A Little Cuisine... What's for Dinner?

by guest blogger Kelly (of JustSimplyCook)

What’s for Dinner?!

We all know that life can be crazy.  Full of work, school, kids, projects, sports, family night, etc, etc, etc. At our house, it seems to get just a little bit crazier when dinner time rolls around. And, the last thing I want to think about is dinner.  If you are like me, there are nights more often than not where you feel like a short order cook, or it is so much easier to order out.  And the chances are good that you have at least one child who won’t eat.  As a mother of 3 small kids, I have two really picky eaters and one that swears he can live off of Doritos and Honey Nut Cheerios.  I would cook dinner, which no one would eat except for my adoring husband, who LOVED it when I would cook.  But other than that, I ended cooking 3 or 4 different dinners, every night!  It was exhausting.

So, to make a very long, complicated and very expensive story short, I decided to make a change.  I wanted to start planning ahead and I got to the point of telling my kids that if they didn’t like dinner, then they were out of luck. Then one day, I was at my daughter’s school and saw a calendar of school lunch.  It was all mapped out each day.  We’ve all seen them.  So simple.   I started thinking and my wheels started turning.  What if I did that for our family dinners?   I went home and looked through my recipe books, searching for recipes that were easy to plan and easy to cook.  Nothing complicated, just a daily sheet of what was going to be for dinner.  I also got my kids involved.  Since dinner seems to revolve around their needs and appetites, I decided to make it fun for them too.  So, we sat down and went over some of our favorite foods, planned it out, and then went shopping.  I noticed the kids were very well behaved at the store and they are started to EAT!  YES, EAT!  And to make things even better, I was saving money!  A lot of money!  This was becoming so fun and easy that I started to collect recipes of all the things that they loved.  My daughter and I would search for recipes on the internet and in recipe books that we could make with everyday ingredients.  Something that you could throw together at the last minute if necessary and the ingredients would be in your cupboard.  This plan became so successful for our family in ways I never dreamed.  We eat together, talk and have fun cooking.  I love that my kids are learning the importance of healthy food and preparation at such a young age. So I am sharing our success with families everywhere with a recipe blog that is updated daily, YES, daily with just a little bit of everything!  www.justsimplycook.blogspot.com. I hope your family can enjoy these recipes as much as ours have.  Happy Cooking!