Mission possible: Family meals

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August 25, 2010

By Jill Keppeler CNHI The Tonawanda News Wed Aug 25, 2010, 06:00 AM EDT

NORTH TONAWANDA — My family has turned into a pack of hyenas. Well, that’s what it feels like, sometimes.

We’ve become scavengers, eating as we go, rummaging through the cupboard in search of weekday meals without a lot of forethought or trouble (although sometimes we get the maniacal laughter, too, mostly when Jimmy’s making up his own jokes).

As a family with an insane and fractured schedule, it was almost inevitable, really.

I usually arrive home from work to find the boys have already eaten their evening meal. My husband and I grab what we can and eat on the go, rarely sitting down together, reliant on the wonders of Lean Cuisine and other microwave magic for our nightly sustenance.

Then, due to a few family events and visitors, the four of us actually found ourselves sitting at a table together, with real food in front of us and nothing to distract us from the meal and each other.

And it was good.

Our 5-year-old beamed at all and sundry ... and gobbled his meal with alacrity, asking for seconds and thirds (this, the child we once had to struggle with every meal). Our 2-year-old ate even his vegetables with great concentration and a marked lack of attempts at escape.

My husband and I were actually able to taste our food, not setting it aside every two seconds to attend to a child nor eating on our feet to keep from getting climbed on.

It was nice. Impractical for our lives, I thought, but nice.

Then, about a week later, I paused in the headlong flight that is our family life and realized the toddler had subsided on a cheese sandwich and goldfish crackers that evening. And had the 5-year-old eaten at all? I had to call my husband at work to find out (the answer was yes, fortunately).

This, I decided, had to stop. No matter how difficult it was, we were going to find our way back to actual sit-down family meals.

And it is difficult.

On weekdays, the window we have available for actual sit-down family time is extremely slim ... and it has to factor in both cooking time and meal time.

I’m doing a lot of prep work at night after the boys go to sleep. Last night, I cooked chicken and chopped vegetables for today’s chicken chili. My husband will preheat the oven for cornbread before I get home from work. It’s not the scratch bread I used to make back in the days when I actually had free time, but it will do.

Later in the week, the remainder of the chicken (trimmed and bagged up in the fridge, ready to go) will take a turn in the slow cooker with barbecue sauce. Microwave-steamed vegetables (those things are a godsend) and rice will round it out.

I tend to be the cook in our family, but my husband has been enlisted, too. Once a week, spaghetti will take its place on our table. It’s one of the boys’ favorite meals, so it’s hardly a hardship.

It’s more expensive to eat this way, too, I’ve found. Regular coupon-clipping and store-flier perusal will become even greater parts of our weekly routine. In the long run, I hope, it will all pay off.

In family sanity, if nothing else.

Do you have any advice — or menus — for quick weekday family meals? Favorite fast — and cheap — recipes? Let me know at the e-mail below for possible inclusion in an upcoming story.

The hyenas will thank you.

Jill Keppeler is a columnist and page designer for the Tonawanda News. She can be reached at jill.keppeler@tonawanda-news.com.

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