A year ago, I was finding myself looking through the cupboards at 7pm every night wondering what in the world I was going to make for dinner and never really coming up with much. I had to change. Dinner before 8 pm and healthy meals makes a happier family. It took a couple of months and a few tries before I came up with something that is working long term.
These were my problems:
- No one, no matter how old, helped in the kitchen. This family is too large for meals to be a one man band.
- I grocery shopped, but never had everything I needed for meals.
- Because I never knew what to make, I procrastinated getting started.
- I compromised with my daughter's who were refusing to make meals. If they made 1 to 2 meals a week with no help and did all of the dusting, I would never make them clean the bathrooms. Problem solved. If they don't follow through, they clean the bathrooms.
- I gather my 2 daughters together at the beginning of the week. We plan a dinner menu for that week and write a shopping list if I am going shopping. If I am not, we plan the menu around what we already have in the house.
- When I shop, shop with a list of needed ingredients.
- I'm still working on this. Ideally, I start making dinner by 6pm. My daughters are better about this than I am :).
It really is simple when I adhere to these principles:
- Require helpers
- Plan and make sure the ingredients are there
- Start making dinner early
3 comments:
Helpers are a must, aren't they?! I plan meals for the week and each day choose which one we'll have off the list. And totally have those weeks where we plan meals based around what is already in the house if we're not shopping. We're earlier eaters here though - dinner is 5pm every day. I think my kids would turn cannibal if we ate much later than that...LOL! It's neat to see how each family is similar and different.
I was having that problem with late dinners. I set an alarm on my phone that goes off every day at 3:00. It's my "figure out what's for dinner, if I don't already know" alarm. It's also my "get stuff out, like meat, to thaw, etc" alarm. It's helped a TON!!!!
I like your ideas for getting your children involved. I wish I had done more of that with my children. My children learned to cook out of necessity when I had to go back to work.
Blessings!
Post a Comment