Family Dinner 2.0

• Jaime
• October 9, 2020
• Dinner, Family, Food, Inspiration, Juggling life, Meal Prep, Weekly Recipe Wins
• 2

I wrote last summer about how important it is to me for us to have family dinner together at the table (or counter) every night. For us all to sit down – sans devices – and enjoy a meal together.

In my post last summer, I highlighted a week in which I had managed to make dinner 5 nights in a row – which is truly a huge mom accomplishment in the “normal” world we used to live in. I did not comment or post earlier this year during the lockdown about the marathon of meal cooking that we did in our house, since I figured that all of you were probably doing the same things we were. Breakfast, lunch and dinner at home almost every day, with a few takeout meals here and there to help support our local restaurants when we could.

Now that we are back into a somewhat more normal schedule with kids back in school – in whatever form that might be – I am going to highlight a week (+/-) of dinners that we had from September 8-16. During that time, we had 7 unique dinners and one lunch at home, ate out one night (but made lunch earlier that day), and only had one night of eating leftovers.

As always, I will point out that while I enjoy cooking and I don’t mind taking the time to put together meals that involve a little prep, I am also a big fan of using what I can to make dinner easy!

Dinner #1: Broccoli Cheese Soup

I love a good Broccoli Cheese soup – using one of my favorite Frontier Soups mixes from Lindsey’s store – and this one took less than 30 minutes! Sometimes we pair this with bread and butter, biscuits, rolls, or beer bread.

Dinner #2: Chili

Our family recipe for chili is so easy – and it was a great make-ahead crock pot dinner on a chilly day. We always have cinnamon rolls with our chili, and carrots and celery on the side.

Dinner #3: Pork Roast

I put a pork sirloin roast in the crock pot, added onion, potatoes and carrots, and sprinkled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, salt and pepper, and a little red wine.

Dinner #4: Honey Garlic Crock Pot Chicken Thighs

This yummy Honey Garlic Chicken Thighs recipe was great, with rice and frozen veggies that I made/heated up just before serving.

If you don’t have a crock pot in your kitchen – buy one now!!! My go-to is a 6-quart workhorse like this one, but I’m also a huge fan of our Ninja Foodi. (Contains affiliate links – I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases)

Lunch on Day #5: Jack O’Lantern Sloppy Joe Pie

To commemorate the kids and their dad pulling out our “Halloweentown” decorations and the unofficial start of fall in our house. We have used this Taste of Home recipe for years, and it is always a big hit!

(Day #5 dinner was out to a restaurant after our youngest had her much-delayed dance recital that was originally scheduled for May).

Dinner #6: our epic Oktoberfest dinner.

My husband organized the whole thing, and this year we did a Sauerbraten roast (including pickling/larding it with bacon a day ahead) in the crock pot (a combination of two different recipes), hot German potato salad, Braised Red Cabbage with Apples (Rotkraut), and homemade pretzels. It was so amazing!

Dinner #7: leftovers

(My fridge was full).

Dinner #8: make your own taco night.

This is a go-to favorite in our house, and always a winner with my kids! I usually brown hamburger and onions, and do bowls of refried beans (I use dehydrated beans, but you can also use canned), diced tomatoes, avocado, shredded cheese and lettuce, with sour cream and salsa for everyone to add their own toppings as they choose.

Dinner #9: Spaghetti.

Another staple for us. I brown hamburger and/or Italian sausage with onions and garlic (sometimes I add other veggies I have on hand), add a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce, and pour over noodles of your choice. On this night, we also had a no-lettuce salad (known by my son as “mom’s famous salad”) – a very simple side of diced tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and thinly sliced onion drowned in Zesty Italian dressing.

If you missed it, I do sometimes make an easy homemade spaghetti sauce when I have a plethora of tomatoes from my garden. This year, we had an early freeze and snow, and my tomatoes did not do as well as usual. In case you were more fortunate, check out my recipe!

Friends, if you are anything like me, you have been struggling to come up with dinner ideas. These are a few that I have used, and I hope you enjoy them as well. Pandemic cooking has been an adventure this year. We all have staples in our dinner rotation. I try to come up with new ideas to mix in, and sometimes (like the Honey Garlic Chicken above) I literally do a Google search and use the first recipe that sounds good.

I consider 7 out of 9 dinners to be an epic mom win – and definitely a winning week of recipes and dinner ideas for our Weekly Recipe Wins series!