The other night we were hanging out at the park about to go home and cook dinner, when A asked, “Can we go to In-n-Out for dinner?” My instinct was to say no because I already had something planned for dinner, but then I realized that there was no good reason we couldn’t go. Plus, not cooking or cleaning sounded great. Thirty minutes later, we all loaded into the car and enjoyed some burgers and fries. M is 2.5 and at a tough age for eating in restaurants, but it was so fast that she was in a great mood the whole time and stayed seated and absorbed by the coloring sheets and the novelty of getting lemonade. A kind teenager gave A a bracelet made with her favorite colors after she had asked her what she was making, and M was enchanted by a soccer team dining next to us and kept waving at them.
This was such a nice treat, and I’m not saying we should eat fast food all the time, but it made me think about how I can press the easy button more with dinner. Lately, it’s felt like a bit of a force. One child recently got pickier, and the other takes dinner as an opportunity to experiment with gravity. After many meals picked at and several broken dishes, I’m thinking about how I can make dinner feel more relaxing and easy, aside from ordering stainless steel dishes, which I am definitely also doing.
I’m going to try and pay attention to what easy dinners work well for everyone and don’t take too long to make. Some winners in our house lately are: pasta, quesadillas, lentil soup, chicken tray bakes, chicken tikka masala, and a charcuterie board w/ focaccia and dips. I’d love some help brainstorming easy-ish meals. What do you and your family like to make for an easy dinner?
something I have learned over these past 20 years of parenting is that the unexpected yes is an awesome tool
ReplyDeleteExperiments with gravity cracked me up! I haven't tried it with my grands yet, but the idea of seen of covering the table in foil and just dumping spaghetti and meatballs, or whatever, right in the middle of the table, no dishes, sounds like a lot of fun for kids.
ReplyDeleteI also died at experiments with gravity. I remember those days (Heck I have a tot in my daycare that's in that phase right now). I use my crockpot a ton for easy recipes. I can load it in the morning and then not have to think about it again. I like Campbells golden noodle chicken recipe I'm pretty sure if you google it, it'll come up. I usually have most of the ingredients on hand and my kids love it. My husband grills chicken breasts a lot. I get a chicken breast from Costco that is always a big hit. An hour in the oven, dinner done? yes, please. I also make a cheesy chicken casserole that's just cream of chicken and cream of celery soups poured over boneless chicken breasts. A solid layer of shredded cheddar cheese on top. Cook for an hour and a half at 325 degrees. Uncovered. We eat that once a week with mashed potatoes and a vegetable. There's a lot of soupy mixture to pour on the potatoes. It takes a while to cook, but minutes to make.
ReplyDeleteI will be no help here, other than to commiserate. Dinners are SO HARD, especially at that age. At this point, I'm totally over it. Maybe once a week I'll make something like enchiladas, that can be eaten for a couple nights. Other than that- my husband can cook, we can scrounge something out of the freezer, or people can have take out. I wish I enjoyed cooking, but I just don't.
ReplyDeleteYour dinner out sounds FUN!
I don't have children, but my husband has food restrictions that means we never eat out. We have to do something after work today and when we were making the appointment a bit discussion point was when we could fit in preparing/eating dinner, particularly since my husband has a blood draw tomorrow morning and has to fast for twelve hours beforehand so we can't eat late. The woman we were making an appointment with obviously did not understand our angst about when to eat dinner and "helpfully" suggested we just go through a drive thru and grab something. Like - if that were an option, don't you think we would have considered it?! Anyway, we're going right after lunch, hopefully it won't take too long (buying a car? - could take forever), and we're going to reheat last night's dinner, so I'm optimistic that it's going to go smoothly.
ReplyDeleteWhich is my way of saying that I dream about being able to push the easy button on meal planning and cooking, but it is not in my future. *sigh*
This is a topic close to my heart. My kids are 5 and 7 so no gravity experiments but they can be LOUD. I am just coming off a week of solo parenting, and working, and taking care of the house.
ReplyDeleteOn weeks like this- easy is my middle name. I made a big batch of chicken drumsticks on Monday night and we had them a few times. I also have been known to pick up sushi at stop rite and have that for dinner.
The trouble is- I’m too cheap. We probably should eat out every night while my husband is away to take the pressure off me but, I just can’t. It’ll be killing me, mentally.
Sometimes it's gotta be In'n'Out! Nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteOur easy dinners are soups, stews and salads. Or just a sheet of roasted veggies and some protein (turkey meatballs or chicken). Luckily, we don't get tired of them either.
I don't have kids and easy is ALWAYS the name of my game. I just don't enjoy cooking and don't want to spend too much time making dinner. I love doing homemade nachos or just popping a frozen pizza in the oven. LOL.
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