With three littles, moving into a new home, and the everyday chaos – I have most definitely been stuck in a bit of a dinner rut over here. Luckily, my friend suggested I check out Larson Folkerts Month of Dinners and now I am HOOKED.
Larson does all the heavy lifting – she curates a meal plan along with the weekly grocery list and includes a TON of tips, tricks and swaps to go along with her recipes. So many of her recipes are quickly becoming our favorites (I make the chicken fried rice every single week!) You can grab her meal plans here for just $15 each.
So of course I reached out to her to do a Q&A and documented it for y’all below. ENJOY!
BYOK: Tell us more about yourself
Larson: I have no formal or professional experience with food! I actually come from an agriculture background and I attended the University of Wyoming and Texas A&M University where I graduated with my degree in Agricultural Communications & Journalism. From there, I worked in the marketing and event planning department for a large Houston-area developer. I left that position to work for Ashley Moore of Moore House Interiors, a home design studio based in Tomball, Texas. After having my son in 2020, I became a full time stay at home mom!
Growing up, my mom cooked from-scratch meals for us every night. She’s an amazing cook, as is my grandmother. They actually went to cooking school together in London right after my parents were married! I’ve been so incredibly lucky to learn how to cook from my mom and it’s a gift that I don’t take for granted. That whole “a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” definitely worked with my husband! Since we’ve been married, I cook dinner for us 4-5 nights a week. From my corporate job to my role with Moore House Interiors and now as a mom, I’ve always had a hot meal on the table for both of us to enjoy after a long day of work. The more you cook, the more you figure out what works, what doesn’t, how you can save a little time here and there, what ingredients can carry over, what recipes are a hit or a miss… so while all my cooking is just for fun, it’s how I’ve learned to tackle meal prepping and recipe creating!
BYOK: Wow so we are enjoying some family recipes in your meal plans! What made you decide to share these special recipes with us?
Larson: I started sharing recipes and cooking tips and tricks on my Instagram page and I began getting messages from people with questions and requests for more. It kind of snowballed and the messages became more frequent and increased in volume to the point of thinking “holy shit I think I have something here.” I showed my husband and after awhile he told me I need to capitalize on this obvious interest from people! He really encouraged me to put myself out there with “A Month of Dinner” and has been my biggest supporter and cheerleader through this. I genuinely want to help encourage or inspire others to “love to cook” because I think that cooking at home is so incredibly important for everyone’s health and wellbeing! It saves you money and time, it keeps you from eating fast food and ingredients that shouldn’t even be legal, it stimulates your brain, it creates a family moment by gathering together at the table to eat a home cooked meal, the benefits of cooking at home are endless. I don’t think people realize how absolutely terrible ingredients and food are nowadays, it’s beyond scary and most people have no idea what they’re putting in their body. I wanted to share recipes that are easy to make but use real, wholesome ingredients. Cooking can be easy, it can be healthy, it can be affordable and it can taste good while making you feel good! My goal is to help make dinner easier and healthier for anyone–a single mom of three on a tight budget, a newlywed couple working 60 hours a week, a family with 4 kids living on a rural ranch or an empty nester couple in downtown Austin. Good, wholesome, simple food should and can be accessible to everyone regardless of income or geographical location! I want to help people embrace that!
On an off tangent, I think that a lot of popular food bloggers and authors forget about the average American family and target a demographic of people who aren’t actually cooking all that often. A mom and wife in Des Moines with 3 kids in school or a ranch wife in rural Nebraska are both cooking a lot more than a single millennial in L.A., let’s be real. But you see those cookbook authors using expensive, obscure ingredients that you can’t get at a small town grocery store and even their cookbook tours reflect their target markets: Boston, L.A., Seattle, New York City, Chicago. I’m not saying people in those cities don’t cook because they absolutely do!! But I think the average, small town or middle class American woman is cooking often but is also forgotten. She doesn’t have a Whole Foods around the corner or Shipt for delivery or access/budget for fresh burrata on the regular. I want to help make good, healthy, simple food possible for everyone.
BYOK: What are some of your favorites from the meal plans?
Larson: I get asked this a lot and it’s so hard for me to answer! I love the Red Wine Beef Stew in Volume 1. That is one of my favorites! It’s just a warm comfort food and makes me feel good. Plus I love beef and pasta so it’s a great combo for me. The perfect meal to have when the weather is cold and crisp, you can wear a nice cozy sweater and have a good glass of red wine. I also love the Spiced Salmon Bowls from Volume 2. It’s a huge hit with both my husband and our toddler which I love and it’s a recipe that I made up myself and made a few times to try to nail it. A labor of love and I’m really pleased it’s so popular! Dessert-wise… either Chocolate Chip Cookies or The Best Brownies from Volume 1. I’m a sucker for a great chocolate chip cookie and the brownies are my grandmother’s recipe, the one’s my mom made for us religiously growing up so not only are they really freaking good, but they are nostalgic to me. The Glazed Lemon Blueberry bread in Volume 2 is delish as dessert or breakfast, ha!
BYOK: For someone who struggles with meal planning (ME ME ME!) what are some digestible tips?
Larson: -Plan your meals for the week during the weekend. Monday’s are always busy, start your week with a plan already made!
-You don’t need to plan a dinner for every night of the week because plans ALWAYS change! I never plan for more than 5 dinners per week, I typically do 4, because without fail something comes up and plans change and I hate for food to go to waste. Life happens: date nights, sports, kid events, girls night out, family events, trips, etc.
-Utilize your freezer!! Instead of throwing away leftover veggies, chop them up and put them in a bag in the freezer to use next time. Made too much pesto? Freeze it. Leftover meatballs? Freeze them. Don’t feel like eating 3 dozen cookies? Freeze half.
-Don’t bite off more than you can chew, sometimes the most simple recipes in appearance can be the most delicious and the recipes that look fantastic on instagram usually prove to be far more time consuming and complicated than you need (and expensive). With that being said…
-READ the recipes before you decide to make them!! It’s so easy to look at a picture and think omg yes that looks so good, add ingredients to your cart and then end up thinking WTF this is so complicated, I should’ve read the directions.
-Pick one meal or ask your family to choose one meal that is a must-have for the week! Then base another meal or two off the ingredients used in the first one. This will help stretch your ingredients and your money and prevent waste. For example, your husband could request a steak so you could do a flank steak at the beginning of the week and then use the leftover steak to make a beef stir fry! Maybe your kids want chicken this week. Buy a large pack of chicken breasts and make Chicken Picatta from Vol. 2 on Monday then on Thursday make Easiest Chicken Curry Ever from Vol. 1.
BYOK: What are you future plans for A Month of Dinners?
Larson: I would love to come out with another volume! As long as people want another one and the interest is there too! My husband and I just welcomed our second child, a baby girl, less than a month ago so I’m focused on being mom right now to her and our son, who turns 2 this month. I’d love to release anothe volume at the end of 2022 or early 2023 if the kids and I are in a good rhythm! The ultimate, big picture dream would be to have a cookbook with the same concept of meal plans, grocery lists, pantry staples, coordinated meals, budget-friendly and accessible for everyone. But who knows if that will happen! I still pinch myself that “A Month of Dinner” has taken off like it has and I can’t express my gratitude enough to everyone for all the support! I’m just a mom and wife who loves to cook, I mean the imposter syndrome thing is real! I’m not a professional, I have no special training, I know I don’t cut onions the right way or measure ingredients just perfectly and I don’t take pretty pictures or use fancy equipment, but the kind messages and amazing feedback I’ve received from complete strangers has blown me away and makes me want to keep helping people love to cook as best I can!
