What’s For Dinner
January 26, 2010
Recently I’ve noticed that as with most things, every family seems to have a different style when it comes to dinner – meal preparation and grocery shopping in particular. Growing up, my dad went shopping for dinner supplies and whatever else we needed just about daily. Zach’s family seemed to shop far less frequently. Really, it seems to be whatever works for your family.
Yesterday I read a fascinating article about a woman in Texas who has planned out an entire year’s worth of meals. Wow. I admire that woman’s planning and forethought. I can usually plan out about a week, but I have a hard time going further than that. We’ve got several “family favorite” recipes, but I also like to throw something new into the mix occasionally.
If you’ve ever talked to me about food, I’ve probably told you that I am in love with bettycrocker.com. I like being able to store recipes in an online recipe box. I like the variety of recipes available to me, and that I can search by things like beef or chicken, or by things like slow cooker or event type. If I could convince Zach to use it, I would love the shopping list feature too. I’ve tried other sites like allrecipes.com, but I keep coming back to the familiarity and comfort of betty crocker.
So, what are we eating this week? Well, Monday night is usually grocery shopping night for us (it’s much less busy than the weekends, and we’re often too busy to do shopping on the weekends anyway). This means that my goal on Mondays is always to find something quick and easy because I know we won’t have much time to cook. Last night we tried out a new “30 minute meal”. Mac ‘n Cheese Shells with Sausage. However, we did substitute several things – rotini instead of shells (they didn’t have small shells at the store Zach shopped at), Monterey Jack cheese instead of American, and breakfast sausage (cooked before added) instead of smoked sausage. However, the result was still quite tasty. Both boys ate a good amount of it, and Zach gave it a thumbs up as well!
Tonight Zach won’t be home (his weekly night out) so I try to opt for relatively quick and easy (i.e., boiling a pot of water and stirring something in with one hand while jiggling a cranky 1-year-old with the other and dragging a weepy 3-year-old on my leg). So tonight we’ll have Broccoli and tortellini Alfredo. This is already a favorite with the younger set. Parker LOVES broccoli (yeah, I know, he’s a little weird) 
and Xander things anything pasta based is just about the best meal in the world. I’ll be altering it slightly since I have a bag of egg noodles I’d like to use up, and that saved us buying tortellini this week. We’ll see how it goes…
Tomorrow night we’ll have some Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy. We’ll probably have mashed potatoes on the side, and I like to make them like this lately (though I usually skip the bacon bits and green onions). Xander is a big fan of cooked carrots, so I’ll probably heat up some frozen ones to go along with this meal.
Thursday night, we’re going to enjoy some tasty Smothered Chops with Bacon Bits. I’ve got some extra broccoli to pair with this, and maybe some rice – we’ll see…
Friday night is our no cook or low cook night. We often opt for a frozen pizza (which we usually doctor up with fresh veggies/cheese, and/or bacon and sometimes a side salad).
Since our weekend are usually crazy, busy and sometimes nowhere near our house, I don’t usually extend our dinner menus into the weekend. Sometimes we’ll pick up extra supplies later in the week if we know we’ll be home, or we go with kid favorites – pb&j, grilled cheese, mac ‘n cheese, spaghetti, etc.
A few disclaimers: I am by no stretch of the imagination a “good” cook. I opt for quick and easy 9 times out of 10. I judge a recipe on the directions – if I can’t understand it, or it calls for something I don’t own (a dutch oven for example) then I skip it. I don’t spend time learning new cooking tips or techniques.
Zach does the grocery shopping. He is excellent at finding deals, and is familiar enough now with my list-making and planning that he’ll substitute or alter sometimes depending on cost and what we’re making that week. This week’s bill was $70 (we of course didn’t buy every ingredient for every recipe – we’ve got basic cooking supplies) but that also included other things (a jug of water, cereal bars, conditioner, etc.) We typically spend somewhere between $70 and $100 to feed our small family of 4 each week. We don’t use coupons (unless they happen to be on the package) but we always shop for good deals. Most of the time we find superstores like Wal-Mart to be more expensive than the local grocery store.
Zach enjoys cooking – he likes to learn new tips and techniques. Where I am all about exact measurements and following a recipe, Zach enjoys pulling together a few ingredients and a basic idea and making his own creations (which almost always comes out delicious). Dinnertime cooking usually ends up in my lap, but not because Zach doesn’t want to, it just usually ends up that way – he’d be perfectly happy switching roles and doing the cooking while I entertained the children and sometimes he does (especially if we’re having a Mexican themed meal).
I’m sure it’s no surprise that every week is hit and miss with our kids. Some days they love what we cook, and if we cook the exact same thing next week, they won’t touch it. Xander more so than Parker is picky about food. We don’t make a separate meal for anyone. We don’t make them stay at the table until they’ve eaten everything (especially Parker because he starts to throw food when he’s done, and I hate having to clean all that up). What we make for dinner is what is available to eat, and if they don’t want to eat it (they have to at least try it), then they don’t have to eat, but they won’t get anything else to eat either. We very rarely eat dessert or treats in our house. I’m not saying our methods are right or wrong, but this is what is working for our family right now. This means that there are some nights when Xander goes to bed with very little to eat. But, he doesn’t complain about being hungry, and he almost always eats a good breakfast and lunch.
If you haven’t noticed, I am a type-A personality who likes to have things in my life planned out. I am uncomfortable not knowing what I will need to do when I get home from work. Where a loose schedule works great for some families, it stresses me out too much. So what do you do – do you plan out meals? How far in advance – daily, weekly, monthly, yearly?? I’m always looking for ideas and suggestions to streamline the process, which means I’m very interested in how your family tackles these daily routines
I am definitely also an A-type personality as well. We definitely plan out meals…I do all of the grocery shopping and I generally plan meals for three days or so. We only live about 5 minutes from a grocery store so I usually end up going two or three times a week, depending on what we need. I’m a full-time mom so we always go shopping in the morning or afternoon, when it’s not as busy.
The only day we plan a quick and easy dinner is Thursdays, when Matt gets together with his friends. The rest of the days it depends on if either of us has any evening plans.
For the most part we alternate who makes/cleans up dinner, unless one of us really wants to make a couple of dinners in a row. We definitely have our family favorites, and now and then we try a new recipe. By the way, my new favorite is chicken marsala…mmmmm. Luckily Samantha eats just about everything we do, so we don’t have to deal with her not wanting to eat.
I am definitely a coupon-clipper. Well, I mostly use Internet coupons. My favorite site is couponmom.com. You sign up for free (might need to install the coupon printer on your computer) and you get an e-mail once or twice a week telling you when the coupons have been restocked. It’s all name-brand coupons that can be used anywhere. We do mostly buy store-brand products but we do have some name brands that we must have. My favorite coupons from the site are $3 of Huggies diapers and coupons for Fiber One bars and Cheerios.
We use allrecipes.com and I try to use the cook books that we have, too. Lately I’ve been finding a lot of great recipes in magazines. I got a couple in my stocking for Christmas and I’m a member of the Cooking Club of America (they roped me in) and they send out a monthly cooking magazine.
How was the salisbury steak? I’ve never made it and you’ve inspired me to make it!