Sunday, October 4, 2009

Gather 'Round the Table

I have never been a good cook. I've never actually even been just a cook. I wasn't exactly raised on 3 course meals. My mom was a single mother to us kids, working two jobs just to keep food on the table. Even if that food meant mac and cheese and hot dogs. I seriously didn't even know that there was a whole world out there that ate meat on a regular basis, and vegetables were nearly non-existant. I don't blame my mom, she did what she had to do, and I am no less of a person or mother for it. It just means that I have to figure out this whole "dinner" thing all on my own, and it's been a little overwhelming to say the least.

But I recently have discovered the importance of dinner, and healthy dinners involving vegetables and good-for-you-kind of stuff. You know, NOT frozen pizzas (well atleast not 2-3 times a week that is). I know I want to instill the family values in my kids involving meeting around the dinner table on a daily basis. I want to make it a "given" that we eat a good, yummy, healthy meal together, and talk about our day. No TV, no laptops or iphones, no interruptions, just the 4 of us, as a family. It's really important to me, and I want it to be really important to them too.

So, Monday night, I made a HUGE grocery store run. I spent a few hours scouring the 5 Dollar Dinners website (which is AMAZING by the way!), found a good number of dinners that looked yummy, were inexpensive, but still held the core importance of being just that, DINNER. Jonah and I had a fun time at the store, and by the end of the shopping trip, “Broccoli” and “Sweet Potato Fries” was his new favorite words.

So, Tuesday I did it. I made dinner. We had a main course, a side of vegetables, and some French bread. The hubby and I even had wine with our meals, it was fantastic. It wasn’t near as hard as I thought it would be, and because I kept cleaning up along the way, the mess was miniscule by the time dinner was on the table.

I made Baked Chicken Spaghetti that i found over on $5 Dinners, but made some of my own alterations. Since we are just at the beginning of our adventures with new foods and dinner time, I decided to not spring too many odd and obscure foods on them. So I substituted some of the veggies for what I call more “normal” ones, but slapped on a side of fresh steamed broccoli right at the end. Jonah even ate the broccoli, as did Daddy, who said it might make him throw up. He is such a kid himself! LOL.

The meal came out wonderful, and since then I have cooked a few really good meals. I really enjoy it too, surprisingly. Every day I am always thinking about what I will be making for lunch and dinner for days to come.

Now, I actually kinda really feel like a mom. ;-)

1 comment:

Jen L. said...

Family dinner time is so important. Do you have a crockpot? They make dinner so easy, especially on busy days. You can just throw everything in there in the morning, then forget about it til dinner time! Enjoy your time in the kitchen.