Does anyone serve a bigger mid-day meal and a light dinner?

[Quiver0f10]

This is an idea Dh and I are considering. Anyone else do this? I'm trying to wrap my brain around the logistics of preparing the main meal midday with school etc.

 

Editing to add: My DH works during the day so he would not be eating with us. I would put some aside each day for his lunch the following day. We would all eat the lighter meal together in the evenings.

Edited October 9, 2010 by Quiver0f10

[Jen in PA]

:lurk5: I have wanted to try this, but DH isn't so sure.

[specialmama]

We do, usually. We just eat our dinner for lunch and a large salad for dinner. Doesn't happen all the time, but about 80% of the time. The logistics: start the meal in the morning, or casserole the day before. Eat lunch. Save leftovers for dad's lunch next day. Repeat. :001_smile:

[runmiarun]

We do when the in-laws are here since that's how they primarily schedule their meals due to digestive issues. It actually works really well when we do it since everybody is usually here. During our regularly scheduled programming, it doesn't work since hubby isn't home and I refuse to cook a big meal for the kids, who don't eat much anyway. If hubby was home, I would definitely cook a bigger dinner and lighter supper. I actually sleep better at night when I have eaten less.

[HRAAB]

We try to do this since dh prefers it. It all depends on mom getting something going/prepared in the morning so we can sit down to eat around 2:00. The girls and I still have school to finish after eating. We started doing this when dh lost his job. Since then he's had a few contract jobs he does from home so it works for us. I honestly like it better; I feel better in the evening and seem to sleep better. Dh has lost weight, but that, I'm sure, is also due to the fact that he is more physically active now than when he had a regular office job.

[elinnea]

We do this most of the time. Hubby is German and it is quite common over there. I usually start cooking after breakfast while the older kids do their independent work. This works better for me because I have more energy in the early part of the day. Later in the day I am more tired and my 2 yr old is usually cranky then too.

[Wyndie]

We do. The key for me is to have as much prepped as possible the night before. That way all I have to do is toss it in a pot or throw it in the oven. We sleep better at night if we eat light.

[freetobeme]

this often happens here because it's just me and the kids. and our evenings get busy.

[AFwife Claire]

We have been doing this a lot since August because my oldest son is playing football this year. They had practices every weeknight all of August, and my husband had just retired from the Air Force, so he was home. It worked okay. It was better before we really got back into the routine of school, though. It has been harder for me to do that since starting back. I did it through August, but now he just has practice 3 nights a week, and . . . he just has to come home and eat, LOL. I did like being done with my main cooking by the afternoon, since I'm pregnant now and am really tired in the afternoon. But it also meant that it was harder to get the kitchen cleaned up because as soon as we were done eating, people started back on schoolwork, and I was needed. And I hate dealing with dishes in the evening that have been sitting from the afternoon! I also felt better in the evenings with a light meal, but at this stage in my life, still with so many littles, it just didn't work for a long-term plan. But I can definitely see us doing this again, especially when kids start leaving the nest and there are a lot less of us (and less little ones)!

[Peela]

Yes, I do it often.

Dh has such fussy food habits, and is vegetarian as well, with food allergies...that I cannot cater to everyone each meal. So, frequently I make a solid meat meal that the kids and I will eat at lunchtime, then a vegetarian light meal for dinner.

I tihn it is better to eat a larger meal in the middle of the day rather than before bed.

[Quiver0f10]

Thank you everyone.

[In The Great White North]

I've found that it totally disrupts the day and cuts our school time down to about an uninterrupted hour when we try to eat the big meal at lunch.

 

In the afternoon/evening, everyone has lost focus and no one (including me) is trying to do school anyway, so I can cook/clean then without disrupting anything.

[eternalknot]

This is an idea Dh and I are considering. Anyone else do this? I'm trying to wrap my brain around the logistics of preparing the main meal midday with school etc.

 

 

We've always done this. We're not huge breakfast eaters, so we do a super light breakfast before 9am, and then eat our main meal of the day around 1130a-1230p.

 

Our breakfasts require little time or effort, prepping OR cleaning up, which helps: oatmeal, fruit, rice, soup. The kids do independent reading during this time, and I have various books on CD playing for the pre-reader. While they eat, I do whatever lunch prep wasn't already done (we usually have a Prep Day once a week when we chop all veggies, etc. and portion into the fridge and freezer). After breakfast and lunch prep time, we do our heavier, teacher-intensive subjects: math, latin, spelling. We break for lunch and the afternoon is spent doing independent work and play.

 

Dinners are light, sometimes leftover lunch, typically around 5pm. We also have a protein&fat-heavy snack a few hours later to tide us through the night.

 

It works for us!

[katilac]

Well, not having dh there to eat it would rather defeat the point for me, as he is the main reason we do a big dinner to begin with. So I don't do that, but I do often cook dinner early, say right after lunch, while the kithen is already 'open' and so forth. That does make evenings much simpler.

[regentrude]

Yes. It is the standard way of eating I grew up with in Germany.

We have breakfast at 7am, bread and jam or cereal. We are definitely hungry at lunch time.

On the days I am home at lunch time (two days a week I have to bring the kids to work with me) , I cook a quick meal while the kids to independent work - something simple which takes 15-20 minutes tops, such as pasta. (Fancy roasts and other labor intensive dishes are saved for weekends).

Dinner usually is a sandwich and salad.

It makes much more sense to me than having a big meal at 7pm (earlier would not work because of work and afternoon activities)

[jld]

Yes, dh is French and used to a big lunch. I don't always make a "supper", though the kids and dh are certainly welcome to whatever food is available. I'll eat in the evening if I'm hungry. I don't usually eat in the morning, unless it's some fruit. I like to save my hunger for lunch.

 

I love lunch. In India I usually eat it out, as I love the thali meal (an inexpensive variety of Indian dishes), and it's usually only available at midday.

[Mom0012]

Sometimes. My husband works from home, so this could work for us, but I'm too busy in the mornings to prepare dinner most of the time. It works when I'm doing a crockpot meal and I get it set up early enough or if I'm grilling hamburgers or something for our big meal. I do like the idea, though. It's nice just to have lunch to prepare (or let the kids and dh grab something for themselves) at the end of the day when I'm tired.

 

Lisa

[snickelfritz]

and I'm thinking through the logistics.

 

He eats out for lunch, basically always. Owner of the company takes him out a couple days a week and he eats out with co-workers or clients the others. And he hates having a big clean up after dinner and lots of dishes. He suggested we start doing sandwiches, french-bread pizza, etc.... for dinners to make our nights easier. Since those simple things are our current lunch staples and I want to keep the girls fed a variety of dishes---I'm going to have to figure out the logistics.

 

The good things is that for just the girls and I, I can cook something once and have it last several more days in left-overs and new dishes. Whereas my dh doesn't care for leftovers, so I've never done much of that. hmmmmm.....

[Mom25girls]

We often eat dinner at lunch time. We have gymnasts at the gym every night and it's the only way to ensure a family dinner. Dh is with us as often as possible (he tries to schedule meetings so that he can run home to eat with us). Usually 3/5 week days we're successful. Family dinners are really important to me and this is the only way that I could ensure that we were together. We eat a light dinner (sans the gymnasts who eat a light dinner before the gym and another when they return around 9:30 pm). It does make my mornings a bit more complicated, but having the kitchen clean and dinner prepared makes the rest of the day so much easier!