they don’t need to add a lot to make it super palatable to people. Corn syrup sky rockets blood sugar even more than table sugar, and is almost always GMO, so it is just really important to avoid if you can. Sunflower oil “looks” healthy – I mean sunflower seeds are healthy right?! But the way these seed and veg oils are processed makes them super unstable on the shelf, and they go rancid so quickly. When we eat these kind of rancid oils on a regular basis, it causes a lot of inflammation in the body. Free radicals fly everywhere and it inflames. (One caveat to this, would be if you see a truly cold-pressed – sometimes called expeller pressed – sunflower oil. The cold pressed process on the sunflower oil keeps the integrity of the fats so they don’t go rancid – this is very hard to find in products though!)

So how do we replace the bad stuff, and still get a yummy product?

It is so much easier than you think! Swap the sunflower oil for a healthier oil, and swap the “sweet” for a more natural sweetener (or leave it out). In the case of this nut trail mix, the oil part was easy. I almost always use coconut oil for my trail mixes because it is so good for our bodies, and it doesn’t change the flavor to us. If you are really sensitive to the flavor of coconut, you might want to use butter or avocado oil. Even a good olive oil would be fine for this recipe. As far as swapping the corn syrup, I tried the recipe without a sweetener at first, because I figured it was a savory snack, and didn’t need it. I was right on the flavor, BUT there is something the corn syrup did for the TJ’s snack that was lacking in my first attempt. The stick factor!

How to get that crunchy “stick” to the trail mix

Because the “Everything But the Bagel” Seasoning is larger pieces, you really need a way to get it to stick to the nuts, or it just ends up in a pile on the sheet pan. Most trail mixes that need to make a “candy like” crunch coating use egg whites. And you could totally do that and leave the sweetener out in this recipe if you want. BUT…I have so many egg free readers, and I really wanted to figure out a way to make this without the egg whites. I tried coconut sugar to start, since it has a lower glycemic index, but the candy like coating did not happen, so the seasoning fell to the bottom of the pan. Then I remembered that the secret to the crunchy coating on my Coconut Cluster recipe was maple syrup, so I tried that…success! It’s really just a couple of tablespoons for the whole batch, and I’d say that is totally worth it!

Egg white method

The trail mix can be made without the maple syrup, but the seasoning does not stick to the nuts very well in my experience. It is worth the stick to have that little crunch and flavor together! If you need it to be sugar free, and can have eggs, you can swap the maple syrup for 1 whisked egg white, and that will accomplish the same thing. I have so many egg free readers though, so I had to figure out a way to make this without the whites! If you can have eggs, the egg whites is a great way to get the seasoning to stick without using maple syrup.

Can I use any nut combo, or swap for seeds?

Absolutely! The Trader Joe’s® “Nut Duo” uses almonds and cashews, so that is what I used – but please use whatever nuts you have in your pantry. And I would actually encourage switching the combo up every time you make it, so that you are getting different nut or seed nutrients! If you are nut free, use pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp, etc! I really think it would be a fun mix to change things up for you!

Print Recipe

Copycat Trader Joe’s® Everything But the Bagel Nut Duo!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

3 cups unsalted raw cashews
2 cups unsalted raw almonds
¼ cup coconut oil melted
2 tbsp Everything But The Bagel Seasoning
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
½ – 1 tsp sea salt

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.
In a medium mixing bowl, toss all of the ingredients together until well combined.
Spread the mixture out onto a large, unlined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 325 degrees. Take the sheet pan out, stir the mixture around, and bake another 10 minutes until the nuts are fragrant and lightly toasted.
Leave the trail mix to cool completely before touching it. The maple syrup will cool and harden, sticking the seasonings to the nuts. Once the trail mix has cooled, you can store it in an airtight container in the pantry for up to 2 months.

Notes

I used the Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel seasoning, but you can find that blend just about anywhere now, and there are lots of homemade, DIY blend recipes online that you can find on Pinterest! Use what you can find or what is available to you.
The trail mix can be made without the maple syrup, but the seasoning does not stick to the nuts very well in my experience. It is worth the stick to have that little crunch and flavor together! If you need it to be sugar free, and can have eggs, you can swap the maple syrup for 1 whisked egg white, and that will accomplish the same thing. I have so many egg free readers though, so I had to figure out a way to make this without the whites!
You can swap the coconut oil for melted butter, avocado oil, or olive oil if you prefer that, or have that on hand.
My Everything But the Bagel Seasoning did have some salt added to it. Since the nuts are unsalted, I found the mix still needed some salt, which is why there is salt in the recipe. If you use a different brand of Everything Bagel seasoning, just be sure to account for this, and if yours does not have salt added, you may want to adjust the salt amount.

More real food recipes you might like! ::

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Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Soup :: Gluten Free & Dairy Free!

November 15, 2021

Give those sweet bell peppers a roast with creamy kid friendly sweet potatoes and carrots for a super smooth, velvety blended soup that the kids will ask for every time!

Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Soup :: Gluten Free & Dairy Free!

First snowfall of the season, and a new kid favorite soup to warm up with!

The first snow of the season is quite possibly my kids’ most favorite day of the year. My little northern crew lives for fresh snow, and this weekend we got our first dusting, despite the fall trees not quite agreeing with the timing! We were visiting our new home, and the girls just had to make a snowman for the construction crew to enjoy this week. And with the plummeting temperatures around here, I hopped in the kitchen to play around with a new soup to the blog for you!

Weekly soup routine

During the cooler months of the year, I like to get a vegetable soup of some sort made every Sunday. Easy favorites like creamy broccoli soup (this one is in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook – it’s just like Panera!), this blended winter veggie soup done in the IP, and Copycat Campbell’s Veggie Soup are among some of our staples. Not only does this help me with an easy lunch for Sunday afternoons that I don’t have to think about, it also gives me soup to pull from for the week to fill up lunchbox thermoses…and fill up my soup mug during the week to get more healing bone broth in.

The Veggie Line-Up!

Sweet bell peppers may be the “star” of the show in this soup, but the real “secret weapon” lies in the sweet, creamy vegetables saddling up next to those peppers! Sweet potatoes and carrots are on most kids’ favorite veggie lists, and when you roast them, they get even sweeter. This veggie line-up also happens to be loaded with vitamins and minerals that the whole family needs to stay healthy and focused all winter long.

The Method :: Roasting the Veggies

To get the most kid friendly soup flavor for this soup, simply toss the veggies on a sheet tray with some olive oil and little bit of smoky paprika, salt, and pepper, and roast away. You’ll have the soup more than halfway done at this point, and completely hands free while it all roasts!

The Method :: Blending the Soup

Once the vegetables are done roasting, I dare you to snitch a little bite! You’ll have to hold yourself back from eating the whole sheet tray at this point, but I promise it will be worth the wait to quickly blend the soup up! Scoop the roasted vegetables into your blender, pour in some bone broth, and buzz away. I like to use the soup setting on my high powered blender for optimal smooth texture. Use whatever you have though! I didn’t always have one of these, and have made this soup using a regular blender, and an immersion blender works too.

The Method :: Finishing the Soup

After you blend the soup, pour it into a soup pan and stir in the coconut milk. You’ll want to warm the soup through from here, and season with salt and pepper to your taste once it has simmer a bit. If you like your soup to have a more “brothy” texture, add another cup of bone broth as well. You can ladle your roasted sweet bell pepper soup and finish with a swirl of coconut yogurt or olive oil too!

Freezer friendly?

Absolutely! That is the beauty of soups like this. That whole “cook once, eat twice” deal works well for blended soups, and this one is not any differently. Let your soup cool completely, and store in these freezer safe BPA free quart containers, or in these incredible BPA free silicone soup dividers – you can freeze in 1/2 cup portions, 1 cup portions, or 2 cup portions!

Print Recipe

Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Soup :: Gluten Free & Dairy Free!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
4 large red, orange, or yellow bell peppers quartered and seeds scooped out (you can use a combo of those colors)
1 small/medium sweet potato cut into 1-inch wedges
2 medium carrots peeled, cut into ½ inch strips
2 small onions halved and then sliced into strips
3 cloves of garlic peeled (leave whole)
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp pepper
2-3 cups bone broth
1 cup coconut milk

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. You’ll want to use a large, unlined baking sheet for the roasting.
On a large sheet pan, toss the bell peppers, sweet potato, carrots, onions, and garlic with the olive oil, smoked paprika, sea salt, thyme, and pepper. Roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.
Scoop the roasted veggies into a blender (high powdered blender, if possible, for optimal smooth texture), add 2 cups of bone broth, and blend until smooth. I use the “Soup” blending setting on my Blendtec pictured in this post.
Pour the blended soup into a soup pot, add the coconut milk, and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper to your preference. You can add more bone broth if you want a thinner soup.
Garnish with swirls of coconut yogurt and/or olive oil if you wish.

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Roasted Pumpkin Chicken Noodle Soup

October 12, 2021

Give your chicken noodle soup a flavor upgrade using roasted pumpkin to create a creamy and sweet kid friendly broth!

Autumn changes and family transitions!

There are just “barely there” hints of the leaves changing colors around these parts in the last few weeks, and as we watch the autumn transition in Michigan, our family is moving into new transitions as well! We aren’t leaving our sweet little beachy town that we love so dearly, but we are moving into a new home, and while the build finishes in the next couple of months we will be making all of the transitions that come along with moving a family of five, while trying to keep a sense of normalcy for the kids.

Comfort food

It is absolutely a thing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with easing the stress of temporary life happenings with a bowl of something familiar and comforting. One of my kiddos was having a particularly hard time with the thought of leaving her bedroom for someone else, and after we talked it through, and worked through all the life skills one little 10 year old can muster, we talked about what we could possibly move on with that evening and have for dinner. Her choice was chicken noodle soup, and that just made my real food momma heart burst. I want my kids to think of the food from home when they think of comfort, and this just hits that mark for me!

Classic chicken noodle with a comforting, creamy fall twist!

I just happened to notice the little pie pumpkin still sitting on my counter that needed to be used up, and decided to give it a quick roast to stir into the broth of my chicken noodle soup. Sure, a can of pumpkin would do the trick, but filling the house with that roasted pumpkin flavor after a day of hard emotions was exactly what my family needed. There is also nothing like the depth, sweetness, and creamy texture that you get from putting a roasted pumpkin puree into a soup broth. It is one of my tricks to incredible soup broth in 3 soups here on the blog – the Beef & Kale Soup, Smokey Sweet Pumpkin Corn Chowder, and also the Autumn Harvest Chicken Stew, and I just knew it would take this chicken noodle soup to the next level!

The Method :: Roasting the pumpkin

There is really nothing easier. And pumpkins are easier to cut than a thick butternut squash – promise! Just cut the pumpkin in half, and butter the flesh. Sprinkle the pumpkin flesh with salt and pepper and also a bit of cinnamon. YES, cinnamon in a chicken noodle soup! There is just the slightest hint of warm sweetness that will knock your socks off when it simmers with the sage once it’s in the broth. It’s truly everything about fall that we love!

The Method :: The pumpkin puree

While your pumpkin roasts, you’ll make the base of the soup. It is a very classic chicken noodle soup base with a slight twist because the sage brings the comfort level up about 10 notches! After you pour the pasta into the broth to cook, you’ll scoop your pumpkin flesh into a blender and to puree until smooth. Give the kids a taste if they have never tasted roasted pumpkin before – be warned you may not end up with much left for the soup though! It is one of my girls very favorite side dishes all fall and winter long!

Finishing the soup off

Once you’ve blended your cinnamon roasted pumpkin, you’ll add the puree to the soup broth while the pasta finishes cooking. The squash will melt right in, giving a sweet creaminess to the broth. But we’re not done there! Once the pasta is cooked, and the heat is off, a generous splash of creamy coconut milk adds to the decadency of this soup, and you can also wilt in some finely chopped spinach. The spinach leaves zero flavor, but adds pretty color and a pop of nutrients too!

A few tips for prepping ahead for faster soup making

From start to finish, this soup may not be the most weeknight friendly in prep considering the roasting time for the pumpkin, BUT you CAN do a couple of things to prep ahead before the week so that you CAN make this soup on a weeknight. Firstly, the pumpkin can be roasted and pureed days in advance. Pop it into the oven on the weekend when you are at home, and stash it away in the fridge for later in the week. The chicken can also be a prep ahead item. If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can brown up chicken breast cubes right in the soup pot before you make the soup, or make it days ahead of time. There are multiple ways to cook a whole chicken every week in order to have leftover chicken for weekly meals! If you aren’t in to a Sunday dinner roasted chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, or cook your whole chicken in your Instant Pot!

If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can brown up chicken breast cubes right in the soup pot before you make the soup. Remove the browned chicken and start the soup from there. There are multiple ways to cook a whole chicken every week in order to have leftover chicken for weekly meals! If you aren't in to a Sunday dinner roasted chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, or cook your whole chicken in your Instant Pot!

A note about our favorite fall squashes!

Dear momma, squashes are not just “baby food!” If you have veggie hesitant kids, greens are not the easiest place to start in my humble opinion! Squash not only tastes amazing, they are absolutely loaded with minerals. These kids need real, and substantial fuel. Squash will replenish electrolytes, fill them up with slow burning carbohydrate fiber, and open their palates to the idea of veggies tasting good. Give the kids a spoonful of that roasted squash before you add it to the soup – I really think you are going to see how a buttery cinnamon roasted pumpkin can quickly become a veggie favorite for your crew.

Print Recipe

Roasted Pumpkin Chicken Noodle Soup

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter divided (you can use ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, or avocado oil if you are dairy free)
1 small/medium pie pumpkin halved and seeds scooped out
½ tsp sea salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 medium onion diced
1 large carrot diced
1 large celery stalk diced
2 cloves of garlic minced
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp ground sage
2 cups cubed cooked chicken I use leftovers from our weekly roasted chicken
2 quarts bone broth
2 cups dry pasta of choice I use the GF Jovial Rice Spirals
½ cup full fat coconut milk
1 big handful of baby spinach finely chopped
Sea salt/pepper to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
Place your halved pumpkin flesh side up in a baking dish. Rub 1 tablespoon of butter over the flesh and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon sea salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and some cinnamon. Roast the pumpkin at 425 degrees for 50 minutes, until the flesh is fork tender and fragrant. While the pumpkin roasts, you can prepare the rest of the soup.
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large soup pot over medium high heat, and add the onion, carrot, and celery with a pinch of sea salt. Cook the veggies over medium high heat, stirring occasionally until the veggies are soft and fragrant, about 5-7 minutes.
Add the garlic, thyme, and sage to the soup pot, stir to combine, and cook for a minute or two.
Add the cubed chicken and bone broth, and bring to a boil. Add the pasta, and reduce to a simmer to cook the pasta until al dente. While the pasta starts cooking, you can prepare the pumpkin to add to the broth.
Scoop the pumpkin flesh out of the shell and into your food processor or blender. Blend the pumpkin until smooth. Add the pumpkin puree to the soup pot where the pasta is cooking and stir to combine.
When the pasta is cooked to al dente, turn the heat off, add the coconut milk and chopped spinach, stir to combine, and season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Notes

If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can brown up chicken breast cubes right in the soup pot before you make the soup. Remove the browned chicken and start the soup from there.
There are multiple ways to cook a whole chicken every week in order to have leftover chicken for weekly meals! If you aren’t in to a Sunday dinner roasted chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, or cook your whole chicken in your Instant Pot!
You can use regular milk or cream in place of the coconut milk if you are not dairy free.
You can use canned pumpkin if you wish – about 1 cup of puree. The roasted flavor from cooking a pumpkin is super worth it in the flavor though just fyi!
Save your pumpkin seeds to roast! I like to soak them in sea salt and water, toss with avocado oil, sea salt, and cinnamon on a sheet tray, and then cook at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes.

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Nourishing 2 Week Meal Plan {Fall Inspired Part 1}

September 7, 2021

A cozy, fall inspired menu plan with busy families, school schedules, and nourishing goals in mind!

Nourishing 2 Week Meal Plan {Fall Inspired Part 1}

Getting back into the groove…

We are a couple weeks into school, and I feel like most of my readers are flowing back into fall school routines, so I’d say it’s safe to start talking about fall menus! Fall certainly has a different feel than going from spring to summer menu plans – does it feel like that to you? For the most part it felt like late spring and into summer, the meal planning goes a little more “fly by the seat of your pants” style, and then once September hits, everyone has no choice but to plan a little bit more, or dinner will never hit the table!

Before we get started!

If you have never seen one of my meal plans, I would invite you to start with the Winter Meal Plan Part 1 and the Winter Meal Plan Part 2. Even though we are not full swing into cold weather, the information at the beginning of each of those posts will help you understand my meal plan approach, how I like to handle macronutrients to balance meals, questions you might have about portions and family sizes, and even more. Make a pit stop there first, and then come back to get some fall inspired meals!

School staples, and some lunchbox shortcut favorites

With school starting back up, and the long, daunting thought of the lunchbox packing task that awaits us for the whole year, I thought I would put some lunchbox staple favorites all in one place. Some because I didn’t have a ton of room to always label and link veggie/cracker dips and dressings for salads. And also so that you can see some examples of some store bought snacks and favs that I keep in my pantry. I’ll break these up so that you can find them easily!

Staple store bought lunchbox sides

For the most part, these are used sparingly and minimally – a hand full here, and a few there. But they are great to have on hand in the pantry, and especially help kids that are newer to “real food” make the transition to healthier lunchboxes without giving up some comfortable favorites. I also have a post with 11 Healthy Packaged School Snacks for Kids that I use for morning snacks at school here and there, but they also work well in lunchboxes.

Simple Mills Crackers (I get these at Costco, but you can get them online too)
Sweet Potato Crackers (I get these at Costco, but you can get them online too)
GF Pretzels
Lindsay’s Natural Olives (I get these at Costco, but you can get them at most grocers and online too)
Tortilla Chips (I get these at Costco, but you can get them at most grocers and online too)
Plantain Chips (I get these at Costco, but you can get this Prime brand online too)
Olive oil potato chips
Sweet Potato Chips
Terra Veggie Chips (I get these at Costco, but you can get them online too)
Bear Nibbles Yo-Yo Fruit & Veggie Strips (I get these at Costco, but you can get them online too)
Pure Fruit Bars (I get these at Costco, but you can get them online too)
That’s It Fruit Bars (I get these at Costco, but you can get them online too)

Charcuterie Board style lunchbox using the Simple Mills crackers & a Bear Nibbles Yo-Yo Fruit/Veg Strip!

Staple dressings and dips

I’m going to go ahead and list all of our favorite dressings below, and you can put your kids’ favs into your meal plan as you go. I also wanted to mention that we get guacamole cups and hummus cups at Costco. If you don’t have access to Costco, you can find them at most grocery stores these days. You can also find Wholly Guacamole cups and Go Go Dippers Hummus cups online. There are also fantastic, simple recipes for guacamole and super simple hummus in the Lunchbox Staple Chapter of my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!

Classic Ranch
Paleo Ranch
Thousand Island
French Dressing
Italian Dressing
Copycat Olive Garden Dressing
Classic Caesar Dressing
Paleo Caesar Dressing
Simple, Kid Friendly Pesto
Fajita Salad Dressing (from my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook – it goes with the Taco Tuesday Fajita Salad)
Fruity Poppyseed Dressing (from my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook – it goes with the Colorful Rainbow Chicken Salad)
Sweet Orange Vinegarette (from my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook – it goes with the Superhero Quinoa Salad)
Amazin’ Bacon Dipping Sauce (from my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook – it goes with the BLT Skewers, but is SO good with so many things!)

Fruity Poppy Seed Dressing in the Rainbow Chicken Salad from The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!

Veggie Soup Swaps

One of my goals each week in the cooler months of the year, is to get 1-2 bone broth based soups into the family by week’s end. Usually it is a veggie based soup, which the girls have devoured since infancy, and sometimes it is a heartier dinner soup with more protein and bulk. You’ll notice in the meal plan that usually my rhythm is to make the soup for the week on the weekend and that way it is easy to add to a thermos for school lunch later in the week. I know that not every kid will love every soup, and luckily for you, there are a myriad of soups to pick from both on the blog and in my cookbooks. If you have little guys at home, I would encourage you to start these young so that they develop a palate for these tasty soups that are such a great way to get nourishing bone broth and mineral rich veggies in! (Heartier, dinner type soups are linked in the dinner section below)

Roasted Pumpkin Soup
Nourishing Greens Soup (This is in my cookbook, Nourished Beginnings and my girls very favorite soup!)
Butternut Squash & Apple Soup
Creamy Potato & Spinach Soup
Simple Pea Soup – Baby favorite! (This is in my cookbook, Nourished Beginnings!)
Creamy of Zucchini Soup
Healthy Alphabet Soup – Copycat Alphabet Soup! (This is in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!)
Creamy Roasted Carrot Soup (This is in my cookbook, Nourished Beginnings)
Simple Broccoli Soup
Creamy Cauliflower Kale Soup
Classic Vegetable Soup – Copycat Campbell’s Vegetable Soup!
Creamiest Dreamiest Broccoli “Cheese” Soup (This is in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!)
Acorn Squash Soup
Split Pea Soup
Asparagus Soup
Creamy Cabbage Soup
Winter Blue’s Buster Creamy Chunky Potato Soup (This is in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!)

Copycat Alphabet Soup recipe from The Little Lunchbox Cookbook!

So let’s kick off this Fall Menu Plan!

Here is a PDF for you to download for the full 2 week fall meal plan with links to recipes included. {See below this section for a blank version if you want to fill in your own!}

Want to build your own meal plan?

Go for it! My way of doing meals is definitely not the only way! And my recipes are not the only recipes around! Here is a blank PDF for you to print and fill out your own.

Dinner swaps!

I know that not every dinner chosen on the meal plan below will fit with every family’s tastes. There are so many choices for how to fill this in, which is why I never posted meal plans before. I really want you to fill the meal plan in to your family preferences. The plan below is simply inspiration and a guide to show you how I flow certain meals into others, how I double up meals, and how I balance a day’s macronutrient needs for my family. Here are some fall inspired dinner swaps for anything on the menu that you might want to change. Most of this list is from right here on the blog. Any recipe links that have a page number are from my cookbooks. Those with page numbers in green are from The Little Lunchbox Cookbook, and those with page numbers in pink are from Nourished Beginnings.

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No Added Sugar Blender Batter Protein Banana Pancakes :: PLUS! A Bonus No Added Sugar Strawberry Topping!

September 4, 2021

Quick and easy blender batter protein pancakes with no added sugar and a fun strawberry topping!

No Added Sugar Blender Batter Protein Banana Pancakes :: PLUS! A Bonus No Added Sugar Strawberry Topping!

An epic summer…and a crew ready for back to school routines!

And a glorious summer it truly was. This kids rode every beach wave, hiked every trail, read every book, and climbed every tree (while also making super cool tree swings out of random things from the garage as you can see behind them!). They played their hearts out, and I have found, years into this school aged kid thing, that kids that play their hearts out all summer are quite ready to go back to school once September hits! As much fun as they had together, they were ready for their first week back this past week, and had a ball seeing their friends at school once again.

School morning breakfast goals

While I focus on certain nutrition goals for every breakfast no matter the time of year, school mornings bring along another level of needs, and not all of them include the actual ingredients of the breakfast. Here are my school morning breakfast goals

Manageable prep time. Besides wanting to fill the kids up before school with fuel that will last, these school morning breakfasts must be sustainable in prep time. School mornings are early, no matter the age, and it is vital that we can get these kids filled up with food that will fill them up to focus at school *and* be manageable to prep on a busy morning.
Low to zero added sugar. Because I love my teachers. And I want them to love my children 🙂 Bouncy little people that have been drowned in sugar before school make the morning really hard to focus. The book Sugarproof Kids is a very good place to start if you are looking to work on getting added sugar out of the diet. I like to fruit-sweeten where ever possible so that the fruit fiber can slow the burn of the natural sweet in the fruit.
Macronutrient balance. Having the right balance of fats, protein, and good carbohydrates will sustain the kids and keep them full and focused all morning. The right carbohydrates will give them energy instead of leaving them dragging when you combine it with protein and fat to slow the burn and satiate their hunger.

Pancakes on a school morning?!

When you can blend the batter in just minutes and pour it onto a skillet right from the blender cup, then yes! It absolutely can be done on a school morning! These pancakes also have a good macronutrient balance with whole grain and fruit from oats and banana, protein from almond flour and collagen, and satiating healthy fat from coconut milk and egg. It takes just minutes to get everything into the blender and pour onto the skillet. You can serve the pancakes with fast and easy hard boiled eggs or sausage if you want as well. They are so filling that some kids might even just get away with having the pancakes with a smear of butter, almond butter, or coconut butter, and be good to go.

The Method :: The Protein Pancake Blender Batter

Dump it all in and blend away! That’s my kind of pancake batter! Simply add the ACV to the blender cup and then fill the blender to the 1 cup mark with coconut milk. You’ll add the rest of the ingredients right into the blender and then buzz it down for 30 seconds. The batter pours beautifully right onto the skillet from the blender cup, so there’s no extra dirty bowls or scooping cups!

To syrup or not to syrup…

I’m all about a little pure maple syrup on a weekend waffle or pancake. But when I created these pancakes with school mornings in mind, I really wanted to give you some options for a no sugar added topping that will still make the kids happy. And leave their blood sugars happy too! What’s the point of a no added sugar pancake if you are going to drown it in syrup? These pancakes are nice and sweet on their own thanks to a couple bananas, but toppings are so fun too. The strawberry topping is a snap to make, and you can keep it around in the fridge or freezer to pull out anytime. You can change up the fruit if you want too, but we really like the strawberry banana combo!

The Method :: The Strawberry Topping

You can use fresh fruit if it is in season, but that is usually just a few short weeks out of the whole year for us. I like to keep a bag of frozen strawberries for smoothies in the freezer, so they work great to make this topping too. Just put them in a small sauté pan with a little water and cook it down for a few minutes. You can leave the strawberries as is, or stir in some chia seed to make it feel thicker like a sauce!

School morning hacks!

We’ve already talked about how easy these pancakes are to make on a school morning, but here are a few tips to make it even easier!

Make the pancakes up on a prep day and freeze them flat. You can pull pancakes out the night before to thaw and warm in the oven on a sheet tray, or pull them out frozen right into a toaster or toaster oven to warm up before school.
Make up the strawberry topping the night before or on a prep day. The strawberry sauce can be frozen too, so if strawberries are in season, batch it up!
Have some hard boiled eggs as sides ready to go. I like to make a dozen hard boiled eggs on Sunday evening when I am prepping for the week. Then you can easily pull these quick breakfast sides to go with your pancakes before school.

Print Recipe

No Added Sugar Blender Batter Protein Banana Pancakes :: PLUS! A Bonus No Added Sugar Strawberry Topping!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

No Sugar Added Strawberry Topping ::

2 cups frozen strawberries
2 tbsp water
1 tsp chia seeds

No Added Sugar Protein Banana Pancakes ::

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup full fat coconut milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup oats Not Instant Oats. I use sprouted oats, but rolled oats would be fine too
1 cup blanched almond flour
¼ cup grassfed collagen
2 tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
2 small, ripe bananas peeled
Coconut oil or olive oil to lightly grease the skillet to cook in

Instructions

Make the No Added Sugar Strawberry Topping

Put the frozen strawberries and water into a small sauté pan over medium to medium-high heat. When the strawberries are melted enough, use a potato masher to squish them down. Simmer the strawberries, mashing them up with the potato masher for 2-3 minutes, then set aside off the heat.
Add 1 tsp of chia seeds to a small bowl or cup, and then stir in the mashed, cooked strawberries until the chia seeds are evenly distributed. Put the strawberry topping into the refrigerator to thicken while you make the pancakes. This strawberry topping can be made days in advance, and even frozen.

Make the No Added Sugar Protein Banana Pancakes

Pre-heat your skillet to medium heat while you blend the pancake batter.
Put 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar into your high-speed blender or regular blender, and then fill the blender to the 1 cup mark with coconut milk.
Put the rest of the pancake ingredients into your high-speed blender or regular blender, and blend for 30 seconds on high. If you are not using a high-powered blender, you may need to blend longer.
Use coconut oil or olive oil to lightly grease the skillet, and use the blender container to pour the pancake batter right onto the heated skillet. Cook the pancakes just like regular pancakes – when you see the bubbles, and that the sides of the pancakes are looking more “set,” you can flip them. This takes a minute or so. Then cook the pancakes on the other side until golden brown and cooked through – this takes a couple minutes.
Put your cooked pancakes onto a wire rack to cool while you work through the rest of the batter. To freeze the pancakes, let them cool completely, and store them in a freezer bag.

Notes

I like to add a few pinches of cinnamon to the batter too! Or pumpkin spice if you are into that sort of thing!
If you do not have grassfed collagen, you can leave this ingredient out. It adds protein, but I realize not everyone has access!
I think an egg replacer would work for the egg – please let us know in the comments if you are egg free and try this!

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Dinner Ideas Healthy Kids and Teens Lunch Ideas Real Food 101 Real Food Tips school lunches

One Skillet Copycat Hamburger Helper :: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, & Veggie Loaded!

August 21, 2021

Hamburger Helper nostalgia with a nutrient loaded, healthy whole foods twist!

One Skillet Copycat Hamburger Helper :: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, & Veggie Loaded!

The slow transition from summer to fall routines…

I started noticing the sun a little lower in the sky during our after-dinner swims on the big lake a week or so ago. It’s always a little bittersweet to me. We had such a fun, carefree summer. We put school completely behind us. We played and hiked, read a zillion books, and swam (and swam some more!). But when the sun starts setting just a little earlier we are all at the point of being ready to get back to a little more routine. We’re certain to have another good month of beach days left, but I was ready to start thinking about fall meal plans! And I know you all have been asking for my “Hamburger Helper” copycat that I have posted a here and there to Instagram. Today is the day!

An 80’s classic…and some curious foodie kids

It’s no secret this momma grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. Boxed dinners were totally the thing, and while I really don’t remember my mom ever using this particular one that often, we did have our fair share of convenience foods. Earlier this summer the girls asked if they could try Hamburger Helper – I still have no idea where they heard about it, but it doesn’t matter. Our kids don’t live in a bubble, and I want to help them learn how to work through this kind of situation because it will be hitting them from every angle for the rest of their lives!

Kids that can use critical thinking…and creative solutions!

My approach to most of these kind of situations is to first show them them box ingredients and see what they think. No condemnation. It’s more of a “well before you decide to eat something, it’s probably a good idea to see what you will be putting into your body first.” When they were little, I’d read it for them and be more verbal in helping them draw conclusions (remember wayyyy back when Chloe, my oldest, was in preschool and the little boy wanted her to make him “mac n cheese” in the preschool play kitchen?!). They are old enough to see through the marketing now, but I still see the value in this exercise. We went to the store, found the Hamburger Helper, and it was a pretty quick peek before they asked “well, can we make it at home instead?!” I mean, saucy, cheesy, noodles and beef…what’s not to love?!

Same fun meal, same fun taste…with an upgraded whole foods twist!

I’ve been fussing around with this “copycat” Hamburger Helper recipe, as gluten, dairy, egg, nut, and sugar free, and it’s pretty spectacular! You can see in the pictures how I’ve also managed to veggie load it, and that is because I truly want this to be a one skillet, no other side items needed kind of a dinner. That is the whole point of the hamburger helper anyway, right? Something that will be a no-fuss, weeknight friendly comfort food. School nights can be hectic, and I’m hoping to help you fill the kids up with real food in a fun way.

But will my kids “taste” the veggies???

The flavor that comes from the aromatics and mushrooms is where the depth and amazing flavors build. If you think the kids will be funny about the pieces, just cut them smaller or buzz them up in the food processor. It does look like a lot to start, but it really, really cooks down. And the spinach? Well spinach is magical like that. Once it cooks in a dish like this, you never taste it, so you can get all the health benefits without the kids having to fuss over the taste!

Back to school meal plans, and a little prep help

I really hope this Hamburger Helper skillet makes the perfect back to school dinner for your meal plan this fall! I think if you are one of those families that comes home from the day super late, having the veggies chopped before-hand would help. You have a couple choices. Either chop the veggies the night before, so that you can just dump them in the pan when you get home. Or, you could just buzz them up in the food processor to cut the chopping step down a little – it really doesn’t matter if the veggies are cut in a perfect dice.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

One Skillet Copycat Hamburger Helper :: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, & Veggie Loaded!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut oil butter, avocado oil, or olive oil would work here too
1 medium onion diced
1 medium carrot shredded
1 medium bell pepper diced
4-8 ounces mushrooms sliced
3-4 cups baby spinach finely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic minced
1 lb grassfed ground beef
¼ cup nutritional yeast
1 tbsp potato starch
½ tsp smoked paprika
¾ cup canned pumpkin or butternut squash
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp coconut aminos
1 cups bone broth or water plus more if needed for consistency as the pasta cooks
1 ½ cups coconut milk
2 cups dry GF pasta of choice I used the Jovial GF Elbow Pasta

Instructions

Heat your skillet to medium high heat, melt the coconut oil, and add in the onion, carrot, pepper, and mushrooms to cook for about 5 minutes with a big pinch of sea salt until everything is soft and sweet.
Add the spinach and garlic and cook for about a minute, stirring them into the cooked veggies.
Add the ground beef to the pan with another pinch of sea salt and pepper to season the beef, and break the beef up to brown up in the pan.
Once the beef is browned, stir in the nutritional yeast, potato starch, and paprika until everything is coated and incorporated. Then, add the pumpkin puree, tomato paste, coconut aminos, bone broth, and coconut milk, and stir to combine.
Add the pasta and bring everything to a simmer. Stir around after a minute and add a lid to the pan, bringing the heat down to medium-low to simmer until the pasta is al-dente. Take the lid off every few minutes to stir and make sure the pasta is not sticking to the bottom of the pan. If you need a little extra liquid you can add more broth or water. Once the pasta is cooked through, sea salt and pepper the skillet meal to your taste and serve!

Notes

The nutritional yeast gives a cheesy flavor to the skillet without the dairy. If you tolerate dairy and want to use cheese, just add the cheese in to melt at the end.
The potato starch helps thicken the sauce. You could also use tapioca starch or arrowroot.

More real food recipes you might like!

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Blueberry Energy Bites

June 21, 2021

Just a 5 minute prep and you can keep these real food blueberry energy bites stashed away in the pantry for easy snack packing!

Simple staple snacks for busy kids

For the most part, I’m a super no fuss mom when it comes to snacking. I’d rather focus on the 3 meals of the day, and if a snack is needed, give the kids a simple handful of fruit and cheese. So if I’m going to actually prepare a homemade snack, it needs to be easy prep, and double bonus points for pantry storage! We just kicked off our summer break last week, and packed these fun blueberry energy bites for one of our beach days. They were devoured, and made such a fun snack change up. I hope you get a chance to try them, whether its for your summer road trip or those school lunchboxes this fall!

An easy pantry snack

I just love any homemade food that I can make that doesn’t take up room in my fridge or freezer. That is hard to do with real food, but between homemade granola, my trail mix, and coconut clusters, I have a few easy grab and go snacks that pack easily for school lunches or road trips. Energy bites also store in the pantry well, and I put a spin on the classic cashew/date snack bites that we have all come to love with a fun blueberry flavor! Just perfect for little hands!

How to Make Blueberry Energy Bites

A very simple handful of ingredients (please be sure to read the section below titled “Ingredient Sourcing” for help on making sure you don’t blow your budget on this stuff!) and a blender is all you need! You’ll put everything but the blueberries into your food processor, and blend to make the energy bite mixture – it should stick together when you pinch it. After you pulse in the freeze dried blueberries, you just scoop and roll the bites up! That’s it! I love that these energy bites can store in the pantry, fridge, or freezer. It’s up to you!

Can I use fresh blueberries?

Believe me, in the height of summer, I’m all about using our fresh Michigan blueberries! Fresh blueberries would just make these energy bites a sloppy mess though with all the juices. You could dehydrate your own blueberries, or freeze dry your own blueberries. I have had success in freeze drying my own fruit by just putting a tray of blueberries into the freezer (uncovered). You let them “freeze dry” for about 2-3 weeks, and they should be ready to go once you bring them to room temp and let the condensation dry off them. These days, you can buy freeze dried fruit just about anywhere, and for not that bad of a price in some places! I grab the bags at Trader Joe’s, but you can get them online too.

Just for my nut free friends!

If you can’t have the cashews or almond butter, you can swap those out for sunflower seeds and sunbutter or tahini. I have made energy bites with both before, and they turn out great! In fact, the chocolate covered banana energy bites in my lunchbox cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook, are completely nut free, using sunflower seeds since many schools are nut free school zones.

Ingredient sourcing

I’ll be the first one to tell you from experience that fun little real food snacks like energy bites can absolutely BLOW your budget. Listen to me…don’t do it. If you cannot source this stuff without going broke, pack the kids local fruit and a handful of nuts and call it good for their snack. I don’t want you going broke to make these. If the freeze dried fruit is expensive where you live, leave it out – they taste so good even without that fancy fun stuff! For what it is worth, I do get every single ingredient on the list, except the freeze dried blueberries, at Costco. I pick up the freeze dried fruit at Trader Joe’s. I know not everyone has these places to choose from. In fact Trader Joe’s was even a mythical dream for me up until a couple years ago when they finally built one here!

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Blueberry Energy Bites

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

1 ½ cups Nour dates pitted
1 cup cashews almonds or walnuts would work here too
2 ½ tbsp almond butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp sea salt
1/3 cup freeze dried blueberries

Instructions

Put the dates, cashews, almond butter, vanilla extract, and sea salt in your food processor, and pulse the blender a few times. Then, continuously blend the mixture for about 1 minute until everything is incorporated, and the mixture can pinch together and stick together.
Add the freeze dried blueberries, and pulse until the blueberries are incorporated into the mixture in tiny bits.
Use a tablespoon or a spoon to scoop the mixture, packing it into the measuring spoon. Use your hands to roll the energy bite into a round ball. Continue with the rest of the energy bite mixture. This recipe makes about 18 tablespoon sized energy bites.

Notes

These energy bites keep in the pantry for a month, or in the fridge or freezer for 3 months.
If you are nut free, I have used sunbutter and sunflower seeds for energy bites before with great success! you will use less sunflower seeds, so play around with the amount – it will probably be more like 3/4 cup or a little less.
You can use medjool dates if that is what you have. Just pit and halve them to measure.
You can swap the freeze dried blueberries for any freeze dried fruit!
This recipe doubles well if you have a large enough food processor, like my 14-cup food processor.

More real food recipes you might like!

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Dairy Free Caesar Dressing

April 20, 2021

Free from common allergens, this delicious dairy free Caesar dressing is also gluten free, soy free, nut free, egg free, and fish free!

Spring teases, and a need for some dairy free staples

I *think* we’ll see the last of our cold weather snow flurries this week, and we can finally say we are on our way to some consistent spring like temps here in Michigan! We spent a cool but pleasant weekend hiking and even playing at the beach, and while I watched my crew race up and down the shoreline, I was thinking about just how far I’ve come in a health related sort of way.

A marathon, not a sprint

As I watched my kids sprint across the sand, I thought about how I had to change my thought process toward getting healthy so long ago. More of a “sprinter” in all things life, I have had to grow and change my method to more of a marathoner’s mindset. And you know what? Sprinters and marathoner’s are both great athletes. But when it comes to healing decades of growing up in a conventional, standard American health sort of environment, sprinting is only going to lead to more injury. It takes time to heal decades. I’ve had a recent set back toward the end of winter, and while I’m on my way, I have had to learn the hard way that while I’d like to sprint myself back into feeling my normal, a marathon mindset is really where it’s at.

Peeling back the layers

I have had more than one natural minded practitioner remind me that most healing journeys are like peeling onions. There are layers and layers of them, and before you can get to the center root of the onion, you have to get through the surface layers first. A chiropractor friend reminded me of this last week, and I’m hoping someone here needs to hear it too. There are layers of natural elements, like diet, mineral balance, and hydration. And there are also layers of lifestyle, such as sleep, stress, and activity levels. I’ve been working on the later, with over-exercising and not paying enough attention to stress…a very tough admission for this “Type A!” One layer I DO know how to help with, however is food. And if you need to have inflammatory foods out of your diet for a period of time for healing, I’ve got you covered, dear momma. I have been there, done that, and I have some recipe tricks up my sleeve that I hope will help you!

Our favorite Caesar, done without dairy

One of the first recipes I posted to this blog was a recipe for Caesar dressing. It was *the* dressing helped me successfully get my husband off store bought dressings years ago, and has been a staple around here for a while. But the dressing has dairy and egg, which can be inflammatory for those that are healing. Over the years when I have had seasons like I am in right now where I need to strictly be dairy free, I have played around with other ways to make it without the cheese, sour cream, and eggs, and I’m finally getting it here on the blog! This Caesar dressing is a handful of years in the the trial and error making, and I can proudly say it is free from dairy, gluten, soy, nuts, and egg…and it still passes my Caesar dressing critic husband’s taste test!

Dairy Free Caesar Dressing Method

It really doesn’t get any easier than a 5 minute prep, and I’m pretty sure that whether you are on a healing journey or not, less work is music to your ears! I don’t even use measuring cups. Simply use the marks on the side of a pint mason jar and measure to the 1/2 cup mark for the olive oil. Then spoon in your coconut yogurt until the line hits the 3/4 cup mark. The rest is all measuring spoon, and goes so fast. Finally, you’ll use a simple immersion blender to emulsify the dressing into the dreamiest creamy texture!

Important Notes!

Please take the time to read through the Notes section in the recipe card! I have been making this dairy free version of Caesar for a while, and I took the time to write down some of my thoughts on swaps and switches, as well as how to tailor this dressing to fit your unique taste palate!

Print Recipe

Dairy Free Caesar Dressing

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup olive oil
¼ cup full fat coconut yogurt
1 egg yolk if you are egg free use an extra tbsp or 2 of coconut yogurt for the creaminess
1 tbsp lemon juice about ½ lemon
1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
2 tsp mustard
1 tsp coconut aminos
1 tsp sea salt
¼ tsp onion powder
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp pepper

Instructions

In a pint mason jar, measure the olive oil to the ½ cup mark, then add the 1/4 cup of coconut yogurt to fill until the ¾ cup mark on the mason jar (you could use measuring cups too, but this is my favorite way, and is less to clean up!).
Add the rest of the ingredients and use an immersion blender to emulsify until creamy and combined. Blend with the immersion blender for about 30 seconds to a minute.
Store the Caesar dressing in the refrigerator for 1 week.

Notes

If you are egg free, leave the yolk out and add an extra couple tablespoons of coconut yogurt for the creaminess.
If you don’t have an immersion blender, you could add all of the ingredients EXCEPT the olive oil to a food processor or blender. Then, while the blender is running, you can drizzle the olive oil into the blender so that it can slowly emulsify the dressing until creamy.
Add an extra tablespoon of lemon juice if you like your dressing tangier. The recipe as written is very kid friendly, but I love extra tang, so when I make it for myself I use 2 tbsp – about a full lemon.
Add an extra tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes if you want the dressing to taste cheesier.
If you don’t have coconut aminos, you can leave this out, but it does add a depth of flavor that I just love – traditional sardines would add this too if you have those.
If you want to use a neutral/flavorless oil, avocado oil works well and is safe, healthy oil. The olive oil flavor gets pretty covered up by all of the other ingredients, but I know some kids might be sensitive to that taste, and avocado oil is flavorless. Really good olive oil is known for it’s anti-inflammatory properties, so I always ready for the olive oil when I can, and my kids really like the taste of it.
I get the big, 32oz tubs of plain, unsweetened coconut yogurt from our local grocer for a very budget friendly price. Many regular grocers are carrying this now, just take a look!

More real food salad dressing recipes you might like!

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Dinner Ideas Healthy Kids and Teens Lunch Ideas Nourishing Staples Real Food 101 Real Food Tips school lunches

Rainbow Broccoli Salad

March 24, 2021

All of the colors of the rainbow in this healthier choice broccoli salad with less sugar, no dairy, and lots of fun, flavorful veggies kids will love!

Rainbow Broccoli Salad — Product links in this post are affiliate links. It does not cost you anything, and helps maintain the free information on this site, as well as answer the questions of “what brand do you use?” Please know I never personally recommend any product I wouldn’t use on my own family.

Glimpses of warmer weather

Michigan likes to do this thing in the spring, where it plays around with 60 degrees one day, and back down to 30 degrees the next day. But my goodness, has spring ever been nice to us this year so far! Lake Michigan is thawed out, our toes are in the sand, and we are ready for warmer weather sides, like fresh spring and summer salads!

A better choice broccoli salad…that still tastes amazing!

I’ve been a sucker for a creamy broccoli salad even as a kid. Most broccoli salads are loaded with cheese, bacon, loads of dairy, and sugar…a lot of sugar. Usually anywhere from a quarter to half cup of white sugar is in the typical broccoli salad recipe. What’s not to love about that, right?! I knew when my oldest got to the age where she could manage salads and raw veggies to eat that I had to figure out a better way to make one of my favorite salads with way less sugar. And not that there is anything wrong with cheese, bacon, and dairy, but there is something wrong with the picture when the star of the show in a salad is anything but the veggies. I wanted to teach my girls that salads and veggies can taste amazing without being covered up by sugar.

Tips for making raw salads like broccoli salad kid friendly

Be sure to pay attention to the Notes section in the recipe card of this post. There are tips and tricks mentioned that will make salads like this easier for little kids to eat, and your older kids will be more likely to accept this new food keeping some things in mind:

When chopping the broccoli and cabbage, remember that if you have real little ones, taking the time to finely chop the veg will really help with their ease of being able to spoon the salad and manage chewing it in their small mouths! As they get a little older, you can leave the pieces bigger.
If your kids are funny about the pungency of onion pieces, sub the finely chopped onion for 1-2 tsp of onion powder. My kids love the flavor of sweet onions raw when they are cut up small, but I know that is not always the case. If you have littles, don’t shy away from at least trying. This is how my girls’ palates were formed young! Mince them up and try it!
Change up the veggies! Beets and tomatoes swap well for the red. I love using roasted butternut squash for the orange, and did this often when the girls were very little – the sweetness is amazing for little ones and the soft squash is so easy to chew. You can use green cabbage too! Add a little bite of pretty fruit to the bowl if you think the kids will like that. My girls typically complain the salad is too sweet when I do this, but yours might like it! My favorite is pineapple or apple, but raisins and blueberries work nicely too.

The Method :: The Dressing

One bowl side dishes are totally my jam. The dressing consists of 4 simple ingredients that get whisked up right in the bowl that you will serve the salad in. Less dishes, and less prep time! The creamy base is lightly sweetened with a spoonful of raw honey instead of white sugar, and it is plenty sweet. Keeping the vinegar amount lower helps with not needing to add as much sweetener as well. I prefer more of a bite to my broccoli salad, so I tend to add a splash of vinegar to my bowl. You can always add some raw shreds of apple or pineapple to the salad if the kids are already used to a sweet broccoli salad. Using fruit is a much better choice than adding more sugar.

The Method :: The Veggies

I think you’ll find that chopping the veggies really small is worth the time that it takes. The kids will be able to spoon it easier, and your little ones will chew smaller raw veggie pieces easier this. Chop the veggies up and toss them with the simple dressing and the salad is ready to eat!

Yogurt and Mayonnaise Options

There are so many ways to make the creamy base for the dressing suit your dietary needs. If you don’t have any dietary restrictions, plain yogurt and your favorite healthy oil based mayo will do the trick. If you are dairy free, you can swap the regular yogurt for full fat coconut yogurt, or just use all mayo and thin it out with a little splash non-dairy milk like coconut milk or a nut milk. Our favorite store bought mayo using healthy fats is Sir Kensington’s Avocado Oil Mayo that we get for a great price at Costco. There are so many avocado oil mayonnaise choices for great prices now though, even if you don’t have access to Costco. If you are egg free, store bought mayo can be super tough. But I have a solution! There are 2 egg free mayo options on the blog. This Simple Egg Free Mayonnaise is dairy based if you can have that. And this Paleo Mayo is dairy and egg free.

More than just a dinner side!

Meal prep this Rainbow Broccoli Salad on Sunday, and you can use it for your a lunchbox veggie side for the kids, and also for your lunches. This kind of preparing helps keep kitchen food prep time at a reasonable amount for busy families. Broccoli salad packs fantastic in lunchboxes, and is such a great change up from regular veggie sticks. To pack Rainbow Broccoli Salad in a lunchbox, I would suggest a leakproof container, or something that seals the sides a bit. For my youngest’s Rover Planetbox shown below (she is 7), we use the little silicone cups that come with the Planetboxes that seal up to the sides. The salad is not drippy, but just in case a little condensation is there, it will prevent little drips. My older girls (almost 12 and 10) have the larger, Launch Planetbox, and they use the bigger Rounds bowl with a lid that the Planetboxes come with for their salads since they are bigger. When packing for little kids, remember the veggies don’t need to be the star of the show for a long school day and a short lunch period. I save bigger veggie portions for her breakfast and/or dinners. Time is of the essence when at school, so I want her filling up on protein and fat packed bites of food. My older girls can eat a bit quicker so they pack bigger salads.

Print Recipe

Rainbow Broccoli Salad

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup full fat yogurt or coconut yogurt
1/3 cup avocado mayonnaise see Notes for homemade mayo options
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp raw honey
½ small onion finely chopped
1 small red bell pepper diced
1 large carrot peeled and shredded
1 head of broccoli florets chopped to bite sized (see Notes)
½ head of a small purple cabbage sliced into thin, short strips (see Notes)
Sea salt and pepper to taste if needed

Instructions

Whisk the yogurt, mayo, vinegar, and honey in a medium mixing bowl until smooth.
Toss the veggies with the dressing in the mixing bowl, and taste for salt and pepper. Serve the salad right away or hours later – as the flavors marry, the salad gets even better!
Store your Rainbow Broccoli Salad in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Notes

If you are egg and dairy free, try my Paleo mayo! Or if you are egg free but can have dairy, you can try my egg free, dairy based mayo. Any clean, crisp vinegar will work for the dressing.
If your kids are funny about the pungency of onion pieces, sub the finely chopped onion for 1-2 tsp of onion powder. My kids love the flavor of sweet onions raw, but I know that is not always the case. If you have littles, don’t shy away from at least trying. This is how my girls’ palates were formed young! Mince them up and try it!
Try multiple colors of bell peppers to boost the color even more! When chopping the broccoli and cabbage, remember that if you have real little ones, taking the time to finely chop the veg will really help with their ease of being able to spoon the salad and manage chewing it in their small mouths! As they get a little older, you can leave the pieces bigger.
Change up the veggies! Beets and tomatoes swap well for the red. I love using roasted butternut squash for the orange, and did this often when the girls were very little – the sweetness is amazing for little ones and the soft squash is so easy to chew. You can use green cabbage too!
Add a little bite of pretty fruit to the bowl if you think the kids will like that. My girls typically complain the salad is too sweet when I do this, but yours might like it! My favorite is pineapple or apple, but raisins and blueberries work nicely too.

More real food recipes you might like ::

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Creamy Cabbage Soup

March 15, 2021

Creamy and velvety cabbage soup, packed with nutrients and full of flavor!

It’s been over 15 years.

About 20 years ago I got the diagnosis that would change everything for me. Hashimoto’s – an autoimmune thyroid disorder. I’ll spare you the details of the 3-4 years after that diagnosis of trying to actually figure out what that meant, and how to feel even an ounce of better. After a few years of trying everything mainstream medical and not feeling any different, I saw more of a natural, functional medicine practitioner. Answers and more of a “root issue” approach helped me quite literally peel back layers and layers of healing that my body needed. I learned how to listen to my body. I learned what worked for me, what the red flags and warning systems looked like, sounded like, and felt like….and I have felt what “good” really and truly feels like.

Back to the basics

And because certain things like stress (hello 2020), infections, inflammatory foods, and toxins can trigger an autoimmune “flare,” I’ve learned how to nail down those triggers so they don’t spiral out of control. I’m feeling one of those “flares” in the season I’m in right now, and after about 6 months of ignoring the red flag symptoms (because we have all been in survival mode in 2020, amiright?!), it’s time to get back to what I know I need to be doing for my body. And for me, that always means getting back to less inflammatory foods even if they are considered “healthy” for most, and hello to more cooked veggie minerals at every meal. It has, and probably always will be a game changer for me. It is one of the biggest reasons there are so many veggie soup recipes on the blog, and in my cookbooks, and why you’ll always hear me talking about “breakfast soups.”

Breakfast Soup

And lunch an dinner soup. Cooked veggies just digest easier, and it is so much easier to get a variety and abundance in when you roast or “soup” your veggies. Souping your veg doesn’t have to be boring either. There are so many ways to change things up, and give your body the mineral variety it needs! If you are new to veggies at breakfast, soup might sound so strange, but hear me out. A little mug of steamy soup, a muffin, and some sausage or egg? It is perfectly dreamy to be honest. Sure, a veggie hash or a smoothie with greens works for breakfast too, but there is something about souping breakfast that has been the ticket to feeling amazing for me for years.

Cabbage…nutrient packed and anti-inflammatory

And did I mention a big time budget saver? Because let’s face it – that part matters too! Cabbage is about as cheap as it gets, but it is also loaded with micronutrients and minerals. Cruciferous veggies like cabbage can also be anti-inflammatory. For some, cruciferous veggies can be a problem digestively, especially in the raw state, but cooking can help with digestion. It also helps to eat these veggies with a healthy fat, so cooking the veg in a nutritious fat that works for you such as butter or olive oil is perfect. If you are someone that tolerates cabbage well, you are going to love this soup!

But how does it taste, and will my kids eat it too?!

The last thing I want you to be doing is making a bunch of meals that the rest of the family won’t eat, dear momma. Even though I have seasons of needing to eat a little differently than a growing, metabolism burning kid, it doesn’t mean that they can’t also be eating many of the same foods! The girls love just about every soup blend that has come out of my kitchen for their lunchbox thermoses. When they were babies I served them soups for breakfast often right along with myself. It is perfect for those seasons of sleepy babyhood for everyone to eat the same. These days it looks a little more like the kids having a muffin with eggs and a packed out smoothie, and mom having the same muffin, but with some meat, and a mug of soup. This works for our metabolisms where they are right now in the season we are in at the moment. The cabbage for this soup cooks down and and gets sweet with sautéing and really is a blank slate for whatever flavors you want to add in. I use some nutritional yeast to give it a cheesy flavor without the dairy, as well as some of my sausage seasoning blend to give the soup the warmth of cooking with sausage.

Simple, easy soup making method

This is a one pot deal, and I think that is something just about everyone can handle these days! Just use the slow sauté approach to bring out the sweetness and flavor from the veggies, toss with some potato starch and then simmer them with your broth. The potato starch gives the soup a grain-free velvety, creamy texture that is to live for! You’ll use your immersion blender to puree the soup to a perfect creaminess once it is finished, but if you don’t have an immersion blender you can use a regular blender too.

Other creamy soup purees that work well for any meal of the day!

My rhythm has most often been to make a soup for the week on the weekends or on Monday’s. If you don’t like to eat the same soup for days in a row, make a couple different kinds and start building your freezer stash. If you store a quart of soup into the freezer each week, you’ll soon have a lush soup stash to pull from so that, perhaps, on an extra busy week you don’t have to cook a soup. Or so that you can pull some variety throughout the week.

Cauliflower & Kale Soup
Creamy Broccoli Soup
Classic Vegetable Soup
Creamy Vegetable Soup
Spring Onion Soup
Asparagus Soup
Winter Vegetable Soup
Butternut Squash Soup
There is also a whole chapter of different soup purees in my cookbook, Nourished Beginnings, including 2 of our household favorites, Nourishing Greens Soup, and Spring Vegetable Soup!

Print Recipe

Creamy Cabbage Soup

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2-3 tbsp butter to cook in bacon fat, olive oil, or avocado oil work well here too
2 small onions halved and sliced into strips
1 carrot coarsely chopped
1 stalk of celery coarsely chopped
1 small/medium head of cabbage sliced into strips
3 tbsp potato starch
1 tbsp nutritional yeast optional but lends a cheesy flavor without the dairy!
1 tsp of my sausage season blend optional, but gives the flavor of having meat/sausage in the soup
1 quart bone broth
1/2 – 1 cup full fat coconut milk or regular milk if you tolerate dairy
Sea salt/pepper to taste

Instructions

Melt the butter in a large soup pot over medium high heat, and saute the onion, carrot, and celery for a few minutes while you chop the cabbage. There is so much cabbage, so give the first few veggies a few minutes to get started first.
Add the sliced cabbage and saute over medium high heat until the cabbage reduces down about half, and gets really soft and sweet. This takes a good 10 minutes to achieve and the flavor is amazing. Stir throughout the cooking process.
Put the potato starch, nutritional yeast, and sausage seasoning blend into the pot, stirring to coat the veggies in the starch and seasonings.
Pour the broth in, stir, and bring the soup to a low simmer for 10 minutes. Turn the stove off, pour in the coconut milk, and blend the soup with your immersion blender or in a regular blender until smooth. Salt and pepper the soup to your taste once it is blended.

More real food recipes you might like ::

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Nourishing 2 Week Meal Plan {Winter Inspired Part 2}

February 17, 2021

More winter inspired meal planning to create 2 more full weeks of nourishing winter meals!

Winter Inspired Part 2!

You asked, and I’m all ears, dear momma! I was hesitant to hit publish on my first Meal Plan a couple of weeks ago, but my heart is just so full with the messages and posts about how this has helped your families. So I’m back with more! ***If you have not had the chance to read my first Winter Inspired Meal Plan, you’ll want to hop over there to start. You’ll read a lot of great tips for portion sizing, balancing macros, and ideas for making your first baby steps into meal planning with real food.*** There is a full 2 week printable meal plan with winter inspired foods there, and another full 2 weeks on this post – that is a full month of meals to play around with, and I can’t wait to hear about your meal planning successes!

Winter Inspiration

I know there are readers from all over the world that visit this space, so I want to be sure that I reiterate my recommendations on the first meal plan to buy what is in season where YOU live. February in Florida, or somewhere in Australia looks very, very different from February in Michigan! But I also realize that while I’m drooling over your beautiful farmer’s markets this time of year, our farmer’s markets and available in season produce will be bursting at the seams during the summer months. We just have very different growing seasons. Keep in mind where you live, and shop produce that fits in your budget within the season that you are, and you’ll be good to go!

A note about my husband!

I left this out of the Part 1 Meal Plan, and for that I apologize! My husband eats all meals with us on the weekend. He is a commuter on work days, and so he takes his breakfast and lunch with him Monday through Friday (he has been working from home since April, but still preps his food the same way). In the winter, his breakfast is prepped on Sundays. He makes a skillet of potato hash with spinach and sausage for all 5 days, and takes that with him to work. He warms that up at work and adds an egg most days. A nice travel thermos or electric travel mini hot pot works well for anyone that does not have access to warming things up. In the warmer months of summer, he will do smoothies more often. For his lunches, he preps some sort of meat main (typically chicken or beef), and brings enough salad for the week with him. He keeps all of this at work. He eats dinner with us most nights of the week, though sometimes he fasts dinner. {He did not always prep this himself by the way! That started happening when I was pregnant with baby 3…sometimes momma just can’t do everything! He enjoys taking that off my plate, so he still does this, but I know that is not the case in every house. Do what you can!}

Warm meals for cold days

That is the name of the game in the winter months here. If you live somewhere warmer, feel free to swap some of our hot meals for cooler ones! Just look at this frozen Lake Michigan beach in the winter months! We enjoy really warm dinners in the winter, so you’ll see that reflected in the meal plan for the winter months. That does not, however, mean that I want to be in the kitchen all day! I think you’ll see how I’m able to stretch meals into the next day, and repurpose food for new meals to help with time management.

Let’s talk about lunchbox food products!

I love homemade hummus…but 3 kids into this thing I found the convenience of hummus cups to be a bit of a sanity saver. You just can’t always make everything all the time, least you burn out, dear momma. Same with guacamole. We just can’t afford the avocado prices here where they don’t grow, so guacamole cups are a very nice alternative. I do some of this shopping at Costco, and some online, so here is a great post with some of the packaged convenience lunchbox snacks, including crackers and granola bar options that you’ll see in the meal plan too. I do sometimes make these from scratch, but it sure is nice to have the option to buy them during certain seasons.

SO! Let’s get started!

Here is a PDF for you to download of my full 2 Week Winter Inspired Meal Plan with links to recipes included. {See below this section for a blank version if you want to fill in your own!}

Want to build your own meal plan?

Go for it! My way of doing meals is definitely not the only way! And my recipes are not the only recipes around! Here is a blank PDF for you to print and fill out your own.

Winter Inspired Dinners to Swap in the Dinner Section

I know that not every single dinner idea on my blog or in my cookbooks is everyone’s cup of tea, or perhaps you have other ingredients available or in season right now where you live. So here are some other dinner ideas to swap for the dinner section of the meal plan that fit with the idea of “winter inspired!” OR, fill in your own family favorite meals! Most of this list is from right here on the blog. Any recipe links that have a page number are from my cookbooks. Those with page numbers in green are from The Little Lunchbox Cookbook, and those with page numbers in pink are from Nourished Beginnings.

Kid Friendly Veggie Packed Slow Cooker Lasagna

Spring is right around the corner!

I hope you enjoy the 4 total weeks of cold weather meal planning I’ve created for you! I am going to be working on some spring inspired meal planning in the next month or so, and would love any feedback or questions you might have as I prepare to create those! Drop some comments below!

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Breakfast Cookies 6 Ways!

February 4, 2021

Enjoy a fun, healthy breakfast with these power packed breakfast cookies made 6 different ways to change it up!

A Friday tradition, about 7 years in the making!

It all began about 7 years ago. Imagine…a busy mom of a 5 year old in kindergarten, a {seriously rambunctious} 3 year old, and a baby on her hip. Not exactly the picture of the most relaxing morning, let alone getting a good breakfast in. I think back to those days and really do wonder sometimes how I managed. And dear momma who is in the same boat, you WILL, in fact, make it through those years. It was during those years that I created my very first breakfast cookie – something packed with nourishment that we could head out the door with when the morning fell apart trying to get a kindergartener to school while toting along a feisty toddler and squirmy baby!

All grown up!

That little baby in the picture above is now marching right along in 1st grade this year! And, no, all those busy, pulled-in-all-the-directions mornings did not “ruin her” as I once thought they might – she is pure joy {with a sprinkle of spunk, I might add!} And while it’s been a hot minute since there have been babies and toddlers in the house, Breakfast Cookie Friday has become a most looked forward to breakfast over the years for my school aged children ready to celebrate Friday and welcome the weekend!

Our Breakfast Cookie Friday Set-Up!

We set up our Breakfast Cookie Friday’s in a breakfast bar style. A bowl of the cookies, a bowl of hard boiled eggs, some hot water for tea…and the best part – the kids serve themselves! *Round of applause for the moms!* Dear momma, I promise that spending a bit of time while they are young to show them *exactly* {precisely!} how you want them to serve themselves, is worth every single minute of your extra coffee time not having to tend to serving them! If you already have big kids, just a quick demo will do. If you have toddlers and younger children, show them precisely, {every single step!} so that you don’t get frustrated when eggs land on the floor, or there is a big mess. I have found that age 2-3 is a good age to start this, depending on the child. Giving them the gift of independence and your trust in them to serve themselves is priceless! These days, my Fridays are extremely hands free with an 11, 9, and 7 year old, and it is just glorious! I make the hard boiled eggs and cookies the night before and the morning is extra relaxed.

A new breakfast cookie base – with endless possibilities!

Honestly, this recipe was born because I wanted just one recipe that I didn’t have to pull up instructions for – something I could memorize easily, and then adapt to whatever I had in my pantry. You’ll just adore this power packed, base breakfast cookie recipe, and then you get to pour the add-ins that you have available in the pantry that week!

Dried fruit, nut, & seed variations

I’ve created 6 different recipe cards with different dried fruit and nut/seed combos for you to try, but really the possibilities are endless! I just picked up a bag of brazil nuts and dried mango at Costco last week, and plan to use that the next time I make these. So fun! Truly though, use what you have in your pantry before you go out and buy something else. That is the beauty of this recipe – use what you have!

Freezer friendly!

Do yourself a favor, and go ahead and double up this recipe once you know that the kiddos give them the ok! These cookies freeze up fantastic. My method is typically to make them on a Thursday night and double up. Then I only have to make breakfast cookies every other week or so. Freeze up what you don’t use on Friday morning and next Friday’s breakfast is set!

A note for my nut free friends!

I would love to hear from my nut free readers how your swap tries go. Breakfast cookies are some of my favorite kind of recipes because they are VERY forgiving. Meaning, I think you could try some swaps and still always have an edible cookie that tastes good. You can swap the almond butter for sunbutter (sunflower seed butter) or tahini (sesame seed butter), and swap the nuts for pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, or even shredded coconut. The almond flour is going to be your call. I think finely ground up seeds would work just fine here, or you can try another flour of your choice. You are going for a cookie dough consistency as pictured above. Remember that the almond flour that you are replacing is oily and not super absorbent. So if you choose to use something that is dry or very absorbent, back off on the amount. If you are fully nut AND seed free, I would try coconut butter for the almond butter, coconut shreds for the nuts, and for the almond flour, just swap for another flour of your choosing. The chia seed can be left out completely and still turn out.

Almond Raisin Breakfast Cookies

This basic recipe has nuts and dried fruit found in most anyone’s pantry! If your kids aren’t raisin kids, try mini chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips!

Print Recipe

Almond Raisin Breakfast Cookies

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature coconut oil not melted
1/3 cup almond butter
¼ cup honey
1 egg
2 cups oats
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup almonds coarsely chopped
½ cup raisins

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.
Blend the coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined.
Form the cookies in your hands, flattening them to the shape and size that you want. They do puff a little but not too much – just make them about the size that you want them to be, and then place them on your lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for small cookies, and 15 minutes for larger cookies, or until golden on the tops. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely. They firm up as they cool, and hold their texture very well.

Notes

If you prefer less nut texture, you can blend up the almonds to more of a fine chop.
You can swap the almond butter for any nut or seed butter that you like.
If you are egg free, this egg should be easily replaced with a flax egg or egg replacer.
These breakfast cookies are good at room temp in an airtight container for 3 days. They freeze up great as well, so leftovers can be put in the freezer.

Apricot Pistachio Breakfast Cookies

One of our newest favorite combinations, this one is such a fun change up! We are able to find shelled pistachios at Costco, as well as apricots, so this cost effective variation is definitely hopping on our rotation!

Print Recipe

Apricot Pistachio Breakfast Cookies

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature coconut oil not melted
1/3 cup almond butter
¼ cup honey
1 egg
2 cups oats
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup pistachios shelled
½ cup chopped dried apricots

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.
Blend the coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined.
Form the cookies in your hands, flattening them to the shape and size that you want. They do puff a little but not too much – just make them about the size that you want them to be, and then place them on your lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for small cookies, and 15 minutes for larger cookies, or until golden on the tops. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely. They firm up as they cool, and hold their texture very well.

Notes

If you prefer less nut texture, you can blend up the pistachios to more of a fine chop.
You can swap the almond butter for any nut or seed butter that you like.
If you are egg free, this egg should be easily replaced with a flax egg or egg replacer.
These breakfast cookies are good at room temp in an airtight container for 3 days. They freeze up great as well, so leftovers can be put in the freezer.

Banana Walnut Breakfast Cookies

Reminiscent of banana walnut bread, only this breakfast cookie version is perfect for on the go! Such fun flavors – bananas are always a kid favorite!

Print Recipe

Banana Walnut Breakfast Cookies

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature coconut oil not melted
1/3 cup almond butter
¼ cup honey
1 egg
2 cups oats
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup walnuts coarsely chopped
½ cup dried banana chips coarsely chopped

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.
Blend the coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined.
Form the cookies in your hands, flattening them to the shape and size that you want. They do puff a little but not too much – just make them about the size that you want them to be, and then place them on your lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for small cookies, and 15 minutes for larger cookies, or until golden on the tops. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely. They firm up as they cool, and hold their texture very well.

Notes

If you prefer less nut texture, you can blend up the walnuts to more of a fine chop.
You can swap the almond butter for any nut or seed butter that you like.
If you are egg free, this egg should be easily replaced with a flax egg or egg replacer.
These breakfast cookies are good at room temp in an airtight container for 3 days. They freeze up great as well, so leftovers can be put in the freezer.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Breakfast Cookies

Oh yes, I went there! This one is for momma…and I suppose the kids can have one too! Treat yourself dear momma! Cacao nibs are little bits of pure chocolate without the sugar added and packed with antioxidants, but don’t fear! The mild sweetness from the cookie and the freeze dried strawberries are in every bite and make those little bits of cocao nib taste just like sweetened chocolate!

Print Recipe

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Breakfast Cookies

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature coconut oil not melted
1/3 cup almond butter
¼ cup honey
1 egg
2 cups oats
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup freeze dried strawberries coarsely broken up
1/4 cup cacao nibs

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.
Blend the coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined.
Form the cookies in your hands, flattening them to the shape and size that you want. They do puff a little but not too much – just make them about the size that you want them to be, and then place them on your lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for small cookies, and 15 minutes for larger cookies, or until golden on the tops. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely. They firm up as they cool, and hold their texture very well.

Notes

You can swap the almond butter for any nut or seed butter that you like.
If you are egg free, this egg should be easily replaced with a flax egg or egg replacer.
These breakfast cookies are good at room temp in an airtight container for 3 days. They freeze up great as well, so leftovers can be put in the freezer.

Cranberry Pumpkin Seed Breakfast Cookies

This breakfast cookie is another that has seeds and dried fruit that are staples in many people’s pantries! I love the fun seed color, but you can blend them up if you wish.

Print Recipe

Cranberry Pumpkin Seed Breakfast Cookies

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature coconut oil not melted
1/3 cup almond butter
¼ cup honey
1 egg
2 cups oats
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup dried cranberries

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.
Blend the coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined.
Form the cookies in your hands, flattening them to the shape and size that you want. They do puff a little but not too much – just make them about the size that you want them to be, and then place them on your lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for small cookies, and 15 minutes for larger cookies, or until golden on the tops. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely. They firm up as they cool, and hold their texture very well.

Notes

I leave the pumpkin seeds whole, but you can chop them if you wish!
You can swap the almond butter for any nut or seed butter that you like.
If you are egg free, this egg should be easily replaced with a flax egg or egg replacer.
These breakfast cookies are good at room temp in an airtight container for 3 days. They freeze up great as well, so leftovers can be put in the freezer.

Pecan Fig Breakfast Cookies

And last, but certainly not least…my youngest *very* favorite breakfast cookie with her *very* favorite fruit in the whole wide world…figs! We always have the big bag of dried figs from Costco on hand, so this is an easy one to make for the littlest hands in the house – and you see the look on her very happy little face how happy she was to eat her food photography prop at the end!

Print Recipe

Pecan Fig Breakfast Cookies

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature coconut oil not melted
1/3 cup almond butter
¼ cup honey
1 egg
2 cups oats
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup pecans coarsely chopped
½ cup dried figs stem removed, and coarsely chopped

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.
Blend the coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined.
Form the cookies in your hands, flattening them to the shape and size that you want. They do puff a little but not too much – just make them about the size that you want them to be, and then place them on your lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for small cookies, and 15 minutes for larger cookies, or until golden on the tops. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely. They firm up as they cool, and hold their texture very well.

Notes

If you prefer less nut texture, you can blend up the pecans to more of a fine chop.
You can swap the almond butter for any nut or seed butter that you like.
If you are egg free, this egg should be easily replaced with a flax egg or egg replacer.
These breakfast cookies are good at room temp in an airtight container for 3 days. They freeze up great as well, so leftovers can be put in the freezer.

More real food recipes you might like!

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Nourishing 2 Week Meal Plan {Winter Inspired Part 1}

January 30, 2021

Learn how to build a 2 week meal plan for your family centered around whole, real food found in the winter, busy schedules, and nourishing families!

Finally!

After 7 years of blogging, 2 cookbooks, and countless in person workshops…I’ve made a meal plan! *Sound the trumpets and throw a parade!* I know so many of you have asked throughout the years, and I just never did it because really I never thought I was much of a meal planner. I have always had a bit of a “framework” in my head, gone shopping and bought seasonal food on sale for the week, and then built my week around that – for the last 11 years that I have had children in the house! But more and more of you are asking, and I decided that there definitely could be some value in showing you how I keep our menu seasonal to fit in our budget, as well as show you how I build a week of meals for a normal, “real world” family of five!

Raising Generation Nourished 2 Week Meal Plan {Winter Inspired Part 1}

Balancing Macros {Fats, Protein, Carbohydrates}

Healthy fats, proteins, and carbohydrates – they all matter when it comes to kids. It’s all about the balance/ratio that works for you and your family. This will look different for each family – and possibly each child! We are talking about normal, healthy children, without inflammatory diseases, etc here. There are special circumstances where a spurt of a more “keto” or other type eating style would benefit a child, or an adult working on healing some things. But for most normal children, a good balance of all 3 macros is the key to stable moods and blood sugars, really good sleep, and laser focus for every life activity. Keep in mind that growth spurts, seasons of stress/sports/extra activities will make the ratio need for each macro vary for your child. Listen to their body – kids are smart. Most of them don’t live to eat, they eat to live. And they crave what their body needs at that very moment. So make your meal planning mantra…“Make every bite count!” When you look at any given meal, are all 3 macros represented in a healthy way? If so, you are on your way!

Portion Size Considerations VERY Important – Don’t skip this section!

One of the reasons I have always hesitated making meal plans trying to portray portion size and meal prep for every kind of family. Every kid has different appetites (even within the same age group!), and every family has a different number of kids at varying ages! The way that I made meals when I had very small children in the house is actually quite different than how I make meals now. The meals are the same, but my method is different. Back then, I used to have way more leftovers! I think I ate leftovers for breakfast almost daily. Or we had leftovers for dinner at least 2 times per week. I’m lucky to get 1 dinner of leftovers for my whole family of 5 these days with 2 pre-teens in the house! I have to be intentional if I want leftovers. That means purposely doubling or tripling something so that I can use the meal again. SO! With that in mind, if you have older children or MORE children in the house than my 3, you may want to consider doubling some of what I have listed. And if you have just a toddler or 2 in the house, know that you probably won’t have to make as many dinners as I do! You’ll have more leftovers to pull from.

Meal Planning Baby Steps

If you pull up this meal plan and feel overwhelmed, slow down, and breathe a minute. Baby steps is key to not quitting. Most of the people that I polled wanted all 3 meals represented, and 2 weeks or more at a time. But if you are new to cooking and real food, you might need to back off on changing everything all at once. This is the real world, and I get that momma. This can be done without overwhelming time in the kitchen. Promise. I don’t have time for it, and kitchen work is part of my job! I don’t want you to quit, so please read through these thoughts!

Don’t change everything overnight – even if you are a jump in with both feet kind of person. Start out with one meal of the day. Maybe just start with fixing your breakfast routine. Once you have a rhythm set for that meal that feels good to you, then you can move onto lunch, or dinner.
Sit down with the whole family and make a menu TOGETHER. Everyone gets a favorite somewhere in the week. TELL THEM why – they will understand! You could go in so many different life skill directions in this conversation too. Everything from helping them see how good their bodies will feel eating real food, to helping them see how planning meals out helps the family budget.
Don’t shy away from a “rotation.” Once you figure out your rhythm…trust me it is like auto-pilot and so nice! You’ll see some similarities within each week, and you’ll see how I plan Sunday breakfast and dinners to help me on Monday every week. There is plenty of variety and change, so that things do get boring, but there is also some predictability. There are some things that look the same but have veggie or fruit switches depending on what I find on sale or in season, and you can do the same according to where you live.

A quick note about location, seasonal food, and availability

I found out real quick when I started doing my weekly shopping trip Stories on IG how vastly different food cost, availability of food, and seasonal differences are depending on location! I love getting messages and learning about how food is bought all over the world! Please keep in mind that where I live may not be where you live. Where I live, buying a half grass-fed cow for the year is affordable for many, and very available. That is definitely not the case everywhere. So where you see beef on my menu, you may have to swap for a different protein, or whatever meat is the best you can afford. I have readers from Europe that ask why we don’t eat much lamb, and people from East and West Coasts of the US that ask why we eat fish only occasionally. Both lamb and fish are quite costly where I live, so it is just not something that fits more than just weekly, if that. In the winter you will probably never see summer fruit like berries, or spring veggies like asparagus, because it is out of season in the frozen tundra of Michigan, and very expensive. Stick with the seasonality of where you live, buying the very best you can WITHIN the budget that you have for your family. Don’t go broke eating real food – you can do this smart within a budget.

SO! Let’s get started!

Here is a PDF for you to download of my full 2 Week Winter Inspired Meal Plan with links to recipes included. {See below this section for a blank version if you want to fill in your own!}

Want to build your own meal plan?

Go for it! My way of doing meals is definitely not the only way! And my recipes are not the only recipes around! Here is a blank PDF for you to print and fill out your own.

Winter Inspired Dinners to Swap in the Dinner Section

Stay tuned…

YES, I would like to make more of these! Stay tuned for another winter inspired meal plan in the coming weeks, and then I’ll jump into spring inspired meals when we get there! Since I am newer at making meal plans for sharing with readers, I would love to have your feedback so that this is as relevant for you. Let me know how you like the layout, etc. If I’m going to spend the amount of time I did to put this one together, I want to make sure they are going to be used!

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