I've hit a new low this week in family dinners. Pretty much everything I served was prepared and packaged food from the freezer. Let's see:
Monday: spaghetti. Sauce from a jar, enhanced with sautéed onions and basil from our front door pot. Fresh ground beef from Whole Foods. This is the highlight of the week.
Tuesday: pizza delivered
Wednesday: Tempura chicken from Trader Joes- basically chicken nuggets.
Thursday: Aidell's chicken apple sausages with pan fried frozen French fries.
Tonight-- nothing planned, company coming in from Africa and I don't need to handle it.
These menus would not be such a problem if I was able to add a credible veggie side dish or was sure everyone was eating fruit. But I'm not. The occasional meat and carb only meal is ok, but not a whole week's worth. Especially when my girl is flirting with being a vegetarian.
I'm getting my vegetables at lunch, but there is a real lack of fruit and veggies at home. I never went to the supermarket all week, and I haven't been to a farmers market in a couple of weeks. Many of the fruits and veggies from the week before have rotted unused. I'm trying to promote more healthy eating by my kids but I'm not giving them much to work with.
So what's the solution? There is no magic bullet on this stuff. Sadly, we all need to eat many times a day and dinner comes at least once a day. I've got to continue thinking about this every day, and planning out the week.
One of the things I've learned is, it is easier to plan one day at a time. My schedule doesn't permit stopping at the grocery every evening on my way home. I'm starting to cook at 7 pm as it is; I wouldn't want to push that later. One thing I've done sometimes is go to the grocery after dinner for the following day. That works sometimes. But buying a bunch of veggies on the weekend intending to cook them later that week leads to compost. I need specific plans for the veggies, and I have to actively market the fruits.
So today I walked down the block at lunch to where the US Dept of Agriculture sponsors a little farmers market next to their headquarters building. I got zucchini and grape tomatoes, for a sauté. I got cucumbers, for finger food dip. I got blueberries, and will get whipped cream for a treat.
It's a start. This has to be constant. I am so much better at the big grand gesture, the big push. Every day maintenance is so much harder. I would wish to just coast for a while, but that is what leads to menus like last week's.
Sherbert update
2 comments:
boy, you are singing my song with this post
last summer I went around different restaurants looking for great veggie dishes I could bring home and had no success
I eat salads most days for lunch, and don't want it again at dinner
our routine of broccoli, green beans, carrots, peas is EXTREMELY boring, and I have never successfuly grilled vegetables
I really, really want to just buy prepared vegetables and avoid the spoiling/looking up recipes/preparing treadmill
sigh - you are not alone
Liz
It was hard for me to admit to being such a bad family nutritionist - I'm so glad I'm not alone. But I often don't even have those frozen choices.
Buying prepared vegies - now THERE's a thought! I actually flirted with the idea of buying prepared meals from a personal chef (I gave Mary a week of that for her 40th birthday), but of course it cost too much to actually do for the family - which is the point.
But sometimes getting fabulous fancy vegetables from the prepared food counter at Whole Foods - that might work. Trader Joe's has some prepared frozen vegetable sides, and some are ok, but I'm trying to get less processed and I don't think those qualify.
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