Fill Your Freezer Without Filling Your Day

Today we're taking a break from our usual Simple Saturday post for a special feature!

As you may know by now, our blog is centered around a group of moms who get together once a month to make-ahead freezer meals for our families.  We've showed you how we organize our make-ahead parties, and also how to deal with food allergies when making-ahead for a group.  But, make-ahead cooking can take a lot of time and planning.  So today, we're excited to be a guest author over at Life As Mom, explaining how to Fill Your Freezer Without Filling Your Day!

What are YOUR tips and tricks for making make-ahead cooking an efficient way to care for your family?

Review: Coleman All-In-One Cooking System (Model No. 2000003609)

This post is the second in a series of posts from Richard Anderson, father of a 10-month-old girl, tech geek, and camping enthusiast.  His blogs include The StorageSavvy Blog and Sailing Sleipnir.

Last week, I posted about the Magma Nestable Non-Stick Stainless Steel Cookware, which was the perfect cookware set for this year's make-ahead camping trip. We purchased the set for our boat, so we were generally familiar with it before bringing it camping. Another kitchen item was purchased new this year, however, and so we had no idea what we might be getting ourselves into. But, when my wife saw the "slow cooker" feature of this camp stove, she simply had to have it. Unfortunately, the slow cooker feature was a bit of a disappointment, but the other features of this little stove worked great.

Top Five Tips for a Nutritious Make-Ahead Lunch

Today we're honored to host guest author Stacy Cacciatore from the healthy eating blog Five a Day the Fun Way.  Stacy started Five a Day the Fun Way to provide parents with realistic recipes, tips, activities, and ideas to make eating healthy fun for the entire family.

As an overweight child, anorexic teen, and obese adult, Stacy struggled with her weight for her entire life. After hitting an all-time high of 220 pounds, she decided something needed to change. She immersed herself in education about health, nutrition and wellness, resulting in losing 80 pounds, 11 sizes, and half her body fat.  As a mom, she wants to ensure her children don’t experience the same struggles with weight and food. She writes Five a Day the Fun Way to share her experiences, research, struggles, and successes in getting her entire family to eat healthier.

Check out Stacy's blog and website for more information about Stacy, her writing, and other projects. You can contact her at stacy@stacycacciatore.com.

Whether you are trying to pack a healthy lunch for your child for summer camp, school, or even for yourself for work, it’s not easy to bring a lunch that is healthy, quick, affordable, delicious, and can withstand making ahead.

As a busy mom, I struggle with balancing convenience, time, and nutrition. It seems that I can typically achieve one or two of these criteria, but not all three. Last week I found myself succumbing to the allure and convenience of the Lunchable. I dreaded my decision when I read that Lunchables are full of nitrates, high fructose corn syrup, and refined flour.

I immediately decided to set out to find healthy lunch ideas that I could make ahead on Sunday night for the entire week.

Given that I had recently had lunch with my son at his school and saw how the kids trade lunch items like silly bandz, I wanted to make a lunch that was not only nutritious, but that my kids would be excited to eat (and not trade in for chips.)

Here are my top five tips for making a healthy lunch that your kids will actually eat:

Review: Magma Nestable Non-Stick Stainless Steel Cookware (10-Piece Set) (Model No. A10-365L)

This post is the first in a series of posts from Richard Anderson, father of a 10-month-old girl, tech geek, and camping enthusiast.  His blogs include The StorageSavvy Blog and Sailing Sleipnir.

This year for our annual Memorial Day Camping Trip, we decided to try "make-ahead" camping. So instead of bringing raw ingredients and preparing everything at the campsite, all of our meals were prepared ahead of time in various ways, some cooked and frozen, others chopped and ready for cooking, etc. This made meal time quicker, easier, and tastier, and also made clean up easier. Our make-ahead camping experience was a success. And here the first post in a mini-series about some of the equipment that made it all happen.

How To Host A Make-Ahead Party: Dealing With Food Allergies

Today we're excited to host guest author Anne Simpson!  Anne is the author of food blogs Quick and Easy, Cheap and Healthy: Real Food for the Real World, and When Food Is Dangerous: Encouragement for Moms of Food-Allergic Kids.  Anne is also a wife and mother of two boys, one of whom suffers from severe food allergies.  Today Anne is joining us to share some great tips about handling food allergies and sensitivities at make-ahead parties!



So, you want to host a make-ahead party, but some of your would-be fellow chefs have food allergies or sensitivities and you want them to feel safe and comfortable so they can join in the fun. Or maybe you are the would-be fellow chef and you want to join in but you don’t exactly feel safe and comfortable with other people cooking your food.


Is it possible to satisfy both sides and hold a successful make-ahead party? I think so, if you follow a few guidelines.

Test Environments for Parents

Today's post is a wonderful guest piece authored by - gasp! - a Dada rather than a Mama. Richard Anderson is the husband of Eastside Make-Ahead Mama Devon Thurtle Anderson and father to our beautiful baby daughter, Morgan.  Richard is also an IT professional with a blog that aims to decipher the complex issues around enterprise storage systems, technology, and trends in the industry.  (It's okay if your eyes glazed over for a minute there; that's a common occurrence in our house.)  Believe it or not, sometimes enterprise storage systems can teach us a thing or two about raising our kids, and we're pleased to share what Richard has to say on the subject.

So I’ve been a father for about 6 months now, and over that time I’ve found that the life of a parent is essentially a series of experiments with real life consequences.  Every day I wonder whether I’m doing the right thing for my daughter, and when I have to make a decision about pretty much anything related to her, I must weigh the possible consequences of each option.

Morgan, a busy six-month-old, who may
or may not be left-handed.

Case in point, I was feeding my daughter last night at 1:00 a.m., and my mind started wandering, as it usually does--this time about my daughter’s handedness.  My wife and I believe she is left-handed, partly because we both are, and partly because she seems to favor her left hand, but it’s really too early to tell.  Very early on, we found that she sleeps best at night when she’s swaddled nice and tight, but after a couple of months she stopped sleeping easily unless we kept just her left arm free, another check in the left-handed box.  I now leave her left arm free every time I swaddle her, without exception, which leads me to the concern I suddenly felt last night --

Does keeping my daughter's right arm tight in the swaddle stifle the development of that arm?  Could she possibly be right-handed but we are only allowing the left arm to develop?  Should I leave her right arm out next time?  What is the consequence of continuing with the status quo?  She sleeps well with the status quo, which means I sleep well.  What is the consequence of switching arms?  Would she have trouble sleeping and thus keep me up all night if I switch her arm?  Or would she still sleep well and prove over time that she’s actually right-handed?  Should I feed her apples or the chicken dinner?  How do you handcuff a one-armed man?

The challenge here is that I don’t have a test-lab (aka: test baby) to experiment with different swaddling techniques or foods in order to answer these questions.  As parents, we (the proverbial "we") are constantly experimenting with real-live children and hoping we don’t screw up.  What's worse is that humans are all unique, so even your first child doesn't necessarily teach you everything you need to know for your second.

Out in the business world, there are test environments for all sorts of systems, software, electronics, cars, etc. where experiments are tested and proven first, then put in place in production environments.  The consequence for screwing up most of these systems?  Somebody, somewhere, may not be able to buy an iPhone that day.  The consequence for messing up in parenting?  Ruining our children, ruining our own lives, or both.  Sometimes when I have a stressful day at work, coming home to take care of my daughter puts things into perspective.

Richard's blog, The Storagesavvy Blog, can be found at www.storagesavvy.com.