This post could also be called, "How I make a home cooked dinner every night when the little ones need my attention".
We are recently back form our amazing trip to London and Israel (pics soon, I promise). When we were gone a combination f people stayed with our three kids, one of them being our totally amazing, rockstar nanny. She has 3 kids of her own so I often think that she is secretly judging me for hiring her, when she manages 3 kids and a fulltime job. Turns out, she totally wasn't judging me and taking care of all three kids without any help was pretty tiring for her too! I can tell she has a ton more empathy for me, but also thinks that some of the things I place a priority on are crazy. Like making a home cooked diner each night. Um, that's part of the reason I have a nanny, so someone else can watch the kids while I'm cooking.
Short of that system, here are the meals I left for her to make while I was away, and the ones I go to when I need to jut get a healthy dinner in the oven and off of my to-do list.
I put everythign on one baking sheet, casserole dish, dutch oven, etc and pop it in the oven.
With three small ones under 6 I don't have time to be standing at the stove every night for an hour, or even for more than 5 minutes, if my baby (the attention hog) has anythign to do with it.
This was one of my easier and more impressive dishes considering it took me about 90 seconds to pull things from the fridge and into the oven. Salmon, with mango salsa over the adult portions, shitake mushrooms on the side, and a dairy noodle kugel from the freezer. Everything cooked/reheated in a 350 oven for 20 minutes.
This was salmon, carrots and asparagus, same deal. 350 for 10 minutes and we were done.
What's your secret to making dinner when you are surrounded by kids and things demanding your attention?
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteWhen my kids were small, I would get together with a friend and do Once a month cooking.
We would shop one day, then cook the next for a month full of meals.
It was a life saver to have healthy meals in the freezer.
Vicki
I have a plan. Google the food nanny. She gives you ideas for theme nights and then you plan your menu off of that. So I always have a plan and dinner is done in the mornings. Sometimes it's in the crockpot or ready to go on the grill/ in the oven but it's always prepped and ready. I'm too tired to work in the afternoons!!
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