Dinner: A Disaster Under Construction

I am embarking on a new project that I thought I would share. Dinner. Since I am totally obsessive about like lists, I will share my thoughts in list form.

Our Current Habits

1. DH are major foodies. We will not sacrifice taste.
2. We eat very few processed foods.
3. We eat late. We have not fully adjusted our old lives to our new lives with a hungry, cranky toddler.

My Goals
1. Eat by 6:30 at the latest. (See above about hungry, cranky toddler.)
2. Eat a meal that is enjoyable for all members of the family.
3. Make sure this enjoyable meal will not cause me to be a cow.

All this came about because of a book, a conversation with my MIL, and a change in schedule.  I read the book Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach, also of blog fame Dinner: A Love Story. I didn't finish it, so this is not a review of the book :) However, in the beginning of the book she waxes poetic about the joys and importance of family dinner. Which I am totally on board with. It made me reflective about our own family dinners and want to improve. DH is working a second job until 7:30 at night or later. This means when school starts I have to leave my new job (which is further away from home), to pick up Roman (at his new inconveniently located preschool), get home, make dinner, feed us by my new goal time of 6:30, and I have to do all this by myself. I was complaining about this to my MIL, who I adore, and who chewed me out about needing a new plan. So here we are.  I am in the beginning of week three of my new plan. I have been talking with friends about how things are going and thought I would share with anyone else interested.

Notice! These meals are NOT going to get you "bikini ready". I am the last person you want to listen to in that regard. But when I see others' pantries, grocery carts, and dinners, I realize, we DO eat a lot healthier than average. And I truly believe that given my complete and utter lack of excercise in the 2 1/2 years since Roman was born, that our fairly nutritious, fairly processed free lifestyle is the only thing that keeps my pants size from being on an upward curve. Cause I know it's not that run I didn't go on :) I am just trying to figure out how to quickly and easily feed my family a nutritious meal that a husband who insists on a meat, a toddler who just acts insane, and myself, who is just trying to keep my BMI in check, will all eat. And if that is you, maybe you will find this interesting.

Ok, so what have I been doing? We have all fell prey to the Pinterest "Cook one day for the whole month!" post. Unfortunatly, many of those are cheesy casseroles or LOTS of soup. I like soup, but I can't handle a mostly soup diet. I began by planning out meals that are already in our family repetoire. I did give some consideration to my toddler's tastebuds. For example, I mentioned above about how we haven't really adjusted our dinners to him. So I did disregard a few things that are just not kid-friendly. I also knew of a few meals that were kid friendly and favorites of ours, but just take to darn long to cook on a weeknight. Those got put on Sundays. Fridays and Saturdays are more up in the air, maybe pizza, maybe datenight, and for sure the least healthy. Thursdays we typically eat at Whole Foods for their "family night". It's cheap and easy. So anyways, that is how I began.

Next I planned what might be ok frozen. I am doing two things. Cooking a lot on one day a month (more about this in a minute) and doubling other meals to freeze. At the beginning of week three, I already realize I need a seperate freezer.

I opened up a notepad and started writing this down. It looked a little something like this...

and this...

To clarify my crazy, the weekly meals are planned on my first page.

Week 1:
M: baked chicken w/ baked potato and green beans
T: Italian beef w/ asparagus
W: black bean, avacado, and broccoli wraps
Th: Whole Foods
F: pizza and wings
S: out of town-eating out
S: sweet potato hash

I am also trying to note what time we ate and any changes. For exampe, that Tuesday I forgot that the asparagus was supposed to go with the Italian beef. And as you can see, Wednesday's meal was a total Pinterest failure that I will never eat again. Sunday, after driving home from visiting friends we only see once a year, we were too hungover tired to cook, so sushi it was! That Sunday was supposed to be the first big cooking day, but I moved it to Monday. I have this luxury now, but I won't when school starts.

That Monday I cooked quinoa, made 2 freezer meals, cut and froze veggies from the farmers market, made a froze a side dish, and made cucumber salad for the following week.

On week one, I managed to get Roman fed before 6:30 once and had an easy AND healtly dinner once (Italian beef). The others were either too much for a school night (yes, none of this matters now, but I am testing for the school year) or unhealthy. Oh and Roman liked basically nothing we had that week.  So... this was a failure. But week two got a lot better!!!!