26 Practical Tips for Eating Dinner Together as a Family with Blogger and Cookbook Co-Author, Rachel Tiemeyer

The Savvy Sauce

26. Practical Tips for Eating Dinner Together as a Family with Blogger and Cookbook Co-Author, Rachel Tiemeyer **Transcription Below** Psalm 34:8 (a) NIV “Taste and see that the LORD is good;” Rachel Tiemeyer is one of the two moms behind the blog Thriving Home and a new cookbook titled From Freezer to Table: 75+ Recipes for Gathering, Cooking, and Sharing. She and her friend, Polly Conner, started their site in 2012 as a way to encourage other moms by sharing tips, stories, and healthy recipes from their own homes. After freezer cooking for their families for nearly a decade, they now jokingly refer to themselves as “freezer meal evangelists”. Their blog is a top-ranking site for healthy freezer meal resources, and they are currently writing their second cookbook that will focus on slow cooker and Instant Pot freezer meal recipes. Rachel and her husband have three elementary-aged children and live in Columbia, Missouri. At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Thriving Home Website The Nourishing Home Socials: Instagram @thrivinghome Facebook From Freezer to Table Cookbook Table Talk Cards Sold Here Article on Importance of Enjoying Dinnertime as Family Time Thank You to Our Sponsor: Leman Property Management Company Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast! Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“ Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“ Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” **Transcription**

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Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: I want to say thank you to Leman Property Management for being such a loyal sponsor of The Savvy Sauce. They're located in Central Illinois and with over 1,600 apartment homes in all price ranges, they have listings throughout Morton, Pekin, Peoria, Washington, and Canton. They can find the perfect spot for you.

Check them out today at MidwestShelters.com or like them on Facebook by searching Leman, L-E-M-A-N, Property Management Company. We'll make sure and put a link in our show notes. Thanks again for the sponsorship.

Today we get to hear from Rachel Tiemeyer, who is one of the two moms behind the blog Thriving Home and co-author of the cookbook titled From Freezer to Table. Their blog is a top-ranking site for healthy freezer meal resources, and they are currently writing their second cookbook that will focus on slow cooker and instant pot freezer meal recipes. [00:01:18]

Today, we will discuss nutrition, practical steps to help mealtime become less hectic and more enjoyable, and we will learn more about her passion to provide nourishment to others. As a satisfied owner of their first cookbook, it's an honor for me to get to welcome Rachel Tiemeyer to The Savvy Sauce today.

Hi, Rachel.

Rachel Tiemeyer: Hey, Laura. Thanks for having me on your show.

Laura Dugger: Absolutely. So excited you're here. And let's just start by hearing a little bit more about you. Can you share a snapshot of your life?

Rachel Tiemeyer: Sure. I'd be glad to. I'm married to a guy named Nathan. He's a pastor at our church here in Columbia, Missouri and we've got three kiddos. They're all in elementary school now. I've got a fifth-grade son, a third-grade daughter, and a first-grade son. They are pretty fun. I love this parenting stage. They're all really close in age. They're all two years apart or closer.

So those little years were pretty intense. I stayed home with them and kind of worked part-time while they were at home, and I loved that stage. But boy, having them all in school and being able to participate and coaching their sports and being involved at school is one of my favorite things so far. [00:02:32]

Laura Dugger: You and Polly Connor started your blog, Thriving Home, years ago. So can you take us back? Because it sounds like that coincided with the time that you had those little kids at home.

Rachel Tiemeyer: Yeah, it did. We both started personal blogs back in 2008. So it was kind of the beginning of the blog era, kind of jumped in. And we had two separate, very different blogs. So mine was more about healthy living and cooking and sharing a bit about some things I was learning about a disease my son had which I can talk more about in a few minutes and her blog was more focused on creative endeavors. She's definitely the queen of sewing and makeovers in her home and things like that. And so pretty different, but we both had a similar goal, and that was to encourage moms.

So we both had these blogs from 2008 to 2011. We had already become friends, and that's a whole other story. We began swapping guest posts on each other's blogs. So that was kind of like this new concept. We were like, Whoa, look, we can share traffic with one another. [00:03:40]

So that was kind of how our interest in blogging began. Then in 2011, Polly became a stay-at-home mom. I was already home with my kids, actually working part-time for my church. So my background is when I graduated from college, I took a job right away with a new church. It was a church plant in Columbia, Missouri. It's called The Crossing, if anybody ends up in Columbia, Missouri, and wants to check it out.

But I worked full-time there for seven years as our director of children's ministry and then co-director of student ministries. So at that time, our church was fairly small and I could kind of wear both hats. But then when I had my first kiddo, I stepped back to work just part-time doing some children's ministry. And we always joke that Polly took my job. That's kind of how we met.

So she took over the student ministry side of things, and we really grew in our friendship during that time. And that's when we started dreaming together. We're both just kind of natural entrepreneurs, go-getters, we love to work hard, we're creative, and we really enjoy our friendship together. [00:04:45] And so we began dreaming, what would it look like to start a business together?

And when she had her first kid and she stayed home, and worked part-time for the church, we were like, Oh my gosh, what if we blended our two blogs and we started one blog that really just helped moms thrive at home or equipped them to thrive at home? And we kind of shared our journey of the things we were learning in our own homes. What if we did that on one blog and we really had earning income in mind as well? So, that's how Thriving Home began. We launched it in January of 2012, and that was the beginning of over-six-year journey so far.

Laura Dugger: Have you learned any tips, maybe things that you could share for ways to work well with a partner?

Rachel Tiemeyer: That's a great question. We get asked that a lot. The best way to describe going into business with someone else, I would say, is it's almost like a second marriage, which sounds weird. But if you think about it, there's so much trust involved. You're making big decisions together. You're sharing finances, which can really get sticky over time if you don't set up some expectations from the beginning. And if you don't talk very just honestly with one another regularly, those kinds of things can be hard. [00:06:05]

So I'm thankful that Polly... I always say that she's such a great friend and business partner in the sense that anytime we've had something that feels off, like feels, oh gosh, my feelings are hurt or I'm a little frustrated by something, I mean, she just calls me up and we're able to talk about it quickly.

We always say one of our big goals in our partnership is to keep short accounts. So that means we don't let things fester. We talk about them quickly. And along with that, we try to believe the best in one another. You know, we really are trying to communicate constantly to each other, kind of like I am in my marriage too, but that we're on the same team. We try to talk to one another that way and remember that we're for each other.

Laura Dugger: I love that. You're even using biblical principles to apply it to the relationship.

Rachel Tiemeyer: I'm really encouraged by it. One of my favorite things in life is being able to work with a friend on a creative endeavor that, oh, by the way, it's kind of a side hustle that earns some income for our family too. [00:07:09]

Laura Dugger: Yes, a way to serve them. Some of the listeners today may be in your same boat from when you started. Maybe they have little kids at home and they're starting something up right now. What did that look like for you to juggle having three kids at home working with a partner?

Rachel Tiemeyer: Right. First of all, if anyone out there is thinking about starting a blog as a business or something along those lines, I mean, I would think even podcasting kind of falls in this, so you can probably relate, Laura, but that is not a quick way to make money. So we always say that, you know, first and foremost, blogging is not a get-rich-quick kind of business. And probably my guess is most businesses aren't that.

So what we've learned is that plugging away consistently, persistently, being faithful to show up every week and provide good content and serve our audience and grow and learn. And we've had to pivot. You know, things are always changing in the blogging world. [00:08:06] By doing that, here we are over six years later, and we've grown this business quite a bit while also keeping our families first, our friendship first, God first, all those things. That's always been our goal.

But we started when the stakes were really low and our dreams were really big, but time was so slim at that time, right? Because here we are. Our first goal was to be good moms, to take care of our kids, to really make our homes a thriving home. And we sometimes joke that really it was more kind of like a surviving home but... you know those days, right? Well, actually it's like at some point during most days when you have kids at home, you're just like, I've got to survive.

But over time, as we kept plugging away, and I'm talking about like working during naptime, working in the evenings, grabbing a little time on the weekends for those first two years. And then as the business began to pick up... and guys, we didn't make a profit for a year and a half, okay? [00:09:09] So yes, we built it to be a business and earn income but we didn't pay ourselves our first paycheck... And put paycheck in quotes, please, because it was nothing to write home about.

But we were so proud and so motivated to see that we felt like we were using our God-given gifts and talents to help others and being able to be creative and being able to still serve our families and make them number one. That was beginning to kind of pay off. So it's been a journey. It is a hard balancing act, right, to keep your kids and your family and your marriage and God first, I would think in any job. But we have to keep going back to that and saying that is what's most important. Then our goal is to make Thriving Home hopefully a thriving business.

Laura Dugger: I love that. Well, it's exciting for us all to hear the backstory for how your blog began. But now let's move on to the journey from posting your first Thriving Home post to publishing a cookbook. Did that go as you expected? [00:10:15]

Rachel Tiemeyer: All right, so when we got into this, we had no idea what to expect. The stakes were low. I think from day one, we've always said, we're going to hold this loosely. We don't know what God's plans are for it, but we're also going to work really hard at it.

Both of us are super passionate about what we do. We love it. Like we wake up on the mornings that... like Polly gets a sitter a couple of days a week to work now. My kids are all in school. But on those days that we have designated to work on the blog, we both wake up and we're so excited to do what we do.

So the journey was we began posting blog posts and learning social media and those kind of things the first few years. And over time, what began to happen was Google started to pick up some of our posts. And some of our most popular ones happened to be about freezer cooking and our healthy freezer meal recipes. [00:11:14]

So at the time when I had my first kid, I had a dear friend of mine named Darcy, who also happens to be one of the smartest, most resourceful moms I know. She said, "Hey, what if we started a freezer club?" This was in 2011. This was pre-Pinterest. No one had any resources about freezer cooking online. It was just barely a new term. She had this idea and we got together and we're all like, "Okay, we're in. What's a freezer club?"

She explained and said, Okay, we're going to cook in bulk for each other's families every month and then swap meals and freeze them until we're ready to use them. We began doing that with very little knowledge. A lot of it was trial and error and figuring out what worked to freeze and what didn't.

And about that time too, it's interesting, there were six of us in this group, and again, all friends, and we all began this journey, maybe it's because we had little kids at home, some of us had some health issues, this journey of trying to cook from scratch and use whole food ingredients for the most part. [00:12:21] And that was really fun. I learned how to cook during that time. I really learned the tenets of freezer cooking. We stayed together for seven years cooking for each other's families.

So all of that is to say, I began to write about that on the blog, and soon thereafter, Polly jumped on board, she started doing freezer cooking. She was at home while her husband was in seminary taking night classes, and so she would prep some meals ahead and throw them in the freezer and have them handy for nights that he was gone, things like that.

So we began writing about freezer cooking, and within a few years, our blog rose to the top as one. If you Google healthy freezer meals, we're like one of the top hits. About three years into our blogging, we started getting calls from publishers or emails and saying, "Would you guys want to write a freezer meal cookbook?"

At about the same time, we also had readers start to email us and say, "Gosh, we really would love to have a cookbook. Your recipes are made with real food mostly, and they are kid-friendly. It's hard to find things like that." [00:13:24]

So we hadn't honestly really thought about making a traditional cookbook through traditional publishing. We had toyed with the idea of creating an eBook that way, but we didn't get very far on that. It's a huge undertaking. We were just trying to balance kids and keeping up with the blog and that kind of thing.

But after getting a few different calls from publishers, we thought, "Well, we should at least investigate this," right? So a good friend of ours, Kelly Smith from The Nourishing Home—she's a blogger as well—she told us about her cookbook journey. And she said, "It's really, really hard. It took a year of my life, but I'm so glad I did it. And if you guys are considering it, you need to get a literary agent."

And at that time, we were like, "Oh, okay, what's a literary agent?" But she pointed us in the direction of this incredible gal, her name's Maria. And Maria helped us put together a book proposal and then get it out to all the major publishers. [00:14:23]

During that time, we got five interested big-name publishers. Actually, they ended up giving us multiple offers that kind of bid against each other. So here we are like, "I cannot believe this. We just got a cookbook deal from the publisher we wanted." And that's when it began, the cookbook experience.

Laura Dugger: It's so great to hear that you were faithful in all these small steps and it just continued to grow. So, what encouragement do you have for others who are being obedient to a call that God has on their life, but maybe they're in a different phase right now than you are? They aren't seeing the fruit yet.

Rachel Tiemeyer: I love that you say they're not seeing the fruit yet. I think that's the thing, when I think back to our blogging journey, to even my time in full-time and part-time ministry, and even as a parent, which I think is the most important job that moms are called to right now, especially when you've got little ones at home, is this idea that it's a slow and steady journey. It's a journey of learning. You fail, but you get back up and you keep going. [00:15:28]

And over time, at least for us, you know, you do begin to see some of those seeds grow and some of the fruit of those things. But it really does take time. Even thinking about parenting back to that, those little years, oh my goodness. I just felt like I... Sometimes I was spinning my wheels. You know, I'd be at home all day and here I am changing diapers and making more food, and cleaning up the kitchen for the third time that day. Our house was a disaster by the end of every day.

It was easy to get discouraged in that but here I am now. I've got a fifth grader. He's going to middle school next year. And I feel like God gives us little glimpses of the fruit of that time in my life where I was able to be close with my kids and spend time with them and really talk to them about faith throughout the day and get to teach them things at home. [00:16:29]

And here we are now, and I'm starting to see the fruit of that as a parent. Now, I don't know his story, my son's story fully but I think that's the same thing for our blogging. What you said is it's a slow and steady, keep plugging away, work hard, and maybe don't expect to see fruit right away.

Laura Dugger: Thanks for sharing that. Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor.

Sponsor: Today's episode is made possible by our Central Illinois sponsor, Leman Property Management. They offer over 1,600 apartment homes throughout Morton, Pekin, Peoria, Washington, and Canton. Whether you're looking for the newest property in the hottest area of town or an economical location where you can get the most value for your dollar, they have you covered.

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Laura Dugger: Has nutrition always been a focus for you both maybe when you were growing up and in your own current family?

Rachel Tiemeyer: I grew up in a family... I'm the oldest of four and my Mom worked part-time. Of course, my Dad worked and so we were a busy family. We're involved in a lot of sports and that kind of thing. We didn't really care that much about nutrition growing up.

I remember often having pop tarts and sugary cereal before and after school. You know, every kid's dream. But my Mom, to her credit, she was a great cook and she cooked from scratch and it was a high priority to get dinner on the table every night. So I do have that memory of sitting together with my family. And we weren't always great about sitting and talking and being intentional with talking and that kind of thing. That just wasn't kind of how we were. [00:18:39] But we did sit down and that was a priority. And I think that really helped ingrain that in me.

Kind of a side note on the nutrition part of my life. When I got to college, I didn't have many tracks to run on in terms of how to eat. So like a lot of freshmen, I started to gain weight. I chose to eat junk all the time and then began to actually have a pretty unhealthy relationship with food. So in my 20s, I would binge eat. I mean, at the time I was just like, "This is so embarrassing. Why am I doing this?" You know, kind of secretively overeating, but I really cared about how I looked and about exercise and that kind of thing.

So what began was I would binge eat. And then I would try to over-exercise or under-eat to kind of work it off. And I sort of was able to maintain my weight because of that unhealthy, you know, struggle going on. But during college, I developed IBS and, you know, just always kind of had an upset tummy. And most of all, I was pretty upset about my relationship with food. I just couldn't figure it out. [00:19:49]

Then I got married right out of college to a great guy. He was in seminary at the time. I really continued that struggle with disordered eating in my 20s, even while I was in full-time ministry and growing a ton in my faith. I had very supportive, godly friends, my husband, they prayed with me. I was able to talk to my friends about this. They were helping me apply truth in this area.

But then when I was about 27, I got pregnant with our first child and sort of a strange thing happened. I was super sick that first trimester, and I didn't want to eat anything practically. I don't know if that sort of broke the pattern for me, but for whatever reason, another thing happened too was my desire to care for about how I looked and my desire for getting what I wanted when I wanted it, which was a lot of times food, those desires changed significantly. And I began to care more about the little person growing inside of me and treating my body the right way. [00:20:56]

All that to say is I'm really, really thankful that God changed that in my life. I've had women ask me many times over the years, like, how did you get past that? Because I know a lot of women really do struggle with that. And I still marvel at how God changed my desires and helped me with that.

But anyway, that sent me down a path of kind of having more moderation and a better relationship with food. But then fast forward a year or so, and my firstborn son, he was a toddler at that point, and he began to get really sick. So at about 15 months old, he was losing weight. He wasn't eating. He actually began limping. He was already walking, but he went back to crawling. Maybe most noticeable was the fact that he had chronic diarrhea with blood in it. I mean, it was alarming. It was awful. It came on quickly.

So over the course of about three years, we struggled to find a doctor who would help us... Sorry, not three years, three months. We struggled to find a doctor who could help us with the diagnosis. But we eventually found out when he was 18 months old that he had Crohn's disease. [00:22:07] We had never heard of it. It doesn't run in our family, although it is a genetic predisposition for it.

Crohn's disease is part of a larger umbrella called inflammatory bowel disease that's different than IBS, irritable bowel syndrome. But it's an autoimmune disease where your autoimmune system attacks your digestive system, and it can be really debilitating. It is a lifelong struggle for people, lifelong disease. There's no cure for it.

However, there's a lot of great drugs now that we thankfully have benefited from. So my son actually has done really well. He really struggled as a toddler, but as soon as we got him on the right medication, I mean, I'm so thankful to God for this, but here he is. He's 11 years old now and he has done fantastic. I mean, he's one of the tallest kids in his class. The only reason I say that is because a lot of these kids don't grow correctly. And he plays sports. He has a completely normal life. He just has to... we go and get an infusion of this medication every six weeks. [00:23:11] But other than that, you would never know.

So, super thankful for that. But all of that is to say, that sent me as a mom down this path of figuring out, Okay, why did this happen to us? Is there anything in our environment that could have caused it? Is there anything in our environment that needs to change to help him stay as healthy as possible? And that's where I started doing tons of research about food and how our food is connected to our health and our body and that kind of thing.

One of the big convictions I had during that time was just that eating the processed food, fast food, or even the things we pick up in the store, canned foods, things like that, I started reading labels and I was going, what are these things in our food? You know, the farther you get down that path, the more you realize, wow, it's crazy the things that our culture... that we eat and our food system and that kind of thing.

So I started down that path and became convinced that I needed to feed our family a lot more vegetables, whole grains. [00:24:16] I switched to kind of organic milk and local or organic meat at the time. But just trying mainly to cook from scratch at home. That was, I guess, sort of my way. Not that I could ever control Jack's disease in any way, but that was my way of sort of saying, okay, I have some measure of control in our home of trying to provide some healthy food for them. And like I said, at that time I joined that freezer club, and what was cool is all these other families were on board with us, and we were able to cook for each other that way.

So that's my long story of where I've come in nutrition. And at this point in my life with our family, you know, I just try to do my best still to cook from scratch. I try to sort of keep it all in moderation because the last thing I want is for my kids to struggle and have an unhealthy relationship with food too.

Laura Dugger: That's an incredible story and I'm so glad you shared it. God is the ultimate healer and yet He works differently in everyone's life. So, if you're listening today and this is not your story because you have asked Him to remove this and you don't feel freed from disordered eating, perhaps He has a different journey for you. [00:25:24] I would love to suggest meeting with a licensed Christian counselor, especially one who specializes in this area. God may desire to use a person in your life as a catalyst to healing.

Cooking from scratch with your cookbook, it's not like it's these long drawn out recipes that take all day. It's easier than somebody listening might expect.

Rachel Tiemeyer: That's one of our goals. We want to help moms because, I mean, I get it. It's hard to have time to cook. And that's really why I'm so excited about freezer cooking is you can fit it in when you can fit it in and then freeze it and have it on hand for that five o'clock witching hour.

But also our desire is to create recipes that kids will actually like for the most part, you know, and that aren't too complicated. All of our recipes have recognizable ingredients in them, or at least we strive for that.

Laura Dugger: It definitely comes through. I just love hearing your passion about all of this. Thanks for sharing about your son and your history with disordered eating and how all of this plays a part. But looking at bigger picture, why are you passionate to provide practical ways to nourish people?

Rachel Tiemeyer: I began to understand our relationship with food. It is a physical one. You know, it is important to be eating the right kinds of things. I tell my kids, if you put the wrong kind of gas in your tank of your car, your car's not going to run very long or very far or very efficiently. [00:26:53] Well, the same is true with food. So, I want to be feeding my family the right kinds of things that we're kind of built for.

But I also think there's sort of a spiritual component to it in the sense that God's given us our bodies to take care of. We glorify Him through the way we treat our bodies. Also, I try to tell my kids this too, but food is a gift from God and it is something to be enjoyed. You'll see on our blog Thriving Home and in our cookbook, we're not trying to have the lowest fat meals or even cut out all sugar and things like that. But I really believe in moderation. And that's what you can sustain over the long haul.

I'm excited to help other families sort of learn that and have that vision because I think that's where we can enjoy food and also benefit from the health benefits of eating right. But secondarily, cooking and providing food for my family is absolutely one of the favorite things I get to do in my home. Laundry would be at the very bottom of the list. And I know for some people, cooking is at the very bottom of the list.

But to me, it's much more exciting to put a fun meal on the table and my kids and my husband get excited about it. Now, mind you, there's always one person in the family who like turns up their nose at it, right? Especially when they're little, you have no idea. [00:28:20] Like one day you'll put spaghetti in front of them and they're excited and the next day they won't touch it, right?

But I love that time of sitting together at the table. And it has to start early, I think. Even though it's hard, it's hard to get everybody at the table, a two-year-old and a seven-year-old and a mom and a dad. That's hard to get everybody to the table, but our families always try to make that a priority as much as we can, imperfectly. It's messy.

But now, my kids, like I said, they're a little older, that's a time that we get it. We get that we need to sit down. It's a time to pray together, to look each other in the eye, to talk about maybe one significant thing before everybody's ready to get up. But I'm excited to see more and more the fruit of sitting down over a meal together, even as they get into their teen years.[00:29:13]

Laura Dugger: I love this practical part. So do you have any other reasons why, for you personally, mealtime is so important as a family?

Rachel Tiemeyer: I've done a lot of reading about this over the years. I think there's just so many stats. There's been a lot of studies on families who eat together. And sort of across the board, what these studies have shown is that children who are in families where they eat together about three times or more a week, around the table, I mean, maybe it's breakfast, maybe it's dinner, but these kids do better in almost every way—socially, academically, physically, and emotionally.

And I would almost argue spiritually too, because it's that time. Like I said, it's a ritual for us. We pray before we eat. Sometimes we end up having sort of these organic spiritual conversations. Polly and I, just developed some what's called table talk discussion cards that we sell in the store on our blog. They're just like a printable that have discussion questions on them for various ages. [00:30:15] So we created them for all different ages. But it's just a fun way to connect with your kids. I think that's really important for families.

Laura Dugger: We will definitely link to those in the show notes. For anybody listening, if you're driving right now or you can't write it down, don't worry, we'll link to the blog and to the cookbook, and that new resource. How can we involve our kids in this endeavor to eat healthy and to teach them to prepare meals alongside us?

Rachel Tiemeyer: Well, this is an area that I feel like I'm on the journey right alongside a lot of other moms, right? It can be a challenge to figure out the best way to teach our kids this kind of thing. But I think for me personally, I tend to want to teach all of it at once.

I think because my son has a disease that really affects his health, I can kind of be overvigilant about it. So one of the things I don't want to do is I don't want to be too strict with my kids. So what I'm trying to do and from what I've read that helps people have a healthy relationship with food is I want to be a good example myself. [00:31:21] I want to provide healthy, well-balanced meals for them and snacks. I want to offer those kind of things.

You know, I do want to encourage them to make moderate choices, but I'm trying not to freak out. You know, you'll notice this as your kids get older they just want to have more autonomy over the food they select. Like my son went on a field trip yesterday and they got to go to this college campus and he chose to have like Taco Bell and buy a giant soda and get candy and all the other kids were doing it, too.

He didn't want to tell me about it at first. He's a truth teller, so eventually he told me. But I was like, "Hey, dude, that's okay. You know, sometimes there's times to just have fun and do that." I said, "But I hope as you get older, you begin to learn that, you know, we do those things in moderation and we try to do it in a way that glorifies God."

So those are the kinds of conversations I'm trying to have with my kids. I'm not saying I'm doing it perfectly. But my goal is that as they grow, I hope they enjoy the gift of food and make wise choices, obviously, that will help their health. [00:32:29]

One of the other ways I think is really great is just to get your kids in the kitchen with you. Especially the younger they are, if you can start that, give them little jobs to do. I mean, I even taught my kids how to use a knife when they were five. I know that's not for everyone or every kid. Some of my kids are more focused and listen to me better than others.

Give them some responsibility, like real responsibility. I mean, my kids used to chop salad for me, and they'd make the little salads that I taught them how to make, a vinaigrette, and they were so proud of themselves that they could make a vinaigrette.

Laura Dugger: That's really neat to hear, even at this specific age five, because I think our kids are capable of so much more than sometimes we're willing to take the time to train them on.

Rachel Tiemeyer: Yeah, I think so too.

Laura Dugger: Did you know podcasts like The Savvy Sauce are estimated to cost roughly $500 per episode to produce? This cost includes expenses such as equipment, web hosting, and programming, in addition to the many hours our team spends to bring you the high-quality episodes. [00:33:30]

Sponsors are not always consistent, and that gives you an opportunity to support conversations you love and make more possible. Our team is so delighted for the opportunity to do this work and get the good news to as many nations as possible. Will you consider partnering with us? Go to thesavvysauce.com and click the "Patreon" tab for more information. Thanks for participating.

Well, would you mind explaining a freezer club and a freezer party for anyone who's not familiar with those two terms?

Rachel Tiemeyer: All right, so let me backup a second. Some people might not be familiar with freezer cooking. So this concept, all it is is you're preparing a meal. So think of it as meal prep. You're not fully, typically not fully cooking something and freezing it. But the way we think of it is you've prepped a meal up until the point that it needs to be cooked, and you throw it in your freezer.

It does take knowing what kinds of things freeze well and how to freeze and thaw them well for it to turn out right. I think a lot of times the people we talk to when we give seminars and things like that, a lot of people are like, okay, I'm gonna be honest. I think of freezer meals as kind of beige and boring and mushy. [00:34:46] And we say, uh-uh, we really, really believe and we know from experience, like I've been doing this for over 10 years, that a freezer meal can taste just as a fresh meal if you do it right.

So all I have to say is our cookbook walks you through all of that. And we've got a lot of resources on our blog as well, thrivinghome.com, that will help people with that. But one of the things that's made freezer cooking doable for our homes is this concept of either throwing a freezer party or being in a freezer club.

So let me walk you through the differences. A freezer party, there's a few ways you can do it, but this would be a great first step into freezer cooking, kind of the toe in the baby pool. So it's a one-time event where you get friends together. We usually recommend like six people is a good number if you have a kitchen that can hold that many because then you'll go home with six different recipes. [00:35:43]

So you invite friends, you assign everybody a recipe. We've actually got menu plans in our cookbook. We've identified the recipes that work best for this kind of thing. And then you'll come together and everybody brings their ingredients for their recipe. And the person hosting tries to provide most of the utensils and that kind of thing in their kitchen.

Then the way we do it is we divide up into teams of two, and you and a friend plug away at prepping, mostly prepping. There's not a ton of cooking usually. Sometimes you might have to brown some meat or something, but we try to select recipes that's more like just putting food together in freezer bags or freezer containers.

So, with a friend at one of your stations, you would put together two meals for everybody at the party. So, everybody's doing that over the course of the evening. Usually, it takes two to three hours to do it. We like to provide food and fun drinks and music and that kind of thing. [00:36:44] So, you're just hanging out, you're cooking, you're prepping food for each other, and at the end of the night, it's totally like Christmas because you go home and stock your freezer with all these great meals. That would be the freezer party.

Now, the Freezer Club is an ongoing thing. The way ours worked, and Polly's in one right now, and I can kind of talk to you a little bit about how they've made some adjustments for their group. We would meet every four or five weeks. There were six of us that got together. Sometimes we actually had more people in it than that. But we get together every five weeks or so at someone's house and we would plan a menu for the following week.

So everybody came prepared with a few recipes that they were excited to make. Now, we always say before you start a freezer club, you want to set expectations. You want to make sure everybody's on the same page with sort of their food values. You know, if you have people that have severe allergies, that's going to be hard. If you yourself have an allergy, it's really great to like, you know, link arms with people who have similar needs for their family. [00:37:49]

But all that to say you get together... And this was really like one of my favorite times of the month because I got to hang out with my friends, I got to talk about food, got to plan a menu for my family for the following month. And then after you plan your menu, we would swap meals from the previous month.

I know that might sound confusing, but let me explain. So, you would plan your menu, and then during the course of that next month before you met again, you would prepare the meal that you were assigned to make for everyone. So, on your own time, you make a big batch of, you know, whatever it is, cheddar chive burgers. That's a recipe from our cookbook. That's pretty easy. You'd freeze a batch for every family. When you got back together the next time, you swap meals.

So this is how we ate. This is how I fed my family for a good seven years and it was awesome. I have a few favorite things about it. But one was that it saved me time because when you're cooking in bulk you're cutting down on trips to the store. If you're browning one pound of beef, why not brown a few pounds? It's just kind of like why not do the cleanup for all of it at once? So it saves you time. It does save you money because you're buying in bulk and because you pull it out and you eat that at home instead of going out to eat. [00:39:06]

Then a couple of other things that surprised me. One is I really grew as a cook. So making all these different kinds of recipes really forced my hand to try different things. Along with that, you know, people always go, well, did you like all the recipes that people made? Well, no, not always, but it forced us to try new things and it forced my kids to try new things. And a lot of times they were more willing to try something that Ms. Darcy had made versus what Mom had made, you know? So that was really a fun benefit that I hadn't expected, was it expanded our palate.

Laura Dugger: Well, and these ideas are genius for so many reasons. It's brilliant that it's a way to have community, to enjoy your time with your friends, to have something to look forward to. Like you mentioned, you get to save time, money, and calories. If somebody wants to start one today, what's just the first step a listener can take?

Rachel Tiemeyer: Okay, if they want to start a freezer club, I would get our cookbook and read the chapter. [00:40:11] But really, I would say it's finding friends that you line up with in terms of your vision for what kind of food you want to have, how often you want to meet, that kind of thing. Because you got to be on the same page. That's a big thing that we learned in our group is that if everybody's not on the same page and also things like you got to think about all of us have kind of a different food budget as well.

So you want to make sure you kind of set some guidelines for things like that. You know, think about... I think in our group we used to say, and this was years ago, so I don't know if this would still apply, but we wanted to spend about $8 to $10 per meal per family. And sometimes it would be less. Now remember, we were trying to buy organic ingredients and things like that, so it could be a lot less if you were not investing in those kind of ingredients. But set sort of a range maybe of what you want to spend.

Some groups also, when it comes to finances, will say, everybody bring your receipts, let's tally them up, let's figure out the difference, and let's make it the same. In my opinion, that gets very tedious, very fast, and is not really worth it, because over the years, I felt like it worked out. [00:41:24] You know, if I made an expensive meal one round, I knew, okay, time to make a vegetarian soup the next round and save a little money. So overall, everybody tried to kind of Police themselves and that kind of thing.

So just getting on the same page. I would say find the people who can be on the same page with you. And we run through the kind of questions you want to ask to set up your group in our cookbook.

Laura Dugger: Which I love those pages in your cookbook. It just empowers any reader to be able to know what their action step is. As we conclude today, our podcast is called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. "Savvy" means practical knowledge or discernment. What is your savvy sauce?

Rachel Tiemeyer: I love that question. I have two short ones. I love exercise. I'm a big believer in exercise. I don't mean just like going to a row-based class or hitting the gym or whatever, but I've noticed over the years that it really changes my day if I move. And especially when I was at home with little kids, I noticed if we could get outside and do some kind of exercise, and not just for me, for the kids too, it changed our attitudes. [00:42:34] And for me personally, it helps me sleep better and feel better and all those things. As I get a little bit older, I have fewer aches and pains when I work out.

So my savvy sauce is, over the years, I've tried to just do something to move every day. And I always try to tell myself something is better than nothing. So, it might be just simply... You're going to laugh. I'm so practical. But I'm like, if I can fold laundry and walk in place and get exercise at the same time, I mean, I would do that in the middle of winter or walking up and down the steps while I talk on the phone or riding bikes with my kids around the neighborhood, that kind of thing. So, I would say try to move every day in some way. And especially if you can get outside, that's a bonus.

My second thing that I've learned over the years is when you're making dinner already at night, why not double your recipe, especially if it's a freezable recipe, which like I said, all of them in our cookbook are, and then freeze one for later. [00:43:34]

Polly and I both do that. We've been doing that for years and it's awesome because over time you kind of stock up your freezer and you have a meal to pull out when you need it most.

Laura Dugger: Those are so good. Rachel, you are so kind and gracious. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Your blog and first cookbook continue to be a hit, and I'm sure the next one will be great, too. So I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks again for joining us.

Rachel Tiemeyer: Me too. Anytime. Thanks, Laura.

Laura Dugger: Guess what? It's giveaway time again. If you head over to our website, thesavvysauce.com, you can click on our "Giveaways" tab and there you'll find instructions for how to enter for your chance to win Polly Connor and Rachel Tiemeyer's book, From Freezer to Table Cookbook. Thanks for participating.

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him. [00:44:42]

This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.

This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.

We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. [00:45:44]

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.

At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John. [00:46:43]

Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.

We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.