In our latest podcast episode, I invited Jenny Best Founder of Solid Starts to talk all about baby led weaning, the process of transitioning a baby to solid foods using a finger food first approach. Jenny is the mom of 3, including a set of twins, and Solid Starts grew out of her own challenges of introducing solids to her little babes. From fears of choking to lack of information around what foods are best for babies, she started documenting all of it herself.

Now Solid Starts features an ever-growing food database offering parents incredibly pragmatic information on hundreds of foods, all for free. Each ingredient has a nutrition rating and nutritional information, when and how it should be introduced, if it’s an allergen or how it can be a choking hazard, and so much more. It’s such an incredible resource. 

In this episode we also dig into some of the biggest questions parents have when starting their babies on solid foods, such as:

1. Why baby led weaning and is there still a place for purees with a finger food first approach?
2. What are the signs that a baby is ready for solids?
3. How do you start a baby on solids? What do you need?
4. What makes a food a choking hazard and what steps you can take to prevent it from being one?
5. What are some great on-the-go snacks and solids for a baby?

Even though I’m a mom of 3, I learned so much from this episode and wish I had had this interview 4.5 years ago when I was starting Neko out on solids for the first time. Clearly, it all ended up fine but I would have had a lot more context and a clearer process (and I love a good clear process!). Talking to Jenny has given me great inspiration to dig into the database and introduce even more variety into our family’s diet!

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/28

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

For our 27th episode, I have a real treat, at least it was a real treat for me because I got to talk about one of my favorite topics of all time -- kitchen organization -- with Sam Pregenzer the Founder of SO | Home a residential professional organizing company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s a mom of 3 kids and her specialty is creating organizing solutions and systems for families, because it is so easy to just feel like you’re drowning in stuff when you start having kids. She’s been featured in lots of big publications like Redbook, Family Circle, Oprah.com and is field editor for Better Homes and Gardens.

In the episode, she shares:

1. How one becomes a professional organizer
2. How she works with clients and the important role of counseling and listening
3. Her 2 simple tips for making more space in your kitchen (and home)
4. The organizing tools she likes to use for kitchen spaces
5. Her tips for organizing 3 trouble areas: spices, Tupperware, and kid items

This episode will inspire you to tackle some of your organization projects and make your kitchen a space you want to spend even more time in.

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/27

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

Our lives are so busy these days, and so often lived virtually, that we’ve lost this beautiful tradition of gathering friends around the dinner table. To help me revive this practice, I’ve invited Anna Watson Carl, an expert dinner party thrower onto our podcast today.

Anna is a cook and writer, and the author of “The Yellow Table: A Celebration of Everyday Gatherings.” Her writing has appeared in Food & Wine, Travel+Leisure, and Tasting Table just to name a few. A former private chef, she has cooked for countless dinner parties around the U.S. and in France. Today, she lives in Nashville with her husband and two young children.

In the episode, she shares:

1. Her go-to 4 part dinner party menu
2. Tips for making the evening stress-free
3. Gathering people around your table even when you have kids
4. How to make the evening special even when the food is simple
5. Her new dinner party philosophy

Hopefully it’ll inspire you to invite a friend or 2 over!

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/26

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

For those of you who have been following my personal Instagram account @jessdangcs, you’ll know 2 things: 1) I am terrible at posting on Instagram and; 2) I love my air-fryer. Probably every 3rd post is something I made in this amazing machine because it’s the 1 appliance I probably use every single day.

I know that there are quite a few of you who got air-fryers over the holidays, and I want to make sure you take full advantage of this incredibly useful appliance, so in today’s episode, I’ll go over:

1. What the heck an air-fryer is
2. Why you need one, especially if you have kids!
3. When you should use your air-fryer and when you shouldn’t
4. The 13 things I cook in it all the time and actually think are better made in the air-fryer over the stovetop or the oven

By the end, you’ll be so excited to fall in love with your air-fryer just as I have with mine (I’m actually on my second as I wanted to upgrade to a larger one) or go out and get one if you don’t own one yet. 

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/25

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

We’re rerunning episode #5 with some great updates! In this podcast episode, I’m tackling a big emotional topic for a lot of parents -- how to help your picky eaters become more curious, adventurous eaters.

Just about every kid goes through some phase (or multiple phases) of picky eating, and it can be a super frustrating and challenging time for parents. Using my own personal experience as a mom combined with everything I’ve read on this topic, we’ll discuss a wide variety of strategies parents can use to help support the transition from picky eating to curious eating. 

After this 30 minute episode, you’ll have the tools to:

1. Shift your mindset and redefine what success looks like at the dinner table
2. Make dinner time a no-pressure environment
3. Create more fun around the dinner table
4. Involve your kids in the meal planning and cooking process
5. Plus so much more! 

For all the links mentioned in this episode and to grab the transcript, head to our show notes: www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/5

Hi friends, this isn’t an episode but a little podcast community announcement. So being a cooking instructor and running a meal plan service for the last 7 years, I’ve watched a lot of people try to get dinner on the table over the years, and there’s no question that the members who have a system for prepping ahead experience a lot less weeknight stress. And as our commitment to you, our community, and home-cooking, we’re gonna help you develop a meal prep habit! 

Now here are the main details:

1. The challenge will take place within our Facebook Group. If you’re not a part of it already, request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cs.heroes/ or search for Cook Smarts Kitchen Heroes in Facebook. You do have to be a member of our meal plan service to join the group but you can get a free 30 day trial at cooksmarts.com.
2. The challenge will take place between February 10th and 29th.There will be members serving as mentors. There will be lots of tips shared and of course, lots of cheering you on!

And we decided to start this in February because we’ve all calmed down from the New Year resolution pressure and now is the time for true follow-through and commitment. And just like we provided you with a system for keeping your resolutions all year long in our first 2020 episode, this challenge is about applying those tips and also giving you some great community motivation. I’ll see you in our Facebook Group, and I can’t wait to cheer you on and help you create a lasting habit for prepping ahead so you can cook with ease all year long!

Today we are interviewing Ms. Erin Romeo, nutrition coach, expert meal planner and food prep specialist from Ontario, Canada. She’s known on Instagram as the @foodprepprincess, and that’s also where she shares her tips and tricks for healthy eating through meal prepping. Last fall, she published her first cookbook “The Visual Guide to Meal Prep,” full of easy meal prep recipes and her 5 step fool-proof plan for getting started with meal prep. She has also been featured on Shape.com, Health.com, The Kitchn, Buzzfeed, Brit + Co, just to name a few media sites and today we are so excited to be featuring her on our podcast.

I asked Erin to come on the podcast because I know that meal prepping is one of those habits that everybody knows is good to do but it feels hard to get started. As a nutritional coach Erin has been working with clients for 10 years and helping them get over that hump by showing them how to do it and make it an integral part of their life and routine.

If you’ve been wanting to start a meal prep routine for awhile but just need a bit of help getting started, then this episode is for you!

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). Screenshot it and text it to 650-386-0290 for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. If you’ve already left a review there, send us a voicemail review at the same number instead! Giveaway ends February 6, 2020.

I have such a treat for you all today and it is completely unrelated to cooking, but it might just become your favorite Cook Smarts podcast episode. I’m excited to share another part of our origin story today -- there would be no Cook Smarts meal plan service without the talents and persistence of Jen Gilbert, who helped me build our meal plan service back in 2013.

Jen and I met in the fall of 2012 at a Railsbridge workshop. We had both just turned 30 and made huge career changes. She wanted to learn to code to become a software developer, and I wanted to learn to code because I was determined to build a meal plan service. There were many challenges and hiccups along the way, but in the end we launched the service on May 1, 2013 with paying customers on day 1. Come join us in this walk down memory lane and hear how we made the impossible happen.

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). Screenshot it and text it to 650-386-0290 for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. If you’ve already left a review there, send us a voicemail review at the same number instead!

Hi friends, this isn’t an episode but two short community announcements about our sale and giveaway. First, I wanted to make sure you knew were are in the middle of our big New Year’s sale. 2020 is the year where I want to help you do more by doing less. If you’re not using our meal plan service already, free yourself of tedious mental labor with a meal plan subscription. It’ll be the best money you spend all year because it’ll save you time and money and free you from so much stress and decision making. And for the entire month of January, you can use code DOLESSIN2020 for 20% off. Gifts are included too for those who are still sending some belated holiday gifts.

The other thing I wanted to let you know about is that we’re also kicking off the year with a giveaway. To enter, we need you to submit a review on Apple Podcast. This helps our podcast grow and also get some big names to interview! 

The prize is a $100 Amazon gift card for you to get whatever you need to make your year more successful.

You have 2 options to enter the giveaway:

1. Leave a review on Apple Podcast and then text the screenshot to 650-386-0290.
2. If you’ve already left a review in the past or are just not an Apple person, leave a review on our voicemail. The number again is 650-386-0290. Introduce yourself, tell us why you love Cook Smarts and our podcast.

We’ll then mix up all the Apple reviews and phone reviews and select a winner at random at the end of the month.

Now for those of you who want to participate but have never left a podcast review, let me walk you through how to do it. There are 2 easy ways to do it. If you have the Apple Podcast app on your phone, just  head to our podcast page from there, scroll to the bottom where you’ll see ratings and reviews and just click on the Write a Review link. If you’re on a desktop computer that has iTunes, just click on this link https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429, and then choose to listen to the podcast on Apple Podcast. It’ll open it in iTunes and from there you can click on “Ratings and Reviews” and click on the “Write a Review” button.

So leave us some kind words on Apple Podcast or give us a ring at 650-386-0290 and head to cooksmarts.com for our sale! 

Because we’re more likely to break our New Year’s resolutions by February than keep them for the year, this episode is dedicated to a fail-safe plan for resolutions that aren’t some short-term whim, but a real long-lasting habit. As you know, I’m all about systems and whether you make resolutions or not, this episode will provide you with incredibly useful tips on developing a system to help implement whatever change you’re looking to make in 2020 (and beyond). You can apply these tips not just to your health and cooking resolutions, but to any personal goal you have for the year ahead.

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). Screenshot it and text it to 650-386-0290 for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. If you’ve already left a review there, send us a voicemail review at the same number instead!

Some of the links mentioned today:

1. Get inspired to start with Ira Glass: http://www.jess-dang.com/2014/02/a-life-of-doubt/
2. Always have a trainer in your pocket with Aaptiv: http://aaptiv.com/cooksmarts
3. Rent clothes from Anthropologie through Nuuly: http://fbuy.me/omgyV

For full set of links, head to the show notes at www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/21