Ah, the dread question.
First of all, family dinner as a performative nostalgic spectacle is definitely a tool of the patriarchy. Also, things are so much easier than they were 11 years ago in most respects.
But still, there is the question of what to feed everyone. Every single day. And! We are almost never all home at the same time. Bah.
Here's what's working right now:
1. A compulsory dinner on Friday, even if that's grilled cheese sandwiches on the Blackstone, so we can sort of touch base and hear about everyone's week and do something fun to kick off the weekend. (Coop sometimes rides the bus home with friends on Friday because it is the one night he doesn't have dive practice, but we still make him come home for dinner because we are terrible)
2. A fun dinner on Saturday. Maybe that means Ben and I go out and everyone else has pizza. maybe we all go out. Maybe we have a quick dinner and a smorgasbord of movie snacks-- you get the idea.
3. Big dinner on Sunday that will yield leftovers for a couple of days: burgers but make extra burgers and a huge salad and cut up tons of veggies to eat with dip, pot roast with potatoes and carrots, huge pot of spaghetti sauce and lots of meatballs with stuff to make meatball sandwiches with the leftovers, double the pork chops with extra sides, etc.
4. Ben makes Tuesday's dinner on Monday and also grills a bunch of chicken what we can eat in salads and wraps for a couple of days.
5. Skating by on leftovers and breakfast for dinner until Friday when we make dinner and start with whole process over again.
What about you? How are you answering the dinner question lately?
WHY do people need to eat three meals a day??? I was telling my husband I wished we only had to eat like once a week and he said that sounded awful because eating is so much fun. And I was like: YEAH, but it also takes hours and hours each week to buy, prepare, and store food/meals and it takes seconds for my kids to inhale it.
ReplyDeleteCan you tell I am over meal prep lately? And I have no idea what to make for supper tonight? I think a quick risotto because my kids like it and it's a bit relaxing to prepare. We shall see...it might just be toast and fruit.
Yep, I'm over it. When I get the motivation to cook, I'll try to make enough for leftovers. Otherwise we scrape by with odds and ends, usually a salad for me, sushi for my daughter (Wednesday is $5 sushi at Sprouts) and hoping that my daughter will get fed somewhere else. Last week they had pizza for the band before the football game- PERFECT. Right now I have no idea what we're having tonight. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWhined about this very thing on my blog today too, lol. And I just had a phone call with a friend who was wondering HOW it is POSSIBLE to come up with dinners???? and stop eating takeout??? and I was like, No idea. So.
ReplyDeleteI even have A Plan for this week and I just don't wanna. The planning has worn me out. No energy left for shopping and prepping and cooking.
My family is getting a "hello fresh" box every other week for a couple of meals that I do not have to spend time thinking about, other than choosing the meals before the box shipment deadline. Once the box arrives, my husband or my oldest child can make the meal just as easily as I can: all of the ingredients are there, all the proportions are pretty much per-measured, the directions are super simple to follow. Then we fill in with ready to travel meals: grilled cheese, quesadillas, snack supers, etc for all the nights we are at everyone's activities all afternoon. Here's a link of you want to try it. I order 6 portions for my family of 5, my husband gets to take leftovers for lunch a couple times a week. https://www.hellofresh.com/freebox/MzMzODYxNDYzLTAtNC0xNi1VUw
ReplyDeleteMeal planning blows. I am at a very different stage of life from you, in that I only have 1 child and she is an adult, and I work from home and like to get out every day…so I play meals one day at a time, and shop on my lunch hour. Does this make life any easier? No, it does not. But I like getting out more than I like planning a week’s worth of meals. Tonight (YAY!) I’m going out with friends. Our schedule is - daughter cooks on Monday, I cook Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, Date Night on Friday (daughter is welcome to join but generally is not interested) and husband cooks Saturday and Sunday. It’s working for us right now.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you have a pretty good system in place, actually. I consider any system where everyone has access to food to be a good system. The fact that you sometimes are able to sit down all together to eat is a huge win.
I'm so excited for Fall because I feel like the crockpot makes meal planning so much easier. I love your idea for mandatory Friday dinners! We've been talking about doing that but haven't pulled the trigger yet
ReplyDeleteScooter walks are wrapping up - bummer. I love grill season, because Coach grills and I don't. Intentional that I don't bother to learn, perhaps? I'm a big crockpot user over here. I love the turkey breast boneless thing at Costco. That's our go-to meal when we can't think of anything. It takes an hour to cook, but I'm home till 4 pm, so I can shove that in the oven in a second.
ReplyDelete