This week, Cee Tindall and Edie McRae (Two FABULOUS Interns Here at Family Foodies) teamed up to pick Laurie’s brain for tips on eating healthy and balanced meals while juggling it all.
Our featured mom this week is Laurie Ayers, a single WAHM of two. Laurie owns and operates two successful businesses-a professional security services firm and a thriving wickless candle business.
What are your favorite “Quick” meals to prepare?
One pot meals. I love them. I started with a basic rice, broccoli, cheese and cream of mushroom soup recipe and constantly change it up – sometimes adding chicken or some other meat, sometimes adding asparagus instead of broccoli, sometimes adding “crunchies” like celery or water chestnuts… You get the idea. It’s a different meal each time. It takes me less than 10 minutes to whip up, 30 minutes in the over and voila! Much healthier and tastier than KFC’s $2.99 Mashed potato, corn, chicken bowl! LOL
Do you have any short cut tips in the kitchen for us WAHMs who are learning to balance business and home life?
I make and bake a lot of food from scratch because I have time and I like to do that, but there is absolutely no shame in pre-packaged, pre-baked, pre-anything that you just put the finishing touches on and stick in the oven. The slow cooker is also a nice quick and easy way to have a meal ready after a busy day.
Being a single mom of two, how do you juggle work and preparing nutritious dinners for your children?
Being a single mom has its perks! Sustaining a marriage takes time and effort and that’s one element I don’t have in my formula. Plus my two girls (teenage and pre-teen age) are both in school all day. Also, each is responsible for planning, preparing, and cleaning up for one meal each week. It’s one of their opportunities to contribute to the household. Mac and Cheese and PBJ don’t count as a nutritious meal either. They look forward to their turn and opportunity to open up one of our many cook books and try something new.
Tell us a little about these exciting wickless candles! What makes them different than ordinary candles? What do you like best about them?
That’s a loaded question..I could talk about Scentsy for a long time. The short version is that Scentsy is a safe candle alternative that has an extraordinary strong throw. I’ve been in the candle biz since the mid 90s and I have never found a candle that the scent lasts as long nor is as strong. That’s what won me over. All of our candles are flameless, wickless, smokeless, and sootless. Our candle bars are melted in electric decorative candle warmers that use a 25 watt bulb. We also have new plug-in warmers that are great for kitchens and small spaces that use a 15 watt bulb. They’re very pet and kid-friendly. I can leave them on 24/7 and never worry about candle fires.
Which scents would you recommend for the kitchen, that would compliment foods we cook?
Great question, normally I don’t like to have scents in the kitchen that could compete with the food – who wants Clean Breeze, which is a delightful smell of dryer sheets, to mix in which a nice Greek salad? Blech! Not me.
I actually switch out the scents on a very regular basis. Vanilla is always a safe bet. We have one scent called Herb Garden which reminds me of a little Italian restaurant – with basil/oregano smell. It’s always fun to melt our bakery scents – makes others think you’ve been cooking all day – we have Baked Apple Pie, Blueberry Cheesecake, Coconut Citrus Parfait, Pumpkin Roll, and Sugar cookie to name a few. Does that make you hungry?
Oh that reminds me of a funny story. My daughter’s teachers all get Scentsy warmers and bars for Christmas. One of her teachers told us that she was melting Pumpkin Roll and her husband came home and was all excited that she’d backed a pumpkin pie for him. Ha! Sorry… no pie – it was just her Scentsy!
Here’s a TOUGH question…KITCHEN ODORS! Let’s say you cooked fish, and your kitchen smells “fishy”. What would you do to banish the odor?
Oh we have the perfect product for that. It’s actually not a candle bar. We also have concentrated room sprays (a little dab’l do ya!) We also offer a product called Odor Out – it eliminates unwanted smells and has a clean citrus aroma. It truly works fantastic – it doesn’t mask the odors, but actually removes the stink – definitely a must have if you’re cooking with onions, cabbage or fish.
We appreciate Laurie for taking time out of her busy schedule to share with us. For more information on Laurie, her fabulous candles (or her business), please be sure to visit her on the web.
