Could we just call it PB&J for dinner tonight and drop all pretense?

[Ginevra]

Why does dinner have to be figured out interminably?! 

Sorry, I’m being a baby today. I don’t want to figure out food again. Wah.

[almondbutterandjelly]

We call it "catch as catch can."  It means everybody get yourself whatever you want.  No one's cooking for you.  We catch as catch can a couple times a week for supper. 

[klmama]

2 minutes ago, Quill said:

Why does dinner have to be figured out interminably?! 

It doesn't.  Everyone in your family is old enough make something to eat for themselves.  PB&J is great.  

[Jaybee]

Yeah, we're having scrambled eggs and biscuits (that I had made up and in the freezer). I think I'll add some spinach for something green. Maybe.

[Ottakee]

Ours was going to be sliders on Hawaiian rolls............until i got the rolls out and they were moldy.  Not out of date but it has been very hot and humid here.

SO........supper is leftovers or what ever we can find.

[prairiewindmomma]

Amen.

Also, the corollary: why is it my responsibility nightly to figure out what we are going to make, and make it?

[Guest]

Just now, prairiewindmomma said:

Amen.

Also, the corollary: why is it my responsibility nightly to figure out what we are going to make, and make it?

Right? Not sure why I picked up that mantle all those years ago but I’m kinda sorry now. 

[Kassia]

PB&J is perfect.  I always liked cereal for dinner when I didn't feel like dealing with it.  

 

 

[medawyn]

The kids had pancakes.  From a mix.  I didn’t even make bacon or eggs for some protein.  And now they are taking an hour long bath because syrup.

[Garga]

Wednesday night in my house is totally pathetic, and I love it.  Wednesday night is fish night and we’re eating fish filets from a box.  Pop them in the oven, bake, flip, bake some more. Done. 

If you want a side dish, make it yourself.  

I’m thinking my side dish will be pancakes.  🙂

[MercyA]

Preach it!

[prairiewindmomma]

I'm bringing dinner to a friend who has a baby in NICU tonight....in part so I have to cook for my own family.

I seem to do well cooking Sunday-Tuesday, but by Wednesday I am ready to take a break for a day or so.  I'm working on getting my middles trained up in the kitchen this summer to take over some of the cooking.  

[Spryte]

Team PB&J here.  Well, Sunbutter, close enough.

We have strawberry smoothies to go with sandwiches, and everyone else can find more sides as they want them.  

[Kassia]

14 minutes ago, Medicmom2.0 said:

I let my kids eat ice cream for dinner, so I’m probably a worse mom than you. 

 

We did that, too!  Everyone's favorite!  For my birthday and Mother's Day, we have ice cream cake for dinner.  🙂

[marbel]

We have leftover extravaganza or fend for yourself night every few days.  When we are all home and I am not working, we try to eat something nice together.  "Nice" being a relative term; tonight it was tofu fried rice with frozen Costco spring rolls.   Having 4 adults of varying schedules, temperaments, and diets in the houses makes it hard. There is always food though.

The default here is quesadilla rather than PB&J, but the principle is the same.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, Medicmom2.0 said:

I let my kids eat ice cream for dinner, so I’m probably a worse mom than you. 

I think my son had that for lunch, lol! 

[hs03842]

-

Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[Pen]

Good idea!!!

[lispy]

1 hour ago, perkybunch said:

We call it "catch as catch can."  It means everybody get yourself whatever you want.  No one's cooking for you.  We catch as catch can a couple times a week for supper. 

We do this too but ours is called "Eat what you can find" night. Your term is more creative 

Edited June 3, 2020 by lispy
Spelling

[JustEm]

I'm going to declare your children old enough to be able to fend for themselves multiple nights a week.  

[KungFuPanda]

I’m sitting outside, reading a romance, and just pretending dinner is a thing nobody will ask me about tonight.  It’s 7:30. I’m in deep denial. If I MUST I can pull off tuna salad, but cereal would be better. I’m getting tired of pandemic cooking.
 

We’re currently playing a big game of chicken to see who breaks first and turns on the AC. We haven’t used it yet this year. I’m fine being hot; I just don’t want to cook or eat. 

ETA: I just remembered we have hot dogs in the freezer. That’s even easier than tuna salad! Booyah!

2nd edit: Eat the leftovers was my lunch plan. 😕
 

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by KungFuPanda

[ScoutTN]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Amen.

Also, the corollary: why is it my responsibility nightly to figure out what we are going to make, and make it?

Preach!

I have delegated dinner one night a week to my kids and at least two nights are leftovers/whatever is easy.

[barnwife]

Ditto everyone else. We call it a YOYO dinner (you're on your own). My kids aren't quite to the completely independent stage (I mean, they are all under 10) depending on what we have/what they want to attempt. But salads? PB&J? cereal? Yogurt with granola? Those are all possibilities around here for YOYO dinners. Leftovers are too; they just need help determining how long to microwave things. 

YOYO dinner is on the menu...a lot around here, if I must be honest. In fact, the further in this pregnancy I get, along with the hotter it gets this summer, the more YOYO dinners there will be (I predict). 

If this is why my kids end up in therapy as adults, I will do what I can to help pay for it.

[Guest]

I broke out some grilled cheese and potato soup. Voila! 

[Terabith]

I....don't cook.  Like, my kids are teenagers, and a few years ago, I made spaghetti, and my kids were amazed I could do that.  Utterly dumbfounded.  My husband cooks.  We eat at my mother in law's once or twice a week.  We get take out.  And I often and regularly serve things like pb&j, grilled cheese, ice cream, steamed veggies, fruit, popcorn for meals.  My youngest kid started cooking around age 8 or so.  (Growing up, my mother inculcated a MAJOR fear of food preparation causing food poisoning.  She bathed all meat in chlorox before cooking it to rubber.  I developed a major phobia of cooking.  So.....I don't.  I bake.  I wash dishes.  I clean the kitchen, both when my husband cooks or when my mother in law cooks.  I'm happy to do prep like chopping veggies or such or any clean up, but I have a major terror of cooking food, especially meat.  I've gotten to where I will on occasion cook vegetarian meals, but I don't cook meat.)

[Lady Marmalade]

Team Waffle here.

I feel like we've been having them once a week, but they're so easy to make and seem like a notch above PB&J to me.  

Edited June 4, 2020 by Lady Marmalade

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I....don't cook.  Like, my kids are teenagers, and a few years ago, I made spaghetti, and my kids were amazed I could do that.  Utterly dumbfounded.  My husband cooks.  We eat at my mother in law's once or twice a week.  We get take out.  And I often and regularly serve things like pb&j, grilled cheese, ice cream, steamed veggies, fruit, popcorn for meals.  My youngest kid started cooking around age 8 or so.  (Growing up, my mother inculcated a MAJOR fear of food preparation causing food poisoning.  She bathed all meat in chlorox before cooking it to rubber.  I developed a major phobia of cooking.  So.....I don't.  I bake.  I wash dishes.  I clean the kitchen, both when my husband cooks or when my mother in law cooks.  I'm happy to do prep like chopping veggies or such or any clean up, but I have a major terror of cooking food, especially meat.  I've gotten to where I will on occasion cook vegetarian meals, but I don't cook meat.)

Interesting! 

I learned to cook and bake early on and, generally I rather like cooking and I definitely love baking. But the daily-ness of it definitely gets to me from time to time.  And it is also true that I like cooking more when it’s an expression of creativity and much less so when it is just a chore everyone looks to me to do. I think, after three months of pandemic, it is often feeling like the latter. 

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Quill said:

Interesting! 

I learned to cook and bake early on and, generally I rather like cooking and I definitely love baking. But the daily-ness of it definitely gets to me from time to time.  And it is also true that I like cooking more when it’s an expression of creativity and much less so when it is just a chore everyone looks to me to do. I think, after three months of pandemic, it is often feeling like the latter. 

Yeah, often we wind up doing a team thing, where I meal plan and prep and my husband does the cooking.  He rather likes cooking but hates planning.  

[KungFuPanda]

I’m still holding out. Nobody has said a word. It’s 9:03.  I finally cleaned up from lunch, so that’s something. I picked some salad greens from the garden so IF hot dogs happen there can be a salad. I’m thinking it’s too late for take-out so that door has closed. 
 

::continues to hide::

[mmasc]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

I think my son had that for lunch, lol! 

I’m pretty sure one of my kids had SunChips for lunch. 

[Momto6inIN]

I don't mind the cooking so much, it's the deciding I hate. So much pressure to think of something every.single.day. If someone just would tell me what to make everyday I would happily cook it.

[Terabith]

17 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

I'm kind of the same way.  My kids seem to think that deciding what they should eat is my job.  I am 45 minutes from home, and my 12 year old called me to complain that he and his brother were hungry.  There was a full fridge, and three adults with a cumulative 200 years of experience eating.  But somehow the 5 of them could not look in the fridge, see that we had bread, turkey, cheese, and come up with "sandwich" as an option.  

Assign the kids to take turns meal planning?  

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

I'm kind of the same way.  My kids seem to think that deciding what they should eat is my job.  I am 45 minutes from home, and my 12 year old called me to complain that he and his brother were hungry.  There was a full fridge, and three adults with a cumulative 200 years of experience eating.  But somehow the 5 of them could not look in the fridge, see that we had bread, turkey, cheese, and come up with "sandwich" as an option.  

Relate. 

On Sunday, dh was packing a lunch to take somewhere and he asked if I was going to the grocery store. I said No. (Not doing any weekend grocery shopping under the current circumstances!) He made that statement I truly hate to hear: “There’s nothing to eat!” We all know what this phrase actually means, right? It means that the couple things he particularly wanted, we didn’t have. No chips, no apples, no turkey. Well cry me a river, buddy, but there IS stuff to eat. 

[Annie G]

When I don’t feel like cooking we call the night ‘fix your own’.  Depending on my mood, it’s  a nice ‘hey, guys, I’m taking a night off- you can fix whatever you’d like’. When I’m in a mood, it’s  “Fix your own’ but they all understand that there’s an understood damnit in that sentence.   
Now that all the kids are grown, we often eat popcorn, Chips and salsa, or cheese and crackers for dinner.  Our oldest is 37 and I am over fixing dinner every night...I’ve been doing this for four decades. Done. 

[Terabith]

Just now, CuriousMomof3 said:

Clearly, I need to do something.  The funny thing is that my two kids at home can cook really well for their age, especially the younger one.  I guess, I thought that if I taught them to cook meal planning would just come?  Apparently not.  Their great-grandfather, who is home helping care for them, is a fantastic cook, but apparently he told them he was taking the day "off".  Can't blame him for that!

No, in my experience, they are completely separate skills.  My 15 year old with ASD can cook pretty much anything, but she does not excel at meal preparation.  Whereas I have no problems with meal prep but suck at cooking.  

[prairiewindmomma]

1 minute ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

Apparently you are correct.  I need to start planning.  How do you teach meal planning?

 

We teach the visual of half a plate of veggies, 1/4 plate protein, 1/4 plate starch. Obviously flexibility has to be a part of that, but framing meal planning around that basic nutritional guide has been helpful. 

[KungFuPanda]

10:15. Still no requests. 🤣

[rebcoola]

Ugh you reminded me its my turn to cook.  I cook when DH works days. The kids cook or everyone fends for themselves when he works nights.  Popcorn, ice cream and cereal can totally be dinner. 

3 hours ago, Medicmom2.0 said:

I let my kids eat ice cream for dinner, so I’m probably a worse mom than you. 

It’s dairy 😉

[Terabith]

4 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

Apparently you are correct.  I need to start planning.  How do you teach meal planning?

 

I mean, I am no example of pedagogy here, but my approach to my children who could read and write and knew their way around the kitchen was to just say, "Oldest child, plan out a week's worth of lunches for the family.  Youngest child, plan out a week's worth of dinners.  We eat at Grandma's on Wednesday and get take out on Saturday."  I pointed out what was in the refrigerator, the freezer, and the pantry and showed them how to add ingredients they wanted to the grocery list.  I think it's a Nike sort of thing.  You just have to do it.  

[KungFuPanda]

Dammit. They tracked me down. 11pm hot dogs. I did NOT win. 

[KungFuPanda]

2 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

My condolences.

By the way, DS9 and I made your samosa baked potatoes the other day, they were delicious.

Thanks for the pity. It’s all I really want. I’m glad you enjoyed the potatoes. I put a little yogurt on mine, but everyone else here thinks that’s nuts. 

[LucyStoner]

I made red curry noodles with chicken and veggies for everyone and also fried tofu.  Overcooked the noodles and my husband bought the wrong kind of tofu so it didn't fry well.  Moral of the story:  PBJ would have been far less work and come out perfectly.  

[LMD]

4 hours ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

Clearly, I need to do something.  The funny thing is that my two kids at home can cook really well for their age, especially the younger one.  I guess, I thought that if I taught them to cook meal planning would just come?  Apparently not.  Their great-grandfather, who is home helping care for them, is a fantastic cook, but apparently he told them he was taking the day "off".  Can't blame him for that!

Yep. I taught my kids to cook. They love cooking, it's great fun! That just means they bake an abundance of sweets. My 9 year old baked and decorated a cake this morning. Dinner is still, apparently, all on me...

[Ausmumof3]

We’ve been eating way to much mince and pasta.

 

[Xahm]

My kids are 1,3,6, and 7. The older two can scrounge, but not terribly well. I mean, they got themselves breakfast this morning very well, but there was one day a couple of weeks ago when the oldest ate nothing but chocolate and chocolate flavored dairy all day long (I made her lunch and she traded it with the neighbor for chocolate milk!). Unfortunately, that was the day she tried to walk the neighbor's dog and got dragged, bumping her head and shoulder. Then, when she became remarkably nauseated, I had to guess whether it was caused by concussion or terrible diet. Thankfully it turned out to be the diet. 

My husband works from 2 till midnight, and the kids don't eat enough yet to justify cooking a full meal just for us. The five of us eat about 2.5 servings all together, if they love it, which they rarely do. So, 4 nights a week tend to be sandwiches, breakfast for dinner, takeout, or something frozen. Breakfast for dinner is one of dh's favorites, so we tend to have that again on the weekend. 

Someday, in a few years, maybe I'll get to cook and try out new recipes. I like cooking, when I know other people will eat the food rather than stare at it, waiting for attack, and when no one is trying to climb me like a tree while I'm using a knife or attending to a boiling pot of something.

[Tanaqui]

9 hours ago, LMD said:

Yep. I taught my kids to cook. They love cooking, it's great fun! That just means they bake an abundance of sweets. My 9 year old baked and decorated a cake this morning. Dinner is still, apparently, all on me...

 

Eat the cake for dinner.

I actually made a real dinner yesterday - chicken, millet, cauliflower. I got so much talk about the cauliflower, so many raves, I had to ban discussion. ALL I DID WAS STEAM IT AND THROW SOME SALT ON TOP! But, y'know, when I put forth some effort, it's crickets all the way down.

(Speaking of which, we appear to have acquired cricket protein powder. Now, do I tell the kids first, or do I let them guess what the secret ingredient is?)

[Emba]

Re: teaching kids to meal plan

I do a weekly meal plan/grocery list, and since quarantine started I’ve made the oldest two responsible for one dinner a week. They can make what they want as long as it isn’t total junk, and includes a protein, a carb, and two veggies. 

They also cook breakfast quite a bit but I don’t plan that out as strictly; they just do it if they want.

The youngest is 8 and can’t go quite so independently with this, so I help him plan and he helps me cook.

the thing that took me by surprise was that I forgot to teach them to plan the order of the things you cook so that they all finish at the same time, not start cooking raw potatoes when your meat is 3/4 done. Also one child has a problem with reading labels and recipes thoroughly and tends to either do things halfway, or skip important info , like that 165 F is the internal temperature a thing needs to reach, not the temperature to set the oven at.

he’s the best reader of the bunch, he just doesn’t like to slow down and take the time reading things that are not exciting works of fiction.

[LMD]

11 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

 

Eat the cake for dinner.

I wish. My thighs scream nooooooooooooooo

I'm not ruining my diet for 9-year-old-baked butter cake with video-game-decoration-themed butter cream icing. Now, if he'd made cookies or a tiramisu...