Wouldn’t it be great if dinnertime were a serene, family-oriented event every night? The truth is, life often gets complicated, and the end of the day can be the hardest time to pull everything together. This week we’re sharing some of our favorite tricks for bringing some calm to the chaos.
1. Have a Plan
Walking into the kitchen without any ideas for dinner, while the kids are getting antsy and dinner needs to be on the table NOW, is a recipe for disaster. Or at least an emergency call to your local take-out restaurant. Decide on dinner in the morning so you’ll have a game plan when dinnertime rolls around.
2. Shake up Your Routine
It’s hard to get excited about making the same meals over and over again. Try to pick out at least one new recipe each week. It doesn’t have to be hard, just something new to shake up the routine. Check out the Tips & Tricks section of the Meez Kitchen Blog (here) for ideas on easy tacos, 10-minute pasta ideas, quickie rice and more.
3. Involve the Kids
Even the smallest kids love to help cook. Can little ones tear lettuce for the salad? Can bigger ones measure out the ingredients or add them to the pot? Involving the kids is a great way to turn cooking dinner from a chore into a fun family activity. Plus it gets them excited about the meal. (See #4 for more on this.)
4. Make a Family Meal
It’s tempting to make different meals to please everyone at the table, but that just adds to the chaos. Make just one meal, and serve it deconstructed for the picky eaters in your family. Serve a pasta sauce on the side, or keep the blue cheese separate. And be prepared for your picky eaters to broaden their horizons. You wouldn’t believe how many notes we get about kids loving kale, quinoa and cauliflower.
5. Do the Prep Work in Advance
Even with the best plan, sometimes the idea of chopping an onion is just too much when dinnertime rolls around. We know this at Meez, and that’s why we do the prep work with our meals. For the nights you’re not cooking with Meez, though, try to prep the ingredients in the morning when you have some more energy. It’s amazing how easy cooking can be when the prep work is done for you.
6. Get Some Help
If you want to your family to enjoy a home cooked meal, there are options other than doing all the planning, shopping and prep work yourself. I founded Meez for people who love the idea of cooking and want someone to take the hassle out of it. When consider dinnertime help, ask yourself these questions:
- Does this plan actually make my life easier, or is it just creating a new hassle by requiring a subscription I have to keep track of?
- Can I choose the meals, or will I end up with recipes that end up going to waste?
- Can they accommodate special requests and dietary preferences?
- How much work is it? Are the ingredients already prepped, or do I still have to chop up onions and garlic?
- Is it local? Is it green? Ask the same questions of your meal kits that you’d ask in the grocery store or farmer’s market.
For Meez, of course the answer to all of these questions is yes.
7. Rethink What Qualifies As Dinner
If you need dinner in a hurry, think past traditional dinnertime meals. If breakfast is your thing, cook up some scrambled eggs, sausage and serve it with some roasted sweet potatoes on the side. You’re covering the major food groups and it’s a lot more fun. (We have other fun breakfast-for-dinner ideas on our blog. They might be some of my favorite recipe ideas there.) For other folks (Betsy, I know this is you) have a smorgasbord. Create a meal out of the goodies hiding in your fridge that may not traditionally qualify as a whole meal. A little hummus, slice of brie, apple wedges, great almond butter, celery sticks… It doesn’t take much to create a meal that’s wholesome and ready as fast as you can empty the fridge.
8. Roll With the Unexpected
Home cooking is about the journey. Start with a plan, but be prepared to change course when things don’t go quite the way you had in mind. Maybe you over-simmered your key vegetables. Or the casserole defrosted without its characteristic crunch. Or someone extra suddenly joins the meal. Be prepared to be spontaneous. Be spontaneous in your cooking so you can stay flexible. Those over-simmered vegetables can be purred into a dip to serve with veggies and bread. That casserole can be topped with more cheese, panko breadcrumbs or served over tortilla chips. And that extra diner? Stretch a meal by adding hard boiled eggs, a grain (or another grain) or served up over lettuce for a salad bowl.
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