76 // Muffin Club is almost here!
Join The Upcoming Muffin Club
Welcome to the launch week for Muffin Club!
Knowing that some of you have done this every year with me since 2018 and others of you might be new to it and wondering what all the hype is about and having a little bit of FOMO about this random thing called Muffin Club, I am going to do a quick rundown on what Muffin Club for Moms even is.
In this episode, we chat about:
How it started
Why I think it stuck as the #1 offer I have ever done
What you can expect (it's fun & free!)
How to get signed up
If you want to review some of the FAQs from the past few years of running this free club, you can check those out here.
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Welcome to the launch week for Muffin Club. Knowing that some of you have done this every year with me since 2018 and others of you might be new to it and wondering what all the hype is about and having a little bit of FOMO of fearing that you might miss out on this random thing called Muffin Club, but kind of wanting in on it.
[00:00:18] I am going to do a quick rundown on what Muffin Club. How it started, what I commit to doing in the process, what you can expect to need to do yourself, and just kind of the rundown on what happens when Muffin Club is live. So make sure that you stay tuned for all the details and that you're getting signed up@veggiesandvirtue.com slash Muffin Club.
[00:00:44] Hey mama, I'm Ashley and welcome to the Veggies and Virtue Podcast. In this podcast you'll find simple menu. Kitchen organizational systems spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence based and grace laced. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen.
[00:01:02] As a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, I want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long. Pull up a stool at my kitchen counter and let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the meal times, messes moments, and ministry of.
[00:01:23] I know some people have their best ideas when they're in the shower. As moms, we don't get really long showers and most of the time it's the power shower with probably still having to add dry shampoo to the hair that we didn't get to wash. So that is definitely not where most of my ideas come from for me, but I can still remember exactly where I was and exactly how it happened when the idea for Muffin Club came.
[00:01:44] It's so funny because so often in running veggies and virtue, I've spent really intentional time brainstorming different ways to serve y'all and different things that I can come up with as products and services and things like that. Muffin Club was not one of them. Muffin Club was literally part of my survival strategy in the third trimester of pregnancy.
[00:02:04] And then for postpartum, and I remember this day I was about 32 weeks pregnant and I had just posted on. My stories that I was trying to think if we still had stories, then I don't remember that dynamic as clearly as I do, you know, rolling over my bed with my big 32 week belly and seeing that I had DM after dm after DM from moms like you asking me, Hey, can I get the weekly muffin recipe?
[00:02:30] Because I had shared that day. That something I wanted to start doing was baking one muffin recipe a week, and my plan was that I was gonna bake one that week that the girls and I could enjoy and then freeze a second batch of 'em that we could then have postpartum. Seeing that I was about eight weeks out from Owen's birth, that seemed like a good way to accomplish feeding the kids here and now, but also do some freezer cooking for.
[00:02:58] Then and later, because I was already doing all the freezer meals and kind of the typical meal prep that often happens in preparing for postpartum, But I knew that the breakfasts, the lunches, the snacks and all of that when I was solo during the day was likely to be my area of biggest struggle because oftentimes families will be so sweet and kind and on a meal train, they often do bring you dinner meals, and that's another episode for another day.
[00:03:23] But today I wanna talk about how. Muffin Club really was something that I just saw that I could commit to doing in that season. And when I told y'all that I was gonna begin doing this, everyone wanted the recipe. So much so that I know for the first handful of people I said, Oh sure, just send me your email and I'd be happy to send you the recipes I do each week.
[00:03:41] But then within a few hours of posting it, I had hundreds of people in my inbox saying, Can I have the recipe? Can I have the recipe? Can I have the recipe? And so just as I had rolled my big. Into bed. I remember telling my husband, I need to go make a signup, and I rolled my big belly out and at 10 something at night, I got on my computer.
[00:04:01] I got on my email platform that I used to send out my weekly newsletters and things like that, and I created just a really simple signup and from that Muffin club was born because to me it was just making muffins to get ahead on postpartum and doing some of that meal prep for the different meals and snacks that I knew I was going to need in addition to.
[00:04:22] But to so many of you, whether you were expecting a little one as well, or feeding a toddler and just defaulting to muffins, or just wanting some really tried and true dietitian, mom favorite muffin recipes. I knew that so many of us wanted to find a way to begin becoming a little bit more streamlined and efficient and low stress.
[00:04:42] Over the meals and snacks that as busy moms were responsible for offering day after day. And so that was really the origin story of Muffin Club back in 2018. And it's something that I've kind of dabbled with each year doing again, because as I mentioned, this was not some of my, one of my like bright ideas that I intentionally thought up and was hoping y'all were gonna get excited about.
[00:05:03] I've had plenty of those that I've put a lot of time and energy into that quite honestly have not gotten the interest and attention that Muffin Club. But each year, when I go any amount of time beyond Muffin Club that people begin wondering, Are you gonna do it again? I start getting the requests for, Can you give me this muffin recipe again?
[00:05:23] Or can you send me the link for that one that you shared during Muffin Club last year? And things like that. And so with that, we're launching Muffin Club again. It kicks off this Friday. November 11th, it will be sent directly to your inbox, and I wanna walk you through what you can expect with this muffin club.
[00:05:41] First and foremost, it's important to know, number one, it starts Friday. If you hear this episode after Friday, November 11th, do not worry. , I will send out a new muffin recipe every Friday, but if you sign up, let's say five weeks from now, you will still have access to each one of the recipes from the week before.
[00:06:00] I'll be sharing these on my Instagram and on my social media as well. But if you want the recipe in your inbox so that you can be following along and you can make a lot of these seasonal favorites alongside us. Make sure that you're signed up for Muffin Club at Veggies and for g.com/muffin club. The other thing to be very clear on is it's free.
[00:06:21] Again, this is just something that I was going to be doing anyways as a mom. That was easy enough for me to go ahead and set up so that each of you could enjoy the recipes and something that I'll get into in the upcoming weeks, more the process. And that's something I'm gonna dive into in upcoming episodes because as I reflect on Muffin Club and kind of think through why is Muffin Club the thing that moms have gotten most excited?
[00:06:46] Over the last four or five years that I've been in business, it still baffles me and it still kind of makes me chuckle because again, it was such an unintentional idea and yet it's the one that everyone asks for, gets excited about and ultimately seems to feel that they can really accomplish. And I think as busy moms so often, our goal in feeding our kids is that we want an easy.
[00:07:14] And even as a dietician mom, I can share that that is an intention I have behind feeding my kids. And yet sometimes feeding our kids feels really hard because doing the right things, not only in offering the right foods, but in approaching feeding in the right ways can feel really hard. It can feel like we offer the right foods, but we may have to do it kind of the wrong way in order to get our kids to.
[00:07:40] Or we offer the, the, maybe the quote wrong foods, but we can offer it in the right way. And there's just this disconnect. But I think with Muffin Club, we feel this draw to simple meal and snack ideas like muffins. But I think for so many of us, we assume the solution to all of our stress and the mental load that we carry as moms running our household and feeding our.
[00:08:09] Is we think the solution is more ideas and more healthy recipes. So despite the fact that most of the time we're too tired to actually cook any of these recipes, and we default to the same maybe packaged snack foods or pre-made breakfast items, But what happens is this often makes our already anxious mind about feeding our kids worry even more because we question, are we doing enough?
[00:08:37] Are we offering enough variety? Are we doing what it do we have what it takes? Are we doing what it takes? And I think Muffin Club gets to the root of our heart behind feeding our kids and wanting to do the right thing. And muffins just have to be happen to be the vehicle with which we can feel that and achieve that.
[00:08:58] And that I can walk alongside you and show you that you can. You can find the simple meal and snack ideas that do feel sustainable and set up systems in your home that are realistic for your real life. And so that's why I want you to understand what to expect from this. Also, what not to expect and how you can get set up.
[00:09:17] And some of the questions you may have regarding muffin clubs as we get going. So first and foremost, I want you to know that each week what I am committed to doing to you is I have searched and found and organized muffin recipes that I personally approve of as a dietician mom, I've personally tried each of these in advance, and myself and my children have deemed them enjoyable to eat and easy to make.
[00:09:41] Again, whether you choose to make them with or without your kids is totally up to you. But as a dietician mom, I've already vetted these recipes so that instead of you having to spend all this time scrolling and kind of sifting through which ones may have any nutritional value at all, you know that you are offering something that's worthwhile nutritionally to your family.
[00:10:02] Additionally, I'm gonna be sending out one email a week with the recipe, as I mentioned. The first recipe goes out this Friday, November 11th, and it will go out every Friday thereafter, but only to those of you who are signed up. So even if you get my weekly newsletter on Wednesdays, that will not be a part of Muffin Club because I know that the entirety of that list may or may not want these Muffin Club recipes.
[00:10:26] But if you do want these recipes sent to your inbox each Friday, make sure that you're signed up@veggiesandvirtue.com slash muffin. And the third thing you can expect is that I will be sharing bits and pieces of this process with either reels or posts or stories on my Instagram and within my Facebook group.
[00:10:46] And so if you want to use the, excuse me, if you wanna use the hashtag muffin club for moms, that's where you'll be able to see and access. Any of the social media that's social media activity that's going on in and around Muffin Club from myself, as well as other moms like you. I would love, and this kinda segues into the next thing of what I ask from you.
[00:11:08] I would love for you to share this process, not just with me, but with other moms. I think there's this tremendous community element that we get with Muffin Club that not only as moms do, we not wanna feel alone, but myself very much included. I need the accountability. And I think that's why when I first started Muffin Club, I told y'all about it on social because I knew I could tell myself that at the time, it was on Mondays that I decided I was gonna be baking these recipes.
[00:11:36] I could say, I'm gonna bake these recipes every Monday for the next eight weeks. And that seemed doable and it seemed like a decent thing for me to do. But telling each of you and then for the way that it ended up escalating there. That I was going to have a new recipe, a new muffin recipe each week and make them, kept me accountable that I was gonna show up and I was gonna bake those muffins, and maybe it did or didn't always happen on a Monday, but I found.
[00:12:06] A lot of support and encouragement in knowing that I had the accountability of others who are doing it alongside me. So I really wanna invite you to engage in the community and share your experiences of you baking, of you enjoying the muffins. And this is a great way for how we give feedback, because one of the things that I do when I send out these emails, before I get into some of the other details of what I ask for you, I want you to know that one of the things that.
[00:12:33] Try and collect. Each year is a list of some of those recipe modifications. It might be something as simple as, I don't have almond flour. What can I use instead? Because I do try and have it be, all these recipes include items that I would consider to be pantry staples. However, I understand what is a pantry staple in my home, may or may not be a pantry staple in your home.
[00:12:55] So I do try and collect some of the questions that come in that people are asking, and I include these on each and every. Muffin recipe. Page and link so that you can see what are some substitutions if you say, don't have something. Additionally, if you're a family that has food allergies or intolerances, I do the best I can to collect data on which substitutions and modifications that you might be able to make.
[00:13:19] This helped a lot when we had a really limited and restricted diet with Owen because I was making gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free. I mean, I was trying all the different applications of how to make these muffin recipes in light of those different recipe, or excuse me, ingredient modifications and. . When you guys share what you do and you share what works and you share in this process of trialing and erroring, you are saving another mom from that same struggle.
[00:13:45] Thankfully, muffins are really resilient. So whether you don't have the right, the quote unquote right ingredients on hand, or your child's helping you measure and adds a little too much, this, that, or the. , rarely have I had it that these muffins don't end up still being delicious. So I think they're a really great campus for us to kind of begin gaining some of that confidence on working through and cooking with our kids or just cooking ourselves healthy snacks.
[00:14:11] But I just want to share kind of some of the, the reason behind why it's so helpful when you do use that hashtag muffin clubs for, or excuse me, muffin. For moms all one word as a hashtag because then we can all, you know, see these ideas and I can continue to collect the feedback that you all share and include it on the recipe pages.
[00:14:33] When it comes to what I ask of you each week, I want you to know that when you get my emails, open 'em up. That's where the recipe is gonna be at this at the time of Muffin Club. I always have so many people emailing. For a past recipe or things like that. And quite honestly, I don't have the capacity to open and respond to every email when it's something that I've already emailed out.
[00:14:54] So something that I wanna encourage you to do is drag my emails, put 'em in your inbox tab so they don't get buried in. the like promotions tab if you have Gmail or something like that, because so often I can see that the email has been sent to people, but people haven't taken the time to find it. So I wanna encourage you to know that they will be sent out every Friday morning.
[00:15:14] If there's an error, a link missing or something like that, of course email me. But what I ask you to do is, Please drag and drop those emails right into your inbox so that you, you know, see my emails coming in amidst all the other ones that are probably gonna start trickling in for Black Friday and things like that, and all the sales and everything like that for the holidays.
[00:15:33] So you can get on my email list and then automatically from that first email, acknowledging that you've signed up for Muffin Club, you can drag it into your inbox once you sign up at veggies and Virtue dot. Slash Muffin club. Second, as I mentioned, I need you to recognize that I, of course, cannot suit every family's dietary needs whenever possible.
[00:15:54] I have tried to share the suggestions or the modifications that you might be able to make to fit your family's dietary preferences or allergen needs, and you all can really assist me in that process by either emailing me what you did for each recipe, if it's something that different than what I already have listed.
[00:16:12] Or you can share it on social and tag me and use that hashtag muffin clubs for moms so that I can see the different things that are being shared and I can continue to just update and add to those recipe modification lists that are on each recipe. . Additionally, I want you to use this time as a time to challenge yourself to either bake with your kids and just kind of learn the bandwidth that requires, but also to find some of the really valuable skills that we can gain from bringing our kids in the kitchen.
[00:16:46] And yet as a mom who was doing these muffin recipes in preparation for postpartum, I will also say there has never been a season that I wanted my kids in the kitchen. Then when I was extra pregnant or postpartum, I just didn't have the bandwidth to have the patience for them to cook with me. So I also wanna give you permission that if this is just a mom break that you need and you wanna make muffins on your own and enjoy them fresh outta the oven and the peace and quiet of your house, by all means girl, do it and enjoy it.
[00:17:17] The last thing that I ask from you is to consider, is there a. That you could either bless or be blessed by, because I, as I mentioned, when I first did Muffin Club, I baked a batch for us to enjoy that week for that really easy grab and go snack idea or for breakfast. But I also prepared a second batch that I store in the freezer.
[00:17:40] And if that's the season you're in, I think that that could be a great approach because you're already making sure you have the ingredients and you're already doing the process. It is very, very, very little to barely any extra effort to just double that batch. And so you might be in a season that it makes a lot of sense for you to double the batch and freeze one for later so that once the holidays are over and the new year rolls around and you just need something that's already on hand and ready to go.
[00:18:05] You think your previous self, if you've listened to that episode where I say, Do something that your tomorrow self will thank you for, This is definitely one of those examples. However, I want you to take it a step further and think about maybe, you know, I will, I often will freeze like six of the muffins in a dozen.
[00:18:22] And have six of them out. So my three kids, we can maybe have 'em all one day and between, you know, I'll have one and some of my kids will have two, or I'll just split 'em up and we'll have two sets of snack for my three kids, and then I save six of 'em so that we're not kind of burning out on 'em, having 'em every day before, you know, they go bad and things like that.
[00:18:42] but also with that, you know, there's the way to do that and to freeze it still with a half batch for yourself. But the other option I wanna encourage you to do is think about, is there another mom that you could bless? Maybe this is, each week you're doubling the batch and you're making a second batch so that you can just deliver it on a girlfriend's doorstep.
[00:19:00] This might be a mom postpartum who, you know, could really use these muffins the way that I knew I would really enjoy and appreciate them in our home. This might also just be a friend who, you know, could just use a little encouragement or a little added hand, or you know, has her husband out of town, or a child that's walking through a challenging time or whatever it might be.
[00:19:20] I just wanna encourage you to tune in to some of those friends that you might be able to serve in this season. And the last way. I'd encourage you to think about this is, is there a friend that you kind of feel equally yoed with right now that you could think about? We both have the capacity to do this, and I know we're on the same page, and I know we have the same motivations for raising healthy families and ideas for how to go about this.
[00:19:43] And this is just something that we feel like we could share the load on. And so maybe every other week you bake and then you bake that second batch and share it with them. And when you get together for a play date or at MOPS or run into each other at preschool, drop. You just do a swap. And so, you know, whatever day of the week it is that, you know, say every Monday you bring her a batch or she's gonna bring you a batch, but you're only having to make three batches over the course of the next six weeks.
[00:20:08] She makes three batches, but you're both still getting six batches of muffins that again, you could maybe freeze six of for later if you don't feel like you need all 12 frozen for yourself for later or however you might wanna do that. But I think as. Get into the season of Thanksgiving as we get into the season of Christmas, and just finding ways to be thankful and grateful, and also really generous in giving.
[00:20:31] This is just another way that we can do that. And as moms, feeding our kids is one of the biggest. As a dietitian mom, I feel like I have permission to say burdens that we carry and it's, it's a real responsibility and it can really weigh on us. And so just seeing this. A small yet sustainable way to support one another in and through this holiday season, I think can be a really fun way to not just enjoy the byproduct of muffins and having these healthy snacks, but also to come alongside one another, serve one another, see one another.
[00:21:01] And support one another through something as simple as a muffin. If you have additional questions about Muffin Club and just some of the dynamics about what the recipes will be, or if you can get 'em all in advance, if you join in former years and yet want them this year, what kind of muffins will be included Or the best way to store muffins, freeze muffins, label muffins, keep muffins, tasting fresh thaw muffins, any of those ins and outs about muffins.
[00:21:25] I wanna encourage you to, when you sign up, Muffin club@veggiesandvirtue.com slash muffin Club. After you sign up, it'll automatically take you to the page on my site. Muffin Clubs for Moms. The URL is a little long, so that's probably the easiest way to do it, but I'll also drop the link in my show notes so that you can access it there if you're already signed up and yet you just want quick reference for how to get to all of those FAQs.
[00:21:50] So without further ado, I hope to see all of you on Friday as I drop into your inbox. With the first recipe of muffin clubs for moms.