Does the phrase, “What’s for dinner?” make you want to cringe? Lately it
really gets to me. Now that the kids are older, it seems that nobody wants to eat the same thing anymore. Can you relate. Here’s my solution to the What’s for Dinner Woes.
http://thejuicywoman.blogs.com/my_weblog/2014/05/my-solution-for-the-whats-for-dinner-woes-transform-your-homemade-meals-into-tv-dinners.html
Does the phrase, “What’s for dinner?” make you want to cringe? Lately it
really gets to me. Now that the kids are older, it seems that nobody wants to eat the same thing anymore.
Nobody Wants to Eat the Same Thing Anymore
My almost 18 year old daughter, Cara with the exception of loving chicken wings, is almost completely a vegetarian. My son, PT (Paul Thomas) doesn’t like most vegetables and my husband, Angel is a diabetic. It goes without saying that nobody seems to be willing to think about what they want for dinner much earlier than before it’s actually time to eat. Infuriating!
I’ve had endless arguments with my family about this ridiculous issue. It just doesn’t seem reasonable to me to make a decision of what to eat a few minutes before it’s time to sit down to dinner.
I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to make a big shopping list and she would plan to buy food according to what dinners she planned to make that week. She would map out 7 days of meals and that would determine what food she bought. I always thought that was the best way to go and making those unilateral dinner decisions worked for me for quite a while because everyone was happy to eat the same food.
But lately it seems that no matter what I do, and how much I plan,
cook or prepare, I just can’t win and make a dinner that my whole family will enjoy. And that’s always been something very important to me.
I’ll admit because I write books and run my coaching business out of my home, I’m a housewife and I’m pretty darn proud of it. I’m also part Italian, so my house and my family have always been a huge priority in my life.
In the past my way of cooking has been to make big meals in large pots and serve them for dinner and enjoy the leftovers in different ways until they’re all gone. After all, why cook once, and eat once, if you can leverage the same meal, to eat twice or more? Planning ahead–That’s the way I was raised.
If I’m going to take the time out of my day to chop an onion or peel a clove of garlic, it only makes sense to prepare more. It’s the same amount of clean up so you might as well use your time wisely and cut your prep time short by having some of the elements of your meal ready to go.
But lately with my family’s schedules, tastes and food preferences
spread out all over the map, I just don’t even want to bother. It’s become a real hassle figuring out what to have for dinner, so recently I came up with a solution that just might work and I’ll share it with you.
Set a limit Tell the family that you’re taking a break from cooking and not to expect for you to cook dinners every night. Make an agreement with each member to take turns cooking dinner.
Make a list Have a shopping list in a central spot in the kitchen and ask each member to take note of any item that needs replacement.
Frozen Food Use the frozen food section of your supermarket as inspiration to figure out what foods you’d like to make that you’re not willing to buy pre-packaged.
Customize Your Own Frozen Meals Decide how you want to modify recipes to suit your individual preferences.
Preserve Your Food I love my Food Saver. It’s a food preservation system that will extract the air out of your packaging, making it perfect for freezer storage. Keep in mind that it squeezes the food while it is extracting the air so don’t make the mistake of using it to package your baked goods. They will be as flat as pancakes. Check out the site and find out where you can get your own at http://www.foodsaver.com
Relax Now on your next grab and go day you’re all set with foods that you really love.
Frozen Foods as a Way to Manage/Prevent Emotional Eating
I love the ease of not having to worry about what to eat, rummaging around desperately looking for food, or settling for meals that are below par.
Funny how life works. Yesterday after writing the day’s blog post encouraging you to go easy on yourself when you find yourself overeating or eating foods you didn’t plan to eat, I was so ravenously hungry, that I gobbled down the first thing I saw when I opened the refrigerator; a big chocolate chip David’s cookie. Rather than beating myself up over it, I realized that what I really wanted was a steaming cup of homemade pea soup and seeing the bag of dried split peas on the counter, knowing that a good soup would take me 8 hours to make was too frustrating to bear, so I just ate what was in front of me and made a gentle note to myself to get the ingredients for a good pea soup tomorrow.
For tonight I’ve got my big crock pot of split pea soup simmering away in my slow cooker. With the extra gentle heating on Low setting it gives me plenty of time to keep writing without having to interrupt the flow of my work to stir the pot. It should be ready in about 8 more hours. I like it nice and thick.
So remember my advice– when you have an emotional eating incident–Go deeper and find out why you’re making the food choices you do. It may just be your body’s way of crying out for some good solid homemade food and some quality time in the kitchen.
Bye for now.
Much love,
Andrea