21: Good to Great: Easy Meal Tips For Busy Parents from a Chef, Dietitian and Farmer with Breana Lai Killeen

In this episode, Breana Killeen, Sarah speaks with Breana Killeen, a senior food editor at Food & Wine and a dedicated farmer and chef. Breana shares her insights on the unique experiences of raising children on a farm, lessons learned through farming, the importance of family meals, and how these experiences shape their relationship with food. Breana also offers practical tips for busy parents on meal planning and preparation. Her approach to cooking is both accessible and creative, making it easier for families to enjoy nutritious meals together.

Sarah and Breana also discuss:

• How farming teaches children responsibility and life lessons and how Kids learn about food production through hands-on experiences.
• Tips for reducing food waste at home and in cooking
• Easy tips to prioritize family meals more - Family meals foster connection and communication.
• How quick and easy meals can be nutritious and delicious - she shares "chef tips" to help us all acheive this!
• Breana isn't a "meal planner," so she shares how she still gets meals on the table nightly. 
• Make a sauce or marinade can elevate a meal. She loves the Maya Kaimal sauces. 

Find Breana on Instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Breana Killeen
• 2:15 Balancing Farming and Family Life
• 4:57 Involving Kids in Farm Chores
• 7:27 Teaching Responsibility Through Farming
• 10:18 Understanding Food Production
• 12:45 The Importance of Reducing Food Waste
• 15:42 Kids Learning Through Experience
• 18:16 The Circle of Life in Food Production
• 20:55 Sourcing Quality Food
• 23:44 Quick Family Meals on the Farm
• 26:05 Managing Family Meals
• 28:56 Kids' Eating Habits and Preferences
• 29:57 The Sandwich That Disappeared
• 31:38 Cultural Food Experiences and Kids' Palates
• 34:00 The Importance of Family Meals
• 38:20 Behind the Scenes at Food & Wine
• 43:58 Quick and Easy Recipes for Busy Parents
• 50:19 Practical Tips for Everyday Cooking

Transcript

Sarah Schlichter (00:00)
welcome back to the podcast, everyone. I'm so excited for our guest today. I think you are going to get so much out of this conversation. So I'm going to go ahead and let Brianna introduce herself and we'll get started.

Breana Killeen (00:13)
Well, thank you so much, Sarah, for having me on the podcast. I know it's always fun to just even try to find a date to be able to talk, being busy parents, both working and trying to manage everything. So I guess I could do my little intro. My name is Breonna Killeen. I am a dietician, but I am also a food editor and a ⁓ farmer.

My daytime job is I'm the senior food editor for Food and Wine Magazine, where I am primarily responsible for producing 40 recipes a month between the magazine and online, and then just kind of directing videos and social and ideating what's trending and what do we see on TikTok and can that actually be done? And then at home, my husband and I own a farm. We have 20 acres.

where we produce poultry and eggs, beef, and about two and a half acres of vegetables. we sell to restaurants and from a farm stand off of our property and we run a small CSA. And then between us, we have four children. So my husband has two older boys and they are now 25 and 21.

And then we have four and a half year old twins. And so I often joke that I came at parenting backwards because the boys were nine and 13 when I met them and they lived with us pretty much full time, especially the younger one through all his high school years. And when people ask me if the toddlers are hard, I tell them.

wait till they meet teenagers. But I have a lot of experience feeding people from all walks of life. I started in restaurants, working on the line, and then became a dietician. I've worked in fine dining. I've taught classes. I've done catering. I've done meal prep. ⁓ And then moved over to the media side in order to really help people all the way from, you know, at health departments to

Sarah Schlichter (01:52)
You

Breana Killeen (02:14)
now where I work at Food and Wine. Because, I guess I should say prior to this, I was at Eating Well Magazine for 10 years. So I was an editor, but I also ran the Test Kitchen.

Sarah Schlichter (02:26)
Wow, I just hear you talk about all of the things you're doing and I'm like, where is the time? How are you doing all of this? It's so impressive.

Breana Killeen (02:26)
Yeah

⁓

Well, think, I I would, I get that question probably more than anything else. And I will say I have a really good partner. have a really strong partner. My husband, equally doesn't sit still well. So, you know, one of us does morning chores, one of us does evening chores on the farm. We have gotten to the point where we have two full time farmers.

So they are the ones really with their hands in the soil and are doing the day to day that we're not actually physically growing the vegetables. We help with a lot of the things. We do a lot of the planning. We do a lot of the outreach and the newsletters and that side of it. And I do all the invoices, but the actual day to day we're not doing.

I will say the best thing that I've learned is you can do a lot, but you can't do everything perfectly. I came from a, I'm Chinese and I'm Jewish, so everything needed to be the best. And I have learned that good enough or actually pretty good is pretty good. And my kids remember us being there more than what we ate.

Sarah Schlichter (03:42)
Mm-hmm. Yes. So true. I mean, I love that analogy too. I've heard something similar, like there's glass balls and you're juggling just don't drop the ones with your kids and your family and, you know, not everything can go 100 % at one time. Sometimes you have to pull back, but pretty good is kind of my motto. is better. Done is better than perfect. So sometimes you just have to be out there.

Breana Killeen (03:42)
Yeah.

Yes.

Sarah Schlichter (04:06)
So we can start with the farming stuff because I feel like you have these two facets, the farming and then the senior editor, which I'm sure they do overlap, especially when you're doing recipes and stuff. But when it comes to farming, from watching your stories, I know your kids help a lot on the farm. So you mentioned they're four and a half, they're twins. So what are some things that you have kids at that age doing?

Breana Killeen (04:29)
Yeah, so what's really interesting about having twins as well, I have boy girl twins is how different, they happen to come out at the same time, but it's just like having two siblings. They are completely two different people. And so when we are doing chores, we do evening chores with them every day. There is one that is a lot better at collecting eggs and one that isn't. One that understands the word gentle and another that doesn't. And one that drives.

Like she likes to ride her bike down, whereas he drives, we have this little side-by-side six-wheeler that we call it, you know, it has six wheels. And he's responsible for carrying all the things back and forth that we need to bring back and forth. So we are always loading up the compost. We separate our chicken compost and our regular compost compost to feed out to the chickens. And so he's responsible for loading all of those up.

⁓ when we are bringing things back from the farm stand, because there's always something coming back and forth from the barn. It's about a quarter mile from our house. And he's responsible for that. So, you know, really identifying the things that each one of them really enjoys doing and then making it fun for them. They really like being involved. And you have to give up the fact that I could do chores and...

probably 15 to 20 minutes, it's gonna take 30 to 45 with them, you know, no matter what. It just is gonna take longer. They're gonna get into the hose and spray each other when I'm asking them to, you know, fill up the water buckets and they're gonna wanna hold a baby chick when I'm just trying to get the baby chicks fed. And I used to fight that. I used to really fight and say, you know, hey, we've got to get back for dinner or.

be on this specific schedule. And I just find that they embrace doing the chores with me. And so I just need to embrace that they are not on the same timeline as me. And then I give them specific duties. Just like any kind of checklist, know, she gets certain things and he gets certain tasks. And they're better at each one of those. And we go from there. Because otherwise,

they fight. know, one will say, well, that was my thing to do or that was mine. And it's like, nope, these are your tasks and these are yours. And when we're done, we all go back up. And then oftentimes I let them pick something one or two times a week. It depends on how hungry they are. I will let them pick something from the farm stand. So they are always allowed to pick fruit.

⁓ Right now, it is peaches and nectarines and apricots. Actually, blueberries are really holding strong this year, which is amazing. And so sometimes they'll grab blueberries. But we also have local chocolate in the shape of cows in our farm stand that are on popsicle sticks. And they would absolutely grab those every day if they could or the local homemade marshmallows. And those are Friday treats.

Sarah Schlichter (07:15)
fun.

Breana Killeen (07:22)
So, you know, at the end of the week when they are just cooked like they get back from daycare and you're like, okay, we just need to hose you down and give you a snack and sit down. Well, we still have to do chores. And so on Fridays, they get to pick a sweet treat from the farm stand.

Sarah Schlichter (07:27)
Mm-hmm.

I think there's so much value in all of that stuff you're saying. I mean, I can so relate to the being on their own timeline because I have a lot of similar, I see a lot of similarities to having kids cook in the kitchen with you, right? Like it's going to be messier. It's going to take a lot longer, but the process of it for them, it's exciting. You're working together. They're learning so much. And then with the chores that you talk about, I mean, they're learning responsibility. They're learning what it feels like to complete something on their own.

So I think there's so many internal values and lessons that come from that too.

Breana Killeen (08:14)
Yeah, and we also try to, my husband is a professor at UVM, but at the University of Vermont, but has been a teacher forever, ⁓ right out of college to teach for America and has taught all ages of children. And so a lot of times we will talk through certain things that we are doing so that they are learning at the same time.

We just had our baby turkeys come in versus the baby chickens. And so we'll start talking about the difference between turkeys and chickens. Or we talk about the difference between meat birds and laying hens or how long it takes for a laying hen to lay an egg. And I'll quiz them a lot of times when we're doing this. How long does it take for a laying hen to lay an egg? What size will the egg be? Will it be small? Will it be large? What color will it be?

Does the color of the chicken matter when it comes to what color egg they have? Yeah. Yeah. you know, well, what's funny is the answer is actually sometimes. So white leghorns lay white eggs and Rhode Island reds, which are brown chickens, lay brown eggs. Those are your two top producing.

Sarah Schlichter (09:09)
the answer no to that one? okay i thought so. it's like i should know some of these.

Breana Killeen (09:26)
egg layers, ⁓ meaning that 365 days of the year, they got as much, if they got, they need 14 hours of light a day. So I live in Vermont, so they don't get that through the winter, but they're gonna produce over 300 eggs a year. Whereas what we call the Easter Eggers, the ones that lay blue eggs and green eggs and any kind on that spectrum of blue green, we call them Easter Eggers, they lay in the upper 200s.

So that's why they're more coveted. But those chickens can be any color. They come in many different colors and different sizes. But in general, not exactly. But the Easter eggers, the blue-green layers, they don't lay as many, which is why blue-green eggs are more expensive and more coveted. The taste is not any different.

Sarah Schlichter (10:17)
good to know. I mean I

love seeing like we know a lot of people that have chickens and I know you and I talked about that in January and I still am very interested in getting chickens but when I see their eggs and the dozen carton has all of these different colors I just think that's so cool. like it's just so such a cool thing to see nature at its best.

Breana Killeen (10:23)
Yeah.

Yeah,

it's really, really neat. And it can change the consistency of their shell changes based on what they're eating and the color of the yolk changes based on what they're eating and is not 100 % indicative of nutrition. for example, ⁓ chickens don't taste spice. So you could feed them only red bell peppers, red hot peppers, gochujarro flakes like the Korean hot chili flakes. They don't taste heat. And their yolks will turn red.

So, you know, a lot of times when people are like, I buy these eggs from the grocery store, they have really yellow yolks. Well, their feed has marigold in it, which is making the egg yolk yellow. So it's not 100 % indicative that the chicken is eating bugs and is actually out on pasture and a happy chicken. So I can talk chickens all day, clearly.

Sarah Schlichter (11:27)
Fascinating. Yeah, I know. We're

gonna have to have a side conversation about these.

Breana Killeen (11:31)
you have to,

But I do suggest, you know, anybody that is thinking about, ⁓ how can I reduce my waste? Chickens, if you live in an area where you are able to have them, it is stunning how much you will reduce your waste. Because even if you compost right now, we have a compost compost bucket.

And then we have what we call the chicken bucket. And the chicken compost is twice as much, if not more, than the other regular compost, compost bucket, because they will eat everything. They will eat all your leftovers. They'll eat all that strawberry tops and the tomato tops and anything that's gone mushy and bad. They really only don't eat like coffee grinds. They can't eat grapes, interestingly. It's like dogs, no grapes, no chocolate.

lemon, lime, rinds, any kind of citrus rinds, and coffee grinds. But if you think about all the bits that come back from your kids' or that they don't eat at the end of it, people will ask me, my gosh, don't you feel so bad that when your kids don't eat stuff, I'm like, yeah, if they don't eat it, the chickens do. And then they produce eggs and our feed costs go down. So I do really promote saying, hey, you know what? I know that

Sarah Schlichter (12:30)
Love

Breana Killeen (12:47)
It feels like a lot entry, right? It's like when you go from zero baby to one baby, you're like, my gosh, I can't believe you know, I don't know what I'm doing. And then, you know, when you're on your second baby, you're like, I kind of know what I'm doing. And by the third, you're like, where are they? Yeah. Yeah. So it's very much that way with chickens too. ⁓ But as a.

Sarah Schlichter (13:03)
Yeah, I can vouch. Completely true.

Breana Killeen (13:11)
We talk a lot, we're a small regenerative farm, we talk a lot about the circle of everything because we then use the chicken compost too. So their waste, it cures for eight months and then it can go out on our vegetable beds too, because it's so high nitrogen. So it's a closed circle. Nothing is, for lack of a better word, wasted on the property.

Sarah Schlichter (13:34)
yeah that's amazing.

i'm gonna do like a whole episode on food waste at some point and all of that is so fascinating to me especially when you think about like is it produce? mean produce is one of the things that's thrown away so often because it rots or it gets bad so quickly if you're not the fresh produce primarily. so thinking about that and just feeding it to chickens i mean obviously we don't all have chickens but composting that and just

Breana Killeen (13:40)
yeah.

Sarah Schlichter (14:03)
That is just such an amazing solution for some of us.

Breana Killeen (14:06)
Yeah,

and if you don't have chickens, you know somebody who does. And so, you know, or you might know somebody who does. Pigs are also great at this, by the way, they'll eat anything. But it's the food waste side of it. I'm pretty passionate about food waste just because now growing the vegetables and raising the meat, knowing how much energy and input goes into even producing the food in the first place.

Sarah Schlichter (14:16)
Hmm. ⁓

Breana Killeen (14:32)
The last thing I want to do is see it wasted.

Sarah Schlichter (14:34)
I can imagine. And I think, you know, again, going back to your kids, seeing these, having these experiences at such a young age is so cool. And I'm thinking at daycare, they must be rattling off the most amazing facts, you know, about the egg color or whatever you're doing on the farm.

Breana Killeen (14:52)
They know, especially, so my son knows every implement that goes on the front of a tractor or that goes on the front of a skid steer. And to him, he actually, there was one day, my husband was out of town and our driveway needed to be plowed because we live in Vermont. And my husband usually plows it. It's just not a thing that I do, but I do know how to use the tractor, but I got in and I...

I looked at my son and I said, I don't know which one is the snow blower. And this was this past winter. So he was still three and a half, not quite four yet. And he looked at me and he goes to that one. And it was because he's always in the tractor with his dad when they're plowing. And so, you you see how much they're soaking in and there's a really big difference between watching it on YouTube and sitting in a tractor and seeing the implements. ⁓

⁓ seeing actually how it works and how it sprays back and forth and how it tilts and moves. like I mentioned about, we narrate what we are doing to the kids as we are doing it so they can understand why we are doing it. And with also the idea that if they are in a predicament that is somewhat similar, because there's always something going wrong on the farm. And I think this is a good...

kind of metaphor for life in general, right? It's not always the same problem exactly the same way, but you start to learn ways to fix that problem by prior experiences. So if there is a chicken that's stuck behind a fence and last time, we tried this one way and it worked, they kind of know, okay, I'll try this way, but I also know that, you can't run right at a chicken. You actually have to go flank around it.

⁓ and they start to learn that. So in the same way that when I talk about recipes and not just using the word healthy, because it actually doesn't provide any information to the reader if you just say, well, this is a healthy version of carbonara. And you say, they'll just go, okay, this is a healthy version, then they'll follow the recipe, fine.

Sarah Schlichter (16:46)
Mm-hmm.

Breana Killeen (16:56)
But if you actually say, you know, ⁓ we swapped the white pasta for whole wheat pasta, this adds, TK, certain amount of grams of fiber, which is good for reducing heart health, you know, whatever the goal is, same with, if you swapped the dairy or reduce the cheese or reduce the butter or don't have bacon, you know,

If you describe what that change is and why you did it, then the idea being you've educated them with that idea, well maybe next time when I am making a baked citi, I'll swap for a whole wheat pasta because it adds fiber and I know that's good for me. So that's the same idea of what we're doing on the farm constantly with the kids, which is trying to describe, okay, here is why we are doing this task.

how we are doing it. And with the idea that next time they'll be able to replicate it or at least think back to this time, we were changing out these tires. This is what a lug nut is. This is how this actually just happened. And this was stuck because this side over here and we had to get some lubricant, like all of that kind of thing. So maybe in the future when something else is stuck, it's not specifically a lug nut on a tire.

They're like, ⁓ maybe this is a solution that we could go about it.

Sarah Schlichter (18:17)
Yeah, and I just, imagine too, when it translates to bringing the food to the table, they see how these eggs are grown, right? Like if you're making scrambled eggs for breakfast. So I imagine they have a little bit of a different view. I'm curious kind of how you think their experience has shaped. I mean, they're so young, so I don't know how this would play out, but how raising kids on the farm has shaped their young relationship with food thus far.

Breana Killeen (18:45)
Yeah, I mean, think for them, it's completely normal that there's chicken on the table and chickens outside. But I do remember that revelation though, one day where my son, goes, chicken, chicken? Yeah. And he kind of, you know, cocked his head like a dog. And, and we said, yeah, you know, we, these are the meat birds that we had outside. And he was like, okay. You know, he, he totally understood it. And we do on farm processing. So we have a guy who comes.

and processes our meat birds on the farm. And in Vermont, you're allowed to sell whole birds. We don't part them out. Like we don't part them into breasts and thighs and wings and drumsticks to sell them. We do it for ourselves. to sell them, it has to be whole birds. they are processed on the farm. And when Rob comes, the kids, you know, at first we go, well, do they see this? Do they not? And we, they've gotten to the age where they see it they're like, okay.

This is what happens. And they're not scared by it. And granted, you know, we do five rounds of this every summer, so they're getting exposure to it, over and over again. But we talk a lot about how. I have visited large scale commercial.

facilities that produce meat. And this is a very, very, very different life that these chickens on our farm are living. And my husband will say that every moment is great for these chickens, except the last 10 seconds when their whole lives were great. They ate all the bugs and ran around and did all the things. And if we are going to eat meat, we want to make sure that it was raised in a responsible way. And so we show that to our kids as well.

and they're a part of it and they talk about it not in a way that is negative or that is to be afraid. We just, it's very matter of fact.

Sarah Schlichter (20:32)
Mm It just, it's how it's how it works, right? You know, the, circle of life, if you will, or yeah, raising food. And I think, I think that point is really important. And I had the opportunity to go on a ranch tour out in Nebraska earlier this year and the same kind of thing. I mean, the farmers are treating the cattle as good as they can, they're checking them every day. They're

cleaning the manure, they're making sure there's shade, there's clean water. I mean, it's in their best interest to give these animals the best life possible. And I think among the public, that message gets lost somehow, but I think it's good to hear.

Breana Killeen (21:08)
I think there's been a lot of documentaries,

there's a lot of media spinning and I work in media. So, you know, I understand why it's sensationalized to be bad or they pick like the worst possible example, right? But that is not how most people are raising their animals. And that is not that this idea that people even at large scale don't care about their animals is completely untrue.

it just isn't. And yeah, you might find one that very much doesn't treat them the same way, but that's why knowing your producer and or having a source that you know is really passionate about making sure that the meat that you are getting or the vegetables that you're getting, mean, talk about it's across the board. The seafood you're getting is the top quality. Three weeks ago,

I had an amazing opportunity to go to Alaska with the Whole Foods seafood department, the Whole Foods seafood buyer to Bristol Bay to see the wild salmon harvest. And they also had their main VP buyer over meat too. He did meat and seafood. And the way that they are really practicing what they preach, they are going and

seeing how animals are raised, how dairy is produced and with dairy cows or with, in this case, seafood to make sure that it really is what they say it is was really, really nice because not everybody can live on a farm and produce their meat. So you need to have sources that you can trust. And that trust is really, really, really important.

Sarah Schlichter (22:47)
That must have been an incredible trip. did see some of your photos on that and didn't you truly see like all the salmon racing alongside the boat?

Breana Killeen (22:56)
We did, yeah. So we actually went

and the bears, you know, ⁓ at Katmai, that quintessential, you National Geographic where you can watch the bears catching the salmon. And then also I was actually on a salmon fishing boat ⁓ for six hours trolling and getting fish and picking the fish off and putting it onto the boat where it then gets, you know, transferred immediately to a processor and it's on a cargo.

plane within less than 24 hours being shipped out all over the world as fresh wild salmon. As somebody who produces and raises meat, it was truly spectacular to see how much Alaska prides their source and make sure that it is a source of fish, particularly salmon, that

will be around forever and all the environmental practices that they're doing to make sure that it exists in the future. And that's the same thing of what we're trying to do on our farm, which is to make sure that we are treating the soil in the best possible way. And that includes animals on our farm because we're not having to buy in fertilizer because we have manure.

And we don't have a lot, right? We only have 13 cows. We do about 500, well, we do about a thousand chickens a year for meat. And then we have about 200 layers, but all of that we need for our two and a half acres of vegetable production.

Sarah Schlichter (24:27)
So thinking about kind of your day on the farm, also in the quote unquote office, you're developing recipes, you're testing recipes. What are some of your go-to family meals during your busy seasons on the farm? Like how are you prioritizing time in the kitchen outside of your job? guess that's just say like when you're coming home for meal time with the family, what does that look like?

Breana Killeen (24:49)
Yeah, the thing that I really wanted to tell everybody today, more than anything, is I would, as much as I plan, as much as I spend my whole life around food, I don't meal plan. And there are many days where I am, you know, it is five o'clock and I am on my way to daycare pickup and I'm like.

Sarah Schlichter (25:18)
The looming question.

Breana Killeen (25:19)
What's for

dinner? And so I'd say for the most part, you know, I really think about there are probably, four or five recipes-ish. I won't even say recipes, like style of food that we have on repeat. And I make some version of those really depending on what is in the fridge. ⁓

Sarah Schlichter (25:42)
Mm-hmm.

Breana Killeen (25:43)
the way that because we produce meat in the way that we do, I have to defrost meat at the beginning of the week, every week. ⁓ And so if I haven't done that, or if it's not been enough days, I always have peeled and deveined shrimp on hand. I always have a block of extra firm tofu. And I, what is the other one?

I always have fish sticks in the freezer because I can always make like fish tick tacos or something with fish sticks. Sometimes, you know, I'll cut them up into pieces and we'll make sandwiches and po' boys. ⁓ So oftentimes I'll just say to my husband, I'm like, I just need the idea. I can execute anything. just I don't have any more space in my brain today. And

I need to not have to be the one that comes up with this idea. And so half the time he'll just say something and I'm like, okay, done. I also always have super quick cooking grains on hand so that I can take whatever vegetables I have and make some sort of grain salad with either that tofu or cheese. I often have, I almost always have halloumi and paneer in my freezer too, because those will defrost.

really quickly as well and some cheese as some protein or of course there's always beans, but I'm also married to somebody who doesn't think that it's a meal without meat. So that's why we always have shrimp or I buy little bay scallops, bay scallops defrost super fast. And I can always make something, a pasta. I can make a pasta out of anything, right? As long as you have pasta, some sort of vegetable, some sort of,

Sarah Schlichter (27:15)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Breana Killeen (27:21)
protein source. And then as long as you have Parmesan and pasta water and butter, you can always make a sauce. You know?

Sarah Schlichter (27:22)
Protein, a sauce, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I love

your your it's kind of like the mix-and-match method which I talk about that a lot too like you don't have to follow a recipe you don't have to have it all planned out you can think about each component and plate them together and it's fine it feeds your family it gets it done so what does that look like with your husband though I'm curious you're going to pick up the kids what's for dinner is this like a text chain he's like all right we've got this let's make this and you're like good

Breana Killeen (27:56)
It depends, most of the time I am responsible for dinner because it's just easier. but it is more of a, you know, what did we have last night? And what are we gonna have tonight? we use a lot of cans of tuna too. Lots of cans of tuna and cans of salmon. But.

Sarah Schlichter (28:10)
Mm.

Breana Killeen (28:15)
Yeah, for the most part, is thinking about what we had the night before and trying to just make something slightly different. But we also don't put a ton of pressure on it. More than anything, we'll say, if we have nothing, then we're going to make some French toast. And there's eggs in that. They're at breakfast for dinner. And the kids love it. They love it, right? know? Every time.

Sarah Schlichter (28:31)
breakfast for dinner.

Yes, they do. It's a home run every time.

Breana Killeen (28:40)
So I remind myself that the pressure that is put on dinner is solely put on the person making the dinner, not the person eating the dinner, because they don't care most of the time.

Sarah Schlichter (28:56)
Yeah, that's such a good reminder. How are your kids with eating? Since they've been exposed to so it sounds like a lot of seafood. They're okay with all of that. Do they have their selective eating tendencies or are they pretty chill with it?

Breana Killeen (29:03)
Yes.

⁓ I mean, my daughter would eat butter cheesy noodles for the rest of her life if that was the only thing that she could have and she'd be totally fine with that. ⁓ she'd also eat barbecue sauce chicken wings. So, I mean, and salmon and she is a better eater than him, just flat out always has been more interested. and he, he will eat some things that she won't. He really likes beans.

It depends. Honestly, it depends on the day. I mean, I think every parent knows this one day You're like, this was a home run yesterday and I'm gonna make it again and today they're like I don't eat this I think about this past weekend. I made myself a sandwich, you know when you make yourself like a Proper sandwich and you're gonna sit on the porch and you grab a napkin because there's Juicy tomatoes on it, you know, it's gonna drip down your hands

Sarah Schlichter (29:40)
Great.

Breana Killeen (29:57)
So was a chicken salad sandwich, right? So I made chicken salad. had tarragon in it. I was like, my kids aren't gonna be interested. there's tarragon, celery, chicken salad, and then I put pickles on it. And it was pickles, yeah, pickles and like a juicy, perfect tomato. And...

there was lettuce on it as well. So I just like sat down to eat it I was so excited. The kids had, they were having PB and J's. And I look over and they, my daughter is like, can I have a bite of your sandwich? And in my mind, I thought, I haven't even taken one bite yet, but like, all right, she's interested, fine. So then they take the middle bite, right? They go like right for the middle, right? For that good bite. And then my son came over and he's like, let me have a bite of that. They ate my whole.

Sandwich and my husband's sitting there just laughing at me because he knew how badly I wanted to eat this sandwich and they weren't bothering him. He had the same sandwich It's always better and so Tomorrow if I made them that sandwich would they eat it? No, it was situational. We were sitting on the porch It was hot we were looking at you know, and that was what they were interested in and so I've just stopped worrying and

Sarah Schlichter (31:00)
Mom says always better.

Breana Killeen (31:14)
trying to shove things in them that I know that someday they will eat. I didn't grow up eating all the things. I honestly, because I'm Chinese, I didn't grow up eating a lot of the foods that most people grew up eating. I didn't grow up eating a lot of, really any potatoes, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, all these things. And the first restaurant I worked in, I grew up in North Carolina. it was called Town Hall Grill.

And it was, you burgers and fried oysters and twice baked potatoes and mac and cheese and all these things that I had never had because I didn't grow up eating any of them. And I specifically remember twice baked potatoes because we would make the mashed potatoes, which were already, you know, just so much butter and cream. And I went, well, that's, you know, yeah, right. And then we would take those and we would add

so much cheese and so much sour cream and so much bacon and bake it again. And I still have it in my mind. And I was like, wow, this is amazing, you know? And the only green thing on here are some scallions. And so I didn't grow up eating any of that. And I think there are a lot of things my kids won't grow up eating too, just naturally, but that doesn't mean they won't eat them later in life. So I just go with what we have and

If they don't eat it, they don't eat it. And if they do, then they finish your sandwich.

Sarah Schlichter (32:33)
Yeah, no,

I honestly, I think your approach is so refreshing and I think it's a message to parents. Sometimes we put so much stake on one meal or so much emphasis and we feel the pressure and that turns to us pressuring our kids and sometimes they might not be into it. But if the situation is right, like sitting on the porch with mom on the weekend and she spent so much time on the sandwich, so it must be really good. She's excited to eat it. I'm gonna eat it too. You know, we...

We just can't write the story for them. We really don't know. And one meal is never gonna tell us anything, but I think your point of view here is just a breath of fresh air for parents to say like, we don't need to look too much into this. They're gonna eat different things when they get older anyway. Things evolve.

Breana Killeen (33:19)
For sure. And you know, it's hard when there's so much information being blasted at you at all times about processed foods and artificial dyes and microplastics. And we all want what's best for our children. one day doesn't change everything, right? And it's just kind of this general, OK, did I put a vegetable out today?

I'm not worried if they don't have the whole wheat bread and they have white bread. know, I mean, did I make the bread? Did I not make the bread? Did they eat today? Did they drink, you know, enough liquids? And it comes naturally because we sit down and eat meals. It actually drives my husband crazy that I...

Sarah Schlichter (33:53)
Yeah.

Breana Killeen (34:04)
I'm a slow eater. I really, really enjoy dinner. Like, I really like to sit down and just, you how was your day and what did you do today? And the kids don't sit down forever, but if they want to sit with us, they will sit with us because that's what we are doing. And despite all of the chores we need to do and all the things we do sit down for dinner and we do sit down for breakfast.

which that one I've heard actually shocks a lot of people. Even if it's really quick, even if I have things that I'd like to be doing, which is a lot, know, I want to be unloading the dishwasher or I want to, you know, pack up one more thing or want to, I don't know, brush my hair, I will sit down with the kids when they're eating breakfast because even if it's just five minutes, ⁓ I find that it's really helpful.

Sarah Schlichter (34:31)
I love that.

Breana Killeen (34:56)
for them too.

Sarah Schlichter (34:56)
Right, yeah, so, so important.

mean, ⁓ September is family meals month and I'm always a big promoter of family meals. Like, well, I'll probably do a whole episode on it just because all of the benefits extend beyond just that moment. Like there's so much cognitive benefits, there's relational benefits, there's self-trust, self-efficacy benefits. And then of course, when you're sitting down with them, you're together. Maybe they're gonna try something like your sandwich or.

What have you. So I love to hear that. That's a great tip for parents too, that if dinner, you know, sometimes one parent's working late or you you're getting the kids from daycare and maybe nothing's prepped for dinner. Maybe you stop for fast food or pick up something. Family meals don't just have to be dinner. You can do breakfast or however it looks for your family.

Breana Killeen (35:46)
Yeah. I also, we have them use all the same china that we do, like plates and bowls, like all the same stuff we're using, they're using. it's, I'm picky about my, what we plate. Like I really love my East fork bowls. They're pottery bowls. And the kids will use them too, because then it also makes them feel part of the moment. And so we stopped using all, you know, plastic

Sarah Schlichter (35:52)
Mmm.

Breana Killeen (36:11)
bowls and cups and, or I even had these metal ones that they were using for a little while too, to separate. We all use the same plates. We all use the same forks. We all use the same, they get little glass juice cups and it then make, and we use real napkins. That one, so even if we were gonna get fast food, which it's not that I'm against fast food. I just live in Vermont, so there's not a lot of it.

Sarah Schlichter (36:29)
Wow.

Breana Killeen (36:37)
I would literally have

Sarah Schlichter (36:37)
You're limited.

Breana Killeen (36:38)
to drive like almost 25 minutes out of my way to get it. But I played it. I will bring it home and I will plate it onto real plates and we use real napkins. And we actually use the, you know those little, they're like the baby, they were Burt's Bees, little like burp cloths that you have when you have babies. We use those as napkins now.

Sarah Schlichter (36:43)
Yeah.

Yes. Yep.

⁓ nice.

Breana Killeen (37:08)
And so they're not like, they're not beautiful. They're not matching. You know, they equally can wipe up a mess. But we use those as napkins too, ⁓ like for dinner so that it feels kind of special.

Sarah Schlichter (37:20)
love that. I mean just including them in any way and they're four and a half now so they're probably pretty proficient with their cutlery and they can use the big plates. It's also like way easier to load the dishwasher. You don't have to like hand clean the plastic. Even the silicone ones can be tricky sometimes so that's a good hack. ⁓ The dish soap, yep.

Breana Killeen (37:38)
And they don't dry and they smell funny. They always smell like the dish soap. Yeah,

and it never, which really bums me out when I'm putting food on it. And I'm like, this smells like soap. So we just stopped. I mean, we still keep them around when we have little kids that come by, but we switched over and they really like it because it makes it, it's not just like, this is ours and this is theirs. It's like, this is all of ours.

Sarah Schlichter (37:49)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's such a good tip. So I'm curious now, kind of transitioning to life as the senior food editor at Food & Wine. Did I say that correctly? Senior food editor at Food & Wine. tell us about that. I think you said you're testing like 40 recipes a month. Is that what I heard?

Breana Killeen (38:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I oversee that. it used to be when I was at Eating Well, ⁓ we had our test kitchens here and I was in the kitchen testing, tasting, all of that. Magazines have really centralized, particularly I work for, it's now called People, Inc. It used to be called Dot-Meredith. And they've centralized where all of the recipes for all of the different magazine brands that are under the same umbrella. So

The same test kitchens are utilized for real simple, for parents magazine or online, Southern Living, Eating Well, all of us utilize the same test kitchen and it happens to be based in Birmingham, Alabama. And so all of the recipes that I'm doing, am helping with other people, like lots, there's lots of other people in input.

of what recipes we're gonna make, what we want it to look like, what ingredients we want in it. And then there's an actual person in the test kitchen that is executing that and we are talking back and forth. And I've just read and written and made so many recipes that I can read a recipe and pretty much know if it's gonna work or not. The amount of times I see people that take a recipe and then change something and then I'm like, you didn't change the size of the pan or the heat or.

We used to always test on gas and electric. That's very different. Medium low on an electric stove is very different than medium low on a gas. Or you want a high burner. And then you throw induction into that as well. And so for me, is always how do we make this recipe accessible for anyone in their home kitchen? And that is a particularly different role coming from food and wine now versus eating well. Eating well, was like, you know, it's home cooks cooking for home cooks.

pretty much. Whereas Food & Wine, is distilling and translating chef recipes for the home cook. And how do we make it so, okay, I just got a recipe in, there's a really hot pepper right now. And I mean hot by like, it's trending, not hot, but it's spicy. And they're called Jimmy Nardello peppers. And they're like an Italian pepper. They're sweet. It was an Italian

Sarah Schlichter (40:18)
trending.

Breana Killeen (40:27)
mother who brought it over with her from Italy. And then when her son donated the seeds to the Seed Saver Exchange, he named it after himself. His name was Jimmy Nardello. Not his mother. And they've become pretty popular, this recipe came in. It's a creamy corn salad with pickles. And the dressing is a Jimmy Nardello dressing. But the chef, said, well, I usually

Sarah Schlichter (40:36)
Not his mom.

Breana Killeen (40:52)
lacto-ferment the peppers before then using it to make a dressing. So think about that, right? Not only are you getting a pepper that you can't get at a normal grocery store, you are then lacto-fermenting it. So there's two different ways to make pickles. There's one lacto-fermentation where you are creating a brine and then they ferment into a pickle versus a vinegar pickle, which most people are more accustomed to. So

⁓ If I was writing this recipe and if it was in a book, not for the home cook, would say, okay, secure these peppers, ferment your peppers for a week and then make your dressing. it's always, okay, how do I make this so somebody can make this at home? And so I'll still write, Jimmy Nardello peppers or Red Bell peppers.

Sarah Schlichter (41:38)
giving us an easy alternative.

Breana Killeen (41:39)
you know, giving you an easy alternative and instead

of lacto fermenting, we're going to add vinegar to this. So you're still getting that same tang and you're replicating it in some ways, but it's not exactly the same, but you can make it in under an hour versus over a week. And so that is what I'm constantly thinking about. How do I use the fewest amount of pans, make the fewest amount of dishes and how do we make it so that

Somebody can get the ingredients at a fairly local grocery store that they're not having to order them in. They don't have to just solely get them from the farmer's market. They don't have to grow them. How do you really make this into an accessible recipe? And then what are, because it's food and wine, what are the things that take it from, this was good to this was great?

⁓ And is that a technique? it, you know, using fresh corn on the cob and doing what we call milking it, you know, scraping a paring knife ⁓ across the cob to get that those little bits of that corn juice, essentially? Yeah.

Sarah Schlichter (42:42)
I just did that for my daughter the other night. She's like, mom, I

like when you take the kernels off the cop. No problem. I can do that.

Breana Killeen (42:47)
Yeah,

exactly. ⁓ Or is it using an ingredient that really gives a big umami burst without having to do a lot? So you're thinking fish sauce or miso or sun-dried tomatoes or is it mushroom powder? Like taking dried mushrooms ⁓ and adding it there. So you're getting a lot of bang for your buck in terms of flavor, but you're not having to...

do a lot of work to get there and what are those ingredients? You know, the marry me chicken trend, right? It's like, and that was all, it's all sun-dried tomatoes. It's like the eighties came back or the early nine, they were like sun-dried tomatoes are back. And they're a really great umami ingredient and not just using the tomatoes themselves, but the oil that they're in.

Sarah Schlichter (43:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

This is, yeah, I've seen a thousand versions of this.

Breana Killeen (43:38)
You know, how do you use up every bit? But also that oil lends a ton of flavor. So that is my day to day of How do I make these? Not just recipes, but also then we do videos to show people. ⁓ I can totally do that At home and make a really great meal that whoever you're serving will like

Sarah Schlichter (43:59)
So would you say, thinking about busy parents with young kids kind of era, would you say some of the recipes are 30 minutes or less and attainable for us busy parents?

Breana Killeen (44:03)
Yes.

Yes, 100%. And I'd also say that you can use some of these techniques to make packaged foods even better. So one of the meals that I go to when I just need to get something on the table is, you you go for Annie's mac and cheese, right? Who doesn't? But I will take, I go for the white cheddar. I will add fish sauce to the mac and cheese because when I'm adding the milk and then I add in

peas or edamame. I add in something green. Sometimes I add in an allium like some chopped scallions or if I have chives or shallots or onion or anything like that because it's just that umami flavor. And then I will add in more cheese, a big old handful of shredded cheddar or parmesan. And it just takes it to that next level. And if you're, you know, everybody who's like, okay, no, no, we don't do fish or shellfish, soy sauce.

or tamari, you're not doing gluten, emulates that same thing. You can put in a little bit, if your kids aren't color-averse, you could put in a little bit of tomato paste. It gives that same umami hit and little burst of extra flavor that makes it more interesting. ⁓ miso does that same thing as well. It's that saltiness, and there are different types of miso.

Sarah Schlichter (45:22)
Yeah.

Breana Killeen (45:30)
think people realize that there's not just one type of miso. Miso can be made from lots of different types of, it can be made from soybeans, but it can also be made from other types of beans. And there's white miso, yellow miso, red miso. So reaching for those ingredients that really make it feel like, I took this and made it feel more special or more interesting even when I didn't have a lot of time takes it to that next spot.

Sarah Schlichter (45:53)
Yeah, that's so helpful. And sometimes we do this sometimes, like if we want to enjoy like a nicer meal, we will have something easy for the kids and then we'll take a little more time to cook our meal. So that might be another option for parents thinking like, well, when am going to make this? If you are someone who enjoys cooking or just want to, like you said, make it a little more elevated without

going to eat at a super nice restaurant or buying the fanciest of ingredients, just like a little touch of these suggestions can make a big difference.

Breana Killeen (46:23)
Yeah, one of the things that I tell people too that's really great with kids is ⁓ learning how to make a pan sauce because if you're cooking a pork tenderloin or cooking pork chops or cooking chicken, right? You can cook the chicken off just in oil, whatever, take that off and the plain, more plain version can go to your kids and then you can make a sauce.

with those delicious bits and pieces that's left in your pan, whether it's just lemon and caper. There's a recipe that I did for salmon that's pan seared salmon with, it's like a lemon butter caper sauce. Maybe we can put that in the show notes. Yeah. On food and wine. And it's really simple. It is just pan searing salmon.

Sarah Schlichter (47:00)
Seth, yeah, send that over.

Breana Killeen (47:09)
So it's cooked through to your desired consistency. For me, that is 125 degrees. Please pull it off even earlier, like at 115, because I like my salmon. I'm a little more on the medium rare side. But then making a sauce in that pan with just lemon juice, butter, and capers. And it's so simple. Three ingredients. You do it with...

Sarah Schlichter (47:33)
So simple, three ingredients.

Breana Killeen (47:38)
You do a chicken, you can do it with chicken cutlets, you can do it with pork chops, you can do it with shrimp. You can do it in, even if you were just like, oh, I'm gonna cook up these chickpeas and you saute chickpeas in a good amount of olive oil, take them out and then you could make a little lemon butter sauce that goes with it. So, or any type of fish. I think learning how to make those really simple yet flavorful.

sauces, sauces take something and it goes a really long way. Or just even adding herbs. Thursday dill, dill goes a long way. If you have something worrying or even chopping up like, you know when you buy a bunch of herbs or you have a bunch of herbs and you only needed a tablespoon or two, throw all those herbs and

I would throw in an anchovy or capers or something like that, but throw all those herbs and a little lemon zest and into a food processor, chop it all up and then stir in a bunch of olive oil and a little red wine vinegar. And it's kind of that, know, chimichurri-esque kind of sauce that'll last in the fridge, especially if you put enough olive oil in there or, you know, a clove of garlic that'll last in the fridge for a week.

throw it in the freezer, it'll last even longer. And then when you just need a hit of some flavor, you cook off your protein or even your pasta and you're like, ⁓ it's like having pesto in some ways. You just can go, okay, this isn't boring.

Sarah Schlichter (49:13)
Yeah,

I love that. mean, I was excited for our conversation, but you're coming at me with like way more stuff than I anticipated. I feel like I need like three more hours to talk to you, but I think you're really providing like easy shortcuts, I'm gonna call it, for busy parents. Like just having some of those staples or I like to tell people too, like when you get home, kind of like you mentioned earlier, your brain space, you just can't think. Like, what am I gonna make for dinner? You have all of these things.

probably that you could make, but there's not space in your brain. I say like print out a little binder of things that are favorite. You know, it only has to be like 10 to 15 ideas, but that way you can just look through it and say, okay, 20 minutes, we can get that done. I love this idea of just like having a page or two of easy sauces to really take a meal from good to great, or just change it up a little bit. Like, we're eating dry chicken again. How can we?

add a new dimension or flavor to it. And I think it's a lot easier than we all realize. We just get intimidated by the idea of more work.

Breana Killeen (50:17)
Yeah, and I know that this comes easier to me because I've been doing it for so long, but there are a lot of bottled sauces and purchased sauces that you can find that do the same thing, right? Find a really good teriyaki sauce. Find a green goddess dressing. Salad dressing can do a lot. Find a pesto you really like, or you can make a sauce out of hummus.

you just add more olive oil and lemon juice. And so finding those purchase staples too that ⁓ you can always have on hand in your pantry. like, ⁓ OK, I can do something with that. Or I love the Maya Kamal butter chicken tikka masala sauces ⁓ because OK. ⁓

Sarah Schlichter (51:01)
Maya Kamal. We'll put all of this in the show notes too.

Breana Killeen (51:06)
because again, lots of flavor and they're really mild, so my kids will eat it. And then I can add some more hot sauce and chilies and stuff like that to mine.

Sarah Schlichter (51:16)
Yes, okay. Well, all of these suggestions I think are very practical and specific, which is great for parents. So I think this episode is gonna be so valuable and we really appreciate having you on. Is there anything else you'd like to share and where listeners can find you as well?

Breana Killeen (51:35)
yeah. So, can always find me ⁓ through work. am, you know, Brianna.Kaleen at foodandwine.com. you can find me on Instagram. I know I, I really enjoy sharing, ⁓ things that we're doing on the farm and, just Vermont in general. think people think of Vermont as this, like far off kind of, you know,

weird and crazy place and where there are no billboards and we, Ben and Jerry's live like down the street. And the funny thing is it's all true. Like Bernie Sanders lives, down the road and is often on your flight if you're coming back from DC. So I think that the biggest thing that I would like to relay, particularly as I'm entering in, I have a big birthday next month is

Sarah Schlichter (52:05)
you

Breana Killeen (52:25)
I've learned that 99 % of parenting is showing up. And so the meal matters less than we think. And the pressure comes from either within or from feeling like we're gonna be judged by other parents. But your kids just remember if you sat down for dinner. So picking your battles. If tonight is, I feed my kids ramen, great ramen, and buy frozen

dumplings and put those in there. And it's finding the things that work that you don't have to think about. You need those meals and you need to not feel guilty for those meals. Because we, there are many days that I get to the end of the day and I will just say, nope, there is nothing left in this brain. And I still have, you know, three loads of laundry to do and I still have to make lunches and I still have to, you know,

Sarah Schlichter (52:57)
Hmm.

Breana Killeen (53:18)
Attempt a skincare routine like it's just not happening, you And so you go alright tonight I'm washing my face and that's it and and remember that with meals too that it could be cucumbers and ranch for dinner and my gosh my kids they're like, whoa So, you know cut them into funny shapes or

Sarah Schlichter (53:32)
They're happy, yeah, they're happy.

Mm-hmm.

Breana Killeen (53:42)
⁓ you know, just whatever it is, don't, don't put that pressure on yourself. and find those go to, I always keep, like frozen fried rice from Trader Joe's in the freezer because if I need to just something, know, just a quick staple, like finding those that work. ⁓ yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Sarah Schlichter (53:58)
Just a quick staple, yep.

We have that too. It's great. Like with the chicken and peas and corn, like it's all in there.

Breana Killeen (54:07)
and then

put some sesame oil on it and some fresh scallions, you know? And I'm like, my gosh, it's good to grate. And I should probably call Sandra Lee. She had something going back in the day. I should do a thing on her. ⁓

Sarah Schlichter (54:13)
Good to great.

Well, we'll just be waiting for your cookbook to come out from good to great

easy hacks for busy parents. I named it for you. So

Breana Killeen (54:28)
Yes. I was going to say, I

have been asked so many times and I've worked on so many other people's cookbooks and done so many other recipes for people. But someday, someday I will because I just, I want parents to feel like they've succeeded and they've done a good job. Even if that is literally cutting up cucumbers and opening a jar of dressing.

Sarah Schlichter (54:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're showing

up and I thank you so much for your time and Sharing your great wisdom with us. I'm definitely gonna have to follow up with you on future topics But I think today was a home run. So thank you so much for coming on

Breana Killeen (54:55)
Yes.

Thanks so much for having me. yeah, hopefully, see you soon.