- It's all good.
We're winging it.
Wait, woo, woo, woo
(grunts)
The boys are gonna flip.
- That's amazing!
- I had a crazy idea, but it might just work.
(Wyatt grunting)
I don't even know why I try.
Hi, I'm Hannah.
I'm The World's Ok-est Mom and I am tired.
I'm here with my kids every single day
I'm cooking three meals a day right now
and I'm feeling very uninspired when it comes
to meal planning.
I do most of my grocery shopping online
and it's just really hard to think
of new and improved ideas for meals.
So I'm wanna try something.
For this week,
I'm gonna let my kids do the grocery shopping.
I'm hoping I get some inspiration.
Wish me luck.
Up first, the rules.
One, I'm not going over budget for this week.
The kids are limited to the budget
that I usually spend on groceries.
Second, it cannot all be junk food.
There has to be some semblance of health.
We've done the junk food week,
we're not going to do it again.
Three, we can't eat the same thing every night.
We have to have some variety
we can't just have chicken fingers for dinner
every single night.
The whole point is to come up with some new meals
that we can try together as a family.
And last, I have full access to my pantry,
refrigerator and freezer.
Guess what you get to do this week?
Don't, hey, don't sit in the baby seat.
(bouncy music) (Jackson laughing)
You get to do all of our grocery shopping for the week.
(Jackson grunting) - What the heck?
- And then I'm gonna have to figure out,
what to cook.
So, because we're trying to self isolate as well as we can
we do grocery delivery.
So it was really easy
for the boys to be able to scroll through all of the aisles
on the app and choose whatever they wanted for groceries.
- Ooh yes!
- Ooh yes! - Hot peppers.
- [Hannah] Peppers?
I was very nervous when they were scrolling through the app
because I know that
they don't know what a lot of the foods are
and so they'll see one word
and think it means another thing
and maybe put that in the cart.
- I know! - Potatoes!
- [Hannah] You feel like you got a good list?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- [Hannah] Okay, should I check out?
- Yeah.
- Okay, well we came in under budget, that's good.
I'm not gonna look too deep into this list
cause I wanna be a little bit surprised
but, good job!
And the next morning the groceries arrived.
(Hanna laughing)
I see some normal stuff, this is good.
They ordered a lot of meat
and they were clearly confused about
what a couple of the ingredients actually were.
I saw jalapeno peppers in there.
I know that they thought they were bell peppers.
I was pleasantly surprised
by the lack of junk food in there honestly.
I'm very proud of them for making good food choices,
lots of salad, lots of greens
and that is all I could ask for as a parent.
Good morning, I am starting the day making dinner
cause it's in the slow cooker.
In the groceries,
I noticed there was a big cut of chuck roast.
There was also a packet of ranch seasoning in
with this grocery haul
so I knew the boys wanted me to make Mississippi Rose
which is a super easy and really delicious recipe.
I usually get pepper chennys but they didn't get any
so all I have is banana peppers
so I'm wanna try it.
It might be like pretty salty.
We're gonna cover this,
cook it on low for nine hours.
I don't cook a lot of red meat
and I don't cook Mississippi roast very often
because it is pretty high in fat.
But it is really good,
so I don't blame the boys for choosing it.
It's been in here for nine hours
and then it just falls apart.
This is how I typically serve it
just cut some bread, it soaks up all those juices
and then I'm serving this
alongside one of their bagged salads that they chose.
How does this look to you Wyatt?
- Yum!
- [Hannah] Does it taste like I usually make it?
- That's good.
- What do you think Wyatt?
That meal was a huge success it reminded me honestly,
to utilize my slow cooker in the morning.
And by dinner time, everything is ready
and I don't even have to prepare food.
This is good.
It's a little less spicy and it's very very delicious
for how easy it is to make.
This is a good one.
Day, one successful, easy and I was ready
to dive into day two.
On day two, I wanted to get one weird ingredient
out of the way.
Popcorn.
I have to figure out how to incorporate this into a dinner.
Lately we've been doing movie nights every week
and we've been doing popcorn every night
that we have movie nights.
So I think the boys figured if they got a lot of popcorn
we would have movie nights all week
which is not how that works, but nice try.
Were you thinking of something when you put the popcorn
in the basket?
- I was thinking about eating it.
- Just plain?
- Mm hmm
- But how could we use popcorn, in a meal?
- On toast.
- Popcorn toast?
- You put butter on your toast
and you put the popcorn on and popcorn is good with butter.
- Do you know, I did that when I was your age?
- I think like you!
- Right now I think I have a picture of it.
I guess weird people raise weird kids.
Okay, I think I've figured it out.
I'm gonna do a chicken tortilla soup
and when I typically crash chips on top,
I'm gonna offer popcorn, as a topping.
Then on the side I will also have toast with butter
and popcorn and really make it a popcorn centric meal.
Can you help me out, by popping the popcorn?
That's how you open a box?
All right, let's check on (Hannah yelps)
let's check on the soup.
I used a pot that is far too small,
but it looks decent, okay.
- It's like melting when you put it in the soup.
- [Hannah] Do you like it?
- It gives it some crunch.
- [Hannah] How is it? - That's surprisingly good.
(Hannah giggling)
- Toast with butter
- Maybe I should have gotten you a plate. (Wyat yelping)
So day two was a little weird, but little did I know
that the weirdest was yet to come.
Day three, I really wanted to do something visually splashy.
One grocery that's plentiful in this haul is, fruit.
So, I'm gonna try a breakfast for dinner style meal
and I'm going to make a, fruit parfait platter
and I'm gonna do some baked apple oatmeal
because that's always easy
and I think the kids will like it.
I do oatmeal cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, eggs almond milk,
baking powder and it's like a batter.
So I got my honey crisp apples.
You're supposed to skin your apples
but I don't feel like it.
Very excited about this oatmeal bake.
Time to assemble
so I have some plain Greek yogurt,
just drizzle a little honey on top.
Wanna do some kiwi.
I had this vision of like the most beautiful,
colorful platter, and I feel like it came close
but it wasn't quite as splashy as I'd expected.
- That is not, oat meal mom?
- [Hannah] No, it's part of dinner.
- This? - [Hannah] Yeah.
- It's part of dinner?
- Yes! - That's dinner?
- [Hannah] What do you think?
- I think it looks delicious.
(blooping)
- Too sour, try it with the fruit,
you're supposed to eat it with the fruit honey.
(Wyat mumbles)
- It's delicious! (Hannah laughing)
- I have not seen you guys this excited
to have dinner in a very long time.
What does Henry think?
Day three overall was not the most traditional
but that's how we roll in our family.
So it was great, success, check that off the box,
onto day four.
Day four, I decided to tackle
the most difficult ingredient of the week, jalapenos.
I Honestly, I'm so tired tonight I don't feel like cooking.
I don't feel like dealing with jalapenos,
but it's better to just get it over with.
We have a plan.
I stuff these with cream cheese and shredded cheese
and I'm going to kind of make
jalapeno popper stuffed chicken.
So this is ready to be batter fried,
Jackson is mixing some eggs,
Wyat's gonna get the panko in a bowl, right?
- Okay, what's a panko?
- [Hannah] It's breadcrumbs.
- It's breadcrumbs? - Mmh,
- Yeah, okay look at that.
That looks descent. (Henry crying)
Moment of truth for this chicken.(Hannah howls happily)
That's something.
So Jackson says he likes spicy food,
but in his mind spicy food is mild salsa from taco bell.
(Jackson giggling) (Hannah laughing)
Wyatt on the other hand,
does eat pretty spicy food and doesn't really flinch.
- This is not spicy yet. - [Hannah] It's not?
- It's not even spicy a single bit!
- Do you like it? - It's amazing!
- Am I crushing it at this point?
75% I'd say.
There's always room for improvement, stay humble,
but I was very proud of that day.
I'm very grateful that day four was as easy as it was
because little did I know
I was about to lose my mind.
I don't even wanna talk about day five.
Day five was the day.
Day five was, challenging.
Day five fricking sucked. (chuckles)
We have a slight problem,
with tonight's meal.
I decided to tackle the whole roasted chicken.
Here's the thing.
It's 6:50, this chicken roasts for an hour and a half,
and these potatoes cook for 55 minutes.
So,
(giggles)
there's my chicken roasting, my house smells delicious,
but look, but this thing is going to take,
you know another hour and 20 minutes.
I have my potatoes soaking
and I'm gonna do those in a cast-iron.
It's fine, I've lost my mind
my kids are already hungry
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Cause the food's gonna be finished at 8:30, at the earliest.
They go to bed, at 8:30.
(clock ticking)
So, I'm about to cover this up
and I'm gonna put another hand on top of it.
(foil paper thudding)
(giggles)
This isn't a meal that you make on a weeknight
for your family.
This is a meal you make on a Saturday
for a dinner party and you definitely don't start cooking it
at almost seven o'clock.
I'm wanna have to order dinner.
I made the space for the chicken and the potatoes.
I got them both in,
they were cooking nicely, but then it was Henry's bedtime
and I had to put him to bed.
I did not set myself a timer.
There's so much I could have done to prevent what happened
and I just didn't do it.
Did I over cook it, yes.
Is it completely charred and stuck to the bottom,
also yes.
I did not take my time with this one
and make sure that the potatoes were completely dry
so I don't know what that did, but I think it ruined it.
Why did I do that?
I was not ready to throw in the towel.
I was not ready to give up on those potatoes
and so I came up with the only solution I could think of.
It's not charred if you cover it with cheese,
that's our new family motto.
It's Not Charred If you Cover It With Cheese.
(babbles)
I got carried away,
I thought I was on a roll,
I am an excellent cook,
I'm pulling these foods off
that I didn't think were possible,
I'm Ina Garten.
Today is not my day.
Let's try a potato.
They're good, it's just not worth it.
Chicken is tasty.
Never again.
What do you think?
- It's good.
The potatoes are a little
- [Hannah] Don't even.
(Matt laughing)
- [Hannah] The potatoes are a little what?
- Tasty
- [Hannah] A little too good for your palette.
- It took like three hours to make this.
- I know it really did
After day five, I was kind of ready to quit.
I didn't wanna try anymore.
So day six, I went easy on myself.
Here's my plan.
The kids got pasta.
I'm gonna make two bags of this because you know
leftovers, they're terrible.
They did not get me pasta sauce though.
They got me petite, diced tomatoes, several cans of this.
The boys are usually really good at observing in the kitchen
and I feel that overall their grocery
shopping instincts were good.
But in this case to them, pasta sauce and tomatoes
are the same thing.
So I'm gonna have to turn this into tomato sauce
into a pasta sauce
without proper ingredients that I usually use
to make a bolognese or-
- [Boy] I want some saltine crackers.
- You want saltine crackers?
Is that what you'd like for dinner?
- I guess, - I don't even know why I try,
There are some really core pieces to pasta sauce
that make it really good
one is adding some pasta water into it
and one is making sure that it's seasoned really well
and then it has time to simmer.
I'm not saying this is authentic Italian pasta sauce,
I'm saying this is my pasta sauce.(laughing)
Well we made something.
What do you think Jackson?
- [Jackson] It looks yummy.
- [Hannah] How's the pasta sauce?
- Good!
- You like it? (soft music)
- Good!
- That's amazing.
- Well good!
The pasta turned out delicious.
Day six was an easy win which was good
because I had a crazy idea for day seven.
By day seven, I only had random ingredients left,
but I had an idea.
This, complete Taco Dinner Kit.
Naturally, I was gonna do spaghetti tacos
because that's just what we always do.
But I realized I used the pasta,
on the night that I was going easy on myself.
So what I have left from the grocery haul
that Jackson handpicked, is Mac and Cheese.
I'm gonna to try to do a Mac and Cheese taco party.
Let's see how this works with the Taco sauce.
Seasoning, let's mix this up.
We'll give it a little taste.
(bouncy orchestra music)
Ooh that's good.
It's not too salty.
I thought it would be kind of salty.
It might just work.
Wallah!
♪Mac and cheese ♪
♪Taco night ♪
How is it? (boy Mumbles)
Is this the next spaghetti taco?
- Yeah.
- There's mac and cheese in a taco?
- This is the epitome of having a picky eater.
Why I chose all the ingredients,
they're all foods that he liked separately
but together he wasn't willing to try it at first.
It takes a little coaxing,
It takes a little encouragement.
- It's good.
- [Hannah] It's good?
- Do you like it? - Mhm
- It's really good. (bouncy orchestral music)
- It's weird but good.
You know, like the thought of it is weird,
but the taste of it is really good.
Our mac and cheese tacos is a thing?
Heck yes they are!
It's the new and improved version
and I'm here for it.
At the end of the week,
I was very proud of my kids' grocery choices.
There were healthy options in there.
So I consider that a mom win.
But what I did learn,
is there some meals that I had forgotten about
that I can continue to make.
The slow cooker meal made my life really easy
and there are just fun ways that we can shake things up,
moving forward, to make meal time more fun.
So that's all I got for today.
I'm Hannah and I wanna know,
would you try this with your family,
would you try any of the recipes I made?
And most importantly,
would you eat a mac and cheese taco party?
Let me know on Instagram
and if you'll please excuse me,
I'm gonna go order take out for dinner tonight,
till next time.
(cheerful music)