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Welcome back to 10 Days of Large Family Homeschooling
One thing I have found to be challenging as a large family homeschool mom is feeding 3 meals a day plus snacks day in and day out to a rather large and diverse group of people. At any given time, I have teenagers, toddlers, and babies – all with different palates and needs.
Many of you already know breakfast is not my forte. I like to eat it, I hate to cook it. I’ve never been real awake in the mornings. I can remember as a youngster never feeling as if I had fully awakened until about 10:30 am. I always wondered why teachers thought math needed to be taught first thing in the morning when I was so very tired. I am most on top of my game starting late morning and again at about 4:00 pm. I try to have things on hand that can easily become breakfast, but rare is the occasion that I actually cook a hot breakfast.
*GASP* Now, you know my secret!
So, now that you know, here’s a list of breakfast ideas – Roberts family style!
- cereal
- fruit
- toast with peanut butter
- hard boiled eggs
- muffins
- breakfast cookies
- yogurt
- baked oatmeal
- pancakes with real maple syrup
- fried eggs
Next is lunch. By this point, we have been going strong with school and I almost hate to stop for nourishment! Lunch happens here between 12 and 1 pm – or whenever there is a natural lull in our school day. Occasionally, Daddy joins us, but most often, it is me and the 6 children. We typically have a light lunch rather than something heavy for two reasons:
- Our big meal is at night.
- It is better and simpler to make something that takes less preparation when in the middle of a school day.
Here are some of our favorite lunch ideas:
- pizza or lunch loaf using homemade quick and easy pizza dough
- bagel sandwiches
- quesadillas
- taco salad
- cheese slices, crackers, & fruit
- sandwiches
- nachos
- egg salad
After we’ve cleaned up from lunch, we head back into our school day. If I were pregnant, this would be Rest Time, but as it stands right now, only the 18 month old is taking a nap right after lunch.
Our school day is usually finished around 2:30, but this is not a good time to go outside since our road becomes quite busy at that time of day due to the high school down the road. So, at about 3:00 pm we have a snack and then head outside.
Snack ideas:
- cheese & crackers
- fruit
- foldover peanut butter sandwich
- veggie sticks
- smoothies
- cookies – yes, cookies 😉
After we have played outside for a while, I head inside (usually with a helper) to prepare for supper/dinner.
We eat supper between 6 and 7 pm due to Daddy’s schedule. This is typically our biggest meal of the day since Daddy is home. This is also the meal I am most creative with. I like to go through cookbooks and my index box full of recipes I’ve been collecting for over half my life and pull interesting recipes I would like to try or family favorites.
Some recent meals have been:
- Italian Pot Pie
- Winter Soup
- Large Family Style Pot Pie
- Bierocks
- Egg Rolls & Rice
Now, we all know you can’t feed your crew without either buying or growing your own food (or a mix of both), so here are a few of my favorite shopping posts:
Once a Month Shopping Series (how we shop once a month and save!)
The Subscriber Pack contains a One Store Shopping Planner and the Bulk Grocery List from our OAMS trips! To get yours, subscribe to Raising Arrows here:
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Other Resources:
- Affording Kids Series
- Mega-size family recipes from A Baker’s Dozen
- Large Family Cooking blog
- MOMYS cookbook – My favorite large family cookbook – only 2 in stock at the time of this writing!
Find all the Large Family Recipes here!
abba12 says
Thank you for being a homeschooling, healthy eating mum and still list cereal as a suitable breakfast and sandwhiches for lunch!
There seems to be so much pressure for a good homeschooling mum to serve a hot, apparently more filling breakfast. Pancakes and waffles, brekky muffins or eggs and sausages, they seem to have the time and energy to put on a great display. Me? I did pretty well until I was hit with hyperemesis my first pregnancy which left me with long term mild nausea in the mornings long after my daughter was born. I used to get lectured for still only giving my solids eating baby a bottle in the mornings (with a big morning snack) but I just couldn’t stomach even feeding her cereal. I just got to the stage of no morning nausea when I became pregnant, and while I am on medication this time, I am pretty much useless until 9am. If this is the pattern for my pregnancies, I think breakfast will forever be a fend for yourself affair of cereal, yogurt and fruit. Part of me feels guilty for that when I see all these other mums and their menus, but then I remember that was how our breakfasts happened my entire childhood, and I survived! I’d like to make those options gluten free eventually, but other than that, a banana and some cereal is a perfectly good breakfast for a toddler right? 🙂
And then lunches, and not only is there the pressure as a homeschooler to make them hot meals, there’s the pressure as a healthy eater to make them carb free, and not just serve sandwhiches! Now, I don’t serve sandwhiches everyday, and sometimes we go all out on a hot lunch meal. But still I feel guilty if there is a large amount of carbs in lunch. *sigh*.
Thanks for showing that it is ok to not spend an hour in the kitchen at brekky and lunch making gourmet, whole food meals.
Amy says
You are very welcome!
Rebecca says
Amy, Thank you for not being a ‘morning’ person. I am an early bird…but, have to admit, I just don’t enjoy making breakfast. I LOVE making meals…and I love watching my family devour yummy foods we are blessed tohave….breakfast, though…not so much! Thanks for all of these great recipes…guess I need to pin this post in Homeschool: Ten Days and Favorite Foods!
Amy says
I sometimes wonder if it had to do with cooking all day long and needing a reprieve with breakfast being that reprieve? Thanks for the thank you! 😉
Stephanie says
I must say, my favorite part of your post was seeing you wear your baby. Love those wraps!
Amy says
And I love wearing them! Don’t do it as much now that he is 18 mons old and we rarely go out at nap time, but still love wearing my babies!
Michelle says
I feel the same way as you about breakfast, since my Fibro symptoms make mornings difficult for me to feel well and alert.
The other day I pushed myself to make breakfast and I felt close to tears by the time I finished. I then chided myself about how I need to buck up and train myself again to do this every morning.
Like you, 10:30 is about the time I feel fully awake and can cope well. Thank you for being transparent enough to share this, Amy.
Amy says
{hugs}
Kyndra says
Oh Bierrocks! From the More With Less Cookbook? We ate them all the time when I was a girl and I really need to make a big batch and freeze some….We made them with beef and cabbage, with pork and tomatoes, and with chicken and other vegetables….K
Amy says
The bierocks aren’t from a cookbook. I use my bread dough and fill it w/ cole slaw mix, meat, cheese and mustard and bake. 🙂
bonny says
The funny thing is, I am exactly the opposite of you in the meals….I love to cook breakfast (I’m one of those annoying people that is generally wide awake the minute I get up). I love to try out new Pinterest recipes in the mornings. However, by the time dinner rolls around, I am ready for somebody else to get in the kitchen, not me! haha. I guess by the end of our school day, I am just ready to take it easy. I do admire how you can get everything done and maintain nutrition, as well. The more I read your blog, the more I am impressed! 🙂
Amy says
I try. Not perfect by any means and some days it just doesn’t happen. 😉
Rebecca says
I’m not a big breakfast maker either. I do the occasional biscuits (from a can or my mom makes a bunch, flash freezes then we bring them out and bake them), my husband does Saturday morning pancakes and I ask him to make extras for a few breakfasts the next week but otherwise, cereal. I hate to say it but I hate breaking for lunch. I would love to skip it. It breaks our work rhythm and sometimes it takes FOR-EV-ER to get it cleaned up and back to work! Part of that is my problem, I start dragging my feet or get side tracked with anything from computer (I feel guilty even typing it) or a household chore or starting my supper prep. Supper is our biggest meal, when Daddy is home and we all come together. It’s a little more hurried on a night when we have prayer meeting or a soccer practice but I do make a big effort on it, sometimes a new recipe, or a favorite oldie. I bake bread, etc. I don’t do much in the way of snacks, I provide things for the kids to grab but it’s not a sit down type thing. I’m glad not everyone is baking in the oven all day, for each meal!
Amy says
I try very hard to have our major schoolwork out of the way before breaking for lunch. That makes it less of a big deal for me to stop what we are doing. 🙂
Andrea says
Thank you for sharing your tips! I am new to your blog, but have already grown to love it and all of your useful information! I am mama to Jacob (3 1/2), Maria (2) and Micah (3 1/2 weeks)…This is off of the subject, but may I ask what type of infant carriers you have on in the two pictures?!?! Thanks so much!! 🙂
Amy says
Welcome! I’m wearing my homemade mei tai. You can find more info here: https://raisingarrows.net/2009/08/slingin-babies-2/
Rachel R. says
I don’t feel like I actually have large family, with only 4 kids. BUT for the last 5 months, my best friend and her 5 kids (and DH) have been living in my Dad’s house right next door – sort of a red neck trailer house duplex. LOL …. And because they have had so many delays getting their trailer relocated, we’ve fallen into a routine of working together to get the kids fed every day.
It started out that way for the first 5 weeks, because she was packing all day every day, so we cooked one single meal to feed 12 (1 is a nursing baby) instead of trying to manage to cook 2 meals and bring all the dishes to my house to wash and clean.
So we’ve grown pretty creative at getting our meals together. Our eating runs pretty much the same as yours. Simple easy breakfast that we each eat at our own home. Cereal seems to be the go to meal of choice, though some of us need more protein or we are starving within an hour. Then we try to eat a finger food lunch. Followed by a nice big supper.
We cook up LOTS of potatoes. We try to cook up a HUGE chunk of meat and then make it last 2 – 3 days, using it in lunches and suppers. Pasta is another popular meal ingredient.
But recently, one of our huge yummy successes was a Pot Pie.
We cooked up a stew per our normal soupy style, then I scooped the “good stuff” into a casserole dish – leaving MOST of the juice in the crock pot, added some extra seasoning on top, sprinkled cheese on half of it, stretched out flaky premade biscuits over everything and baked it. Everyone loved it! Definitely something we want to try again. The next day, we used the stew juice to cook rice.
Amy says
Thanks for sharing!
Allison says
We do much the same thing. I get breakfast for my littles but my older three help themselves to the quick and easy (and healthy) items that I keep on hand for breakfast. I really need to get more creative with lunch so thanks for the suggestions you have here. Dinners are our big meals too…and I use my crockpot often! We save juice and desserts for a Sabbath treat:)
Jen Anglen says
have you ever tried refrigerating oatmeal? then reheating in the morning? I like some addins like orange juice (use that for the liquid), raisins, peanut butter, apples (cook in). I’ve also been SURVIVING on Mosh (http://www.thegringochapin.com/2012/01/what-is-mosh.html) for my first morning bite lately because it wards off the morning sickness for me soooo well. i’ve been making a double batch and storing in mason jars in the fridge. i like to use a little more liquid than this recipe. anyway… for what it’s worth! 🙂
Amy says
I love baked oatmeal after it has been refrigerated! I’ve never heard of mosh. I need super high protein in the morning to keep the morning sickness at bay…do you think this would have enough?
Jen Anglen says
Amy… no it’s not high protein. it’s got about 2 grams per serving. BUUUUUTTTT!!! you could just add a couple tablespoons chia seeds to give it a protein boost. five tablespoons in the recipe would bring each serving up to about 5g protein! Just increase the water a little more (1 cup) because chia seeds hydrate using quite a bit of water. Chia seeds also have TONS of omegas which is great for pregnancy.
Jen Anglen says
I just love that Mosh is so light… it goes down nicely. http://theycallmegranola.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/pregnancy-survival-tip-eat-breakfast/