Cooking healthy can sometimes be hard, take a lot of time and when life gets busy, it can be easier to run to chipotle {again} then taking time to cook healthy meals.

In the beginning of our marriage, I was a full time college student working part time. I then moved to working full time and I’ve now moved into a new season of motherhood chasing down two very active toddlers-to-be. Can you relate to feeling so buys you never have time…for anything??

The single best thing I’ve done to help me get a healthy cooked meal on the table each night is by building up my arsenal of family favorite recipes. While this does take consistent work preparing new meals frequently, the rewards are so worth it! After four years of doing this, I now have dozens of family favorite recipes that I can rely on.

Developing your arsenal of favorite recipes

1) Try a new recipe every week

When we first got married, I knew little about healthy cooking. Sure, I could make brownies out of a box and throw together some Velveeta and pasta but I didn’t really know how to create delicious and healthy meals for my family!

So in order to learn how to be a great cook {and not overwhelm myself}, Friday nights became our new recipe night. Each week as I developed our menu for the week I would pull out all my cookbooks and let hubby browse through them for a fun new meal to try.

Then each Friday we have our new recipe. Some meals have been total flops and others have been stored away as family favorites for years to come. I have done this now for 4 1/2 years and don’t see myself stopping this tradition any time soon.

Over time, trying just one new recipe a week can help you develop an entire arsenal of family favorite recipes at your disposal!

2) Develop a Family Favorite’s Cookbook

As I tested these new recipes, I started learning which ones my husband would request often. Once I realize that a recipe has officially become a “family favorite” I print it off, or copy it into our “family favorites recipe book”. This way, I have all our go-to favorite recipes all in one place.

A family friend made this cookbook for us when we were engaged and added some of their favorite recipes, and since then we have been filling it with our own favorites.

3) Ask for feedback from your family

I genuinely want to know what my husband thinks of the meals I make him. Yes, I want to create healthy and nutritious meals but I also want my family to look forward to dinner time!

I don’t want my kids and husband to gaze longingly at the processed aisles of junk as we walk through Costco, I want them to be excited about the meals I’m crafting from scratch {or nearly scratch} that are healthy and nutritious!

So as we sit down to eat our new meal of the week, I ask for honest feedback. Don’t ask what your family thinks about the meal if you are just asking for glowing praise!

It reminds me of this story, after 46 years of marriage, the wife finds out that the husband doesn’t like mac and cheese and she’s been feeding it to him all this time, unaware he hates it! I don’t want to be like that. I want open and honest communication. 

The truth is, some meals are a total flop or are just not meant for your family. Find out what meals your husband especially likes and then decide if this is one you should make weekly, monthly, or never again!

 

4) Experiment and have fun!

Yes, it does take a little bit of work to get the cookbooks out, find a good looking new recipe, buy the ingredients for it and then actually make it…but it’s so worth it in the end!

If you do this enough times, those favorite meals of yours will become second nature. You will learn which meals your family loves and along the way you will discover many more recipes that are family favorites!

Where Do I Find New Recipes?

If you are like me then you might be stumped to know where to turn to find new recipes. Pinterest can be great sometimes {and I’ve found some pretty good real food recipes from there}, but honestly my meals flop more than they do win from Pinterest. Or I can’t find what I’m looking for or the person pinned just the photo and it doesn’t actually link to the recipe….Grrr!

Knowing where to find real food, healthy recipes can be hard!! Many of the cookbooks in my cupboard might have yummy recipes but most of them are not healthy and are not ones I would want to feed my family on a regular basis.

What I’m Most Excited About in This Collection

Okay I might be just a teensy-bit biased here but I have to share with you this one amazing resource that’s included in this bundle. It’s called Real Food for the Real Homemaker {oh yeah…and I might be one of the authors of it}. We worked so hard on this cookbook and gave it our all. It’s has over 75 recipes in this one cookbook alone, and trust me, they are delicious!