100. Get Out of Your Dinner Rut: Debunking Myths About Family Meals with Madison Wetherill

Master the art of enjoying home-cooked meals with Madison Wetherill, today's guest on the Burnt Pancakes Podcast. Madison, a mom of three boys and a former picky eater turned food blogger, takes us on her personal journey from culinary novice to finding solace and joy in the kitchen. 

Discover how she turned mealtime into a therapeutic experience and learn her secrets for transforming everyday cooking from a stressful chore into a delightful family activity.

Juggling family life and mealtime madness? We've got you covered with practical meal planning strategies that fit seamlessly into even the busiest of schedules. From quick stir fries to versatile salsa chicken, we discuss how to keep meals exciting without overwhelming yourself. 

Madison shares tips to help you break free from repetitive dinners, all while maintaining a balance between catering to picky eaters and introducing new tastes to your family's palate.

Explore modern kitchen gadgets like the Instant Pot and air fryer, which promise to revolutionize your meal prep routine. 

In this Episode:

(00:09) - Finding Joy in Cooking

(07:07) - Meal Planning for Busy Families

(10:51) - Strategies for Picky Eaters

(20:39) - Family Involvement in Cooking

(29:08) - Instant Pot and Air Fryer Versatility

(36:00) - Streamlining Meal Prep for Busy Families

Connect with Madison Wetherill:

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Transcript

00:09 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Hello, hello, and welcome back to the burnt pancakes podcast, the podcast where we embrace the messiness of motherhood one momversation at a time. I'm your host, katie Fenske, and I'm on a mission to remind moms that everyone burns their first pancake. Now, if you're anything like me, you've stood in front of the fridge at five o'clock at night thinking what the heck am I going to serve for dinner tonight? Well, today's guest is here to help us out with our dinner rut. Madison Weatherill is a mom food blogger and self-proclaimed former picky eater who's on a mission to make mealtime exciting again. Whether you're trying to spice up your weeknight dinner or finally convince your kids to eat something other than chicken nuggets, madison's got practical tips and fresh ideas to bring the joy back to cooking. Let's jump into this conversation, madison welcome to the podcast. 

01:01 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I'm so excited to chat today. 

01:04 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I am looking forward to this because just the other day, yesterday at the grocery store, I was just staring at the meat aisle like I am so lost right now. I am terrible at dinners, meal planning. I am that mom that feels like I'm in a dinner rut, so you are here to save me. 

01:20 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yes, I'm so happy too, and hopefully by the end of this you're going to feel like so inspired to go back to that grocery aisle and be like that's what I'm going to make tonight. 

01:28 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay, well why don't you start off? Just introduce yourself, tell me how many kids you have, how old they are, where you're from. 

01:34 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yeah, so, um, my name is Madison Weatherill and I have three boys, so they are nine, yes, boy mom, um, nine, seven and almost three. And so, um, we're in Arizona, which is amazing. We love it here, just love the weather that we get to experience here. But, um, yeah, with three boys, we lead a very busy life and we eat a lot of food. 

01:55 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, oh my, I just finished giving my kids lunch and I was like you're fed, you're good for an hour, don't come in. Mine are on spring break right now, so hopefully they don't come in. I actually was just in Arizona last weekend. Oh, how fun. My oldest had a baseball tournament there, so, oh, that's perfect. Yep, we were all over Arizona. I felt like driving everywhere. Okay, well, tell me a little bit about how you got into the food blogging world. 

02:20 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yeah, so when I so I should go back even before I started blogging really um, when my husband and I got married, I could cook nothing. Like I didn't grow up cooking. Um, I was very picky growing up and so the idea of cooking just didn't even like interest me. And so when we got married, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I'm like responsible for feeding two people now and like box macaroni and cheese is probably not going to cut it for the rest of our lives, yeah, and so hungrier too. 

02:49 - Katie Fenske (Host)
They want like meals. 

02:50 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yes, yes, exactly. And you know, we both grew up with like moms who made meals and things like that. And so I'm like, all right, I need to like step into this and um, so I kind of started just playing with the idea of making things. We had a lot of like pasta and like chicken sausage and like those kinds of super, super simple meals. And when I was at the time I was working in a corporate job and, um, the job I worked at was very like blue collar, like it was like a warehouse vibe, and so when I would come home, I just wanted to like decompress and make something with my hands. And so when I would come home, I just wanted to like decompress and make something with my hands. And so I started to suddenly like really enjoy cooking and find it like therapeutic in a way. And it was the strangest experience because, again, like it didn't grow up that way. 

03:35
I remember like kind of gawking at my friends that like knew how to throw things together or like even baking like a boxed brownie mix was like magical to me. I was just like I don't understand how you just like throw this together and so so, yeah, so it became this thing that I was like interested in and I just kind of started going from there and so, um, with that, I just started kind of sharing that journey and sharing, like, what I was learning and that type of thing. And that's back when blogging felt very small, Like it was like a community that you were building and you you knew the people who are commenting, like people did comment on things back then, Um, and so it just kind of took off from there and then, as you know, my journey of cooking and then later really refining into like eating healthier and like serving my family like really wholesome and nutritious meals, Just it's just evolved over the years. Um, but it's funny because I still I now have the reverse experience of like I used to gawk at my friends who could cook these things and now I have my friends that do that to me sometimes and they're just like you know. So I get the stories of like I can't believe you like love cooking. 

04:40
I do not like cooking, I don't want to spend my time in the kitchen, but I also want to eat healthy food, and so now it's kind of come, you know, full circle and now I get to help people, you know, find that joy again in cooking and hopefully feel less overwhelmed by it. Because if there's one thing that I can sum up as like the number one thing I hear from people, it's that cooking is complicated, it's too difficult and really it can be a lot more simple than I think people make it out to be. So hopefully we'll kind of dig into that and like that will be a takeaway that people have today. 

05:08 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yes, cause for me I like dread dinner time and I feel like now I'm just so over it that it's like just throw something on their plate, cut up an apple here's some cheese stick and it's like call that dinner, cause I just I don't have it in my brain to think about like plan ahead, and when I hear the word meal planning it's like, oh, that sounds awful. Well, can we? 

05:29 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
start there Because. 

05:30
I actually I find that this is one of those things that people, yeah, like and honestly I have that visceral reaction to when I hear the word meal prepping. So I want to kind of share that. Like, my version of meal prepping is not probably what you're imagining when you think of, like the little divided containers where you're eating the same thing for seven days straight. Like that is not what my version of meal prepping is, because while there is a lot of simplicity in what we're going to talk about and healthy eating and all of that stuff, I also really like being creative. I like eating different things and I don't really want to eat the same thing more than two or three days in a row. 

06:04
So when I think of meal prepping, for me that is actually just prepping and planning ahead in little ways. So it might be that you're making a pot of rice for the week, maybe you're chopping some veggies to be able to have in different ways, whether you're going to like roast them or have them on a salad or just have them raw, whatever it looks like. So it's like prepping ahead for these pieces and components that you can put together into meals later on. That is what I think meal prepping can be for people, and that is what's going to help you to save time later and help you, you know, overcome that dinner rut. Overcome that like overwhelm that you feel when it is dinner time, because you have planned ahead and you have some things that are going to make things faster for you. 

06:47 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Love that, do you? Are you the type of person like you spend Sunday figuring out this is what we're serving Monday, this is what we're serving Tuesday, cause I don't do any of that. And so Monday night's here and I'm like, hmm, what are we going to feed the kids tonight? 

07:01 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
How do I do that? Yeah, well, I really think the first step is carving out that time and creating that habit. So this actually started for us when we started doing um grocery delivery and grocery you know ordering online and having your groceries delivered, or we used to pick it up in person. 

07:17
But, um, when I started doing that, I would get really frustrated because I would kind of miss the window of like when I could add to the grocery cart. And this was before you know, it was before COVID, so things were not as accessible as they are now. But I remember being like, okay, I have got to build this habit and so I would carve out a time. It used to be Saturdays and I would just spend a couple of hours Actually, I shouldn't even say hours. 

07:40
I would spend maybe 30 minutes to 45 minutes just thinking about what are we going to make this week, and so kind of like a very simple process for that is just open up your calendar, open up some place that you store recipes that you want to make whether that is like a note on your phone, pinterest, however, you know, whatever works for you, maybe it's a cookbook that you actually like to cook from, like a physical one, and you're just going to look at your week and you're going to say, all right, monday night we have X, y, z going on. 

08:05
That's going to be a good night for me to make something quick and fast. On Tuesday I actually get off of work a little bit early and I'm going to have a little bit more time, so that's the night that I'm going to prep something a little bit more elaborate, and so you start to do that, start to build that habit, and then you just make that a routine that you go to every week, because you're right, if you don't have that, then Monday night's going to roll around and you're going to say what's for dinner and it's just a frustrating experience. 

08:29
Exactly, and you're going to default to whatever is easy right, like our brain is going to keep us stuck in those old habits. 

08:36
And so, yeah, if you want to make, like a different choice in the future, you have to start by kind of setting that routine up for yourself and working around whatever schedule works for you, because you know you're going to have to have some trial and error of like when it's best for you to make that plan and then working kind of backwards from there. Um, but yeah, that is definitely the first step is just having that little bit of time for you to think ahead, because if you don't, there's just no way that you're going to choose something different than what you've always chosen. 

09:05 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right, Okay, what are some of your like easy go-to recipes? We have baseball almost every night, so I need like quick stuff. What's, what are some easy meals? 

09:14 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yeah, so some of our favorites, um, and we'll kind of get into how you even make these a little bit more exciting. But we love like a good stir fry, so we will switch up like what protein we'll use. Maybe it's like chicken we use rotisserie chicken a lot too which is like you can shred it at the beginning of the week and then just have it for multiple meals, um, but you can also do something like ground pork or ground beef, whatever type of ground meat that you like. Um, we really love doing like salsa chicken, which is like stupid easy. It's like literally chicken breast and salsa in your instant pot, ready to go for you, and then that can be turned into, like you know, salsa chicken bowls. It can be turned into a burrito or a tostada or whatever your kid's like. You can make it into nachos, um. But I find that things like that that are really flexible can keep kids interested, even if they're like oh, chicken again. 

10:03
You know, yeah, so, yeah, those, those two are the first two that come to mind. Um, but we are really simple when it comes to food, like, I will default to like protein, veggies and like some kind of starch, which usually for us it's just like white rice from the instant pot. Um, because you can rotate those out and make them feel new, even though it's kind of the same thing over and over again, but you can switch which, you know which seasonings you use, or is it going to be like grilled chicken or shredded chicken, like that type of thing? So, again, it feels like fresh and exciting, but it also has a familiarity to it for, like some of the kids who might not like new things as much, it's like oh, I recognize this, I've had this before. This is like a safe food for me. 

10:48 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right. Does that help with picky eaters? Then? Like cause you say you are a self-proclaimed former picky eater. I feel like my kids are picky eaters only because I'm not like giving them up enough variety, enough times for them to like try it. Like my older one now I can say like just eat it, just try it, and he's much better. My younger one like wants nothing to do with it, but I like science behind that. 

11:11 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
That. There's like there's sort of a process that kids will go through between, like the first time they see something they're probably going to like, push it off their plate and be like and we watch this happen with, like kids when they first start to eat solid foods, the first time you give them broccoli, they're going to be like no, I'm not touching that. The second time they might play with it. And then the third time they might like take a bite and spit it out. All of that is like a normal progression of getting used to new foods. 

11:33
When we have older kids who aren't, you know, maybe in that experimenting phase they might not do all of those things and they'll just stick with the like no, I'm good. So, yes, there is something to like repeatedly offering the same types of foods to kids, and I do think just over time kids do get more used to that. But there's also other strategies you can use for like introducing a new food with a safe food. So there've been many, many times where I've served a dinner and one of my sons just doesn't eat it and he's okay with that, like he's not going to starve, he's not going to go to bed and like not sleep. Well, he just might be like no, thank you, I don't like that, and that's okay. 

12:11
Then there's other times where maybe I have something new and some rice or fruit or something on the side and he eats what he likes. He eats the rice or the fruit and that's all he eats. Um, but again, if you keep offering that, you'll find that maybe eventually they will try it, maybe they won't, maybe they'll just be meals that you guys make that you, your kids maybe, don't prefer. Um, I try not to do those types of meals every single day of the week. 

12:34 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right, like I kind of vary and rotate through those. 

12:37 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Um, that same son also he does not like onions, so if there's onions in anything he will not touch it. So sometimes, like an onion, yeah, sometimes I will like take his portion out and then I'll make the thing. You know it's like a taco bowl. I'll take his out and I'll make the rest of ours with onions and like for me that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make because it he's not eating chicken nuggets, right, while we all eat something else like he's still eating with us and it still looks like ours. 

13:04
There's just one ingredient missing, because we all have preferences, right, and I think sometimes picky kids, picky eaters, get a bad rap because they don't like certain things. But if we're all honest with ourselves as adults, there's things that we don't like either and would like prefer not to eat. Yeah, we just have been, you know, raised to be a little bit. We've been raised to be polite and just eat it anyway or you know, kind of push through that. So sorry, I kind of got off on a tangent there. But yeah, when it comes to like the picky eating, there really is a like, a method to that of just offering it frequently enough where it's like familiar to them but, also offering it in a way that feels safe to them, where it's like I'm not going to force you to eat this. 

13:43
If you want to try it, go ahead. I think it's really yummy. Let me know what you think. Kind of thing, um, and that over time is going to build that trust to help them want to try new things Okay. 

13:53 - Katie Fenske (Host)
So you never say you have to take one taste of it. 

13:56 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
I don't Um and, like I said, there's been times where my son just doesn't eat Um, and I also recognize that there are like picky eating is such a like. There's kids who have maybe more like medical issues that you know factor into picky eating, and then there's kids who just don't prefer certain ingredients and there's. So there's a lot of different like strategies and tools, depending on what different kids fall into Um. But I have found for us, like forced eating is just never going to end well Um, it's never going to like magically turn them into kids that all of a sudden like those foods. 

14:32
Yeah, and so, um, another strategy that can work really well is like introducing foods in more, again like that safe way, which can sometimes be making it into, um, almost like modular, so like, if it's a taco bowl, for example, maybe you have all of the different toppings and different bowls and they can sort of choose what they want to put on. And what's funny is my that same son, who doesn't like onions, he will sometimes put like pickled red onions on a taco bowl and I'm like, but you don't like onions. And he's like but I like them. That way, I'm like okay. 

15:05
But I think part of it is just that he got to choose, you know he got to choose how much he put on his plate versus maybe if I had made it for him I might've put a lot more than he wanted. Or sometimes he'll say well, I like. I like dipping chips into salsa, but I don't like salsa on my taco bowl. I'm like okay that's interesting. Yeah, so giving them yeah. 

15:25 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I like the fact that you can have them like dish it out themselves. 

15:28 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yes, and that is such a fun like experience with the food too, right, like, not every meal is necessarily going to be like that, but I have found that those any type of meal that we can do where it's like everybody gets to add their own toppings Everybody just has fun. Like, everybody likes to get their hands a little bit dirty and, you know, make them, make themselves a meal that they're proud of, and again then they can kind of, you know, add more cheese if they want more cheese, or at we do it with things like, um, a lot of like Greek food is really fun for that, because you can have like feta on the side and some like cucumbers and tomatoes and things like that, and everyone can just kind of dish out. You know, a little bit of tzatziki sauce or whatever. 

16:06
Um, those meals are not the meals I'm going to make when I have baseball practice, right, or like I have 15 minutes to prep dinner, but maybe that's a Saturday meal where we have extra time and we can like enjoy that, you know, slower meal as a family, um, but yeah, giving those kids just exposure to different things in different types of ways is really going to help them to start to recognize them, maybe be curious, maybe try them, um, but yeah, going back to your original question, for us forcing food is just not not something that I've seen that works really well. It's not something that ever worked for me as a kid growing up who was picky either. So yeah, for us that's just. I'd rather expose them to stuff over time and if they choose not to like it, that's okay. 

16:44 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, yeah, Um, what would be some ingredients that might like spice up your dinner a little bit that we're not thinking of? Like I I bought chicken and I bought ground beef or ground turkey. Both of those were on sale at the grocery store and I was like, sweet, I'm going to grab those. And I got home and I'm like I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'm going to do something Cause they were on sale. So what are some things? 

17:10 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
that you could do to spice up your dinner and I just kind of have in my fridge all the time is pickled onions, pickled red onions and pickled red cabbage, which is I would have told you I did not like cabbage until recently when I was like I really like it pickled. 

17:24
It has this like vibrancy to it, but it also adds like a crunch. So again, I keep going back to the taco bowl thing, cause we eat taco bowls a lot, um, but if you add that to like a taco bowl or a salsa chicken bowl or whatever like, it just adds fun color, it adds that crunch and then it has just like this bright, like acidity to it. You can do the same thing with pickled jalapenos. I mean, you can buy those things too, but it's such an easy process to make it yourself and then it ha, it becomes this like fun thing where, like I made that in my kitchen and I get to just like sprinkle it on. Um. So those are some for a lot of different bowls and you know just are a lot of different types of meals. That pickled flavor I don't actually like pickles themselves, but pickling vegetables like that I do like um, that can add a lot of things. 

18:10
I also think just people kind of underestimate, like seasonings in general. So you said you got chicken breasts right. So like there are so many different varieties of seasonings that you can make at home and a lot of the time you probably already have the spices anyway, um, but just like putting that together in a different way even if you're going to make it the same way you always make it you can change out those flavors to kind of bring something out of that recipe that you're making a little bit differently. Um, and then what was the other one? You said Ground Turkey. 

18:42
Okay, so one of my favorite things to make with ground Turkey is actually like a Turkey stir fry. So I'll shred um carrots and zucchini and then make like a little homemade like teriyaki sauce, and then you just like serve that over rice and it's so simple but it's so fresh, like having the fresh vegetables in that way. And there's ways to make that faster. You know you can buy pre-shredded carrots if you want. I think they're better homemade like shredded, they just taste fresher. But again, that's another like quick win that you can just save a little bit of time at the store. But yeah, those like homemade sauces that are just a couple of ingredients can make a big difference too. And just making it maybe it's all in my head, I don't know, but it just feels fresher and it feels like more yummy because it was made in my kitchen rather than like poured out of a bottle, right? 

19:30 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right, and your kids eat all of that. Do you have any kids that don't like food touching where they don't want stuff mixed? My deconstructed bowls yes. 

19:41 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yes, I definitely have. Um, they're a little bit past that now, the older two, but my youngest is still a little bit that way, um, and I think that's very normal for like two year olds. Like they're very, you know, they're asserting all of their independence and things like that. So sometimes he'll just like pick out like a pea and he's like ew, and I'm like okay, just put it on the side of your plate, it's okay. Sometimes they're putting them in my bowl, that's okay too. Um, I think it's so easy for us to be like offended when our kids like don't like what we served them because we spent time on it. 

20:09
I slaved all night, exactly, exactly, but it's not like a personal attack on you, um, and you know, I think how we approach them, not liking things is what's going to like set them up for success in the future of being like it's okay. If you don't like a food, you're not a bad person because you don't like onions, right, like, um. So, yeah, so I do have kids that don't like things to touch, and if that is the case, then again, like I kind of just like, leave a portion off to the side, or maybe that becomes a meal. That then is like our deconstructed meal where everybody can kind of make their own. You know, um, I think it's a lot more simple if it's all just dished up together, but it doesn't always have to be, you know. 

20:47 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah. 

20:47 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
And so, yeah, I can think knowing your kid and adapting some of the things to them can be a way to just help them to feel safe at the dinner table and help them to want to try new things. When you offer it, um, versus always just being like, no, this is the way that it's served and you're going to eat it. Because, again, like, you have to kind of choose your battles and choose, like, what is allowed. You know, like there have been moments where my son's like, can't I just go get something from the fridge and I'm like, no, this is what we served for dinner. If you don't want to eat it, that's okay with me, but you don't get to go, like, make something else. 

21:18
So, choosing, like, kind of, what the rules are in your family, um, I think can be helpful. And if you decide, like it is worth it to me to be able to have us all sit together and eat somewhat of the same meal, even if one person's is deconstructed and mine is mixed together, like that's okay, you might decide that's not okay for you and that's okay too, like. But just kind of deciding like, what level of autonomy are we going to give our kids in these conversations I think can be helpful in like just pre-deciding that so that you know, like this is how dinner time's going to go. 

21:51 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, yeah. Do you ever get your kids involved in making dinners? 

21:55 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yes, actually, um, my kids are very involved in making dinners, sometimes to the point where I'm like I just want to cook by myself. I don't, so I didn't mention this earlier work, would they help? Yeah, I didn't mention this earlier, but we also homeschool and so, um, our kids are always around and always learning. Um, but it's actually really fun because over the years I've watched my kids actually get better at cooking and like they can be really helpful when I need them to. You know, especially if I have a more complex dish where I'm like I need to prep and chop things and I need to make a sauce over here, like I can have my oldest son like chop the peppers for me and he can do that proficiently. I actually think a lot of parents ask, like, how do I get my kids more involved in the kitchen? And often I find that people just aren't letting them. 

22:41
Um, it can be slower, it can be messier and it can be frustrating sometimes, but they, they just love it, especially like if you ever watch like a little toddler who's like 18 months, who can stand on their little like kitchen helper stool like my, my youngest and he just loves to chop anything that I will give him, and usually it's like fake, you know stuff that we're not actually going to use, but he's just getting confident and using his own little toddler knife to be able to chop things. So I do also think that has a huge effect, though, in kids just being interested in food, like, I mean, kids are interested in food by default, but it isn't always the food we want them to be. But yes, I have definitely seen just a transition with all of my kids over time. Like if they helped to chop the broccoli for dinner, they're going to be much more likely to put a couple of pieces on their plate versus if they are not involved at all. They have no autonomy in what's being served for dinner there. 

23:35
Again, it just like creates this distrust between, like, mom and the kids, and so even asking them, like when you go to sit down and plan your meals for the week, saying like gosh, I don't know what should we have for dinner on Thursday, they're probably going to say pizza, tacos, maybe chicken nuggets, like they're probably going to give you those answers, Um, and every once in a while just say, okay, yeah, that's what we're going to have and maybe instead of like the frozen chicken nuggets, you're making your homemade chicken nuggets or something or you're making them in the air fryer or whatever. 

24:03
Um, but yeah, I think getting kids involved has such a strong effect of just creating that family bond, that family dynamic, Um, and it can actually be fun, Like there have been times where I remember one time we made it was like a Greek meal and I was actually making homemade like pita bread. It was the first time I'd ever made it. It was a lot. 

24:24 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Let me just be honest Cause it was that. 

24:26 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
And we made some like Greek chicken, like a marinated Greek chicken, and we had like the cucumber tomato mixture on the side, and then we made homemade tzatziki. But it was really fun because there's five of us, so each of us kind of took a part of that meal and was able to make that part of the meal. And then when we came down and like sat down for dinner, it was like, wow, you know, thank you so and so for making that part of the meal and thank you for making this part of the meal. And it was just everybody appreciated it so much more because everybody literally had their hands in the process of making that meal. So it can really be like a fun family bonding experience. 

25:01
But I will say, if, like, cooking is super stressful for you right now, that's probably sounding terrible to you. You're probably like, uh, no, so you don't have to start with that, right? But like, think of little ways to get your kids involved over time. Maybe they can wash the fruit for breakfast, maybe they can help you, you know, mix the eggs together for breakfast or crack the eggs as they get older. Um, but those are all life skills that our kids are going to need when they get older and they get into college and have to make their own meals and things like that. So I think the more we can build up the tolerance to let them help it's it's only going to benefit our kids long term, right. 

25:36 - Katie Fenske (Host)
This makes me think I took a cooking class when, on our honeymoon, we went to Italy and one of the things we did was a cooking class, and he took us from the market, like, we went to the market during the day, picked out all the food, we cooked it all together and then we sat down and ate it together. That's what I should be doing with my boys, like you. Well, that down and ate it together, that's what I should be doing with my boys, like you. Well, they do like to help at the grocery store. They're crazy, but it's like go pick out five apples for me, you know, go pick out whatever we're we're having, um. But I feel like I need to get them more involved in the meal prepping. 

26:04 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Meal prepping and plating I like that idea of how the dishing out the meals is a really good idea too. Like there are so many. If you were to sit down and like literally map out every single step that it takes to make one meal, it's a lot. And so getting your family involved in just like even little things, um and again. I don't I don't necessarily always want that help, but when I need it it's really helpful to be like hey, bud, can you go make the rice for me? And he knows exactly how to make it in the instant pot. Now one he's watched me do it a million times to. I've like taken him alongside me to do it with me and now he can do it himself. 

26:38
Um, but yeah, I think just building that muscle over time, it's like that is going to make it so much easier for you in the long run and like someday maybe my kids will be making dinner for me. 

26:48 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I don't know. Oh, I was going to say to their future wives are going to thank you. My husband is very good in the kitchen and I'm like thank you, mother-in-law, because he I appreciate that so much that he's there to help and I think that's like a really normal thing that's happening these days. 

27:03 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Like I, more and more of my friends, like their husbands, are actually like fully in charge of the cooking. You know, for us I love the cooking, so I definitely do like 90%, but that other 10% where I'm like working and need him to start on dinner or whatever, like it's just really nice to know that he can help with that, but also that our recipes, like that we're making constantly on rotation, are familiar enough to him, Cause that's something that we haven't really touched on yet. But, like I really think having like those back pocket meals is so important for you to rely on, because when life gets busy or when you don't feel like making something new, you know like I can easily make this, this meal that just feels easy to us, right. 

27:42 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay, this is a funny story. My dad so we're in California my dad grew up fishing all the time and so he would have fresh tuna all the time and that's what we ate a lot for dinner. And so I'd say, mom, what's for dinner? And she's like we're having tuna. I'm like, oh, tuna again. And now I'm like we had fresh caught tuna all the time and I complained about that as a kid. 

28:05 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
It's awful, yeah, well, you just you didn't know, right. And now? 

28:09 - Katie Fenske (Host)
you're. Then we had a lot from the store right yeah well, and that's. 

28:14 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
I think that happened to a lot of us growing up too, like we had a lot of the same types of foods over and over again. I had like a running joke with my best friend that I grew up with, where every time I'd go to her house for dinner we had spaghetti, and every time she came to my house we had chicken, every single time. I don't know if our parents planned that on purpose, if it just happened to be that, but um, to this day I'm sure she would tell you like oh yeah, we always had chicken at your house, not in the house. 

28:37 - Katie Fenske (Host)
That's all, um, I have. This is a question I had crock pot versus Instapot. Which do you prefer? I don't have an Instapot yet, but it's like it's all the rage and I barely use my crock pot Cause to me it seems like I have to like. None of the recipes seem like things my kids would eat, and so I tend to not use it that much, even though it's like that's the perfect thing for a baseball night. 

29:01 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
So yes, yes, versus. 

29:03 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Instapot. 

29:04 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
So I probably am going to have the different opinion. But I don't have a crock pot and I have an instant pot. I actually used to have a crock pot, and when the instant pot came out, I was like I don't know if I want another gadget, like I don't know if I'm going to use this, and I actually borrowed my mom's for a week because she had one and really liked it. So I borrowed hers for a week and then ended up not giving it back, and she just got a new one because I actually really liked it. Funny enough though, the thing we make the most in it is actually rice. Um, or like. 

29:32
There's a recipe on our website that I can kind of put in the resources page I'll create for you. That is literally the easiest way to make Jasmine rice in the instant pot takes three minutes and it is the fluffiest like easiest rice ever. 

29:44
So then I can get rid of my rice cooker, exactly, um, but yeah, instead of having a crock pot, I just use my instant pot. Now and I will say there's like probably a handful of times where I've made something where I'm like a bigger crock pot actually would have fit this better, but 99% of the time the instant pot works just as well, okay, and like, the base of it is just as big enough that it works for it. There's a slow cooker setting. You can make yogurt in it, you can make like soups and broths, and we make homemade chicken broth all the time. Actually, we don't even buy store-bought broth anymore because we just make it. Um, but yeah, I would say I mean, there's nothing wrong with the crock pot right? 

30:23 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Is it faster than a crock pot? 

30:26 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
It has an actual like slow cook setting. So if you need to do something like low and slow, you can do that, but there's a pressure cook option. So like, for example, salsa chicken. If you were going to do that in the crock pot it would take I don't know six to eight hours probably. If you do it on high pressure it takes 15 minutes. 

30:44 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh my gosh, yeah, okay, so I'm used to doing stew. We do stew in the crock pot. Is that something that you could do in the Instapot? Yep, definitely. What about the other go-to is St Patrick's day corn beef. Would you do that, but in the pressure cooker side? 

31:00 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
You know I don't know if I have before, but you probably could Um, I have found that there's certain cuts of meat that are they are designed to. You know there be. They're just designed to be low and slow, right, and if you try to shortcut it, like sometimes I've done, like a pork shoulder, but in the high pressure mode and it can get. It just needs a little bit more time than like. So it's like an hour and a half instead of again like 10 to 12 hours in a slow cooker. Um, but for the most part I haven't found much that I'm like Ooh, I probably should have done that a different way and then, but then it allows you also to like. I'm pretty sure most of the newer models have, like the delay function. 

31:37
So if you cause a lot of crock pot recipes, it's actually like four hours and you're like well, I can't make that at eight o'clock in the morning and have it ready for dinner, cause that's eight hours you know, yeah, so if you can delay it and then start it when you need it to or um, you know there's just different options like that, but yeah, I have found it to be just as good and I feel like I use it more often now than I ever used my crock pot, just because it has so much versatility. 

32:04 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay, did you start using it Like you had a recipe book for in-spot recipes, or did you make up your own? 

32:11 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
No, I would either make up my own or just use other. You know there's so many amazing food blogs out there, so just kind of finding ones that worked for what I was looking for. Um, there are like definitely ways that you can kind of convert certain recipes from like slow cooker to instant pot if you need to, but just kind of depends on what it is that we're cooking. But a lot of like shredded chicken, regardless of the sauce that's going to be on it, it's going to kind of be the same amount of time. So, whether it's like barbecue chicken or Buffalo chicken or you know, the salsa chicken or ranch chicken if you want it to be shredded, it's relatively the same amount of time. It's like 15 to 17 minutes on high pressure and the sauce is just the only thing that's different. Oh my gosh. So literally just sauce and chicken and there's half of your dinner, exactly. 

32:55
And sometimes it's like, oh, you're going to season the chicken first and then add the sauce. Or again, maybe you're going to make your own like ranch dressing. That's another thing. That's like one of our favorites. That is so like it can be a marinade, it can be a dressing for a salad, it can be dip for, like veggies can go on a you know with a tortilla or a pita or whatever. Sometimes those little things excuse me, like that are really helpful to just add variety in without making it super complicated, yeah, okay, the other thing I don't have is an air fryer, but I've heard wonderful things about that. 

33:25 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Do you have one and do you like it? 

33:28 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
I am obsessed with air fryer. We literally use it three times a day. I'm not joking, oh my gosh. So pretty much every meal. Pretty much for breakfast. We're usually using it for like. We get these like frozen chicken sausages. We use it for that. Or I mean you can like toast bread in it if you wanted to. Um, you can also make like hard boiled eggs in the air fryer. That's the number one. 

33:50
Yes, it's the number one post on our site and it's crazy Like I remember again watching my mom like make hard boiled eggs in a pot and being so confused as a kid like what, how do you know it's done? I'm so confused now I just throw it in my air fryer and it's so simple to make. You need no water no boiling. 

34:09 - Katie Fenske (Host)
How long does it take to do a hard boiled egg? 

34:12 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
So the thing it depends on like how you like it, if you like it to be like jammy or more cooked, but it's like anywhere from nine minutes to 15 minutes just depending on how cooked you like it. But you have to cook it at a lower temperature. So sometimes people will cook it at like 300, 325 and their eggs will explode or like pop. Yeah, that's not fun to clean up. You have to cook it at like 270, 275. If you can, um, and most airfires will go that low. 

34:41
But yeah, I mean for lunches that you can make things like. Sometimes I just want like a hot, fresh lunch. I don't want to have leftovers, I don't want a sandwich or a salad, and so sometimes I'll just like chop up some chicken breast into little bite-sized pieces and make like a three ingredient like teriyaki sauce or whatever, and just air fry that for like five to seven minutes and you're good, and then it's. You can do it with salmon too. Um, it's great for reheating things too, like things like pizza or anything that like you want, even like grilled chicken when you want it to have like a crisp to it and reheating it in the microwave kind of makes it a little sad. 

35:11
Um, it's great for that, and then it's great for veggies too. So I mean, especially like being in Arizona, and it probably for California too like in the summer, I do not want to turn my oven on to roast potatoes but we love eating roast potatoes or roast carrots or like any roasted vegetable. Really, the air fryer will do it in half the amount of time and it doesn't heat up my entire house. 

35:32 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh my God, that's amazing. How much can it fit Like? How big are they? 

35:40 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
So there's multiple different kinds, um. So there's actually like two different styles. There's one that's like the tray, that's like a flat base basically, and then there's the basket, which is the ones that are like tall and have, um, so you could fit, like a whole roasted chicken or, like you know, a whole chicken in there and things like that. We have a tray version and it's actually like one of the largest capacity ones, cause, again, family of five, we eat a lot of food. 

36:00
So I'm like I don't want to have to make two batches of something. Um, so for us, like what I would normally cook on like a big sheet pan, if I was doing like roasted potatoes or roasted veggies, I can fit in the air fryer or I think it fits. I want to say like 20 wings or something like that. Wow, okay, um, so I can put that on the resources page too, just like you know that brand that we use. But there are a couple of other ones that are like those bigger capacity ones, um, but they also make like really small ones. So if people are like a college student or something, that's like a great tool to have where you can make food that feels really fresh and is healthier Um even if you don't have an oven around. 

36:36 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh my gosh, that I've. I've heard of them, I've heard people talk about them, but part of me is like I don't want another appliance in my kitchen. We don't have the biggest kitchen, so, but that does sound like it's. It makes things a lot easier. 

36:49 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yeah, it really does. And it's just, I think, the the convenience of it, without it being like I'm just microwaving like frozen broccoli or something you know it's it's a nice convenience factor without losing some of the like health benefits of it. Um, and you know, I don't, I don't know if this was your experience growing up, but I remember a few years ago finally realizing like growing up, when we ate vegetables it was all canned or frozen and I'm like no wonder we didn't like them, because it was just not, they weren't good, right. And then once I discovered like roasting vegetables and how delicious they are when they're roasted, I'm like why didn't we do this growing up? 

37:24 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I don't understand. It's the same concept. Roasted broccoli, that's like a go-to, like they will eat that and I'm like eat as much as you want, take it all. 

37:33 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yeah, so I mean doing that easily in the air fryer is is a game changer. 

37:37 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Does it make the broccoli crispier? I love like crispy roasted broccoli. You can. 

37:41 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
It depends on, like, how long you cook it for right. 

37:43 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Same with the oven, Okay. 

37:45 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
But, yes, yeah, you can definitely make it, but it's like, instead of it being in the oven for what, like 20 to 25 minutes, it's probably like 10 to 12. Oh, wow, okay. So again those baseball nights, when you need to get things together quick, um, and and just like an added tip for you for baseball nights or whoever, um, if you can like pre-chop your vegetables that morning, the night before, whatever, whenever you have a couple of extra minutes of time, that's going to make it that much easier for you to like do that process of actually making the homemade meal, um, before you go to practice, because that's usually what takes the longest. Like, the cooking part often doesn't take that long. It's the prepping, it's the cleaning up afterwards, it's all of that. So, even if you have like five minutes while your coffee's brewing in the morning to just like start the process of chopping the broccoli, that's going to help a lot too. 

38:31 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, in the evenings. Okay, what would be your best advice, um, for making mealtime feel like less of a chore, so like if someone's like, oh, I hate cooking. What would be like one piece of advice that you go try this to make it more fun. 

38:46 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
I think avoiding having to do it every single night is really helpful, and I mean, we don't eat out hardly ever Again, part of that is because I enjoy cooking, but I also think there's ways to shortcut dinner time even if you're not eating out. We've talked about quite a few of them already, but another great tool that I like to use a lot is my freezer. So I like to have like meat that's already marinating in the freezer, when you can pull it out that morning and it's going to marinate all day and then you can just cook it that night. Or, if I can, I will double a meal, which is hard to do again with five kids not five kids, five people. 

39:23
We eat a lot of a lot of food, but if I can, I'll make an extra like pound of ground beef so that I can freeze some of it, and, um, just having those like little quick wins to pull from is really helpful. I also like to have um little like just convenience things. So maybe, instead of like making the three minute instant pot rice, you just have like a bag of rice that you can heat up in the microwave. That's okay too. Um, you actually can freeze rice, or you can freeze like quinoa after it's cooked. So little things like that. They're going to thaw really fast, um, but that will make it just faster for you to just throw. 

39:56
Instead of you're making you know, three different components to your meal, maybe you're only making fresh vegetables because the meat's already done. So I think minimizing the amount of time that you're cooking like from start to scratch don't do that seven times a week because you will burn out yeah, but if you can do it six times or five times a week, or if you have extra time on the weekend and you want to be able to cook a few extra meals for yourself for later, great, do that. But yeah, I think. So simplifying what you make is the first step, planning ahead, like we talked about earlier. And then, yeah, just don't try to make something every single night, if you can help it, and just try to work smarter, not harder. 

40:35 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Nice. Okay, what's on your menu for tonight? What are you cooking? 

40:39 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Ooh, what am I cooking? Um, I know I'm like um, actually that's a funny thing that you say calendar, because we used to have like a shared note in our, my husband and I in our phones for our meals for the week and I then I found like I wanted it on our actual calendar, so now it's like an event in our calendar every day because we're constantly referring to that to see when meetings are and stuff like that. 

41:01
So now it's just there's a dinner block that has what we're making, but I pulled out some chicken chicken breast from the freezer, so that's all I know. I don't actually know what's going to go with it. Um, we're going out of town later this week, so I'm like we've got some veggies we need to use up everything. I think we have some sweet potatoes that we need to cook, so we'll probably roast those in the air fryer. 

41:19 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Nice. 

41:20 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Nice, I think that's what's for dinner, love it, love it. 

41:22 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay, tell me a little bit about what we can find on your blog, how we find it and, um, if we want to connect with you. 

41:28 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Yes, well, I would love to continue this conversation with anyone who has more specific questions about. I know there's just so many dynamics and things like that. So, um, if that's you, you can email me always or you can go and connect with me over on Instagram. Um, my website is cookathomemomcom and we do have a lot of different ways to browse the content. So, like, if you have specific dietary needs like keto or Whole30 or stuff like that, there are a lot of recipes that fit into that. We also have a whole like dropdown on our navigation menu for different cooking methods. So, if you're like, I just got a new air fryer, what do I make with it? We also do have some air fryer like e eat books with, like specifically air fryer recipes for, like, breakfast and dinner or lunches, snacks and sides, that type of thing. 

42:13
Um, but, yeah, if you like, how do I use my freezer? Like I want to freeze garlic or, um, freeze different fruit and stuff like that. That's on there as well. And then we do have by protein too. So if you're looking for like chicken recipes specifically, or beef, you can kind of browse by that. We tried to make it really easy to just find things and our search menu is also really great. So if you're like I want to make corned beef or things Patrick say or whatever, you can always search a specific thing. But yeah, I would love to continue the conversation and, like I said, I'm going to make a resource page for your listeners that'll have some of these recipes that I talked about, um, and an easy download and then just some other tips and things like that that people can kind of catch up, cause I know when you're listening to a podcast you're like I don't have anything to write stuff down. I need to find that. 

42:55
Exactly, exactly, so that'll have all the things for you guys, um, but yeah, go over to cook at home. Mom on Instagram too, if you want to chat more and just kind of get some more tips there. 

43:04 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Awesome, I'm going there tonight and I'm going to figure out what to do with my ground beef. I actually love the idea of the um like stir fry, cause usually we do chicken with stir fry. I never thought to do ground Turkey. You know ground Turkey in that. Change it up a little bit. I have one that I'll probably deconstruct cause it'll be like there's carrots in mine, but that sounds like a great idea. I love that. 

43:30 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
And I have all that stuff already. I have broccoli laying around, I have carrot laying around, so there you go. Yeah, just add that in there. And yeah, it's so simple. I find that ground meat is so easy to cook for most people. Like whenever I go out of town and I like leave instructions for my husband it's, he's always like make sure there's ground meat, cause that's what I can make really easily I'm like I can't, I can't overcook. 

43:43 - Katie Fenske (Host)
That I know it. I know when it's cooked I tend to overcook my chicken. I like my chicken nice and dry. My husband's like oh, this is so dry. I'm like this, this is how I ate it growing up, so I think he likes his a little more moist. I like mine dry, but ground, ground Turkey I can. I can't mess that one up. 

44:03 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Exactly, exactly. It's very forgiving and it's easy to customize, right Like you could have ground turkey like four meals in a row and it not ever be the same, because it's just easy to add different things and different sauces and all of that. So it's a very versatile protein. 

44:16 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Love it. Well, I feel so inspired now and I really appreciate you giving us all these tips. 

44:21 - Madison Metherill (Guest)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me and, yeah, I hope it was helpful. 

44:32 - Katie Fenske (Host)
And if you have any other questions, definitely, definitely ask. I don't know about you, but I am feeling pretty inspired to dust off my spice rack and get a little more adventurous in the kitchen. A huge thank you to Madison for sharing her wisdom and reminding us that cooking doesn't have to be complicated or boring. If you want to learn more from Madison, you can find her at the links in the show notes below, and if you'd enjoy this episode, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your mom friends, because we're all in this together. One burnt pancake at a time and until next week. I want to remind you that everyone burns their first pancake, so just keep flipping. Thanks for watching.