Every mom knows that the hours between after work/school and bedtime are some of the most hectic hours of the day. Often times by the end of the day we don’t have the brain power to figure out what is going to be on the table for dinner. These meal planning tips for busy moms can help you make your evenings significantly less stressful.

This post is sponsored by Hello Fresh, but all opinions are 100% my own. We love Hello Fresh and will continue to recommend them to our friends and family!

Meal Planning with Hello Fresh

Meal planning is amazing, but sometimes we just don’t have the time as busy moms to sit down to plan, shop, and prep. As much as moms like to do it all sometimes it is okay to hand things off to companies like Hello Fresh.

Hello Fresh is a delivery service that will send customized healthy recipe ingredients to your doorstep. You regulate when the delivery comes, the amount of meals, dietary preferences, and even what recipes will be delivered. The best part is, all of the recipes are super simple and do not take a long time to cook!

You are completely in control of what is sent to you and can pause or modify your deliveries whenever you want. There is even an iPhone app for it!

If you don’t have time to spend hours meal planning then this service is definitely one you should try out!

Our daughter loves helping with our Hello Fresh deliveries. Her grandparents got her a play kitchen for Christmas so she thinks she knows everything about cooking now!

You can get the family plan from Hello Fresh, which feeds 2 adults and 2 children, for only $8.74 per meal!

Use the coupon code SUNSHINE30 for 30% off your first Hello Fresh order!

Here are what some of our meals looked like to give you an idea of what they provide:

Using Grocery Pick up to Make Meal Planning Easy

Many grocery stores, including Kroger and Walmart, now have grocery pick up which helps you save so much time trying to find things in the grocery store.

All you do is shop online, add everything from your grocery list into your cart, and schedule a time for pickup! They bring the groceries out to your car and everything. So easy! Especially for moms who don’t want the stresses of taking their children into the store to shop.

Using Slow Cooker Freezer Meals for Dinner

Slow cooker freezer meals do take a couple of hours out of one day to prep, but once they are prepped all you have to do is dump them in the slow cooker in the morning and eat in the evening.

You can shop on one day for 30 days worth of meals, divide them up into freezer bags, and freeze them! Then the whole month is ready and prepped. It takes some time, but is so worth it when your month is running smoothly.

Just search on Pinterest for “slow cooker freezer meals” and so many good recipes will come up!

Healthy & practical toddler snacks can be hard to come by. Especially living in a world of convenient drive thru menus and pre- packages snacks.

These ideas aren’t Pinterest worthy pieces of food art, but are practical ideas for healthy snacks that we try to regularly keep in our daughters diet.

We are not perfect and many days you will find my toddler eating something from a wrapper, but for our family it is all about balance.

This post contains affiliate links.

Fruit as a Toddler Snack

Fruit is the perfect snack for toddlers, but it also can be easy to pass fruit up for something that you don’t have to prepare when you are in a hurry. What I try to do is cut up and prepare all of the fruit the day I grocery shop and put it in plastic baggies (for single servings) or put it all in a tupperware container.

Doing it this way makes fruit as convenient as a pre packaged snack because it is available to grab and go if you are busy that day. Here are some ideas of what fruits our toddler eats:

Sliced kiwi

Apples (sometimes with peanut butter) – Get an apple slicer to make serving apples easier

Grapes – I can be a little paranoid at times so when B was younger I used to slice the grapes in half longways so she wouldn’t choke.

Blueberries

Clementines – An orange peeler also makes preparing them go faster

Bananas

Obviously there are many more fruits that toddlers love these are just a few of the simple ones we try to keep in the house at all times for our daughter.

Another way to be sure that kids are getting fruit in their diet is to make them a smoothie. Here are a few smoothie recipes that we like to make:

Banana Berry Smoothie

Morning Smoothie

Post Workout Smoothie

Vegetables as a Toddler Snack

Veggies have never really been difficult in our home, but some children just will not touch them. One tip I have found to be helpful is to season the veggies just as you would eat them so that they aren’t so bland tasting.

Here are some healthy (and simple!) vegetable snacks you can try with your toddler:

Carrots – With ranch if they won’t eat them plain

Celery – You can add peanut butter too!

Squash & Zucchini – Our daughter loves baked squash and zucchini. All you have to do is slice or cube the squash or zucchini, drizzle with olive oil, season it a little with garlic powder and pepper, and bake at 350º until it is tender (probably about 20 minutes).

Cucumbers – These are super easy to prepare beforehand. You can just slice them and store them in the refrigerator in plastic baggies.

Avocados – Simply slice them up and serve them or mash them and it as dip with healthy crackers!

The smoothies I linked above also have veggies in them. It is pretty easy to sneak veggies into a smoothie without kids knowing if you have a picky eater!

Other Healthy Toddler Snacks

Rice cakes – Our daughter eats them plain, but we occasionally top them with mashed avocados or peanut butter.

Cheese sticks

Applesauce

Yogurt

What kind of healthy snacks do you feed your toddlers?

 

Whole 30 is a 30 day nutritional diet that is designed to reset and cleanse your system in order to make healthier eating habits in the future. Starting any kind of diet can be overwhelming at first so here are 30 Whole 30 recipes to try this month to get you started!

Whole 30 Breakfast Recipes

Monkey Salad is a yummy recipe to add to your Whole 30 menu because you can change out the berries to keep it interesting throughout the month.

Vanessa and her husband were getting tired of simple scrambled eggs in the morning on their diet so they switched it up a little by creating this sweet potato, egg, and kale casserole for breakfast.

Even though you are eating clean doesn’t mean you can’t have pizza for breakfast…well sausage pizza egg muffins, but it is almost the same thing 😉

If you are looking for something that you can toss in a pan and forget about until it is done then the Whole 30 breakfast hash is calling your name. This meal could seriously pass for breakfast or dinner if you are the meal planning type and want to cook a big batch of it for the week!

Ever since my middle school best friends mom made me a Quiche at her little cabin on the lake I have been in love. I’m especially in love with spinach Quiche so spinach + onions + sweet potato crust = YES PLEASE!

Who grew up eating egg in a hole? Well, here is a bread free breakfast twist on egg in a hole using sweet potatoes!

This bacon burger and fries breakfast (yes, you read that right) will make you feel like you are eating a cheat meal for sure. It takes about an hour to cook so this is the perfect meal to prep and eat throughout the week.

Grain free porridge? That title alone is enough to make you want to try this recipe out for breakfast.

This breakfast salad combines some of my favorite foods into a delicious and extremely healthy lettuce free salad.

Oatless oatmeal sounds weird enough to try…even weirder than the name is the fact that it has grated zucchini in it!

Whole 30 Snack Recipes

Whole 30 banana pudding recipe that is super healthy and super easy to make too!

I always buy more kale than I can eat before it goes bad so easy kale chips are a must to use up the kale before I have to toss it.

Cauliflower is all the rage right now in the healthy food world. This cauliflower curry humus recipe only takes 15 minutes to prep and will easy you into the cauliflower world.

The super bowl is coming up which means a lot of yummy snack food. You can stay away from the traditional buffalo chicken with this whole 30 buffalo chicken dip!

There are some Larabars that are Whole 30 approved, but not all of them are. Try making your own to be sure you are staying within the diet!

These apple + almond butter sandwiches are the perfect healthy snack for both you and your kids. I know we will be trying them soon!

I found another yummy cauliflower recipe that is also perfect for a super bowl party…pineapple teriyaki baked cauliflower poppers!

This make ahead meatball recipe is perfect for meal planning and you can use them with dinner or as a snack throughout the week.

I may be a little bit biased because it is my own recipe, but my sweet potato wedges take the cake for my favorite healthy snack!

Plain veggies can get a little boring sometimes so for all you ranch lovers here is a healthy alternative to ranch dressing.

Whole 30 Dinner Recipes

It can be really really hard for me to replace bread in my diet. I LOVE BREAD, but I might actually try a unless burger with fried carrots on top!

Pretty much anything “one pan” can win my heart over especially this sweet and savory chicken apple sausage & sweet potato skillet.

I cook pulled BBQ chicken in the slow cooker and it always turns out so flavorful, but it takes all day which is a bummer if you didn’t plan for it. This healthy pulled tandoori chicken recipe literally takes 25 minutes from start to finish and is just as flavorful.

For pork chops with a delicious dry rub, a creamy sauce, AND Whole 30 compliant try these chipotle pork chops!

This no bean chili looks so amazing. It is packed with veggies and just enough spice to make it perfect!

Anything with avocados is a yes for me. Whole 30 jerk chicken and mango avocado salsa will fulfill that Mexican food craving completely.

Zoodles are the perfect way to sneak veggies into a non veggie lovers food. Especially if it is hidden in a casserole like tuna green chile zoodle casserole.

Spaghetti squash is another one of those veggies that you can easily disguise in a meal. This spaghetti squash recipe has only three ingredients and can be eaten as a main or side dish.

Here are more zoodles, but this time they are topped with delicious shrimp…and the recipe only takes you 10 minutes!

As a true Texan I must have my fajita fix even when eating healthy. Toss everything onto a sheet pan for this perfectly healthy fajita dinner.

Literally the most hectic time of my day is dinner time. Brandon is just getting home, the kitchen is a wreck from cooking, B is hungry, then baths, and then finally bedtime. With all of this going on the last thing I need to be stressed about it what we are eating for dinner so we used Blue Apron this week for making dinner time easier and less stressful.

What is Blue Apron?

Blue Apron is a subscription service that will deliver meals to your home for you to prepare for your family. There is no shopping or hunting down good recipes involved. You simply open the box, read the recipe, and cook the meal.

You can skip the subscription at anytime and there is no commitment. Only fresh ingredients when you want them.

I was so excited when I opened our box because it was filled with fresh produce and meat. It looked like I had pulled the ingredients straight out of my garden!

Should You Use Blue Apron?

If you are busy and do not have time to grocery shop or meal plan then Blue Apron is for you. If you have young children and grocery shopping is difficult then Blue Apron is for you.

I found it to be extremely convenient. The box was delivered exactly when they said it would be and the recipes felt extravagant and healthy, but were very simple to make.

How much does Blue Apron cost?

There are two different options for ordering your Blue Apron meals:

The 2 person plan contains 3 meals per week at $54.94 per box.

The family plan includes either 2 or 4 meals per week at $69.92 per box.

Blue Apron is giving my readers an amazing deal and offering $30 off your first order! 

What was in my Blue Apron Box?

We were sent 2 meals on the family plan (which feeds four people). The first meal was Parmesan Crusted Chicken and the second meal was Paprika Spiced Catfish.

The one thing that really amazed me (like I mentioned earlier) was how fresh the produce and meat was. It was just as fresh as if I would have gotten it from my local grocery store.

Both meals were very simple to make and did not take much time at all.

This was the parmesan crusted chicken which came with mashed sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli as the sides. The only thing I added to this meal was the cinnamon on top of my sweet potatoes. The ingredients even came with the butter and spices needed to make the entire meal.

This meal was by far my favorite fish + red potatoes...YES PLEASE! I even got to make my own homemade coleslaw which I have never done before! The catfish fillets were so huge and we got 4 of them so we were so incredibly full after this meal.

Try it out and I promise you will love how easy it is!

Remember: Get $30 off your first order here! Thank you Blue Apron!

 

About a month ago a friend of mine made us these ranch roasted red potatoes and I have made them probably 10 times since then.

This recipe has replaced all of my potato side recipes for the time being. I’m obsessed.

As a busy mom I am all for the easy recipes that taste like you’ve spent all day prepping them. These ranch roasted red potatoes are ideal for a busy cook.

Ingredients for Ranch Roasted Red Potatoes

8-10 red potatoes

3 tablespoons of olive oil (or enough to coat potatoes)

1 packet of ranch dip seasoning

Directions for Ranch Roasted Red Potatoes

Preheat oven to 420 degrees

Dice red potatoes. The smaller you dice, the less cook time there is.

Coat diced red potatoes in olive oil.

Sprinkle packet of ranch dip seasoning on red potatoes.

Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the diced potatoes. I dice mine about 1/2 inch wide and they are usually cooked by 30 minutes or so.

Enjoy!

These are pretty good dipped in a little ranch too 🙂

If you are looking for more easy recipes like this one, check these out:

 

 

 

If you are busy mom who is always rushed in the morning, then you have to try out these 25 easy overnight breakfast recipes!

Most of them only require a little prep at nighttime and either are already done in the morning or just need a little baking.

I’ve broken them up into four categories of overnight breakfast recipes. Overnight breakfast oat recipes, overnight breakfast casserole recipes, overnight breakfast smoothie recipes, and overnight breakfast french toast recipes.

Overnight Breakfast Oat Recipes

Apple Cinnamon Overnight Chia Oats from Happiness is Homemade

Healthy Chocolate Cranberry Overnight Oats from Peace But Not Quiet

Raspberry Overnight Oats from Frugal Mom Eh

Peanut Butter Banana Overnight Oats from Two Green Peas

Chunky Monkey Overnight Oats from The Weary Chef

Strawberry Vanilla Overnight Oats from Love Bakes Good Cakes

Pumpkin Spice Latte Overnight Oats from Cupcakes and Kale Chips

Peach Pie Overnight Oats from Be Whole Be You

 

Overnight Breakfast Casserole Recipes

Slow Cooker Overnight Breakfast Casserole from Crazy Adventures in Parenting

Sausage, Egg, and Biscuit Breakfast Casserole from Mess for Less

Easy Breakfast Egg Casserole from Mom Endeavors

Ham, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Casserole from Happy Brown House

Chicken and Waffles Casserole from Frugal Mom Eh

Overnight Breakfast Smoothie Recipes

Morning Smoothie Recipe from Sunshine Momma

Banana Berry Smoothie Recipe from Sunshine Momma

Post Workout Smoothie Recipe from Sunshine Momma

Healthy Banana Cream Pie Smoothie from Happiness is Homemade

Very Berry Smoothie Recipe from Crazy Adventures in Parenting

Razzle Dazzle Smoothie Recipe from My Life and Kids

Blueberry Lemonade Smoothie Recipe from B- Inspired Mama

Overnight Breakfast French Toast Recipes

Make Ahead French Toast Casserole from I Can Teach My Child

Overnight Peach French Toast Bake with Almonds from Frugal Mom Eh

Overnight Apple French Toast Recipe from 3 Boys and a Dog

Overnight Monkey Bread French Toast from Mess For Less

A couple of years ago a sweet friend of mine shared this recipe with me and it has been a regular meal in our home ever since. This 4 ingredient baked ziti recipe is one of those comfort foods that you just can’t resist.

Ingredients for Baked Ziti Recipe

24 oz jar of spaghetti sauce

15 oz jar of Alfredo sauce

1 box of ziti or penne pasta

2 cups of mozzarella cheese

Directions for Baked Ziti Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Boil pasta until cooked.

Drain water from pasta.

Combine cooked pasta, Alfredo sauce, spaghetti sauce, and mozzarella cheese and stir.

When thoroughly mixed, pour coated noodles into a glass baking dish.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

ENJOY!

I love to eat my baked ziti with a side of garlic bread and Brandon loves to top his ziti with ranch and parmesan cheese!

If you are looking for more great recipes like this one, check these out:

Reece’s cups are by far my favorite candy. It’s almost safe to say I have a terrible addiction. These next few deserts don’t help me with that addiction…at all.

Peanut Butter Cup Cake Roll

 Peanut Butter Cup Donuts

 Dulce de Leche Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

 Reese’s Sweet and Salty Bark

Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Crumble Bars

Chocolate Peanut Butter Gooey Butter Cake

No Bake Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake

Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Bars

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream Dessert

 Reese’s Nutter Butter Cookie Truffles

 

Having kids typically means eating macaroni and cheese…a lot. Here are 13 delicious twists on the traditional macaroni and cheese recipe.

Crock Pot Macaroni and Cheese

Baked Bacon Macaroni and Cheese

Mac N Cheese Pockets

Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese

Mini Mac & Cheese Cups (with carrots!)

Pumpkin Macaroni and Cheese

Chicken Nugget Macaroni and Cheese Casserole

Broccoli Mac & Cheese 

15 Minute Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon and Smoked Cheddar

Macaroni & Cheese Grilled Sandwich

South African Mac & Cheese

Mac & Cheese Soup