Din-spiration Part 2
We are holding fast our commitment to prepare and eat dinner at home. We are trying to work the timing such that if we have to take shifts, they are fairly close together in time and we sit with whichever child is eating at the odd time while he eats.
It's sort of funny- at different times, especially when our family was younger, there was no question of eating dinner at home all together. In that haze that distance memory permits, those dinners times were idyllic.
I'm going to come right out and confess that it's not really coming together that way now, but I'm going to stick the motto that "practice makes perfect". We are a family of just 3 BIG kids + parents + grandma (on some days) - dinners should be time of peaceful conversation and sharing moments from our day. Eh. Sometimes, not so much.
With or without those sought after peaceful moments, we have managed to accomplish our goal of eating at home whenever possible (even if we have to stretch ourselves to do it).
I'm going to start off this week's meals by confessing we fell back to hotdogs and apple sauce for one meal. In defense, said hotdogs were purchased for an easy back up dinner AND they were the better option hot dogs with no nitrates, all beef, no hormones... Yes, it makes me feel just a little better.
Moving on to Sloppy Joes with roasted broccoli and cauliflower. I have tried many sloppy joe recipes- this recipe (and the roasted veggie recipe) came from "Dinner the playbook" by Jenny Rosenstrach. I think what my boys liked about these joes is that they are not super sloppy.
A HUGE hit was an Orange Chicken recipe from Danielle Walker's Cookbook "Against All Grain". Mark loved this so much that he texted me a picture of his lunch made from leftovers.
We took a night off for Mark's football game. I might try to pack something next time, but 4 o'clock game time makes it tough to work in dinner.
So our big moment came on Saturday- our kitchen faucet broke and needed to be replaced, so the dinner we had planned was not to be. After a few moments of deliberation (burgers out were calling loudly to my boys!) we decided that we had plenty of left overs in the fridge and could pull together dinner without a sink! So, left-over Sloppy Joes with a fiesta salad (fortunately we had the lettuce all washed and ready to go with our left over goodies from last time) were thrown together.
The hit of the week came in the form of a simple potato bar. Not that a recipe is needed, but we used the idea from "Dinner a playbook". A bonus for the week: I was happy to be able to chop up our left over roasted veggies to add to the potato bar.
So, we are doing it! I'm letting go of doing it right. Today, I ran Mark to an early football practice (1 hour round trip), ran to the grocery store (planning fail), brought home the groceries, prepped what I could (chopped onion and parsley), grabbed a quick bite (leftover potato bar- yum), and finished just in time to pick up Mark. It's not pretty, but its happening.
Where I find inspiration around the internet:
http://reasonsforchocolate.blogspot.com/search/label/Sunday%20dinner
http://www.dinneralovestory.com/
http://www.elizabethfoss.com/?category=Food+and+Drink
Happy Eating!! :)
It's sort of funny- at different times, especially when our family was younger, there was no question of eating dinner at home all together. In that haze that distance memory permits, those dinners times were idyllic.
I'm going to come right out and confess that it's not really coming together that way now, but I'm going to stick the motto that "practice makes perfect". We are a family of just 3 BIG kids + parents + grandma (on some days) - dinners should be time of peaceful conversation and sharing moments from our day. Eh. Sometimes, not so much.
With or without those sought after peaceful moments, we have managed to accomplish our goal of eating at home whenever possible (even if we have to stretch ourselves to do it).
I'm going to start off this week's meals by confessing we fell back to hotdogs and apple sauce for one meal. In defense, said hotdogs were purchased for an easy back up dinner AND they were the better option hot dogs with no nitrates, all beef, no hormones... Yes, it makes me feel just a little better.
Moving on to Sloppy Joes with roasted broccoli and cauliflower. I have tried many sloppy joe recipes- this recipe (and the roasted veggie recipe) came from "Dinner the playbook" by Jenny Rosenstrach. I think what my boys liked about these joes is that they are not super sloppy.
A HUGE hit was an Orange Chicken recipe from Danielle Walker's Cookbook "Against All Grain". Mark loved this so much that he texted me a picture of his lunch made from leftovers.
We took a night off for Mark's football game. I might try to pack something next time, but 4 o'clock game time makes it tough to work in dinner.
Mark with his most loyal fan, his 3 year old nephew Andres.
The hit of the week came in the form of a simple potato bar. Not that a recipe is needed, but we used the idea from "Dinner a playbook". A bonus for the week: I was happy to be able to chop up our left over roasted veggies to add to the potato bar.
So, we are doing it! I'm letting go of doing it right. Today, I ran Mark to an early football practice (1 hour round trip), ran to the grocery store (planning fail), brought home the groceries, prepped what I could (chopped onion and parsley), grabbed a quick bite (leftover potato bar- yum), and finished just in time to pick up Mark. It's not pretty, but its happening.
Where I find inspiration around the internet:
http://reasonsforchocolate.blogspot.com/search/label/Sunday%20dinner
http://www.dinneralovestory.com/
http://www.elizabethfoss.com/?category=Food+and+Drink
Happy Eating!! :)
Thanks for the linky love!
ReplyDeleteHot dogs can be a meal...life happens. The past 10 days have been especially stressful with our home calendar on full melt down mode. My good eating habits kind of went down the tubes. But tomorrow is a new day! Actually, once I get past tomorrow night (I have to teach our Little Flowers group) I'll be better.