adventures in meal planning

I remember when I was single...I'd have things for dinner like goat cheese, brie, crackers, and peppered salami...at 10pm at night....with a beer.  One of my greatest fears before having kids was that my kids would starve, since I am not known for following a schedule with precision.  I remember thinking, "Wow, I'll have to PLAN dinner and have it ready at a certain TIME?!  And have VEGETABLES?!"  The girls are two now, and dinner is at 5:30pm, maybe 6pm at the latest, and it actually seems easy compared to mixing formula non-stop or pureeing veggies, and the schedule itself has eased up as well from the newborn days.  We've been making an effort to eat at home more to save money and to eat more healthily, but I've discovered unless I have a meal plan in place, suddenly it's my nightmare come true--it's 4:30pm and I have no idea what's for dinner, and everything is frozen solid.  (Actually, my nightmare is that it's 10pm and I realize the kids are not only still awake, but starving and screaming.  Actually, any one of those three things at 10pm is pretty much a nightmare.)

I've been doing here and there, kind of casual meal planning for a few months now.  I dove headfirst into a ton of get-it-on-the-table-quick-and-cheap-and-organic-from-our-freezer-and-basement-stockpile-that-I-bought-solely-with-coupons-and-grew-with-my-own-hands kinds of books and was--of course--overwhelmed.  So I picked a few things out that made sense and started there.

• Plan meals for a week or more at a time
• Make a list from those recipes
• Stockpile if on sale and you have coupons
• Make certain parts of the meal ahead (if you are baking chicken tonight, cook an extra piece for tomorrow's jambalaya and you're 20 minutes ahead of the game
• Choose recipes that are easy and use ingredients you usually have on hand

monkey see, monkey do

(cross-posted to Welcome to the Twindig, our baby blog)

Last night I was sweeping up the floor food (food that is dropped, flung, or otherwise ends up on the floor during mealtimes at our house), which is always a challenge because the girls want to "help."  Usually this means they try to catch the end of the broom and try to eat food off the floor while I say no over and over.  So I was pleasantly surprised when Hadley picked up the dustpan, brought it to me, and tried to hold it where I was sweeping.  Adorable!  And like I said, while I often try to explain to them what I'm doing, the only thing I usually say when I'm sweeping near them is "No!  Put that down!  Please don't eat that!  No!" so it was kind of amazing to see how much they learn even when we aren't actively trying to teach them.

And because I'm thinking of it, I will share Nolan's List of Top Ten Sweepable (and Not-So-Sweepable) Foods:

1.  Banana.  Not sweepable.  In fact, if it is not immediately removed from the floor by hand, it will melt and then harden into a sort of goopy, permanent lacquer.

2.  Rice.  Not sweepable, although the sweepability of this particular food (unlike banana, see above) does improve with time, but the amount of time it takes to stop sticking to your floor is kind of lengthy, and in the meantime, you might be embarrassed if you have unexpected company.

3.  Broccoli.  Not terribly sweepable, unless left on your floor for an unimaginably long time (like days).  Even then, it just gets kind of rubbery.

4.  Pasta.  Some varieties of short pasta are more sweepable than others.  Long pastas, such as spaghettis, should be illegal to serve without a fork, even to young children.  It does become sweepable after a short length of time, however.

5.  Bread, biscuits, etc.  Very sweepable.  Unless...it has been chewed and then spit back out.  See banana above.

6.  Cheerios.  The world's most sweepable food!  Unless...well...see bread above.

7.  English peas.  Even when freshly dropped, these little beauties are easily retrieved with a broom.  Their sweepability improves with time; however, caution must be used to ensure stray peas do not roll into remote  corners.

8.  Mango and other fibrous, juicy fruits such as pineapple.  These guys are not terribly sweepable, and in fact, are difficult to remove from most surfaces, including shirts, dresses, and diapers.  Time actually makes these fruits more difficult to remove.

9.  Milk and juice.  Not sweepable, and make other foodstuffs unsweepable as well.  Time is not your friend when it comes to milk and juice spills.  Not.  Your.  Friend.

10.  Blueberries.  They're round and they roll, right?  Totally sweepable...unless...they have been smashed in half or an attempt has been made to eat them by sticking one's finger into the center or the insides have been sucked out and just the skin is tossed aside.  Otherwise, not only are they sweepable, but could theoretically be rinsed and served again.  Not that I would do that, of course...ahem.