Help! What Do You Make for Family Dinner?

FHB!! I have never seen another use of “Family Hold Back” in the wild!! :) Love it.

I like to pick 3 core ingredients and riff on their flavors throughout the week — I also love the simplicity of this new 5 Ingredient Dinners series: https://www.kitchenstories.com/en/categories/5-ingredient-dinners

Proves that easy doesn’t mean boring!

We do family dinners but overall half the nights I make 2 meals. The kids and then our meals. There is over lap, like when I make curry and rice for us then I make plain chicken and a veg with rice for the kids. But sometime it is pb&j for them and steaks for us… We do make them tast our food – one bite. It has slowly helped woden their pallet from eating nothing to eating a few things. Here’s hoping for continuing improvement!

We did family dinner almost every night of the week growing up…even if it was sitting in the car eating McDonald’s between band and baseball practices. Tuesday was typically wing night and Friday was pizza.we also always had people (friends and relatives) over so we lived by the rule of FHB (Family hold back). These are my favorite memories of growing up. Food was never fancy and my dad wasn’t a great cook, but we were together.

Just chiming in to say: OMG! This post is SO helpful!! We’re still in the phase of our boys separately eating (which is ok), but I’m regularly wondering how we can “do” dinner together – this post is so perfectly detailed and achievable, it’s perfect! Thanks you – as always, knowing exactly what we all want to talk about.

We are pretty fortunate that our son (7 1/2 years old) will eat almost anything. With rare exceptions, we serve him what we’re eating and he will try it… and 90% of the time he’ll eat it. This weekend he ate cassoulet one day, and another day he ate a frittata with kale, potatoes, and tomatoes. He even said, “This is delicious.” I’ve told him in the past, “I wouldn’t give you bad food!” so if I cook a new dish and he’s skeptical, I say to him, “Would I ever give you bad food? Because then I would be eating bad food. I don’t want to eat bad food!” and then he tries it. I don’t force him. I just remind him that I try to make good food for us. :)

We just made a cross country move and I’m between jobs at the moment. For the first time in more than six years of marriage, I am cooking dinner from scratch every night! I’m rotating through enchiladas, protein bowls, soft tacos, fresh spring rolls, and pizza night every Friday. Sometimes we go simple and I just make omelets over rice, or boxed pasta, and there’s the week of meals! Nobody has complained yet. True, my husband is just happy that I’ve taken over the cooking and am making relatively healthy dinners, the toddler isn’t picky, and the baby is still nursing exclusively. But I’m calling this a win.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom, so we had family dinner every single night when I was growing up. In fact, I didn’t even realize there was any other type of dinner. I don’t have kids yet, but with my husband and I both working full – time, I often wonder how we’ll handle dinners in our household when we start a family. I don’t get home until 6 and he doesn’t get home until 7 or after, and even now I’m usually too tired to cook a full meal. Plus, coming up with dinner ideas is just hard! I think all dinners should be family dinners, but having more women in the workforce (which I’m all for) has definitely changed family dynamics. Just makes ya think.

I remember hearing once that kids whose families eat together are 70% more likely to…I can’t remember what, but as my children are growing up, I can fill in the blank: Tell me about the girl who called her weird today (“it made me feel like, ‘why would you say that?!’”); entertain me with his robot voice; remember this later. The table is such a good place for so many things to happen. We really try to make it a priority, and it’s a lot easier since my kids are pretty little (6 and 2). I can imagine it will be harder when they’re older.

To make it easier and more mindless, I meal plan (how do you people who don’t know what to buy???), but I have a “meal matrix”: Taco Tuesday, Pizza Friday, Pasta Monday. It’s not exciting, but then I only have plan two nights’ worth of dinners and that makes it more manageable (I got this idea from The Lazy Genius podcast.) On the other nights, we’ll have chicken, gnocchi, and roasted broccoli or peanut butter noodles or sweet potato hash.

We also do something wonderful called “high/low/high.” We’ve been doing it since my oldest was 3, which means I’ve heard hundreds of the high points of her little life (and half as many lows.) I love these peeks into their lives—even our 2-year-old participates, although his “highs” are almost always eating his goldfish snack. The kids always make any guests we have over for dinner participate as well :)

I am Greek and I just love everything with oregano, thyme, and lemon, so I often make this Greek chicken with halloumi and tomatoes (https://www.thehungrybites.com/baked-greek-chicken-with-halloumi-and-heirloom-tomatoes/). Everyone in the family likes it, and you can also add some potatoes in the same pan for a complete dinner!

I’m a big fan of one pot meals like chilli, curry and spaghetti bolognaise. I always make more than we need so one night becomes leftovers.
Fajitas are fun, and it’s nice for everyone to assemble their own.
Gussy up mac and cheese with grated courgette, and sautéed pepper and onions. Make it healthier with cottage cheese and stock instead of bechamel.
Do you have a slow cooker? There are lots of options for stews etc if so.

I’m a single, senior empty-nester, so much of this doesn’t apply to me. I try to do my main meal at midday and have something simple, like soup, for dinner.

In the introduction to the first edition of How to Cook Without a Book Pam Anderson wrote that her mother and grandmother had access to a limited number of ingredients and had a few tried and true ways to cook them. Thirty years later she had access to a much wider variety of ingredients and many more ways to prepare those ingredients.

I don’t think the increased variety has made getting a meal on the table easier. In fact, I think it’s made it more difficult. As much as I appreciate food and cooking blogs and websites,I think they’ve raised the bar and made weeknight meals more aspirational than achievable.

My daughter gave me this recipe for baked salmon and said it came from Pioneer Woman. When I finally found the recipe on her website, I found it actually came from Pam Anderson. Place a thawed salmon filet, any size, on a foil lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper then place in a COLD oven. Turn on the heat to 400˚F and bake for 25 minutes. The salmon will be perfectly done. https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/pams-day-of-deliciousness/

I am admittedly a huge fan of How to Cook Without a Book — now both editions. I highly recommend both of them if you’re trying to get meals on the table in a timely manner. While the recipes are designed to serve 4, they can easily be scaled up or down. I have some of the master formulas memorized, others I refer to as needed.

I am also a huge fan of DALS breaded chicken cutlets. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/breaded-chicken-cutlets-aka-grandma-jodys-chicken-51114400 They can be served so many ways: with just about any starch, including as a sandwich, with or without a sauce, as Chicken Milanese or Chicken Parmesan. For even more ideas: https://food52.com/blog/18117-pssst-8-very-adult-ways-to-eat-chicken-fingers-for-dinner

https://www.davidlebovitz.com/roast-chicken-recipe-caramelized-s/

https://food52.com/blog/20144-jamie-oliver-s-genius-one-pot-roast-chicken-legs

seriously good one pot chicken dinners

love reading about these traditions and memory-making. le sigh.

i have one of those uber-picky eaters and when my daughter turned one, she turned her nose up at all of the homemade meals i’d spent hours making. she doesn’t even eat pasta or pizza!

now some nights we eat what she eats, and i’m thinking of opening a restaurant for uber-sensitive tasters. the menu would look like this:

appetizers:
*peanut butter (licked, off a spoon)
*yogurt raisins
*strawberry yogurt sipped from a bowl with a straw, to reveal a spiderman drawing at the bottom

entrees:
*pancakes (with hidden seasonal fruit or vegetable), on a fork that says “my pancake hair looks very tasty, noooo, don’t eat it!”

dessert:
*the colored sprinkles on top of a donut (please don’t eat the donut)

beverage pairing:
*milk, milk and more milk!

I grew up in a family of six with a mother who cooked homemade family meals each night for dinner. I am now a stay at home mother to three kids ages 20 months-7 years. I assumed I would also cook homemade dinners each night for my family, but with a husband whose work schedule is full and brings him home at varying times each night, kids with a 7:00 bedtime, a very busy toddler, and being constantly asked for snacks after 3:00 each afternoon, I have accepted the fact that family dinners are not going to be a regular thing in this season of life. So I typically feed my kids around 5:00, then my husband and I eat later. Sometimes our meals are homemade (a favorite is Julia Turshen’s Turkey & Ricotta Meatballs which you featured here), and other times it’s take out or something easy like quesadillas. When you have kids each day is unique and I love staying home with them and all the fun things we do together. But I try to give myself grace and remind myself that sometimes I don’t have time to make that homemade meal I had planned because I took my kids to the park or explored the zoo with them a little too long, and that’s okay.

we (2 working parents, 8 yo and 2 yo girls) eat dinner together most nights! My tips:
1. I sit down every weekend with a calendar and make a meal plan and a grocery list.
2. Make planned leftovers – if we can’t incorporate it into another meal, my kids will often eat leftovers for snacks or sometimes even breakfast!
3. Plan to serve an old favorite when introducing new foods – I started serving a different fish every Thursday night thx to an awesome fish subscription service I found – to take the edge of the unknown, i always serve sweet potatoes or sweet potato fries which i know my kids love and can fill up on if they don’t like the fish. But – they have been really enjoying the fish too!
4. My older daughter was never very good at the table until around age 4. My 2yo is a big after nap snacker and isn’t too hungry when we’re eating, so we usually let her sit down for a few bites and then get down. Have age appropriate expectations and let them grow into their manners!
5. My best nights are when i have done any little step beforehand. Even if it’s just putting canned beans and a can opener out in the morning, it feels like such a gift to my evening self!
6. Keep a list somewhere of family favorites, dishes for a crowd, super fast dinners…some weeks when i sit down to do meal planning I’m running on empty and those lists always jog my memory.

this is so long…i have so many more tips but most of all remember cooking dinner and sitting down together are HABITS – keep at it, even when it’s hard, and it becomes automatic!

One of our new favorite is poutine with sweet potato fries, mushroom (brown) gravy, cheese curds and peas. Bake the fries, make the gravy, add the curds to the gravy to melt a bit, microwave peas. And drink a gallon of water because it’s all so salty!
We always do family dinners.

Wow, reading the comments I see that family dinner is a thing. I grew up assuming that’s how everyone ate every night! I guess I was fortunate to have a mostly stay-at-home mother (my father prepared grilled dinners a couple times a week throughout summer). That’s just how we ate – everyone sat down at the same time, for any meal that was happening. Thinking back though, snacks or weekday lunches were usually free-form, but breakfast and dinner were sit down’s.

I love looking for new recipes but some go to weekly recipes that are EASY quick and delicious are…

*Roasted lemon garlic bone in-chicken thighs (slice off top of garlic bulb and roast in oven alongside chicken thighs with salt/pepper/lemon juice and some olive oil). It makes the most delicious sauce ever without doing a thing!!

*Pan fried simple salmon with lemon juice/salt/pepper (or soy sauce/sesame oil) with a variety of side dishes: mini potatoes, sweet potato fries, quick spinach salad with homemade dressing: olive oil, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper or sauteed spinach.

The only lettuce I buy each week is spinach, because you can use it in a salad, sautee it, throw it in a smoothie or if it’s not going to be used, throw it in the freezer!

My family dinner, there is always a chicken menu on the table.

I just wrote the first of a 2 part blog post about this very topic today as I’ve really struggled to get dinner on the table since having a baby 7 months ago. I’ve tried a couple of different solutions like boxes from Plated and PrepDish but neither really worked for us. Our nights are so compressed as I want to enjoy that one hour we get with our son between when we get home and when he goes to bed and then I pump after dinner and go to bed early so I have a shot at 7 hours of sleep (he’s still up multiple times a night). I’m still working out a system but what’s worked for us is having “themes” to the 3 meals I make each week, like tacos, a curry dish and a wok-based dish.