layoff scare…we're good

I’ve used this recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins many times.  A bran muffin recipe using Wheaties (I use wheat flour and coconut oil).  Whole Wheat Apple Bread – can be made into mookies, but the bread is great too!  Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins – I half the sugar, use coconut oil (or part butter/applesauce), and whole wheat flour.  This Marbled Cinnamon Sugar Quick Bread recipe is great – you can’t really make the mookies with it, but cook up several loaves and freeze!  I used half wheat/white and coconut oil.

I’ve got others I’ll have to dig around for, but really, any muffin recipe works so use your favorites!

Sue, I use Tropical Traditions and have for years. I primarily buy the expeller-pressed since we’re not always crazy about coconut flavor in some things. I buy a 5- gallon bucket. I think it’s pricey any way you go. Maybe you could go in with someone on a larger quantity.

I have a lid opener. Don’t think I got it from TT but I buy most of my dry bulk goods in sealed 5-gallon buckets so I consider it a necessity. After fighting with a couple of those things, I knew something had to give.

That’s a huge savings! And there may be brands that are cheaper. I’ve just always been very pleased with TT.

I was not allowed to be fussy as a child, and I don’t allow my children to either.  It’s a gift to them, and if they try to be fussy I tell them about a university friend I had who would only eat one type of food so missed out on all the fun. They get that.  Children respond to our expectations. I expect them to eat what they’re given and they rise to it. 

Having said that, I’m gentle with it, so if they REALLY don’t like something and they are not typically fussy, I ask them to eat a little but don’t force them to eat the whole lot…I try to listen to why they don’t like it and say that I’m going to help them learn to like it. So I won’t make that same dish often, but I’ll make it sometimes, and say “how old are you?”, they answer with their age, and so I say, “I’d like you to have that many mouthfuls please, because you’re learning to like this thing”.  When they were really little (baby/toddler) I wouldn’t force them to eat something they clearly didn’t want to eat, but I would try to teach them to like it by giving it a break for a while and coming back to it a few weeks later, this time maybe mixed with something else.

I don’t offer options. I think that breeds fussiness. So all the family have the same food at each meal, and all our meals are together. The same goes for snacks (which we have mid-morning, halfway through school, along with a drink).

In terms of snacks, we eat one of the following:

Raisins

Cheerios

I always have a tin of home baked foods – cookies, that sort of thing, all healthy.  I have about 5 or 6 recipies I rotate through.

I dont buy snacks

Toast (using home-made bread).

We eat tons of fruit, though mainly for desert at lunch and dinner (at the weekend I might make a desert, but during the week we eat fruit).

For breakfast we always have the same thing (it saves time): porridge in the winter or cereal in the summer (healthy brands, not sugary ones and no high fructose corn syrup or added colourings of flavourings.  So rice crispies, cornflakes, cheerios, home-made granola or shredded wheat), with a glass of orange juice, followed by a slice of toast

I buy my coconut oil like Rachel.  I order from Azure most of the time though.  When I don’t live in a state with Azure delivery I order from the website and watch for specials then order in bulk.  Enough for 6 months to a year.  Wilderness Family Naturals is another brand I’ll buy.

Once our kids hit 3 or so they need to have the # of bites as they are old.  I want them to learn to like (or at least try) all sorts of food.  I hope that all 4 of my boys will choose to serve missions for our church and that can mean living in another country or eating someone else’s cooking here stateside.  I went to Brazil for 18 months and ate some crazy stuff.  Had I not it would have been terribly ungracious as many of the families saved up (or went hungry) in order to feed us a meal.  My siblings have been to France/Belgium, Venezeuela and Nicaragua on their missions.  They too had to eat weird things, from people that gave what little they had.  Plus, it just chaps my hide when I work so hard to make a delicious, nutritious meal and they turn their noses up at the food.  If they didn’t eat their meal I don’t give snacks to them until the next meal.  I tried saving it in the fridge for them to eat the next time, but I’m just too tired to fight it again and again so the next meal is a clean slate for them.