Destressing Dinner

With a baby now dinner has needed more planning. Before I would just make whatever we were feeling like eating and on the days where I knew we would be gone in the afternoon/evening I made a soup or something like this in the morning. Simple and worked well but along came our little blessing Josiah and it has changed...

Afternoon naps aren´t a given, neither is a happy baby who will play by himself all the time and sometimes there are those sick mommy days when very little gets done. So this has taken more planning. I still don´t do a lot of planning like what I am having each day (since my mother-in-law cooks we often get odds and ends like, beans, chicken prices left rover after filleting chicken breast, potatoes, etc. and I try to use them if it all possible) unless it is something I need to buy something special for. Usually once a month we go to the store, something like an Aldies and we buy what we need or what is missing from whatever we keep on hand (pasta, onions, tomato sauce, different beans, butter) and we spend about $30-40 (many of these items carry over into the next month). Also we go to the fresh produce market and what I buy usually last 2 weeks or more. During the week Randall just picks up an occasional item that is perishable (milk, cheese) or something I ran out of.

So each morning around breakfast time I try to decide what to make for dinner and then during morning nap time I do as much prep as possible (sometimes all I get done is the meat taken out of the freezer). I take out ingredients that need to thaw, chop veggies, mix dry ingredients, basically whatever I can do to make the cooking easier and quicker.

Between 4 and 5 pm I start the cooking while Josiah is with daddy or playing. By 6 usually everything is ready and Randall helps finish up and serve. We can sit down and enjoy a nice, home cooked meal! (Randall is glad because he would never go for PB and J for dinner). Of course there are days (where my morning is full of dirty laundry, cleaning or errands) and no prep or decision gets done, for those days we have a simple pasta and garlic toast!

I also have to think of baby and what he can eat from our dinner. If there is nothing I have to plan something for him or do a Gerber.

This really helps as we do not have money to order out or a car to go and grab something. I am usually happier and less stressed in the evenings when I am tired and Randall is happy to have yummy meal.