Home » Household Management » Meals & Menu Planning » My Daily Family Dinner Hack – How Moving to ‘A Dinner Blueprint’ To Satisfy My Children (and Schedule) Has Saved Me Time & Sanity

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How much time does it take you each week to put dinner on the table for your family? I mean the whole process — from thinking about what to cook, to choosing recipes, to visiting the virtual or real grocery store, making kid-friendly adjustments to said recipes, actually cooking and then the (never-ending) dishes that result. What about dealing with toddler and young child preferences?

Exactly. Family meals are kind of a part-time job. However, there are some workarounds.

There are not many subjects I give unsolicited advice in, but food – and hacks to make cooking family dinner work each day – for this, I’m your girl! I’ve been the unofficial menu, cooking and all-things-food advisor to family and friends for decades now.  My system saves me at least 1 to 2 hours per week.

So, before I explain my system for dinners I want to caveat a few things.

Recovering Foodie

In my heart, I’m still a foodie and love cooking. There were entire years pre-kids that I didn’t make the same meal twice, I went to culinary school (for fun) and have a cookbook collection that far exceeds the capacity of our urban condo. I see a looming expiration date as a challenge – i.e. well how many things can I make with that almond meal before the end of the month? But I digress…

I realized about a year ago, that I needed to give up fancy-meals or at least, pause them for a while. Several things led me to this conclusion. I was served my family dinner at 8 pm (past my children’s bedtime) more often than I’d like to admit and found myself washing dishes, until midnight, while swearing like a sailor.  With my system, things are better now.  There are times, however, where the schedule-defeating impulses of foodie-ism are too great to resist. Every once in a while, making a layer cake after your kids are asleep, is okay!

Otherwise, I rely on a general rotation of meals. Please don’t mistake this for the 1950’s version (“Meatloaf Mondays,” “Taco Tuesdays,” “Spaghetti Wednesdays,” etc). My hack allows for as much (or as little) variation as you like. Having a system has saved me considerable hands-on time and precious mental energy.

The Basic Principles of The Dinner Blueprint

• You make at least 2, but 3 is better meals that feed your family twice (2X) meals every week.
• You keep your favorite weekday and weeknight grains on hand in your pantry at all times.
• You have at least 2 ‘weeknight’ proteins in your freezer at all times.
• You don’t cook anything with a carcass (i.e. whole chicken, whole fish – something to tempt you to make stock) on a Sunday night (or the night before you have to go to work).
• Every meal has 1 protein and 2 to 3 vegetables, typically 1 grain – but choose your own adventure here, based on how you like to eat.

How to Make the Plan Work

I generally make one (ideally two) large meals (that feed the family twice) each week. Then I rotate the ‘go to meals’ that I know they like and limit my experimentation (to about 20% of our meals.)

1. Stock Up! Buy/restock all of the weeknight and weekend grains for your pantry (see my list of my favorite food staples below.) Keep 2 bags of each item on hand. Also buy 1 or 2 bags of frozen vegetables to keep in your freezer at all times – i.e. cut corn, peas, broccoli florets.
2. Shop Smart Each Week – During your big weekly grocery run, buy proteins and fresh vegetables for the week and restock any low inventory pantry staples.
3. Work on a schedule where you’re cooking meals that feed your family twice at least two times – like this:

Saturday (make 2 X meal – i.e. roast a whole chicken, with butternut squash & serve a salad for you & your partner, salad ‘components’ deconstructed for the kids – i.e. cut tomatoes, cut carrots, cut butternut squash, cut cucumber).

Sunday (make 2 X meal – Maple roast pork loin, roasted sweet potatoes, sugar snap peas + cut raw carrots).

Monday (Saturday meal part 2 – leftover chicken braised in orange juice & olive brine, over couscous and sautéed peas & corn – from the freezer).

Tuesday – (Sunday meal part 2 – pork leftovers, warmed up & put into wheat burritos, with hot sauce, avocado & baby spinach leaves and grape tomatoes for the grownups, pork with avocado/grape tomatoes, warmed wheat tortillas spread with hummus on the side for the kiddos)

Wednesday – Quick 1x meal (cous cous + turkey ‘meat’ balls & corn, pea & grape tomato salad on the side)

Thursday – Quick 1x meal (wheat pasta with sausage, spinach & acorn squash)

Friday – (2X weeknight friendly meal – Brazilian-style chicken & rice with peas and olives)

My ‘Go-To’ Food Staples

Grains

Proteins

Vegetables

Is This Meal System Right For You?

Maybe. This systematic approach to dinner may work well for you if:

• You’ve accepted the transition to a ‘lapsed’ or maybe even ‘recovering foodie’. If you haven’t… rock on and send me notes so I can vicariously enjoy your menus!
• Your children are young (i.e. babies, toddlers, kids under age 10) – I would cook differently if my kids were older – at least I hope I will.
• You value cooking (or the idea of cooking) and having homemade meals for your family most of the time is important to you.

This is not going to work for you if:

• You insist on remaining a foodie in the pure sense – this system requires you to kind of push that energy aside for a little while.
• You really hate cooking. This can work for someone who isn’t a super confident or experienced cook, but if you just plain don’t like cooking this is not for you.

The Benefits Of Doing Family Dinner This Way

Here’s what I’ve been able to accomplish following a ‘blueprint’ or plan that relies on repetition to work:

• Cooking mostly healthy, homemade meals for my family (four people) every night.
• Work night meals that can be on the table within 30 minutes of my stepping through the door, even faster (i.e. 15 minutes) if needed.
• Meals that minimize the amount of dishes to be dealt with afterwards.
• Dinners that can be (mostly) enjoyed by my particular (read picky) 6-year-old and more adventurous 2-year-old and food-loving husband.
• Meals that can be made within the construct of no more than one ‘full’ grocery store visit with a possible smaller ‘mini-shop’ visit as needed each week.

Avoid Common Pitfalls

• Not planning ahead – A stocked pantry (with your grains) and weekly grocery run for vegetables and proteins is worth spending the time on. However, there are back up strategies, grocery delivery (if it’s available in your area) or the lunch hour small grocery run (put your cold items in the office fridge until you head home.)
• Allergies – you may be thinking, but I have a family member who is…insert the right word here (dairy, gluten, meat, tree-nut, shellfish)_____free. My daughter was allergic to milk protein and we went dairy-free for her first 14 months. It’s completely do-able, this system can easily be used with allergy-friendly ingredients.
• Kitchen or other catastrophe (i.e. fire drill at work) – you know, when you have that perfect chicken and then set the oven mistakenly to 325º F versus 425º F in haste and it’s just not ready for dinner or (in a rush) to leave work you forget the groceries in the office fridge, etc. Traffic is insane you get home 40 minutes late… If stuff happens, well – this is when you fall to a plan B super quick dinner (i.e. burritos with scrambled eggs, avocado & grape tomatoes; grilled chicken breast (from your freezer protein stash) over salad or cous cous, quesadillas with quinoa, baby spinach, pan seared steak, etc. Or plan C – take out. Hey, I rarely pull the take out lever but in times of extreme fatigue or circumstance, it’s always an option.

So this requires a little bit of planning ahead – but of course, you already excel at that!  Once you get used to cooking this way, you can rotate what you do on weekends and week nights.

I imagine you have recipes you and your family already like that fit within this criteria – however, I will (soon) post a couple of sample menus that I really love. If you have questions, special requests, suggestions or worries about the pitfalls I didn’t address above, please leave a comment and I’ll respond.

Want to see the updated, e-book version of this? Please join the mailing list for the e-book which includes more detail on serving sizes and a printable guide for stocking your pantry and freezer.