Any parenting advice regarding mealtime is always welcome as far as I am concerned!
It seems that in our house, we are always running in 20 different directions. Now that spring is here, my kids activities have taken on a life of their own and dinners have definitely suffered. I have mentioned before that if I don’t have dinner ready by the time the kids get home from school, then we might as well forget it. I am not magic (a direct quote from a friend), I can’t make dinner make dinner magically appear on the table while I am out taxiing the kids around town. At least not without the help of a telephone and a pizza delivery person.
Well, last night I had a quick meal success that I thought I should share. We had a particulary tight timeframe and I happened to be a bit more organized than usual – meaning that I actually had a plan.
My kids love tacos – but in our house tacos are not a simple affair. My husband and I like lots of fixin’s while some of the kids like them simple, and a few others are in between. By the time I chop everything up – lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, etc. – well it takes a long time. And the individual serving dishes for each topping creates a ton of work when it comes to clearing the table and washing. Certainly not as simple as I would like.
So, yesterday – I knew that we would have to run out the door right after dinner. No time for clean up. Now I know that you maybe thinking – “duh!” but this was a new revelation for me. Instead of putting the taco stuff in serving bowls – I used plastic storage containers with lids for each item. When dinner was over, I snapped the lids on the leftovers and stuck them in the fridge. Obviously, there was very little clean up required.
So I guess the bottom line is that one of my new favorite parenting tips for easy mealtimes is to serve dinner in same containers that you plan to use for storing leftovers.
I have also had dinnertime success by using my trusty crock pot for making vegetarian slow cooker recipes.
What works for your busy family when dinner time rolls around?
