The Netmums Podcast - S12 Ep9: Rebecca Wilson: The Recipe for Success - Feeding Your Family for Less

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

In this episode of The Netmums Podcast, Alison Perry flies solo to bring us a delightful conversation with Rebecca Wilson, the Sunday Times bestselling author and culinary maestro behind "Budget Family Food." With a focus on feeding families in a budget-friendly way, Rebecca shares her journey from a new mum seeking a creative outlet to a social media sensation with over half a million followers. Rebecca dives into the nitty-gritty of her latest book, which brims with tips for saving money on family meals without sacrificing variety or nutrition. She discusses the importance of pantry staples, the challenge of food waste, and the clever use of leftovers to stretch the family food budget further.  Rebecca's book "Budget Family Food" is available now, offering families the chance to whip up delicious, cost-effective meals that bring everyone to the table. Find Rebecca on Instagram @rebeccawilsonfood Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Instagram: @netmums 

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollich, and me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... I've always said to myself, oh, I'd love to write a cookbook, but I said it in a way like, you know, people would say, oh, I'd love to be an astronaut. Like, you know fine, well, it's never going to happen. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But then when people were asking me if I had one, I was like, oh, maybe I could.

Welcome back to the podcast everyone I'm on my own this week and ironically considering how much she moans about the weather my usual co-host Wendy is currently sunning herself on a beach but I'm not jealous because spring is definitely on its way and today where I am is blue skies and the evenings are getting a bit lighter, which frankly makes me happy. But enough of the weather chat. Today, I am thrilled to have Rebecca Wilson as our guest. She's a Sunday Times bestselling author of an array of recipe books,

all aimed at feeding your family the budget savvy way. Rebecca's latest book, Budget Family Food, is packed with tips and help on saving money with low-cost family meals. Rebecca, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for the lovely introduction. How are you doing today? Is it sunny where you are? It is a nice sunny spring day. Are we in spring now? Has it started? Well, I've got five-year-old twins and they're obsessed with the seasons and they were asking me, when does spring start?

So I had to Google it and I think it was the other day. I can't really remember. I think it's about the 20th of March or thereabouts. Right, we're not there yet, okay. So we're not there yet, but I feel like it's starting to creep through, isn't it? On Sunday, my six-year-old was

begging me to get the swim pool out in the garden because she saw a tiny bit of sun and was like come on let's get the swim pool out and you know you're like whoa there ten chunks in the paddy that came after the word no it's just like you know trying to console a child who wants to get in this swim costume in this freezing cold weather i think it's been snowing the day before but even though there was a bit of sun you know that just means swimming pool and fun and all summertime fun you know it's teaching them isn't it that sunny looking out the window and seeing sun does not equal heat yeah that is that's a tough lesson to learn when you're five or six, isn't it? It is.

You know, these tough lessons of life are really tricky for when you're that little. It is. So you're up north, aren't you? Are you kind of Northumberland, Carlisle way? Where are you? Cumbria, up in Cumbria. So I'm almost in Scotland, to be honest.

Yeah, right at the top of Cumbria. Near my homeland. Ah, it's beautiful up there though, isn't it? It is, definitely. so then as a mum of a six-year-old how would you describe mum life for you oh goodness me chaotic um stressful but you know amazing i love my daughter so much and every every i was gonna say every year is different but you know every day is different you know in all honesty and I just adore watching her grow and watching her learn and

watching her become this little girl and eventually woman that she's growing into because she's got this really strong personality and she really is a real character everybody that meets her and says so um and i just i just i love i love watching it and witnessing it but day to day yep it's a challenge but you know we roll with it yeah we do does she take an interest in food and cooking and all of that stuff she does she really likes to help me in the kitchen she really does enjoy that and she she loves food i mean she she is like every young child that has her preferences um and her dislikes but as a whole i think she's she's really good at i try to instill from a very early age to get her to just try food. So even if she doesn't like everything, she is really willing to give it a go.

And she will tell me definitely she does not like it. But all I can ask from her is that she does try it. And that's fantastic for me. Yeah. So she was a baby, wasn't she, when you started thinking about helping other parents with weaning and feeding little ones? Yeah. started thinking about helping other parents with weaning and feeding little ones yeah but what happened next did you start putting recipes and food ideas on social media well actually all came about because of my daughter Nina so I didn't really go into this thinking I'm going to

help other people um I really wanted a creative outlet for my own personal sanity as a new mum, really. I wasn't going back to work right away. And, you know, I was making food for Nina. She began her weaning journey. And I knew from the beginning that I wanted to wean her in a way that I created food that we would eat together as a family um so I just started I did a massive amount of research into the baby led weaning and foods that she kind of can't eat and how I should be cooking foods for us as a family um and then I just started making my own recipes um not in a sort of professional sense more for myself really um I've always been very much interested in food

and I grew up in a very foodie household when I was a child as well so then I started just sharing what I was creating cooking for Nina and cooking for us on a very small Instagram page and very you know not professionally shot photographs it was just you know I was just I don't even know why I was doing it do you know what I professionally shot photographs. It was just, you know, I was just, I don't even know why I was doing it. Do you know what I mean? It was just one of those things. I'm just going to post. It doesn't really matter what happens of it.

Not thinking anything would actually happen from it. But amazingly, and I'm so grateful and flabbergasted, if I'm honest, even these years on down the line that people started liking what I was cooking and started following along. And from then, people kept on asking me for more types of recipes. So it gave me a real boost of confidence and inspiration to just keep on going with it and then fast forward I'd say a year and a half later um I was getting so many requests for a cookbook um people asking if I had my recipes in a book it would be easier for them to make my recipes if I had one and I've always loved cookbooks I mean

I was a teen asking for cookbooks for Christmas on my birthday which sounds a bit strange. What kind of cookbooks were you asking for back then? Nigella and Jamie Oliver's yeah River Cottage and all the Bake Off books as well I love them I know I just I've always loved cookbooks I've always loved cooking so but but and I've always said to myself oh I'd love to write a cookbook but I said it in a way like you know people would say I'd love to be an astronaut like you know fine well it's never gonna happen do you know what I mean um yeah but then when people were asking me if I had one I I was like, well, maybe I could. Maybe that's not so much of like a ridiculous pipe dream.

Like maybe that might happen one day. So I tried to make it happen. And I think I spent about just under a year trying to figure out how you even go about writing a book or getting a book published. Because it was all just like a massive baffle to me um but here we are now and I've just released my fifth cookbook something that went right down the line I'm so amazed but very very grateful for this journey that I've been on it's so impressive and also just really impressive to hear that you made it happen it's not like you were posting on instagram and somebody who works in publishing saw your page and was like hey rebecca do you want to write a book like you and that would have been impressive too but you made it happen

you actually worked out how to make it happen and you did it yeah so i i spent a good three months emailing different editors from different publishing houses asking if they would like to publish my book. And I didn't know at the time that normally editors don't really talk to authors straight directly. They talk with an agent. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a literary agent a book agent then when one editor very kindly informed me of the process i then tried to figure out how to get an agent and there's this book and i forget the name of it now but there's a book that you can write an artist's handbook or something literally literary agents handbook directory and you can get it from the library and it's basically every agent listed in there i went through and i got a load of agents that i like the look of and i sent them all my proposal

and then found my agent uh daryl at art alice who i you know we're very good friends now all these years later but he really believed in me from the beginning um and then yeah so I got he signed me and then we put together the pitch and we pitched out to different publishers and really ironically people that were turning me away or didn't even answer me originally were then offering me a a book deal you know and it went to a bit of a bidding war initially because there was a good number of publishers that wanted to publish my first book. And I think back at that now, because it's a bit crazy,

you're getting responses, but then as soon as you get an agent, they do. So I just had no idea how the process worked, really. It's so impressive. And it took a long time to figure it out, yeah. Yeah, I bet. And you've got a massive following. Is it over half a million followers you've got on instagram yeah why do you think so many people have engaged with you and connected with you on social media you know i asked this

question to myself quite a lot because i've got no idea i was always the i was always very shy at school i was very sort of reserved and i still i think i still am quite i am quite reserved person um so i you know i'm never the popular kid so it's a bit crazy to me but i i think i think i've tried to pinpoint it down to the fact that i am just another mum i'm just a normal parent you know i really love to cook and i i feel like I have a natural flair for it and people like my recipes. But I think people can see that the food that I cook

and the way I cook and the life that I lead, there's nothing pretentious about me, I'm just me. And I think people can relate to that and they can see that I have the same parenting struggles that the other mothers and fathers and caregivers have as well so i can relate to that and they can trust in me that i'm just creating food for the average family and i think people like that i hope people like that they do they clearly do um so your new book focuses on budget and it's a massive concern

for so many parents isn't it you know the cost of food has rocketed and the pressure it puts us on us as parents is huge isn't it yeah it really is this book felt like it's it was the right time for it now after the last few years i mean actually probably more than a few years now, isn't it? Oh, look, the climate that we're in, every time you go to the supermarket, your food shall cost more money. And it's stressful. It is really stressful. And I think feeding your family already is a stressful thing. We don't need adding the pressure of the cost to it as well.

And especially if your children um struggle to learn to love their food you feel like you're wasting a lot of food and that you feel like putting money down the drain and that that's another added pressure as well so yeah i wanted to write this book budget family food simply to just add to the presence that i'm trying to help people feed their family in a stress-free manner and I hope that this book really does help with that so I haven't I haven't um put together like a a set number of like as in cost of how much the rest was going to cost because I really wanted to do that actually but the market is fluctuating so much it was too difficult to do it's too

difficult to do that yeah so what i've really done is just focused on using low-cost ingredients ingredients that are readily accessible and and nice and cheap essentially as cheap as the climate will allow them to be um and each what's different about this book is that each recipe is laid out the ingredients are laid out in a way where there's a from your pantry section which the vast majority of the ingredients for each recipe are listed under here so ingredients that you would generally have anyway already in your cupboard and then there might be for a couple of recipes some recipes you know all the ingredients are from the pantry section but there might be some recipes that of recipes, some recipes, you know, all the ingredients are from the pantry section,

but there might be some recipes that have, you know, meat in there or like a different type of ingredient that is something that you would get in specifically for that recipe. So it means that people can look through their cupboards and cook from what they already have in and they don't feel like they're spending more money than they need to. That's so important important isn't it i know that when i'm cooking if i look at a recipe and i see that the majority is stuff i've already

got in i'm like oh when we just need to buy the chicken or the mince or the cheese or whatever it is that's it what would you say are like the the kind of go-to cupboard and fridge items that you always have in stock then to help you whip up a quick low-cost dinner? There's quite a few on the list. I've got a little section at the start of the book that has them all listed so that if you ever feel like you need to just do a big shop and you're not sure what to get in, I've got them all on there. But I've kind of separated it down between the fridge and the freezer

and the store cupboard and then the spices and cooking so if you were looking at the the fridge items it would be the milk and the butter and frozen fruit frozen veg things that you're not going to use the whole lot right away you would just generally have them in uh as standard then you've got your spices garlic garlic granules smoked paprika ground cinnamon things it's all things that you what you're not going to use up all right away and you have leftovers in your cupboards don't you flour and and oats and baking powder and honey and eggs for example think just your your standard every day basics basics yeah yeah and and you mentioned food waste which just it does feel like a really big issue for parents like you know kids

are refusing to eat meals and also sometimes if i'm like you know making a recipe i'll end up with like half a jar of something or half a packet of something left over and then there's the pressure to use that up and i to be honest I don't always do it and then it ends up just going off and it's it goes in the bin or goes in the recycling it it's frustrating do you have any tips for reducing food waste when it comes to cooking family meals yeah I definitely do there is actually a section in the book for a big page full of tips for reducing waste and I've also got um how to repurpose your leftovers and i've also got some meal plans in there that use up some of the leftovers for the next day

so that you aren't you aren't um throwing stuff away basically throwing your leftovers away but in general life so say you um had a jar of passata that you were going to use and the recipe only called for half of it but i'll caveat that by saying i really have tried not to do that within the book so that there is there isn't any wastage like that because that is a very frustrating thing yeah but say you did you're using a different type of recipe um i would freeze the rest of that passata um i would either i could either add some stock cube and some spices in there and then bung that into the freezer and then you've got a ready meal ready-made pasta sauce that you could just put in the pan to defrost and heat up with a little splash of extra water

um i think using your freezer is such such a helpful thing when you are trying to reduce food waste you could do things like you've got an abundance of apples left for whatever reason you got them on cheap and you've got those left you can slice them thin and dehydrate them then you got some nice low sugar healthy snacks for the kiddies and it's just trying to think of ways to repurpose that food in a minimum low effort type of way so that you're making your life a bit easier in the future but also you know trying not to throw away money essentially isn't it that's what you're doing when you throw food away yeah throwing away money yeah so what's been your most popular budget recipe then that you've shared online has there is there anything that's just gone like crazy because people are sharing it well um i shared my nostalgic tomato pasta sauce it's actually a similar one to what we've just

spoke about and that one has been very very popular um and it's just a very simple tomato pasta sauce but it uses store-cured ingredients and it's just cheap and cheerful and really delicious and you know it's it's great it's great for when you're in a rush as well. So that one's been very, very, very well received. You know, being in a rush, time is such a big factor, isn't it, in prepping meals. Do you ever recommend things like batch cooking or dump bags or any little techniques just to try and save time yeah again at the start

start of this book there's a there's a section on batch cooking as well and actually i'll caveat that by saying there is there's lots of extra information at the start of this book i've tried to make it as helpful as possible so if you do have any questions at all kind of just go straight there as as a reader i mean to really just try and help plan your kitchen or cooking regime to make your life a bit easier um but batch cooking is is definitely a fantastic one but personally for me the way I like to batch cook is if I'm making dinner I'll just make a little bit extra and then freeze the leftovers. I know a lot of people really enjoy or feel prepared mentally to have a batch cooking session, and that's fantastic.

You know, all praise to you guys because that's dedication to the batch cooking life. But I generally just try to cook a little bit extra, have some leftovers, and those leftovers will either go into the freezer or happen the next day um making making life a bit easier um but it's always a little it takes the stress out of cooking for your family isn't it if you know that even if you haven't been to the shops or um money's a bit tight and you're not really sure what we're sure what what you're

going to cook for the kids if you've got a little bit of leftovers in the freezer, you know there's going to be something that's going to go on the table for dinner. That's really sensible. Now, so many of us, myself included, struggle to organise our day so that, you know, we've got conflicting work schedules, school, the kids' clubs, and it's really hard to get everyone together to eat as a family every night what advice do you have about that because we hear so often that it's a really important thing for kids to do yeah it is really important for children to eat together with their parents if

not with their siblings if they do have any for for the main reason of that is if they're struggling to enjoy their food to witness the people that they love enjoying that same food it can be a real encouragement to them as well as if you're cooking for a whole family you're more likely to cook a wider variety of foods because you're catering for more people and in turn with that it's really helpful for little ones to enjoy their food more because they're being introduced to a wider variety of meals and ingredients but I completely appreciate that it can be really tricky on a day-to-day especially if everybody has different schedules even if you just have one child and you know dad works late or your mum works late yourself and you feel like you're just too rushed for it

my my biggest piece of advice there is if you if you feel like it's too much and you can't you you can't eat together as a family i would encourage uh you to just eat a little snack of the small whatever you're feeding your little one just have the tiniest little ball yourself. You know, just be a couple of mouthfuls if you don't want to eat too much too early on. But if you just sit down with them and give them the time and they can see you actually just having a few mouthfuls yourself, it's going to do so much more benefits than if you don't at all. And it's not only the action of them seeing you eating,

it's actually that quality time sitting down together while your little one is eating and having a conversation even if they're too young to conversate with you they're still engaging with you while they're eating and they can see your facial expressions and your your positive encouragement on your face without even saying the the words of enjoy your food because you because we don't want to add too much pressure. If they can see that you're happy and the mealtime is a positive one from your facial expressions, from the environment that it's a happy one,

they're going to associate mealtimes in a positive light rather than a negative one. And in turn, that encourages them to enjoy their food more in the long run, definitely. And how important is it that everyone's eating the same thing so i know in the past i've fallen into that trap of making my little ones something different to perhaps myself my husband and our eldest who's like eight years older than than her sisters is it is it a better idea just to cook everyone the same thing and cross your fingers that they actually eat it well you know it kind of really depends on your own family and what what you feel

is it's going to work best for you and what's gonna you know what's gonna make the kiddies eat and what's going to be really stressful for yourself as well because that's a really important thing to factor in but um i do believe that even if um your child doesn't want to eat the food that's placed in front of them the encouragement of regular introduction of foods that they're not too sure of in in in turn and over time will help them reduce this um barrier that they have you know if they feel constantly introduced to new flavors and then foods that you're not sure of they over time in a positive light not in a forceful light you know you know in a gentle occasion and offering food unsure foods along with safe foods at the same time. So they don't feel overwhelmed. But over time that will really help them to feel,

they'll want to feel less stressed by, by being presented by foods they don't like. And then in turn, cooking for the same, cooking the same meal for the whole family will be much easier. So it's kind of you know it's six and two threes isn't it it's however it's however you want to approach it um it's giving little ones their independence and confidence to request the food that they that they want to enjoy

and giving them that yeah the independence of around their own eating is really important but also merging that into you know this is what we're eating together as a family and this is the food that's available and there are we can't afford to have too many options this this is this is what's on offer tonight you are welcome to enjoy it with us um and and kind of encouraging that sort of um the the flip side of it yeah it and it can be really tricky and i and i go into this this answer in a very sort of tried to be quite uh diplomatic because i can really understand the pressures that families do have when you have three children, for example, and they all have very different feeding, eating preferences. What do you do?

What do you do? So I think you've really got to just decide on what's most important for your family and for the caregiver cooking the meals. What's most, what's most, what's most important to you and pick your battles where you feel necessary. But, you know, by not giving too much choice sometimes can be really positive in the long run, but only for certain children, you know? So I think it's a hard one to say clear cut you definitely have to go down this road because you know every child is different and every family is different

yeah that makes sense um now you mentioned that your daughter likes helping you in the kitchen do you have any tips for jobs what are the kind of jobs in the kitchen that are good almost like starter jobs for little ones to get involved with so like my you know my five-year-olds love you know spreading butter on the toast themselves and they gouge the knife into the butter and I have to just turn a blind eye and just be like it's fine it's fine it's all part of their development. So what are the things that we can be getting our kids to help us with that are safe and doesn't create too much of a mess? Well, I think this answer depends on the age of your child, essentially, and also your own sanity levels,

because I can completely relate to that stress. I'm a little bit of a control freak in the kitchen and at times i have to really bite my tongue you know she's only three years old she's only three years old do it let her do it it's fine because it is beneficial for them to just be given um free reign almost and a bit of independence to to to do as they want and try and figure out how to do things in a safe manner of course not doing anything that's too dangerous but you know if they're gouging putting the knife into the butter and putting the crumbs back into the butter pot does it really matter in the long run or is the skills of them learning how to hold the knife properly spread the toast spread the

butter on the toast um properly all those things that they're learning from to hold the knife properly, spread the toast, spread the butter on the toast properly, all those things that they're learning from that, and the communication from listening to your instructions and applying that into the tasks that they're doing. There's so many benefits to that. But if you are really stressed by the crumbs and the butter and it's going to make you go go crazy then you pick a different task you know so i think it's it's all it's all down to whatever you feel comfortable with and i think i urge parents just

try and relax and let your little ones have the independence within the kitchen um as much as possible and it depends depends on what the task is. You know, if we're baking together, we're making muffins, for example, I'll get Nina to measure things into the bowl. I'll be holding the flour packet at the bottom, but she's holding most of it and I'm controlling whether she's about to dump the whole lot in there, you know.

And she's staring away and I'm like holding the ball and just can't it's all about just keeping a close eye on them isn't it making sure that nothing too crazy is gonna happen um but i can't think of many recipes of mine apart from when you're actually at the stove cooking with a hot with a hot hob or hot pans uh any of the preparation um genuinely little ones can get involved you've got to be mindful of the sharp knives and things like that there are lots of kiddie knives that you can buy um but you know there's pretty much every task a little one can get involved with in a safe way it's it's really just about if you've got the time to stretch out the recipe a little bit longer because it's not gonna you know if the recipe takes 10

minutes if you're cooking with a little one even if it's even my six-year-old it's not going to be 10 minutes at all it's like triple it quadruple it we'll be here an hour exactly yeah that's it so you know it's not i think that question all just comes down to our own sanity and what we can handle i love it i love it um so what's next for you then rebecca do you have any more books in the pipeline oh you know what i would i would love to um i can't say too much um i also don't want to jinx my future because I I feel like I'm constantly counting my lucky chickens you know how long is this amazing roller coaster gonna last for um so we'll see we'll see what comes in the future but right now I really want to focus

on budget family food and uh try and get the word out there how amazing i think the book is i think like my best one yet um and i just want everybody to read it and cook from it and that would be that that's my goal for the future right now is focusing on this and focusing on helping as many parents as possible um to feed their family stress-free and on a budget. Sounds good. Well, thank you so much for coming in to join us today here at Netmoms, Rebecca. It's been so good to talk to you.

Thank you. I've really enjoyed our little chat. Thank you so much for having me.