What’s for Dinner?
“Mom, what’s for dinner tonight?”
Every night we eat dinner at this house, probably not so different from your family. As a mom of 4 and a dietitian, my friends often ask “What did you guys have for dinner last night” and “Did your kids eat it?” It got me thinking, I know I serve dinner every night. I plan it every week but I wonder what I’ve served my family for dinner of the years. That’s when I became inspired to start documenting what we eat and any notes about what we liked and didn’t like. In a future post I’ll share my meal planning routine.
Ideally, I’d like to get to the point where I serve 20 of the same meals per month for the 6 fall/winter months and then another 20 rotating meals per month for the 6 spring/summer months. We have a quieter schedule in the fall and winter so I’m available for cooking more. In the springtime we have baseball games most evenings. During the daytime in the summer we spend our time at parks, the pool or other adventures, so there’s less time for cooking.
Meals in Review
W – Rotisserie Chicken, frozen wheat rolls lettuce salad
Needed an easy meal since I was going to a friends’ baby shower that evening and I didn’t want B to need to cook when he got home from work. Easy enough meal that even Little Miss can eat most of. She had leftover peas as her veggies instead of lettuce salad.
R – Tacos
Probably our most frequent meal. It’s easy for everyone to customize their own taco. Ground meat, beans, olives, salsa, cheese, sour cream, red peppers, tomatoes are the standard ingredients. Sometimes there’s corn or tortilla chips. Little Miss can have most of this too. The boys all make their own combo and know they need a protein, carb and veggie to call it complete.
F – Spinach stuffed Ravioli, cantaloupe, lettuce salad
My niece and sister joined us for dinner tonight and I knew I’d want to spend time hanging out with them, so I went for another easy prep meal.
S – BBQ-Pineapple Black Bean Burgers, sweet potato fries
A new recipe that went over well. The burgers were premade frozen ones and were a little spicy so I also made mahi mahi frozen burgers so the kids would have a milder option. #3 didn’t prefer either kind of burger and made a bun and ketchup sandwich. Pretty typical for a 4 year-old.
S – Leftovers
Well, that was the plan anyway. Turns out we gobbled up everything for lunches during the week so B grabbed Yorkies on the way home from #1’s flag football games. Initially I assumed I could make something from the pantry if we needed. However, I ended up with a migraine that afternoon which pretty much makes me useless in the kitchen.
M – Frozen pizza, fruit salad, lettuce salad
I didn’t order groceries until Monday night so I checked the freezer to make sure we could get one more meal before I would need groceries. Found a sausage pizza in the freezer – score! I took the leftover pineapple from Saturday and combined it with grapes and frozen strawberries for a quick fruit salad. Pizza is an obvious winner in our house.
T – Chicken and Black Bean Enchilada Casserole
We’ve had this casserole before and it’s so quick and easy to make. The kids can help or I can make it during after school play time. During afternoon nap, I cut up the rotisserie chicken called for the recipe and when it was assembly time the casserole came together so quickly. It was a quick eating night since B had a meeting for a newer wrestling program in our are that #1 and #2 are thinking of enrolling in this winter.
What I Am Excited About Now
Today I’m excited to sign up #2 for basketball. He’s playing in the same program as last winter and it was so fun to watch.