457: Meal Planning for Busy Moms: Eliminating the Stress of Cooking with Madison Wetherill

Summary

The Heart & Hustle Podcast – Episode 457 Detailed Summary

Episode Title: Meal Planning for Busy Moms: Eliminating the Stress of Cooking with Madison Wetherill
Hosts: Evie McLeod & Lindsey Roman
Guest: Madison Wetherill (Cook at Home Mom)
Date: November 4, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the everyday struggle of meals for busy moms, creative entrepreneurs, homeschoolers, and anyone who’s juggling multiple responsibilities. With Madison Wetherill, the voice behind Cook at Home Mom, the conversation covers practical, judgment-free strategies to simplify meal planning, keep meals nourishing and varied, handle picky eaters, and reduce stress around family mealtimes. Madison shares her personal, flexible approach to planning and prepping, with an emphasis on finding routines that work for your unique family dynamic.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Barriers to Consistent, Healthy Home Cooking

Timestamp: 06:15–09:47

• Time Constraints: The most common obstacle is lack of time—for planning, prepping, or actually cooking, especially with busy schedules and evening activities.
  • "Time is probably one of the biggest [barriers]... whether you're in or out of the home." — Madison (07:36)
• Planning Issues: Many feel overwhelmed just figuring out what to make, particularly when tired.
  • "The planning piece is huge." — Madison (08:27)
• Decision Fatigue: The sheer task of deciding “what’s for dinner” (or breakfast/lunch) three times a day leads to frustration.
• Dietary Preferences and Restrictions: Family members’ allergies, dietary needs, and picky eating add complexity.

2. Mindset: Meal Planning Is a Skill to Build

Timestamp: 07:02–08:06

• Madison encourages listeners not to feel shame or guilt if they struggle with meal planning—it’s a habit that gets easier with consistent practice.
  • “These are all muscles that we have to build...there is nothing wrong with you if you feel like you don’t do this well...maybe it is just that you haven’t practiced it enough.” — Madison (07:10)

3. Madison’s Practical Meal Planning Flow

Timestamp: 10:30–12:49

• Weekly Planning Session: On Saturday or Sunday, Madison sets aside 30-60 minutes to plan the week’s meals.

  • She consults:
    • Her calendar (to anticipate busier nights)
    • A shared Notion doc of family favorite meals
  • Avoids the Pinterest “black hole” during planning—sticks to familiar, loved meals to save time.
  • Adds meal plan directly into the shared family calendar.
  • Builds grocery list and places a single weekly grocery order (usually via Walmart Delivery or Instacart).

• Budgeting Advantage: Ordering groceries online helps curb impulse buys.

  • “Having it in our calendar...makes it really easy for us to both know, like, this is what's happening.” — Madison (12:17)
  • “We really try to keep it to one grocery order a week because that has really helped our budget.” — Madison (15:09)

4. Addressing Pickiness and Variety

Timestamp: 16:05–20:29

• Balances familiar favorites with small, manageable twists to avoid meal monotony.

• Example: Small changes like swapping proteins, trying new toppings or sauces can create variety without unfamiliarity.

  • “Variety doesn’t have to look like one night we’re having tacos and the next night we’re having paella...It could be...I’m gonna try doing chicken tacos instead.” — Madison (19:15)

• With picky eaters, she “deconstructs” meals—serves disliked ingredients on the side so each child can build their own plate.

  • “When I make [a Mexican skillet], I will just sauté all the vegetables up and then I'll put them to the side…and when I'm ready to serve it, I can serve his without the vegetables and then I can add them back in for everybody else.” — Madison (18:19)

• Encourages repeatedly introducing new foods (scientifically, kids need multiple exposures before accepting something new).

  • "A natural process happens...first is usually 'ew,' the second they might touch it, then they might taste it, and eventually they'll like it." — Madison (23:53)

5. Meal Prep Styles and Family Dynamics

Timestamp: 27:07–32:56

• Ingredient Prep vs. Full Meal Prep: Madison preps ingredients (rice, proteins, egg casseroles, etc.) vs. entire meals, mainly because her family rarely has leftovers (three hungry boys + husband).

• Hosts discuss their own approaches; Evie meal preps full meals for 5–7 days, but recognizes this might shift as her family grows.

• Adaptations: Some families prefer cooking every night, others batch for leftovers.

  • “My meal prep…usually looks like those ingredient-specific things. Or maybe it’s an egg casserole…But it’s not usually here’s a full meal that we’re going to eat later in the week.” — Madison (30:07)

6. Budget-Friendly Shopping, Pantry Use, and Recipe Flexibility

Timestamp: 35:02–38:02

• To save money, Madison recommends always checking what you have before making your meal plan.
• Avoid food waste by using perishables before they go bad.
• Plan for intentional overlap in ingredients to avoid specialty items going unused.
  • “It really does start with the planning and just thinking ahead of, like, how am I going to use this in another way so that it doesn’t…go to the wayside?” — Madison (37:43)

7. Building a Family Recipe List & Reliable Sources

Timestamp: 38:03–41:40

• Pull from trusted, human-created food blogs and resources.
• Madison shares that her own blog, Cook at Home Mom, has hundreds of tested recipes.
• She also offers a low-cost membership meal plan that provides five weeknight dinners every two weeks, with options for prepping ahead or minimal day-of work.
  • "I really just wanted it to be so simple to be able to say, like, here's what you make this week... I really wanted to focus on weeknight dinners because I feel like we all can survive lunch and breakfast, but when it comes to dinner, it's like what? I have no idea what to do." — Madison (41:25)

8. Go-To Quick, Nutritious Recipe Suggestion

Timestamp: 41:58–43:19

• Chicken Fried Rice:
  • Shredded rotisserie chicken
  • Pre-cooked rice
  • Frozen peas & carrots
  • Scramble eggs in the pan
  • Add coconut aminos (soy sauce alternative) and seasonings
  • "I can literally pull that together in 10 minutes or less...all three of my boys just devour it." — Madison (43:02)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Meal Planning as a Life Skill:
  “If it isn’t planned ahead of time, we will all make the wrong choices.” — Madison, sharing a client’s wisdom (32:56)

• On Finding Your Family Rhythm:
  “Find a rhythm that works for you… the one thing I’ve noticed in this conversation… is the meal planning, like, preparing in advance for the week.” — Evie (32:11)

• On Picky Eaters:
  “There’s a scientific process…first iteration is usually, ‘ew, this is disgusting’... Second iteration, they might touch it. Then they might put it in their mouth and spit it out…But if you continue to try introducing those… they’re going to be much more likely to maybe try it and spit it out in the future versus just immediately dismissing it.” — Madison (23:53)

• Fun Host Banter:

  • Evie: “Everyone relates with the struggle… it’s not just a once a day thing. It is a three times a day thing when it comes to eating, cooking, food, all of it.” (06:15)
  • Lindsay: “Funny how that works, like we judge with our eyeballs.” (23:26)

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Resources & Where to Find Madison

Recipes and Practical Guides:

• CookAtHomeMom.com – hundreds of family-friendly recipes
• Free five-day meal plan: cookathomemom.com/slshow

Social:

• Instagram: @cookathomemom

Membership:

• Five-night weeknight meal plans (details on her website)

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Mini-Table of Timestamps

• 06:15 – Common barriers to meal planning
• 10:30 – Madison’s weekly planning flow
• 16:05 – Strategies for variety & picky eaters
• 27:07 – Meal prep and family size dynamics
• 35:02 – Shopping on a budget, pantry use
• 38:03 – Building a go-to recipe list
• 41:58 – Quick recipe: chicken fried rice

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In Summary:
Madison offers a supportive, real-world look at meal planning rooted in flexibility, practical tools, and kindness to yourself. Whether you love cooking, dread it, or land somewhere in the middle, the key is setting aside a small amount of intentional time to plan. Simplify your week with a running list of family favorites, focus on ingredient overlap, and don’t be afraid to keep it simple. Most importantly: meal planning is a skill you can—and will—get better at, one week at a time.

Transcript

[Evie McLeod]

You're listening to the Heart and Hustle podcast. We are your hosts, Evie McLeod and Lindsay Roman. Welcome back to another episode. We are just so excited. Every single week we get to jump in and learn and grow and chat with you, our friends. So today we got to have an incredible conversation with a new friend, Madison Wetherill. She is the voice behind Cook at Home mom where she inspires busy families to make wholesome delicious meals with ease. She is based in Arizona, a wife and a mom of three boys who knows the juggle of family life and meal time chaos. Her blog features approachable flavor packed meals, many gluten free recipes, whole 30 and paleo or keto friendly that prioritize balance over diets. With over 65,000 Instagram followers and features in places like Redfin and top industry podcasts, Madison shares meal plans, cooking tips and strategies to simplify healthy eating. She also hosts the vine podcast and runs a second blog, Joyfully Mad, continuing her mission to make home cooking easy, joyful and full of flavor.

[Lindsay Roman]

Today we got the honor of talking to Madison and we it was great talking to a fellow homeschool mom, busy entrepreneur, all the things which if you are like us, dear listener, you are probably one of those things if not all of those things. And mealtime can be this monotonous or chore filled thing that is hard to find variety in, is hard to get done, is hard to get your kids to eat. All of the above. And Madison today covered every one of those those issues. We talked with her about how she meal plans, how she preps for the week and especially how she keeps it simple, healthy as well as easy for your kids in the sense of like if you have picky eaters at home, how do you handle that? How do you make meals for the whole family that your kids will eat and love genuinely? She talked about so many things about meal planning and figuring out how to balance budget with variety and you know, figuring out recipes from what's in your pantry. So many things and so many tips from this incredible and I learned a lot. I feel like I became hungry listening to this.

[Evie McLeod]

So maybe some snacks.

[Lindsay Roman]

Yeah, grab a snack or just like low key recommendation. Maybe listen to this while you make dinner. Low key or just grab a snack. That works too. But regardless Madison just gives so much tips or so many tips and great advice. If you are a busy mom, if you are a homeschool mom, if you are an entrepreneur or any of the sort and you just want to know how to meal prep, how to meal plan, how to Create meals for your family with variety and simplicity. Then this is the episode for you.

[Madison Wetherill]

So stay tuned and don't go anywhere.

[Lindsay Roman]

We'll be back after this theme song.

Calling all business owners out there. Are you constantly getting ghosted by potential clients? Okay, jokes aside, right? No matter what you do, you're always just hearing crickets after you send your initial email.

[Evie McLeod]

Well friend, we've got you.

We know what it's like and in.

Fact, pretty much all business owners and.

Creative entrepreneurs experience ghosting to some extent or other. While you can't make make your potential.

Client email you back, there are definitely.

Some solid strategies to fix this issue and get booked more.

[Lindsay Roman]

So we are here to help you problem solve that issue. That's why we wanted to share our top eight pieces of advice to hooking your potential clients right from the get go and leaving them screaming, yes, let's do this.

[Madison Wetherill]

If you are ready to get that kind of reaction from your clients, just.

[Evie McLeod]

Download our free guide how to keep potential clients from ghosting [e-mail] ghosting to hook them right from the get go.

[Madison Wetherill]

Hey.

[Evie McLeod]

Hey.

[Lindsay Roman]

I'm Lindsey Roman.

[Evie McLeod]

And I'm Evie McLeod and we are.

Family and legacy focused serial entrepreneurs and the founders of the Hart University, a business education company with a mission to help you thrive in your business and life.

[Lindsay Roman]

Welcome to our Entrepreneur Cocktail hour where.

Business and marketing strategies meet faith, real talk and raw in life changing conversations.

[Evie McLeod]

At the end of the day, we.

Are all in this together, figuring out.

How to navigate the ups and downs.

The messy and the beautiful and everything in between. This is a community where you can come as you are, get inspired and walk away equipped to build a legacy filled life.

[Lindsay Roman]

You're listening to the Heart and Hustle podcast.

[Evie McLeod]

Madison, welcome to the show friend. We are so excited to have you here.

[Madison Wetherill]

Thank you ladies. I'm so excited to be here. We've already had so much fun just getting to know each other a little bit. So I can't wait to see what the next rest of our conversation is going to look like.

[Lindsay Roman]

I know man. We've talked about hurricanes and earthquakes and time zones. It's been great, great conversation and I'm just going to give everyone FOMO for saying those things and they just won't know the conversation. That's fine. Madison, welcome onto the show.

[Madison Wetherill]

We.

[Lindsay Roman]

I would just love for anybody that doesn't know you or is hearing your name or seeing your face for the first time, can you welcome yourself, share what you do, who you are, all the juicy details Absolutely.

[Madison Wetherill]

Well, again, thanks so much for having me, and I'm excited to get to know you guys and get to know your audience a little bit. Like you said, my name is Madison Weatherill, and I am the food blogger behind CookAtHome Mom. And over there, I share easy, healthy recipes for busy families. And I say busy families specifically because I know one of the biggest barriers to healthy eating, meal planning. All the things we're going to talk about today is that we all live really busy lives. And it's hard to make good choices when you don't have the time, you know, or you haven't set aside a choice to make for a future time when you're busy. And so that is really kind of like my heart and soul of what I'm trying to help people with, especially help moms with. And I am a mom myself. I have three boys who are nine, seven, and almost three. And we work from home, we homeschool. We are home all the time. And so cooking and eating lots of yummy food is a huge part of our life as well.

[Evie McLeod]

Oh, I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

You are in the thick of it. I'm so excited. I am excited for this conversation and to talk with an expert about things that everyone deals with.

[Madison Wetherill]

I love it.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah, 100%. I think every. Every human who is the least bit busy, which is every human, relates with the struggle and the feeling of the consistency. It's not just a once a day thing. It is a three times a day thing when it comes to eating, cooking, food, all of it. So I'm really excited to dive into this too. Madison, to kind of, like, start off, what do you feel like are some of the biggest barriers. And maybe we just said it, but some of the biggest barriers for the busy mom or the. The person who is at home and feeling this weight of, like, three meals a day and struggling to feel like they're staying on top of it. Like, what would you say you see the most?

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah, there's actually three things that come up the most when I talk to people about this. And it's funny. I'm sure you guys have had this experience a little bit, but, like, the more you're kind of immersed into something and the more conversations you have, the more you realize, like, well, first of all, that these are not necessarily unique pain points. Like, everyone kind of struggles with these things in some dynamic. But it's also really interesting just to kind of hear people just share a little bit about, like, why this is a struggle. And then I can kind of be like, you're right. That is a struggle. Like, I struggle with that too. It's just in a different way. So the first thing I want to kind of like, to kind of blanket our conversation is to just remind people or maybe share for the first time that these things that we're talking about, healthy eating, meal planning, these are all muscles that we have to build. And so, like, there is nothing wrong with you if you feel like you don't do this well or you feel like this is foreign to you, it maybe is just that you haven't practiced it enough. And so I just want to get that out first because I think there's a lot of like, shame and guilt that kind of can come with these things. Because as moms, we want to do the best thing for our families. And it's really easy to get discouraged when we feel like maybe we're not living up to that expectation we've set on ourselves. So I want to get that out of the way. But part of the reason that it is a struggle, besides just it not being something you've done a lot, is time. You know, we mentioned just being busy in general. That could be time around, like the actual prepping of dinner. It could be time around schedules and activities. If you are a working mom and you're coming home at 5:30 and kids have soccer practice until 8, it's like, do we eat dinner at 4:00 clock or do we eat dinner at 8:30? Like there's that challenging dynamic. There's the time to actually prep the food or cook the food around those activities or just around like a busy day, whether you're in or out of the home. So time is probably one of the biggest. And then the second one is the planning part. So that is kind of those time things that I just mentioned. But it's also so making a plan, so what are we going to eat? Making that meal plan ahead of time and having a routine for that. And then maybe the planning for like easy cleanup on nights where you're getting home a little bit later because of an activity and you don't want to be up until 9 o' clock doing the dishes and all the things. So that planning piece is huge too. And then I think the third biggest one is really just the what to make that can look so different for so many different families. It could be making sure you have enough variety, keeping your meals simple but healthy, having easy cleanup quick but nutritious. And then for a lot of families, you're adding in a whole host of maybe Allergies and dietary preferences mixed into that and it just becomes very complicated very fast or can feel very complicated very quickly. Yeah.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, you broke that down so eloquently. Yeah. I guess when I think of meal planning or just meat, like the issue with dinner, not even dinner, just all the meals every day, it's always like variety and then like, how do I physically make the time to make it? It's just like those things are just. Which you just touched on beautifully. So here, I guess let's talk about time first before variety maybe. So like, but what it would you say is like your meal planning flow, like, do you have a day that you structure, like grocery list and maybe you like, are chopping vegetables for the whole week, like on Sunday or like, is it more of like a night by night? How do you meal plan is maybe the question that I'm asking.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah. And there are so many different ways, but I'll just share like what has worked for me and my family. And I want to also like highlight the fact that I am someone who actually like, I love cooking. I love being in my kitchen. I always tell people, if I had like an empty day with no kids around, like, you'd find me in my kitchen just like cooking and baking all day. And I realize that is very odd and probably not what most people would like spend a free Saturday doing. But even so, I still have to have a plan. And the weeks that I feel the most chaotic and the most like, out of whack is are the weeks where I don't have that meal plan and I haven't set aside that time. So for me, it usually looks like either Saturday or Sunday. It just depends on kind of how our weekend is flowing. I might take 30 minutes to an hour to just sit down and decide what are we going to make? And then from there I actually open up. So I open up two things when I'm meal planning besides the place that I'm going to put, like what we're deciding to make. I open up my calendar and I open up a shared document that I have with my husband. We have, we use notion for it, but it's just a shared note basically of all of our family favorite meals. And those two things are really what helps me be able to meal plan in such a quick time. Notice I didn't say that I open up Pinterest or I open up Google because that's not the moment that I'm going to be like exploring and finding new recipes that I want to try. That's the moment where I'm saying, like, okay, what is easy, what is familiar, and what does my family love? And so I have the calendar open so that I can be aware of the nights where maybe we have a little less time or we have something that we quickly need to get to in the evening. And so those are the times where I'm kind of mentally saying, like, I need to plan ahead for this night or like, even make dinner at lunch type of thing. And I can't know that unless I know, like, what's going on that week. So those two tools really helped me to be able to plan and just, you know, I make the plan. I actually put it in our calendar, what we're eating for dinner, because we found that that's where we're going to see, like, what's going on. And so having it in our calendar as just like, you know, tonight's taco night or whatever makes it really easy for us to both know, like, this is what's happening. And then, then I will go and like, make the grocery order based on the meal plan that I created.

[Evie McLeod]

I have a very specific logistical question.

[Madison Wetherill]

Sure.

[Evie McLeod]

Because I have considered doing this myself in my own flow. Do you have kind of within your family, favorite recipes that, you know, you probably consistently are like, rotating through? Are you the organized person? I'm not, but I'm also like, this. I could see being incredible, like, I don't know, time saver, having like all of the possible groceries you would need for that recipe. So either if you need them all, you just copy and paste all of that over to like a grocery list, or if you're like, oh, I already have, you know, the black beans, I just need, you know, two more pounds of beef or whatever that you can kind of pull from it and you don't have to think it through. Is that, is that a time saving hack for that people?

[Madison Wetherill]

I. I personally don't use that. Most of the recipes that we're making, like, I said, like, we've made them so many times. I don't necessarily not need the recipe. A lot of them, I don't. But I mostly just need kind of the fresh produce, the meat, or, you know, we have kind of a. Another space that we keep like a running grocery list of like, oh, we're out of paprika or, oh, we're out of kind of those like, recurring things. So I don't just because that's. Well, and plus, I don't have a way to like copy and paste that into like, instacart. Or Walmart or whatever to order the groceries. So I'm going to end up typing it all in anyway. So for me, I don't necessarily, like, itemize out all of the groceries, but, like, you certainly could if that works for you. And like, is how your brain needs to see. Would also make it a very, very long list on, you know, every single recip those.

[Evie McLeod]

So totally. I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Do you have a rhythm or a flow of how often you're going to the grocery store in conjunction with like, are you the kind of person that's.

[Evie McLeod]

Like, it sounds like there's a. There's a grocery delivery strategy in her.

[Lindsay Roman]

She did say. Because she said Walmart or Instacart. Wait, give us all the tea. I want to know.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah, so actually we do Walmart grocery delivery. We've done this for years and years. We actually started doing grocery pickup before. Even before COVID like when that was, you know, became a thing because it was just so much of a time saver for me. I also found that I spend less money if I place a grocery order versus go to the store because there's always those, like, extra things that you find or oh, that's cool. I want to try that. I don't do that. I don't do that anymore. I should say. So, yeah. Weekly I try to do a grocery order, like a big grocery order where I'm trying to cover like 95% of what we're going to need. We still will have to run out and get like more eggs or milk or something, but we really try to keep it to one grocery order a week because that has really helped our budget. And again, I can't really do that unless I know exactly what we're going to eat for the week. But as I've built that habit up, and that's actually what started the habit for me of doing the meal planning on the weekends was I would get really frustrated that I couldn't get the grocery order placed in time because back then it was like you had to do it within a certain window to be able to pick it up and all of that. And so I would get really frustrated. And then I finally said, I have to make this a habit where I sit down and do this every weekend, otherwise I can't get our groceries. And then it just spirals from there and it's like the whole week falls apart.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah. Yeah, that makes so much sense.

[Lindsay Roman]

I want to maybe talk about variety now, like, especially for moms with children that are picky, maybe that can be Part of this conversation. But I think even non moms or anybody, like, if you have the same meal again and again and again and it gets monotonous and boring, and then it, like, makes cooking not fun. So do you have any advice for. Or tips for how to introduce variety into your life? How to, I guess, think about children in that variety, especially if they are picky eaters? All the things, all the tips.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah. I think variety really is such a struggle. And I think there's kind of two camps of women that I've spoken to. There's some that love cooking, and maybe they don't love it to the degree that I love it, or they don't do it as often as I do it, but they're like, yes, I really enjoy it. And so I get bored having to make the same recipe over and over again. And then there's the mom or the woman who maybe is like, yeah, I really don't like cooking at all. And maybe those people would be like, I'm okay with eating the same thing multiple times in a week or multiple times in a month because it saves me time from cooking. But either way, I think, and it's funny, when we were talking about, like, all the meals earlier, I was thinking about how dinner seems to be the only one, at least for me, that I'm like, I want variety. For some reason, I can eat the same exact breakfast every single day. And I don't. I mean, I've literally had the same breakfast with. With maybe a 1% variety since, like, Covid, when my husband ended up, like, coming home and working from home, he started taking over breakfast and has made the same breakfast, you know, for five years now. But for some reason, dinner, when that comes around, there's something about the dinner time. Even though it's chaotic and even though there's not a lot of time, we're like, I want to have something kind of creative or something different. So my first tip within the variety, I'm actually going to talk about the picky eating first, because that is actually going to impact kind of the variety that you choose and your meal planning. One of my kids in particular, he is. I wouldn't call him a picky eater. He's pretty good about eating most things, but he despises onions. We don't know why. We don't know where it came from, but he does.

[Lindsay Roman]

Onions are in, like, everything.

[Madison Wetherill]

They are in everything. And so over the years, I've had to kind of adjust certain things. And so one of. I'll give you an example, we have like a Mexican skillet that we like to make. It's kind of like a taco bowl, but it has like peppers and onions in it, and it's got like tomato paste. So it's kind of like a more tomato based taco meat. And when I make that dish, I will just saute all of the vegetables up and then I'll put them to the side and then I'll cook the meat. And then that way when I'm ready to like, serve it, I can serve his without the vegetables and then I can add them back in for everybody else just as like a little aside tip. But the point in mentioning that is when I go to plan the meals, I'm going to make sure I'm not doing like onion dish after onion dish after onion dish. Because by the third day he's going to be like, everything has been onions this week. Like, why is there nothing I like to eat? And so I think it's important to have those preferences in your mind, whether it's your kid or your husband or spouse or whatever. Because when you're planning, you want to have those people in mind as you're planning things, but you also want to plan things for yourself. So there might be meals sometimes where I'm like, like, everybody might not like this, but I'm gonna like it. And so it's going on the list. But the other big thing to think about with variety is variety doesn't have to look like one night we're having tacos and the next night we're having like paella or something. Like, it doesn't have to be these exotic meals. It could be that, like, you know, usually when we make tacos, we use ground beef. I'm gonna try doing chicken tacos instead. It's still relatable, it's still familiar, especially for those pickies and picky eaters. That's really important to have things be familiar, but it's a different protein. Another thing that you can do to add in variety is like, just add in different toppings. So maybe you always do like shredded Mexican cheese on your tacos. Well, can you try maybe like feta cheese or cotija is. The other is like the Mexican version of feta. Can you try a different type of cheese? Can you try a different type of salsa? Or maybe like a creamy avocado dip on top? Like, think about how you can take kind of the base of what you're used to doing and just add one extra little topping that's different or a couple Extra toppings that are different, which is also another thing that just helps picky eaters to be excited about the dish is when they can kind of choose, like, what goes on top of their, you know, finished product. Yeah.

[Lindsay Roman]

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[Evie McLeod]

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[Madison Wetherill]

Cool. I got you.

[Evie McLeod]

The templates come already. SEO optimized with copy prompts from Lindsay and I included. Yeah, you don't just get nonsensical filler text. You get bomb education and prompts from Lindsay and I to help you wow your potential clients and crush your website copy. And we designed a variety of these in different styles so you can find the closest match and then tweak it to make it fully your own.

[Lindsay Roman]

If you're ready to save thousands of dollars and hours upon hours upon hours of your time and get clients flooding through your website, you need to check these out. So grab [e-mail] website templates one more time. That's theheartuniversity.com website templates. If you're enjoying what you're getting in this podcast for free, then you're about to get your mind blown with what we offer in our educational courses. If you're ready to uplevel your business, serve your clients like never before, and reach revenue goals that you've barely dared to dream of, then we're ready to help.

[Evie McLeod]

Our courses are packed full of tools, formulas, strategies and resources to help you kick freaking butt in biz. Whether you choose the photo Major, a complete course for photographers, or the Content Photo Minor, a mini course on how to finally slay your content photos for your blog, insta, headshots, whatever, you will walk away with more knowledge than you ever thought possible. And here's the reality. We are here to see you succeed always and forever. And that is why we created each and every one of these courses.

[Lindsay Roman]

To check them out for yourself, read the reviews and look at each course syllabus. Go to TheHeartUniversity.com courses. That's TheHeartUniversity.com courses.

I just think of my kid. That's so good. First of all, I think of my child's child's children that like, I'll put something on the, on the table and like my 3 year old will be like, I don't like that. And I'm like, you haven't even put it in your mouth yet. That's never been an encounter that you've experienced. And she'll be like, nope. And then I'll be like, eat it, just try a bite. And then, and then she'll try and be like, this is my favorite meal ever. And I'm like, funny how that works. Funny how that works. Like we judge with our eyeballs.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yes, 100%. And actually there's something like, really? I mean, there's like a scientific process that happens with introducing new foods to kids. And the first like iteration is usually something like that, like, ew, this is disgusting. And they like won't touch it. The second iteration is usually like, they might touch it or play with it. And then the third time they might put it in their mouth and spit it out. This is more for like younger toddlers, but three, like, that's right on point. And then sometimes they'll graduate to the actually eating it and liking it. But it's a natural process that happens. And I think a lot of the time we introduce something once and they say it's disgusting and we're like, cool, that's going in the trash. We're never making that meal again. But if you continue to try introducing those, you know, familiar things to them or you make those new things familiar to them, they're going to be much more likely to like, maybe try it and spit it out in the future versus just like immediately dismissing it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, that's so good. I made a corn chowder that was. That had, like, chipotle peppers in it, or what are they. What is it called? Chipotle in Adobo in, like, the can. And the recipe called for, like, two of them, which kind of makes it. I would call it spicy.

[Evie McLeod]

Like, it was pretty.

[Lindsay Roman]

And I was just like, I loved it because I love spicy soups. And I was in my element, and the girls were like, all. Like, my children are all girls. And they were just like, I'm not eating this. This is too spicy. And when I ate it, I'm like, oh, okay. I can. This isn't you just being picky. This is you being, like, it is genuinely spicy. And then I made it again, like, a few weeks later with. And I only did one chipotle pepper that time, and they loved it. And they were. All of a sudden were like, this is my favorite meal ever. And I was just like, don't love this. This is not sp.

[Evie McLeod]

Just dump hot sauce on your bowl. Specifically, literally. I'm sure you did.

[Lindsay Roman]

It was just so funny. It's just, like, the experimentation and also just how they hated something one time, and then I tweaked it, and then. I mean, what you were saying, it's just like, maybe try introducing something again in a different way, and they might just have a. Like, literally. Eloise was like, this is my favorite meal ever. And I'm like, remember the first time I made this?

[Evie McLeod]

And you wouldn't even eat it justifiably. So, yeah, okay.

[Lindsay Roman]

Fair, Fair.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah. I wasn't making her feel good, so she was like, no, this is a pass for me.

[Lindsay Roman]

She's like, no, this is actually painful.

[Madison Wetherill]

Exactly. Yeah. But so if you had a family meal list, that would go on your list because you had the response of, like, this was the best meal ever. It goes on the list so that next time you're, like, meal planning, you're like, oh, yeah. Remember, they loved that meal. And it's, like, super easy to pick it off the list because you remember, at least you're familiar with how to make it, and you know that everyone's gonna love it. And then it's like you just took out, you know, 1/7 of your meal planning for the week. Week.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Lindsay Roman]

Yeah. That's good.

[Evie McLeod]

I have a, like, as you're describing, like, kind of the two types of women that you encounter and experience with cooking. I'm. I'm, like, personally assessing myself and being like, I truly don't know where I fall, because I love cooking. I Love cooking. Like, it brings me so much joy to be in the kitchen and cook. However, I don't know if I would be the person on my day off in the kitchen. Like, so I'm. So I'm the person. Just for context for you, Madison, I meal plan and I meal prep. So I typically prep at least five to seven meals, Dinners and often lunches.

[Lindsay Roman]

Can you define meal prep? Like, what does that mean for you when you say that?

[Evie McLeod]

For me, it's typically one full, like.

[Lindsay Roman]

Afternoon slash afternoon evening, where you're, like, chopping vegetables.

[Madison Wetherill]

I'm.

[Evie McLeod]

I'm usually cooking the entire meals. Oh, most of the time. There will be times if I don't have to.

[Madison Wetherill]

Maybe it is prepping.

[Evie McLeod]

I would call that meal prepping. But, like, it's. There are meals that are very easily either like, thrown together. Like, I just throw it in the oven.

[Lindsay Roman]

So you have like a week of leftovers.

[Evie McLeod]

I mean, everyone's definition of meal prepping is different. Some people just prepare, like, prepare the ingredients and then cook them as they go. I am the person who probably eight or nine out of my meals are like taco bowls that everything just reheated and you, like, are, you know, throwing the taco meat in and this, and then you put all the toppings together. So it's like you're still putting it together, but it is like, the beef is hard work.

[Madison Wetherill]

Like, the.

[Evie McLeod]

Everything is, like, ready to go.

[Lindsay Roman]

I'm pretty sure I would call that a leftover, but, yeah, probably.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Lindsay Roman]

There's.

[Evie McLeod]

We've have friends in our friend group who absolutely cannot stand that thought because the thought of leftovers of any form.

[Lindsay Roman]

And I'm like, look, I can't understand that though, either.

[Evie McLeod]

I understand, though. There are certain, like, I. My. My recipe list is very specific to meals that in my opinion, are just.

[Lindsay Roman]

As good, like, new as.

[Evie McLeod]

Yes, like, I can. It's a soup. It's a. It's a chowder or like a. I have a white chicken chili recipe that my family absolutely loves and like, all of our friends love and have, like, you know, taken it for their families because it's so good. In my opinion, you have no flavor difference or experience difference if you made it that night versus is heating up soup the next night. So anyways, I am that person who, like, I thoroughly enjoy my meal prep days. I spend like, several hours. I do multiple meals for that usually get us through like, five to seven days. But I'm like, I'm curious for the perspective of you, who's somebody who loves cooking Are you in your meal planning? Are you the person, do you cook seven individual dinners or do you do, you know, hey, I do one big dip. Cause I know there's like a, there's like layers to this. Some women will do like a big dinner and then it's the leftovers for that the next night and then a big dinner and then leftovers for one night. Like, I'm just curious, like, what are your perspectives on meal prepping as we're discussing, like saving time and meal planning?

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah. Well, I will say for our family, I think having. We don't have a large family necessarily, but having three boys and a very hungry husband. So basically four boys. We eat a lot of food. And so it's really hard for us, us to even have leftovers. Like, I'm lucky if there's leftovers for the next day for lunch. So if I am meal prepping, I actually do more of what you were describing as like the ingredient prepping. So I will like make a big batch of rice. I will make, you know, like some turkey that I season, you know, one way or another. Or maybe I leave it unseasoned so I can put it into multiple kinds of dishes and then that way I can kind of like put pull together. Usually lunches is what I'm using that for.

[Evie McLeod]

Yes.

[Madison Wetherill]

But I'm pretty much making dinner every single night, with the exception of I often have a chicken marinade in the freezer that I can pull out and just cook up for dinner. Or maybe I have a rotisserie chicken that I can make into chicken fried rice or something like that. But generally speaking, my meal prep on the weekends usually looks like those ingredient specific things. Or maybe it's an egg casserole for breakfast or a loaf of sourdough or whatever it is. But it's not. Usually here's a full meal that we're going to eat later in the week. Unless it's like one of those nights that I mentioned where it's like, all right, we've got drum lessons at 4:30. We're not gonna be home until 6, whatever it is. So for me, that's what's worked the best. But that has a lot to do with a. My desire to cook every night and the level of food that we're eating. It's like I've tried to double or triple a recipe before, and it's like I'm using 8 pounds of meat and I'm like, this is ridiculous. Yeah, yeah.

[Evie McLeod]

I will say I'm very curious to see how this habit. Cause this. I've done this for years now, and it works so well for us. I'm very curious as we have a bunch of kids in, like, how that's going to change because I know it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Just wouldn't take as long or. Sorry, it wouldn't last as long. Like, if you're making a bunch of meals that last like seven days, I feel like it just wouldn't. Yeah, but it'll take a while to get to that because newborn's not gonna eat.

[Evie McLeod]

Totally. I'm also.

[Madison Wetherill]

I'm.

[Evie McLeod]

We're already at the point where. Cause we do, like, I do have a bunch of stuff prepped for ingredients, prepped for lunches. Typically, dinners often are a bit more like, that's already prepped as a taco bowl. It's a soup. It's already ready to go. We just reheat it, basically. But I'm very curious. I do like, four pounds of beef for the taco bowls and, like, whatever. And I'm like, I'm curious. Yeah, you're right. Like eight pounds. That's gonna be interesting. But I'm the. I am the person. I love cooking. I just. The thought of having to be in the kitchen every night, starting from scratch on a new meal every night, just. I would so much rather throw the soup on the stove to reheat and, like, not bother.

[Lindsay Roman]

But I love that.

[Evie McLeod]

That's. It's like, hey, there's nuance to this.

[Madison Wetherill]

This.

[Evie McLeod]

I think the thing that I'm noticing you say Madison in all of it is find a rhythm that works for you in, you know, the systems. Are you. I know several friends who are very big on, like, hey, I don't meal prep for a week because that's impossible with a family of five kids. But what I do do is I've found that, you know, tripling a recipe does work for us, and we do a big dinner, and then it's either lunch the next day or dinner for the next day as well. And, you know, so it's like every two nights they're cooking. But I feel like the one thing I've noticed in this conversation that I feel like is a through line that pretty much every busy mom can take is the meal planning, like, preparing in advance for the week. Would you say that's kind of accurate as, like, you see that almost across every mom's scenarios?

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah, absolutely. I think that is. I mean, regardless of what your dynamic looks like, I would say unless you are like, literally no kids, no job, you're just like sitting at home, like you are having things that you're juggling and you're shifting your schedule around and things like that. And so I, I like to think of it very similarly to like a budget. It's just like I'm predetermining what's going to happen. And someone recently said something to me. I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but she basically said, oh no, I do have it in front of me. She said, if it isn't planned ahead of time, we will all make the wrong choices. And I feel like, I mean, that fits for so many different things in life, right? But like from a healthy eating perspective or just a, even just trying to eat at home, like, let's take the healthy out of it. Like, I'm just trying to save money by not going out and getting takeout every night. Like, if you don't plan ahead for that, you won't have the groceries, you won't have the time. You're going to be grumpy by the time you're eating at 8 o' clock at night. Right? Like, it's not going to be a good dynamic. Which means the next time you go to do this, you're going to be like, I tried that once, it didn't work for me. Like, I'm just going to go get takeout. So I think, yeah, the meal planning side of it, it's so big, but it is, like we've said, it's complicated and every single person's dynamic and situation is different. So I always just recommend, like, find that one time a week that you can dedicate to just trying it and seeing how it goes, make adjustments. I mean, I can't tell you how many iterations of this meal planning habit that I've had. Like the thing I said about adding it to the calendar, I just changed that like a month ago because I kept finding, like, I'm going to three places to find this. Why isn't it just where I'm already looking? And so for everyone, it's going to look different. But you won't know what is going to work for your family until you try it and you try it for a little while until you're like, nope, that's not it. Let me adjust it. So yeah, that's just my biggest encouragement, regardless of all of the other, other things that we've talked about is just like, start making that habit because it's going to help you make those decisions you want to make, even when you're tired, even when it's a busy night, even when you don't have the groceries in the fridge or whatever, it's going to help. You know what to do.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Madison, do you have any tips for. I feel like balancing, like, finances and not spending, like, a bajillion dollars on. On a recipe. I'm the kind of person that, like, I like variety, and so I'll, like, if I'm me and my husband, like, kind of trade off cooking, and if it's my night, I'll, like, open a recipe book. That sounds good. And then I'll, like, be like, awesome. That sounds dope. Now we gotta go get those.

[Evie McLeod]

I need this very niche, specialized ingredient.

[Lindsay Roman]

That I. Poblano peppers don't have those. I need, like, random things. And so I'll look in the pantry and I'll be like, okay, we need this, this, this, and this. My husband's the opposite. He's really, really good at looking in the pantry and then, like, creating a. What we already have, which is probably cheaper. It is, but I guess how do you balance? Or do you have any tips for balancing, like, maybe doing that of, like, smartly creating recipes so that you're not having to just buy new ingredients for every single meal each night, even if you plan ahead versus staying healthy and. And. And appeasing everybody with dietary and interests. Like, how do you plan? I guess let's, like, budget and variety while not having to go to the grocery every day. Does that make sense?

[Madison Wetherill]

For sure, yeah. And I actually think it's a really cool balance that you and your husband have, because you can, like, buy the poblano peppers, and he can be like, okay, well, now I have some leftover poblano peppers. What am I gonna do with this? A lot of people maybe don't have that, like, balance, you know, and dynamic, but I think everybody can do kind of what your husband's doing, which is like, let me look at the pantry and what I have. Which. I didn't mention that as, like, a step in the meal planning process, but it definitely can be, especially if, you know, maybe you've got some stuff in your freezer, like you maybe bought some extra chicken when it was on sale or whatever, and it's in your freezer and you need to use it. So I definitely recommend, like, when you're starting this habit of meal planning, like, figure out what you already have and maybe need to use up, especially that produce. Because, I mean, I. That is one thing about me. I hate wasting food, like, almost more than anything. And so I will most often just be like. Like, I don't even know if this is gonna taste good, but we're just gonna try it because I need to use up the zucchini or whatever it is. And sometimes those are the best recipes. Like, they. They really turn out in the end. Um, but I think to your point, like, if you are, which, I mean, all of us are trying to watch our budget, trying to watch what we're spending on groceries, right? Cause they're just. They're expensive. And truly the best way that you can do that is by making a plan. Because if you don't, then all of a sudden stuff is bad in your fridge and you're like, well, I'm not gonna be able to use this now, versus when you went to go buy the. The poblano peppers. It's like, okay, a, can you maybe buy less than you need so you make sure you use it all up, or B, maybe buy a little bit more so you know, you can use it again in a recipe later in the week. I mean, there's so many different, like, tips and things for freezing stuff or, you know, storing things properly and things like that. But I think, like, it really does start with the planning and just thinking ahead of, like, how am I going to use this in another way so that it doesn't. Doesn't, you know, go to the wayside?

[Lindsay Roman]

I love.

[Evie McLeod]

I have a. A very tangible question that I would love to hear if you have any encouragement or thoughts or resources on for the person listening to this who is like, this is fantastic. I would love to have a go to list of recipes that I could pull from for my family, for, you know, myself, whatever. I have no recipes currently in my repertoire that I feel like I can pull from. Do you have any either resources from you or things that you're like, hey, here's some great places to look or places I recommend getting some, you know, staple recipes.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah, I think it's a really. So obviously this is not something that you guys would probably know about or even your listeners would, but in the food blogging space right now, there's like, a lot of interesting changes happening. One of those interesting and kind of, I don't know, I don't know an adjective to describe it. One of those changes is like, the onset of just AI created recipes now, and we could have an entire podcast episode about that. So I won't go too far into it, but I think it's really important to have, like, people in your back pocket that you trust. That, you know, like these recipes were created by a human. I'm not saying that AI could never make a recipe, but like they can't really, they don't know taste right now, so it's.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Madison Wetherill]

Or they probably won't ever know taste. So, like having people that you trust, you know, keeping those people kind of close to you, whether it's like on that list, maybe that list of recipes isn't necessarily like all of these ones that you know, but it's these like four or five blogs that you really trust and that's where you go to search. You know, a lot of food bloggers, they, we really, all of us, we put our heart and soul into these recipes. And I can say from, you know, me personally, like, these are the recipes that my family eats. Like, this is not just like random stuff that I create. Like this is literally what's on our, our family meal plan. And you know what is, you could go back on our calendar and see that we've eaten these meals. So I think just kind of noting, like, who are those people that you really trust? You know, join their email list so that you get their new recipes, follow them on Instagram, like that type of thing. Because there is no shortage of like information and recipes out there. But I think knowing that they're recipes that you can trust and that fit your family's lifestyle too is really important. And then you said, you know, is there anything specifically from me? Obviously, like you could go to cookathomemom.com and there, there are literally hundreds of recipes for all kinds of different types of things. We have a lot of weeknight dinner recipes, a lot of recipes that can be tweaked for different dietary needs and things like that. But I also have a membership community where I offer a five day meal plan. You get two weeks at a time. But there are specifically five days of weeknight dinners that you can either prep ahead or take minimal prep on the night of. And it really takes the guesswork out of it for people who are, who they want to eat healthy meals that they know are going to taste good, but they don't have a lot of time to sit down and plan it. And I really just wanted it to be so simple to be able to say, like, here's what you make this week and if you're like, I don't feel like fish tacos tonight, great, you can do something else that's on the list. Or you could skip it altogether and say, okay, I'm going to do beef tacos instead or whatever the example is. Apparently I want tacos today, but yeah, so that's a really great resource too. And you know, there's lots of different meal plans and stuff out there, but this one in particular, I really wanted to focus on weeknight dinners because I feel like we all can survive lunch and breakfast, but when it comes to dinner, it's like what? I have no idea what to do. So. And that will be on the cook at home mom website too. And I can give you guys a direct link for the show notes as well. But I really hope that that will help really take the guesswork out of it for moms.

[Evie McLeod]

Oh, I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing and for just being here and sharing all the things and I guess, last question. Do you have an example of a quick, nutritious recipe that anybody could make that's like, this is my go to. This is super easy. This is. I'm just kidding.

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah. I mean, tacos. Yeah, no, I definitely do. Aside from tacos, which there are many varieties of tacos we really love. Like I mentioned the chicken fried rice earlier, so that is like one of my go to recipes when, especially when we have like very little time, we'll buy a rotisserie chicken from the store. I usually try to pull like the chicken off of it ahead of time. That way when I get to dinner time, all I'm doing is and I usually have rice pre made or I can make it super quick in the instant pot, but you're basically like warming up the chicken, throwing in some frozen peas and carrots and warming those up, adding in the rice, adding in an egg and then you add in. I use coconut aminos. We don't do soy, so coconut aminos is very similar to soy sauce. But you just add that in with some spices and it is so delicious. Has so much protein in it too. And I, I mean all three of my boys just like devour it. That's one of the ones. We will never have leftovers because everyone just loves it so much. But I can literally pull that together in 10 minutes or less. Like it's as long as it's like, you know, the chicken's already pre shredded. You can also buy like rotisserie chicken off the bone at the store if you have a little bit more budget that can allow for that. And that's a great way to get like a really nutritious and easy dinner on the table that like I said, all of my kids will love. And I haven't found a child yet. Who doesn't like fried rice?

[Lindsay Roman]

Literally, I'm salivating.

[Evie McLeod]

I think we're getting close to dinner time because I am ravenous for chicken fried rice.

[Lindsay Roman]

We batch our podcasts and this is the last interview of the day and I'm like, well planned.

[Evie McLeod]

Time for chicken fried rice for dinner.

[Madison Wetherill]

There you go. No takeout required.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, I love it.

[Evie McLeod]

Madison, you have just given so much today and you are a wealth of knowledge, information and I know you have way more at your website and your membership and all these other things. So for the listener who is ready to kind of jump off and learn more, get all these recipes, inspiration, encouragement from you, join your membership. Where can they connect with you and find it?

[Madison Wetherill]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun. I mean, I clearly could talk about this kind of stuff all day, but yeah, the two easiest places to kind of connect with me, obviously going over to cookathomemom.com is you're going to find all the recipes there, all the links to all the things. And then I'm also over on Instagram, so I do do some video series over there. Weeknight dinners, weeknight snacks, all those, or not weeknight snacks, but snacks and things like that. So that's cook at home mom. And then I also will have a just like a free five day meal plan for your listeners to be able to just get a taste of what that looks like or at least have one week that they don't have to plan their meals. You'll get variety, you'll get healthy meals, stuff that's really easy to prep ahead or make the night of. So that will [e-mail] slshow and I'll obviously have that link for you guys to put in the show notes as well. But that's a great way to just kind of jump start this whole process of simplifying your eating and eating healthy, delicious meals that your family loves. Amazing.

[Lindsay Roman]

Ah, mic drop. Thank you so much, Madison, for being here and just sharing all your tips with our listeners.

[Madison Wetherill]

We're so grateful. Thank you so much for having me, Sam.