#and that is a lot of baguettes. i could feed myself with that for 4 days if needed. maybe more. but probably less.

[averagecatdoodlesenjoyer]

5 usd is 4.62 eur which is 4.66666666666667 baguettes

[egcdeath]

an apple a day

pairing: soft!ransom drysdale x reader

summary: it seems like an apple a day couldn’t keep the doctor or ransom away.

warnings: sickfic, a lot of fluff, brief mention of throwing up

word count: 2k

author’s note: join my taglist if you’d like! all feedback is appreciated <3

Ransom

U busy?

4:37 PM

Ransom

😏🍆😈

4:38 PM

Ransom

Wow ignoring me?????

5:24 PM

Ransom

Bitch

5:34 PM

Ransom

🙄

5:36 PM

A frantic pounding on your front door pulled you from a bizarre dream within your feverish slumber. You peeled the slightly damp cloth that rest upon your face from your sweaty skin, and lazily tossed it to the floor before audibly groaning. 

“Coming,” you whimpered out, hoping that it was loud enough for whomever was at the door.

“Fuckin’ better be,” a voice grumbled as a response.

You rolled over slightly, whole body sore from the sickness that was currently ailing you, and willed yourself to get off of your sofa. Swinging your legs over the left side of the piece of furniture you managed to get up, and sluggishly made your way to the door, ignoring the ache of your neck from resting it on an arm rest.

It seemed like with every step you took, your sinus headache throbbed harder between your eyes, and your fever cooked you a bit more from the inside out.

After what felt like a lifetime, you got to your door and opened it, only to be greeted by your… well, you didn’t really know what he was to you.

“Christ, Y/N. You look like shit,” Ransom commented, raising his brows. “Did you get hit by a car or something?”

You gave him a blank look, and said nothing. 

“Is this a bad time?”

“What do you think, dickhead?” 

“You’ve had better days,” he shrugged nonchalantly.

“Okay, goodbye,” you rolled your eyes and slammed the door on him, finding yourself slightly out of breath as you lethargically shuffled away.

You collapsed back onto the sofa, and reached for a blue tissue box that sat on your coffee table. Did that even happen? Did you imagine Ransom coming to your door? Or was that part of your fever dream?

Settling back, and pulling a wool blanket over yourself, you began to doze off once again, not really having the energy to do anything else.

Ransom

I’m s-word

6:12 PM

Ransom

I’m not gonna say it

6:13 PM

Ransom

But you know what I mean

6:15 PM

Ransom

I’m coming back over baby

6:17 PM

You hadn’t even noticed the vibrating of your phone, as it was currently lodged under a mountain of pillows and cushions. It also helped that you were asleep once again.

This time when you woke up, Ransom was in your apartment, rambling about some encounter he had while he was out dealing with the public for you.

How was he even in your apartment? You felt like you missed a few steps.

“Sit up,” he commanded, setting down a plastic take-out bag, along with the spare keys you kept under your welcome mat on top of your coffee table, before dragging a seat from your kitchen into your living room. 

The seat finally came to a stop in front of you, and you listlessly sat up. You watched as Ransom wordlessly opened the bag, revealing a massive container of a clear broth soup, and an equally large baguette.

“Am I dreaming?” You asked aloud.

“Why would you be dreaming? ‘Cause I did something nice? Or because I’m that hot?”

“Because I have a high fever that’s making me delusional,” you told him, and his brows furrowed once again. 

“Let me see,” he mumbled, pressing the back of his hand against your forehead, and humming in thought, “Yeah, you’re pretty hot,” he agreed.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” you mumbled, a random churn in your stomach suddenly taking a huge blow out of you. 

“Hey, I did a good thing for you. Don’t get bitchy with me now,” he snapped, narrowing his eyes slightly at you. 

You sighed as a response, and Ransom gave you a little smirk before going to open the lid of the soup container. 

“Open up wide, Beloved,” Ransom said in a playful tone. If you had the energy, you’d shoot something sassy back at him, but you were finding yourself in less of a state to do so with every passing moment. You simply followed along with his orders, opening your lips so Ransom could deliver a little spoonful of soup into your mouth. 

“Mm,” you audibly reacted to the liquid, “did you make this yourself?”

“Hm, you must be sicker than I thought,” he chuckled and dabbed the edge of your lip where a droplet of soup was left behind. “I picked it up on my way back over.”

“It’s really good,” you hummed, “feed me more.” 

Ransom scoffed fondly, “you’re lucky I like you.” He began, dishing out another spoonful to you.

You paused to chew on a softened carrot, “you should’ve known that sick me’s demands of you were gonna be a lot more.”

Ransom rolled his eyes, and went back to feeding you. You were both quiet for a moment, maintaining a heavy eye contact while he fed you, until out of the blue, your stomach turned. 

Your mouth filled with saliva as you realized what exactly was going on, and you rushed off of the couch with an obscene swiftness, just barely making it to your bathroom before you were emptying your stomach into it.

Ransom quickly showed up behind you, making his presence known by lifting your hair out of your face, and rubbing supportive circles onto your back. He cringed as he listened to you heave into the bowl, and when you finally leaned back, he used a thumb to wipe away the few tears that had begun to slip down your face. 

“You okay?” he questioned, squatting down to your level.

“Just peachy,” you choked out hoarsely.

“Maybe you’ll feel better after a shower?” he suggested, flushing your sickness down the toilet while you attempted to catch your breath.

“Okay, yeah,” you began hesitantly.

“I’ll stay in here if you want me to make sure nothing bad happens?”

“You just wanna be a perv,” you weakly giggled.

“I’m just trying to be a supportive… I’m trying to be supportive,” Ransom found his way back up, and turned on the shower’s nozzle.

“Mhm, I’m sure,” you began kicking off your sweatpants when you heard the water begin to putter down, and gestured for Ransom to help you lift off your sweatshirt once he was facing you once again. 

“I can’t believe you’re using up the last of that energy to have an attitude with me,” Ransom pulled you out of your shirt, then helped you up and began to direct you toward the shower. 

You were more or less silent from there on out, focusing on maintaining your balance in the slippery room. Your brain seemed to become increasingly cloudy with every extra puff of steam. You leaned against the slightly warm tiles of your wall as you attempted to get through the genuinely hellish shower for a few minutes before deciding it wasn’t really worth it, and stumbling back out. 

“Was I right? Did it help?” Ransom asked after your period of silence, handing you some fresh clothing that he’d grabbed from your closet sometime between the time you got in and out of the shower. 

You shook your head, “shower kinda made everything worse,” you muttered, pulling a new shirt over your head. “My head is killing me. I think I just need to be in a dark room, or go back to sleep, or something.”

You sluggishly pulled on the rest of your clothes, then sniffled as you walked out to your bedroom. As you made your way to your bed, you pushed aside a mountain of tissues from earlier in the… day? Week? With all the sleeping you’d been doing, you genuinely

couldn’t tell what time or day it was. You slipped into one side of the bed, and grabbed a pillow that you promptly hugged. 

Ransom slipped into bed beside you, a bottle of cold medicine in hand– when did he leave long enough to get you cold medicine?– and watched the tissues on your side of the bed fall onto the floor in a slightly disturbed manner. Yeah, he was definitely getting sick after this.

“Open,” he ordered, and you happily obliged, opening your mouth a bit so he could pour some medicine down your throat. You dramatically gagged, then wiped the corners of your lips.

“Gross, Ran,” you muttered, burying your face into a different pillow. 

“Well, it’ll probably make you feel better. I brought you water for a chaser if you’d like. You probably need to stay hydrated, or some shit like that.” 

When did he get water?? Probably when he was getting the medicine. But that would’ve taken him like, five minutes. And getting in bed didn’t take you that long. Right?

You were pulled out of your confused internal monologue by a pink plastic straw being brought to your lips, and you instinctively drank from it. You weren’t completely sure if it was all mental, or the medicine was kicking in extremely fast, but you were starting to feel a little loopy. Maybe time was being weird again because of your sickness. 

“I feel like I’m dying. You and your stupid showers made me die,” you whined, pushing away the straw.

“I was only trying to help,” he insisted as he set the drink down on your bedside table.

“I’m your second murder victim,” you continued.

Ransom paused and looked down at you with raised brows, “what?”

“Y’know, I saw what you did to that delivery girl who was bringing me soup. You better clean that body up before I get better, ‘cause ‘mgonna be pissed if I have to do that myself.”

“Okay, I don’t know if you’ve been seeing things the whole time, or if the medicine is rewriting your memories. Either way, I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” he chuckled.

“You’re right. Night,” you hummed before turning on your side and closing your eyes. It was pretty much lights out from there.

——

When you awoke, it was to the piercing bright light of a laptop screen that broke through the darkness of night. You had to blink a few times for your vision to focus, but… was Ransom in bed next to you? Looking at a WikiHow article? If you weren’t completely mistaken, you could make out a faint How to Help A Sick Person Feel Better: 8 Steps (with pictures).

You sleepily reached out and grabbed his wrist, letting him know that you were finally awake. He quickly clicked out of the tab, pulling up his Twitter feed instead. 

“Hi,” you greeted. “Why’re you being secretive?”

“I’m not,” he huffed.

“You are.”

“You’re still delusional from the medicine.”

“Probably. But you’re being secretive. And you’re bad at it.”

“Whatever,” you could practically hear the eye roll in his tone. 

“It’s late, Ran. Why’re you still up?” 

“I just wanted to, y’know…” he trailed off.

“To…?” you pressed.

“I wanted to make sure nothing would happen to you while you slept,” he rushed out. “Happy?”

You swooned aloud at this, “you are such a sucker. Put that laptop down and cuddle me.”

Ransom said nothing, but set the device into your night stand, and wrapped an arm around you, “‘re you feeling any better?” he mumbled as he relaxed into you. 

“Kinda. We’ll see in the morning,” you slipped your hand down on top of his, and Ransom promptly moved it.

“You’re already pushing it tonight.”

“You’re always such a dick,” you scoffed with a laugh. “Goodnight, asshat.”

“Goodnight, you sick bitch,” he quipped back.

——

When you awoke in the morning, you couldn’t help but to notice how much better you were feeling. No headache, no nausea, a little fatigue, but hey, you just woke up, and that was to be expected. 

As you sat up and glanced to your right, you found a pink-nosed Ransom with a box of empty Kleenex sat in his lap. 

“Oh great, you’re awake,” he began in a nasally tone. “Since you wanted to get me sick, it’s your turn to take care of me,” he tossed the empty box at you, the cardboard falling softly onto your lap. 

Something told you that this was going to be a long day. 

[josephlrushing]

The Sourdough Revolution: A Beginner’s Sourdough Recipe and a Review of the Challenger Bread Pan

While much of the world is spending a lot more time at home, many people, myself included, have taken up bread baking as a new hobby. Since commercial yeast is hard to come by, many have started using natural yeast to bake sourdough. Read on for my favorite beginner sourdough recipe and a review of Challenger Breadware’s groundbreaking bread pan.

While perfecting your sourdough loaf can be a bit of a rabbit hole; baking a simple, delicious loaf of sourdough can be fairly easy if you follow a good recipe. Jim Lahey, of Sullivan Street Bakery fame, most known for his no-knead bread recipes, has an excellent sourdough recipe that’s totally simple for the beginner sourdough baker to follow.

Once you have your favorite bread recipe/technique down, you’ll need something to bake your bread in. While baking bread directly inside a home oven works OK, you need to perform a bunch of “hacks” to get enough steam necessary to perfectly bake your bread. That’s where the Challenger Bread Pan comes in.

Jim Challenger, the creator of the revolutionary pan, began his baking obsession in 2016 and found that none of the existing baking methods were good enough to bake the perfect loaf in a home oven. The dutch ovens or combo cookers home bakers were using didn’t capture enough steam, or had inconsistent heat, or the handles were awkward, which lead to burns. He was frustrated by the choices available to a home bread baker, so he took matters into his own hands, and with some help from his friends, designed “a cast iron pan specifically designed to produce bakery-quality bread, baked in a home oven.”

More on the amazing Challenger Bread Pan later, we’ve got some dough to mix!  What I love about this recipe is that it doesn’t have a ton of complicated instructions or advanced bread-making techniques. Plus, you can have fresh-baked sourdough within 5-6 hours while many more advanced sourdough recipes require a day’s worth of work and the dough to proof in the fridge overnight.  Is it the “best” sourdough recipe out there?  That’s subjective, but it’s my recommendation for beginners who are new to sourdough or those who have a hankering and want to bake a quick loaf.

Here’s the ingredient list for Jim Lahey’s Fast Sourdough:

Yield: One 9-inch round loaf.

Equipment: A 4½- to a 5½-quart heavy pot with lid (or even better, a Challenger Bread Pan); a large piece of parchment paper.

100 grams prepared/active sourdough starter (This will be about 1/2 cup depending on your starter, but I highly recommend a kitchen scale, they’re plentiful on Amazon and don’t cost an arm and a leg)

200 grams (about 1 1/4 cups, plus 2 tablespoons) unbleached all-purpose flour

100 grams (about 2/3 cup) whole wheat flour

6 grams (about 1 teaspoon) fine sea salt

230 grams (about 1 cup, plus 1 tablespoon) 65F-70F water

Wheat bran, for dusting

This is my starter. This is where all of my sourdough loaves begin. You can see it’s at least doubled (above the rubber band), which means it’s active and ready to bake with.

First Step:

In a large bowl (make sure it’s small enough to fit inside your oven if it has a proofing setting like my Breville Smart Oven Air) combine your flours and salt and whisk to combine. In a small bowl, combine the starter and water and whisk it until the starter is dissolved in the water and the water is milky. Pour the starter/water mixture into the flours and quickly mix using a spatula. No need to go crazy here with mixing. Cover the bowl loosely with a wet towel and let the dough sit at warm room temperature for 30 minutes. I put mine in the Breville Smart Oven Air using the proofing setting at 80º F.

Starter mixed with water

My flours and sea salt

Dough mixed together quickly, ready for the next step.

Second Step: (This step is the most complicated the recipe gets, but it’s still super easy!)

Turn the dough, pulling it off the sides of the bowl and folding into the center as you turn. You want to be sure your hands are wet so the dough doesn’t stick to your hands. Make sure you work the dough as little as possible. This step is also called the Stretch and Fold method, check out the YouTube link below for a quick demonstration.

When you’re done, cover your dough again with a wet towel and let it rest for 30 minutes before doing the stretch and fold method again. You’ll want to do this a total of about 5 total times, taking around 2.5-3 hours. This is how you improve the texture of the bread without kneading. Jim says that you’ll know the dough is ready when it can hold its shape without oozing back to the bottom of the bowl. It should peel off the side of the bowl easily.

Dough resting in my Breville Smart Oven Air maintaining a warm 80-degree environment, perfect for bread proofing.

Doing the stretch and fold.  You’ll notice the dough get more elastic over the course of this step, stretching/folding/resting.

You can tell when the dough is ready when it starts holding a ball shape, like this.

Third step:

Place a piece of parchment paper on a sheet pan (or prepare a banneton or proofing basket if you have one handy) and dust the parchment generously with wheat bran. Lightly dust your countertop with flour, transfer the dough to said countertop, and form it loosely into a ball by gently folding the top, bottom, and sides on top of the middle, making a taut ball. You do not want the dough to tear here. Place the dough seam side down on your prepared parchment paper (or seam side up in your prepared banneton if you prefer) and cover loosely with a towel and let it proof for another 2 hours or so, until it’s doubled in size.

Here’s a great video illustrating how to shape a simple boule (round loaf):

Dough has been shaped and now it’s resting in the proofing basket (banneton).

Fourth step:

About an hour before your dough is finished proofing, preheat your oven to 500ºF and preheat a cast-iron pot with its lid. This can be anything from a Le Creuset dutch oven to a Lodge combo cooker, to the Challenger Bread Pan that I’m reviewing here. Just be careful when selecting a pot, as some handles are not made for high, prolonged heat.  When your dough is ready, and you’ve been preheating the oven & Bread Pan/dutch oven for about an hour, take the pot out of the oven and carefully remove the lid. Transfer your dough into the pot and use a serrated knife (or bread lame) to score the loaf with a single long slash. The slash or score gives the loaf a place to vent the air inside as it heats up while allowing the loaf to expand in the oven. Cover the pot quickly, and place it in the oven.

My scored loaf, ready to go in the oven.

Fifth and final step:

Bake the bread for 35-40 minutes with the lid on, then carefully remove the lid and bake for another 10-15 minutes with the lid off until the crust becomes very dark brown. Remember, color = flavor. When it reaches your favorite dark brown color, remove the pot from the oven and remove the loaf from the pot. Let the loaf cool on a cooling rack. Be sure not to cut into it for at least an hour, as the bread is finishing its bake on the inside while cooling down. When it’s cool, slice that bad boy up and share it with friends and family. Congrats, you made a delicious sourdough!

The finished loaf! Be sure to wait an hour for it to cool down, no matter how good it smells!

Slather it with butter, top with flakey sea salt, and share with friends and family!

Sourdough doesn’t have to be complicated. As you’ve seen, it’s made with three all-natural ingredients, flour, water, and salt. While experienced bakers may be posting gorgeous amber loaves on Instagram with beautiful patterns or complicated scoring, sourdough doesn’t need to be fancy to be delicious, and it’ll feed your family and friends all the same. With that in mind, the right tools can elevate any ingredients, recipe, or technique, and that’s what the Challenger Bread Pan does.

I’ve baked a number of loaves in my Challenger Bread Pan, and I can say without a doubt that it’s the best bread baking vessel on the market today for the home baker. It’s not cheap, but quality design, materials, and craftsmanship costs money. It’s heirloom quality, and it’s built to last generations. It may not be for everyone, and your dutch oven may be doing the job just fine, but for someone who wants to elevate a simple recipe or for the baker looking to take the next step to make bakery-quality bread, the Challenger Bread Pan is the way to go.

The thick, black cast iron absorbs, retains, and radiates heat like nothing I’ve used in the past. The shape of the bread pan is perfectly designed in the shape of a loaf of bread, which helps bring radiant heat as close as possible to the bread inside the pan, helping the dough’s oven spring. The handles are large enough to use with oven mitts (and you’ll definitely need oven mitts) and they’re perfectly placed allowing you to easily reach in and remove the top during the bake. The shallow base makes it easy to load your dough into the pan without needing to use parchment paper as a sling or fumbling around with the dough and accidentally burning yourself or dropping it, which could lead to degassing.

The Challenger Bread Pan retains steam better than any dutch oven on the market thanks to the tight seal between the cover and the base. Steam is what helps the bread get that crackling crust with rich colors, open scores, and allows your dough to reach its maximum volume. Without steam, bread just isn’t as good. The rectangular shape of the pan allows for many different shapes and sizes of loaves as well. Round dutch ovens only allow you to bake round boules, but the Challenger Bread Pan can bake round boules as well as oval batards, demi-baguettes, and loaves of many different sizes.

This is a loaf I baked in the Challenger Bread Pan using a more advanced sourdough recipe, but everyone needs to start somewhere!

I’ve been extremely impressed with the Challenger Bread Pan and am happy to report that it’s lived up to the hype created by the online baking community. Jim Challenger, my hat goes off to you. If you’re a baker looking for the absolute best way to bake your bread, look no further than the Challenger Bread Pan.

The Challenger Bread Pan retails for $295, and it is available directly from the manufacturer. 

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample

What I Like: Well designed with every detail thoughtfully considered; Traps steam incredibly well; Made to last a lifetime; Shallow base; Bakes a gorgeous, crusty loaf of bread

What Needs Improvement: Absolutely nothing.  The price may scare some off, but it’s worth every penny

  from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/05/14/the-sourdough-revolution-a-beginners-sourdough-recipe-and-a-review-of-the-challenger-bread-pan/

[wellpersonsblog]

How To Help Picky Eaters Try New Foods

Want to learn how to help picky eaters try new foods? If you have a toddler or child who struggles with only liking a few foods, the “love it, like it, learning approach” from this Registered Dietitian may help them become a more adventurous eater at meal time!

Hi friends!

As promised, I have a great post to share with you guys today about picky eating. This is one of the questions I hear most often, both as a mom and as an RD. I’ve shared an approach I use in this post about Why My Toddler Doesn’t Always Eat What I Eat, but I recognize that not all approaches work for everyone. So, I asked Ashley, my friend and fellow RD mama, to share her “Love it, like it, learning it” approach with you guys today! Let us know if you give it a try!

Hi, I am Ashley and I am the mom of two (with another on the way!) and pediatric dietitian over at Veggies & Virtue. I share meal planning systems and feeding strategies that help families experience “Less mealtime stress and more feeding success.”

As a dietitian mom, I wish I was immune to picky eaters in my home. However, that has definitely not been my family’s story.

Shortly after my oldest daughter turned one, I started seeing signs of “picky eating” or what I prefer to label as an apprehensiveness towards the foods I was offering. We experienced the gradual and yet progressive switch from having an infant who ate and enjoyed a variety of foods to a young toddler who exercised her independence most often at the table.

As I know many fellow parents can relate, it was exhausting.

I had a lot of foot in mouth moments as a new dietitian mom. There were tips and tricks I had learned throughout my education and dietitian experience that seemed completely logical for share as solutions for helping children overcome picky eating. Nothing could quite prepare me though for the endless trials of having to execute these very approaches with my own kid.

That’s what led me to working to adopting a “Love it, Like it, Learning it” at (almost) every meal.

As a registered dietitian who values evidenced-based information, I knew the Division of Responsibility in Feeding was the only approach I could confidently use for my food parenting style. What I found to be a stumbling block for our family though was how to both establish “my role” (of what, when, and where food was offered) while only offering one meal for the whole family (more on this here).

At the time, my daughter’s list of accepted foods was so small. When I listed out the foods I knew she would eat, I didn’t see any red flags for extreme picky eating. The list was still limited enough that I was still constantly stressed over what to feed her (without always making her a separate meal).

So I took the principles I knew to be sound from Ellyn Satter’s research, and I began to reorganize how I mentally worked through our family’s menus with the simple phrase, “Love it, Like it, Learning it.”

What is “Love it, Like it, Learning it?”

“Love It, Like It, Learning It” is a way to repeatedly expose individuals to a variety of new or non-preferred foods alongside their known favorites. This approach minimizes age-appropriate pickiness by establishing a new standard for how meals are offered. Through the simple saying of “Love It, Like It, Learning It” and straight-forward strategy of organizing meals in this way, parents can help kids “learn to like” new foods without the food fight nor parental frustration.

What are “Love it,” “Like it,” and “Learning it” foods?

Love It Foods: Foods your child consistently likes and preferentially favors compared to all others. These are foods your child eats most of the time.

Like It Foods: Foods your child usually likes but may eat less (or none) of when offered alongside “love it” foods. These are foods your child eats some of the time they are offered.

Learning It Foods: Foods your child rarely (if ever) likes and may or may not have ever been exposed to before. These are foods your child rarely if ever eats.

Why use a “Love it, Like it, Learning it” approach?

As mentioned in the introduction to this article, an obvious reason many moms (like myself) are motivated to use this approach is because we feel near defeat. When our level of frustration over finding foods our children will eat becomes an ongoing issue that impedes our ability to even enjoy mealtimes, we know we need to find another approach.

What’s more is using the “Love it, Like it, Learning it” approach puts a practical, tangible tagline on figuring out “what” to feed your family. As advisable with the Division of Responsibility of feeding, parents remain responsible for figuring out what to offer our children. Instead of always defaulting to the foods we *know* they will eat, however (their love it or like it foods), this approach helps us to work towards intentionally developing a foundation for future eating habits and taste preferences without the use of pressure, frustration, or force.

This approach helps parents capitalize on their child’s relationship with food in the early years by exposing them to wide variety of real foods and establishing a positive family feeding environment. By having a framework for exposing our children to “Learning It Foods,” we move away from prematurely assuming our child “doesn’t like it” but rather needs ongoing, repeated exposure so they can eventually “learn to like it.”

How does a “Love it, Like it, Learning it” approach work?

Research shows that when familiar and unfamiliar foods are offered together, it may make children more likely to try the unfamiliar “Learning It Food” (especially for the child with neophobia, or a fear of new foods). Research also reminds us often that many children need as many as 20 or more repeated food exposures before they will eat a new food. In order for parents and children to not fatigue early over these foods, having an expectation over how to offer these foods help set families up for greater long-term success.

Rather than children expecting every meal to be made up of only their specific favorites (such as short-order cooking), they can come to understand that family meals include a variety of foods that each member of the family enjoys. For the child, this helps establish trust in the feeding relationship with their that there will be foods the child both “loves” and is “still learning” at any given meal (instead of a “eat this or starve” approach). This also helps children to feel more calm and confident around new foods being offered, rather than anxious or even obnoxious towards them being on their plate.

For parents, pairing meals with a “Love it, Like it, Learning it” approach offers peace of mind that there is always something being offered that their kid should/could/usually would eat (i.e. the parent is not “making them starve). This lessens the mom guilt during meals when the child, who is responsible for if/whether and how much they eat, chooses not to eat nor enjoy the foods that is offered. This again re-establishes a Division of Responsibility in feeding for your family that can gradually help restore enjoyment for family meals.

What is an example of what “Love it, Like it, Learning it” looks like in real life?

Each week, I share meal plans over on Veggies & Virtue. While the menu ideas shared on my blog are for everyone, I take it a step further in my weekly newsletters to share with subscribers how I break down every weekly menu to what fits my family’s “Love it, Like it, Learning it” lists. With two children whose lists continue to change, I am often adapting this to work for us as I always recommend others do for their own families.

The framework remains the same though in how you can serve any given meal and find ways to make it work for your unique family.

Here is a sneak peak at how this week’s Lean Green Bean inspired meal plan would look with “Love it, Like it, Learning it” applied. You can find the complete blog post here.

1 ǁ Family Dinner Sunday: Slow Cooker Rotisserie Chicken

LOVE IT: roasted red potatoes, “chicken bones” (legs from chicken), strawberries

LIKE IT: roasted broccoli

LEARNING IT: kiwi

2 ǁ Meatless Monday: Lasagna Soup

LOVE IT: apple slices, whole grain baguette with butter, milk

LIKE IT: shredded mozzarella cheese

LEARNING IT: lasagna soup

3 ǁ Taco Tuesday: Crockpot Cilantro Lime Chicken

LOVE IT: shredded cheddar, multigrain tortilla chips, fresh pineapple

LIKE IT: cilantro lime chicken

LEARNING IT: salad fixings (spinach/greens, diced tomato, avocados, olives), salsa

4 ǁ Pasta Night: Spaghetti and Slow-Cooker Meatballs

LOVE IT: whole grain spaghetti tossed in olive oil, satsumas, milk

LIKE IT: sauteed green beans

LEARNING IT: slow-cooker meatballs

5 ǁ Leftovers

6 ǁ Pizza Night

7 ǁ Soup/Stew Saturday: Slow-Cooker Sweet Potato Chicken Chili

LOVE IT: corn on the cob, grapes, milk

LIKE IT: cornbread muffins with butter and honey

LEARNING IT: sweet potato chicken chili

Where can I get more info?

If you are interested in learning more about Love it, Like it, Learning it and how to see it applied to everyday life, you can follow me on Instagram @veggiesandvirtue or sign up for my weekly newsletter here.

If you liked this post, be sure to pin it for later and share with friends!

Enjoy! –Lindsay–

The post How To Help Picky Eaters Try New Foods appeared first on The Lean Green Bean.

First found here: How To Help Picky Eaters Try New Foods