Shanisty Ireland, Home Chef, Foodie & Lifestyle Influencer

Shanice D. Ireland, a foodie and lifestyle influencer, shares back-to-school tips for parents. She emphasizes the importance of planning and prepping meals in advance. Shanice suggests asking kids about their lunch preferences the night before, making sandwiches ahead of time, and freezing juice or water to serve as ice packs. She also recommends using thermoses to keep warm foods like hot dogs or chicken nuggets, and mentions Rayburn sandwiches as a convenient and filling option. Shanice mentions bento boxes as a great way to pack different foods without them touching. She can be found on Instagram for recipes and parenting hacks, and information about Rayburns can be found on their website. I cannot think of anybody else I would want to spend a foodie Friday with than one of our favorite foodies and lifestyle influencers, and home chef as well. I think I said she was my favorite, she's actually my exclusive one, because nobody else gets to talk about the things that she and I get to chat about. It's great to welcome Shanice D. Ireland back to the RNJ Morning Program, here to talk about some really cool back-to-school tips for us. Shanice D., good morning. It's Bert Baer, and welcome back. How are you? I'm doing great, Bert. Thank you so much for having me. I will hold it against you that I'm your favorite slash only, but I'm just happy to be here and talk about some back-to-school stuff. I appreciate that so much, and thanks for coming by. I know we had to shift this up a little bit early, and you're like, seven in the morning, I got kids, I've got a lot of things I've done already. This isn't too early a start for you, so thank you for being so flexible with us this morning. It's a hectic time for families, Shanice D., as you know. You want to make sure that kids are eating right, they're back and forth. We've got the school activities, we've got after-school things that are going on. It's challenging for parents, I would think, and you've got some information for us this morning. It absolutely is. I know it's really challenging for students to get back into the swing of things, but it is for parents as well. You mentioned dinners and after-school activities. It's a mess here at my house. I'm trying to get it all figured out, trying to bring out that crock pot and do some really simple things for dinner so everyone can eat at the same time or around the same time, and lunches as well. It's just trying to meal plan and prep and trying to get everyone on a similar schedule, and there are some ways to do it, but I think the first thing, Burt, honestly, is planning and prepping ahead. I ask my kids the night before, every single day when they're going to school, okay, are you packing, are you buying, do you want turkey and cheese, do you want the crust cut off, do you want this, do you want that, and trying to take their orders the night before. That way, the morning of, you're like, oh, my gosh, I don't have that in my pantry or I'm scrambling to find something, so really preparation when it comes to any kind of meal during back-to-school time is really key. I can imagine in your household, everybody sits around the calendar, or whether you have a tablet or a laptop or something out, and you've got the calendar open, like, okay, you have band on what day, you have soccer practice on what day, I have to be on television or the radio on what day, and you kind of get everything worked out that way. Yeah, absolutely. We have multiple calendars, Bert. I have one in the kitchen, I have one on my phone, I have one that's just, you know, the old-style kind that your grandmother had that, you know, you ride it all the way, and I have all of them because there's no excuses, is what I'm trying to say, Bert, for people to not know where to go, what time, and what they're going to be eating that day. Something very cool about the wall calendar, the battery never dies in it, and you can just walk up and read at any time, so that's handy as well. But, you know, making sure that kids eat healthy, it's so easy to just grab something because of the convenience of it, it's not the best for them health-wise, but like you said, a little bit of that pre-planning and just really relying on good, healthy stuff and making that available throughout the day, it goes a long way in keeping our kids healthy and well-fed. Absolutely. In fact, you can make sandwiches during the weekend or the night before, place them into the fridge or the freezer, that way they're good to go for an easy grab-and-go for the morning of. You also can freeze juice or water, you know, in the little bottles to serve as an ice pack in their lunches, or if you have something warm, a thermos actually works really well if your kids are really into hot dogs and they really want to take hot dogs to school or chicken nuggets or anything like that. You can go ahead and put anything warm inside of a thermos, and it's going to keep it fairly warm leading up to their lunch hour. Also, Rayburn sandwiches are one of my favorite frozen food sandwiches that you can find at your local Dollar General. They have a Philly cheesesteak, they have a beef and cheddar mousse. This is a really easy, delicious thing, especially for the older kids and for teenagers. You only pop it into the microwave for about 90 seconds once they're there at lunch, and it's a really hearty, delicious, filling meal to have in their lunchboxes. Yeah, that's an important thing, Desi. If you get that one little break where you can have a meal throughout the course of the day, and maybe it's something that has to carry you maybe into the evening hours if you have a game or some sort of after-school activity as well, whatever you get to have in the middle of that day, that's so important. But those Rayburn sandwiches, they check all the boxes, it sounds like. It does, and you know, it's interesting. I have three kids that are currently in school, and of course, their lunch schedules are all over the place. I have one kid that's eating at 10.30 in the morning and one that's eating at 1.30 in the afternoon. So really making sure that wherever they are lying when they're actually eating their lunches, they have something super hearty, packed with protein, something that's going to fuel their body, fuel their mind, to get them all the way until they get off the school bus and come home. Yeah, excellent option to have. My guest this morning, Shannisty Ireland, the RNJ Morning Program's only exclusive now and forever home chef, foodie, and lifestyle influencer. Maybe we could use that as your introduction from now on, Shannisty. But you mentioned a really good hack there using the thermos. I thought that was only good, you know, to put soups and broths and things in. You put hot food inside a thermos, is that what you said you're doing? Yeah, you could do hot dogs, you could do chicken nuggets, any kind of small snack that's going to be warmed up. You can go ahead and just put it into a thermos, and then kids can just open up the thermos when they get to school. And I mean, they can quite frankly make their own hot dog right there at school, or just the chicken nuggets with, you know, dipping sauce on the side or something like that. Another really interesting hack or idea, you know, if you want to get beyond just the sandwiches, sometimes I will put cheese quesadillas in my kids' lunches. One of my kids absolutely loves hummus. He loves hummus tortilla shells, just different things like that. Of course, you want to have a little bit of a dessert for the sweet tooth, also have some vegetables in there and some fruits, trying to get as many of the food groups as you possibly can into those lunch boxes. Bert, I don't know if you've seen those bento boxes, but my kids live off those things because you can literally put things in the little tiny compartments. And if you have a kid that doesn't want their food touching, there's no excuse because the foods aren't going to be touching when it comes to those bento boxes. I love the bento box, another great idea and a great hack from you. I like that. And boy, I thought when I saw a guy drink a beer through a straw made out of a hot dog, I thought I saw every possible good hack that was out there. But you just came up with a couple more good ones for us. Shanisty, I'll let you get back to getting your family ready. Where can we find you on social media and learn more about you and what you're offering? Head over to Instagram, find me, Shanisty Ireland. Bert, I have a ton of fun recipes on there, parenting hacks, best of school, mom hacks. And then if you want to learn more about Rayburns, of course, you can head over to their website, which is just rayburns.com. We'll certainly do that. Thank you again for the time this morning, Shanisty. Have a terrific weekend. We'll talk again soon. Okay.