What’s For Dinner?
This is how the conversation typically went.
“What should we have for dinner?”
“I don’t know, what do you think we should have?”
“I don’t care, you are the picky one, you decide.”
“I’m not the picky one, you are”
“No I’m not, I’m perfectly happy with cereal or a peanut butter sandwich”
“I don’t think cereal is a meal, I’m going to get (insert fast food)”
We had this same conversation pretty much every night and the outcome was always the same, neither of us were happy with dinner. That is until we finally came up with a solution that works for us. After a lot of “discussions” on how to solve this repeat argument we finally agreed that we would come up with a list of meals each weekend and then purchase all of the necessary ingredients. We even decided to go as far as to designate the day we would eat he meal and post it on the fridge so that who ever got home first could start the designated meal. I can’t explain in words how much this positively impacted our family. We are both happy with dinner, we have more time, we throwing away less food, going out to eat less often, and saving money.
Here are a few secrets of our success.
- Use a crock-pot. We try to do a crock-pot meal at least once a week. Using a slow cooker guarantees a hot fast meal.
- Martha Stewart’s Food Everyday magazine. Over the last 3 weeks we have done at least 10 recipes from old issues of this magazine, every meal has been a winner (easy, fast & tasty). Here are the names of some of our favorites: cayenne-rubbed chicken with avocado salsa, penne with creamy pumpkin sauce, apricot-stuffed pork with potatoes and brussels sprouts, fresh angel-hair pasta with bacon and peas, & cornbread-and-beef skillet pie.
- Inventory items you already have and try to choose recipes that use those items. It was a quick inventory of our cupboard and fridge that led to the selection of the penne with cream pumpkin sauce. There had been a can of pumpkin puree in our pantry forever.
- Leftover Pizza. For our Friday meal we purchase a Boboli pizza crust. Whatever we have leftover at the end of the week makes it way on to the pizza. A couple weeks ago we had leftover meat from tacos earlier in the week. This ground beef inspired a Mexican themed pizza made with sundried tomatoes, frozen corn & pepper jack cheese. It was so yummy!
OJ Freshly Squeezed 
i am truly inspired and going to implement your strategy beginning next week!
Tiki
September 16, 2010
We do this also. I don’t know how we’d be parents, work, and feed our family if we didn’t do this. I’m pretty sure we started planning our meals and shopping for them weekly before we had kids – but I don’t know…maybe it was kid inspired? Thanks for the recipe suggestions, I’m going to look into them!
Julie
September 22, 2010