Episode 9
[00:00:00] Hi everyone. It's Alison Taylor, your host of everybody's got to eat. I am so excited that you're listening today. I hope that this episode resonates with you and is helpful. And if you like what you're hearing from my podcast, I would love for you to subscribe and leave a review.
Today. I want to talk about. Self-talk and the mindset shift. To help you take away some stress and overwhelm when it comes to feeding your family. So I've been seeing this a lot lately and it applies to everything in life, but there are subtle changes you can make when it comes to how you talk about yourself. And the things that you say out loud and also in your head.
When it comes to feeding your family, I know that a lot of moms out there will say, I'm not a good cook. I don't think that there are bad cooks. I think a lot goes into play when it comes to cooking.
But at the end of the day, if you continue to say that you're going to continue to believe that it's true. And if you continue to think that it's always going to be a struggle, it's always going to be well. Yep. I ruined another meal instead of okay. What can I change next time to make this better?
And I also know the struggle is real when it comes to meal planning and cooking dinner and always thinking about, okay, what am I going to feed my family? That is all a lot. It's overwhelming. And it's a huge mental load. So that's not to discount the truth. It's true. That it's a lot. But we can change the narrative. To be able to lift that load a little bit. So instead of saying I hate meal planning. I hate cooking dinner.
You can just say, okay. This isn't my favorite thing to do, but I know if I sit down and meal plan, I know if I. I create easy dinners, five have simple dinners in my rotation. It's gonna feel a lot easier.
It's going to help lift some of that stress. To where I don't have to always think, oh, I hate this. It can be. Yeah. I don't particularly like doing this. But I know it's good for me and for my family. And so it's a subtle change in how you think and how you speak out loud, but it does so much for your mental wellbeing.
We're not taking away the feelings of, oh, this is stressful. Oh, this mental load is huge. Or I don't enjoy being in the kitchen. I'm not comfortable in the kitchen. All those feelings are real. And valid. But we can speak more gently to ourselves. So that it feels better doing the things that we have to do. But aren't our favorite.
So when it comes time to meal plan, when it comes time to cook dinner or figure out what you're making for dinner.
Be gentle with yourself. If it feels too much, if you've had a really stressful day and cooking dinner would just be too much. Order out.
Make that frozen pizza.
But if it's not too much, you can say, I am cooking dinner for my family because I love them and I want what's best for them.
I am not trying to be a five-star chef.
You can say those things to yourself. You can say this meal I'm making, because I love my family. Period. It doesn't have to be, I need to be a good cook. I need to make this perfectly.
Just remember.
None of this defines your worth. None of this defines you as a mom. You love your family. You're cooking dinner for them because you know, they have to eat. Right. Everybody's got to eat. That's it.
And if you are someone that enjoys cooking and you feel comfortable in the kitchen and you pride yourself on being a good cook. And you're trying new recipes and having success experimenting in the kitchen.
It's important for you to also be gentle with yourself. Because no matter how much you love being in the kitchen. It's still a mental load to feed your family.
And knowing that every day you're in charge of cooking meals for your family.
We have to recognize that that's a lot. And so. It's okay to have a week where you're just not inspired by food. That doesn't mean that you're losing your talent or your gift in the kitchen. It doesn't mean that you're a bad mom. You know, we have to allow ourselves to have.
Off weeks we have to allow space. To be human.
So to summarize, if you are saying I'm a bad cook, if you were thinking I'm a bad cook. Let's switch that to, I am learning. To be comfortable in the kitchen. I am practicing and I'm getting better. Every time I cook.
If you are saying that. You hate meal planning and it's so draining and you'd rather do anything else. Let's change that to. Meal planning. Isn't my favorite. But I'm doing it because I love my family and I want my weeks to be less stressful. And I don't want food to be such a big deal. Every day.
If you are saying. I feel bad that my kids didn't eat my dinner that I made. Instead, you can say that wasn't my kids' favorite. But it has nothing to do with the value that I bring as a mom.
And if you are saying or thinking. I am such a failure. I'm such a bad mom for running through the drive through. Instead, you can say today was a lot. And it's best for everyone. If I pick up dinner. ' cause I need a mental break. And to be the best mom I can be I need to honor what I'm feeling.
And don't forget to celebrate your wins too. If you tried a new recipe and your kids loved it. If you really didn't want to cook dinner, but you pushed through and it turned out great. Celebrate those wins. If you promise yourself that you were going to plan out formulas a week, and you've been doing that for a few weeks, celebrate that that's important and that's going to help you keep going.
Okay. So I am going to share the meals of the week to give you some inspiration or to even write them down word for word. So you know exactly what you're making which will simplify your life next week.
Okay. So on Monday potstickers soup on Tuesday, one pot, chicken enchilada, skillet. On Wednesday, Italian beef and garlic Parmesan potatoes on Thursday, rice and beans with Turkey sausage. On Friday meatloaf with green beans and mashed potatoes and gravy. And on Saturday oven baked pork Malay, naysay with broccoli and Texas toast. And then Sunday I leave open because that takes away a lot of stress. And I also know that during our weeks, things do come up where I'm not able to cook or we pivot. And so I like to leave that day open.
The recipe that I decided to share with you today is the one pot chicken enchilada skillet. And it's really because my family just loves TexMex. And I think this recipe is so great because it's so simple. And a lot of the times enchiladas are time consuming and a lot of work.
But with this recipe, you're just dumping everything into one pot on the stove. And so it's quick and it's simple. And you're not having to do all these different steps to arrive at the yummy ooey-gooey enchiladas. So you are going to need two pounds of boneless chicken thighs, two tablespoons of olive oil.
One teaspoon smoked paprika, one teaspoon, chili powder, one teaspoon cumin, one teaspoon, garlic powder, one teaspoon, onion powder, one teaspoon, salt, and one teaspoon pepper. Then you're going to need one 15 ounce can or jar of enchilada sauce. One five ounce bag of fresh baby spinach. Frozen. One 15 ounce, canned black beans drained and rinsed one cup frozen corn, 10 small tortillas chopped into pieces.
One cup of plain Greek yogurt. Two cups of shredded Mexican blend cheese. And then avocado and cilantro for topping, which is totally optional.
You are going to cut the chicken thighs into bite sized pieces and place in a mixing bowl. You're going to heat a five court saute pan over medium high heat. In a small bowl mixed together. The olive oil smoked paprika chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, onion, powder, salt, and pepper. Poor olive oil mixture over chicken. And then you're going to mix to coat.
You can use a spoon or you can use your hands, just make sure that the chicken is getting evenly coated with that mixture. You're going to dump the chicken into the pan, spread chicken evenly around cooking for one minute, stir and cook for another minute. Add half of the enchilada sauce. Add spinach and cook until wilted.
And here's my trick for spinach. So you buy fresh spinach, put it straight into your freezer. And then right before you need to add it to a recipe, you take it out and just break it up into tiny pieces with your hands because it's frozen. It breaks up really easily and it's less mess. And you are ensuring that your spinach lasts a long time because spinach is known to go bad pretty quickly in the fridge.
So after you add your spinach and cook until it's wilted, you add your beans and corn and give it all a good stir. Now you're going to turn down your heat to a simmer. You're going to layer half of your tortilla pieces over the chicken mixture. Then you're going to doll up spoonfuls of the Greek yogurt over the tortilla pieces.
At a half a cup of your cheese over the skillet. And then add the rest of the tortillas and the rest of the enchilada sauce. And then you're going to add the rest of the cheese. You're going to cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let rest for just a few minutes, because everything's going to be super hot.
And then you can serve it with avocado and cilantro. Or any toppings of your choice and that's it.
So I love this recipe. I love that it's one pot and I am constantly making one pot recipes and my favorite pan ever. Is a five quart saute pan. And I really like the green life saute pan. It's non-stick but it's clean nonstick. So it doesn't have any of the harmful chemicals. And it does such a good job. I've had it for about a year and it's held up so well. So I will link that in my show notes. It's just such a great versatile pan to have.
Especially for the one pot dinners.
This week, I'm actually going to be the one to share a story about food.
And this story is from right before I got married to my husband, Angelo. It was about a week before our wedding and I wanted to make him a special dinner. I had been cooking for him for a very long time. You know, I would make simple dinners that I had been making for years. But I wanted to impress him. And so. I wanted to make beef stew. And this was like really fancy beef stew, so many different steps, so many different ingredients. And so I got all the ingredients I was in the kitchen.
And Angela was at work. This was like the afternoon because the recipe was going to take hours.
And I was pretty comfortable in the kitchen. I had been cooking for a pretty long time at that point.
But I had never tried. That complicated of a recipe before. And so. I started. So the recipe said to heat your oil. Over high heat. And so I was heating my oil in this big pot to sear the meat. And so I had my beef all cut up in small pieces, ready to go in the pan. And my oil. It was hot. And I dumped all of them into the pot. And the hot, hot oil. Splashed onto my hand. And it hurt so bad. It was really hot.
I mean, the recipe said to heat your oil over high heat. So this oil was so, so hot. And it hit my hand and it burned so bad. And then the meat was burning because the oil was so hot. So I turned off the heat. I, you know, remove the pan.
And I just remember it hurt so bad. It was a really, really bad burn.
I don't think I'd gotten burned that bad cooking in the kitchen before. I grabbed him ice. I had it on my hand and it was my left hand. That got burned really bad. So there was two spots that blistered right away, it looked so bad. I mean, really, it was probably a second degree burn.
And this was a week before my wedding and my hand looked so awful. It looked so painful. And so a week later when we got married,
I had to present my left hand.
So the ring could be put on my ring finger. And it looked so awful. And I remember Angela feeling so bad and he didn't think it looked awful but I was so self-conscious about it. And. When you want to get pictures of your rings and I'm like, but my hand looks so awful.
I do think that we did get pictures of our hands together. I'm not sure where those pictures are. But it is. Kind of a funny memory now because I was trying so hard to impress my soon to be husband, that I burned the very hand that he was going to put a ring on. But yeah. So my first experience trying to really impress my husband didn't go very well.
That was pretty much one of those. Nailed it. Moments for sure. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I really hope that it encouraged you and helped you feel like you're not alone. And just to keep going and be gentle with yourself.
If you want to get the recipe that I shared today. All you have to do is subscribe to my email list and that will get sent to you. And then you'll be on my list to get recipes and tips sent directly to your inbox. I hope you all have a wonderful day and happy and healthy meal planning
