Mom-Friendly Meals

Recently, some of my friends have said, “You really seem to have this meal-planning thing down. What’s your secret?”

I do not have the meal-planning thing down. My secret is that I have a child who is slightly older than their child.

I think there are a lot of us in this boat. We think, “That person over there is doing this much better than I am.” And the truth is, they’re just working with different circumstances.

One of my college friends has a daughter about two months older than Baguette. She also has an older child and a stepchild. And when her daughter was a baby, every night this friend would post on Facebook about some amazing meal she was making her family for dinner.

Now, I know her. She wasn’t doing this to brag about how much better she was at parenting. She was doing it to show that it could be done–that often when you feel overwhelmed, it’s in your head. She wasn’t boasting, she was demonstrating.

But what I couldn’t figure out was this: how was she managing it? Like me, she had a full-time job outside of the home. Like me, she had an infant. Unlike me, she had two other children. So how was she pulling off this amazing feat?

As it turns out, she has a shorter commute. Like, a lot shorter. Mine is an hour each way. Hers is more like 15 minutes.

See what I mean? Different circumstances.

And my own circumstances have changed. Looking back, I’m not really sure what I ate when Baguette was a baby. I cooked for her, but I don’t remember what I made for myself. After a while, I found that I could use the crock pot on the weekends to make a big batch of something. That counted as cooking.

slow cooker
I no longer use the slow cooker for oatmeal, though.

More recently, I’ve been able to use the stove a little. Last night I made shrimp with bell peppers and zucchini in Red Thai Curry Sauce, served over quinoa. I’m having leftovers for lunch.

I have no idea what’s for dinner tonight.

Again, I think there are a lot of us in this boat. So I’m starting an occasional series called “Mom-Friendly Meals.” I’m going to write about what I cook, how I choose recipes, what tools I use, how I find ingredients, and anything else that comes to mind. You can follow me on Twitter at @tragicsandwich; I’ll be using the hashtag #momfriendlymeals for these posts.

One thing to keep in mind: These are mom-friendly recipes. At our house, we all eat different things. Baguette is going through a picky stage, and while we’re trying to move her through that, I’m not going to pretend that she ate the Thai curry with me. And Mr. Sandwich has his own palate, and tends to do his own cooking. So our kitchen is very busy, but we’ve finally started eating together as a family.

Now we just have to clean off the rest of the kitchen table.

6 thoughts on “Mom-Friendly Meals

  1. I love this. Munch is an extremely picky/finnicky eater. Meaning, at daycare he eats pretty much whatever they put in front of him, at home, it’s snack foods and ramen noodles. (Now, snacks include yogurt and fruit, as far as meals, ramen and MAYBE chicken nuggets is it.) And I often look at other “toddler dinner” posts and feel such FAILURE. Why won’t MY kid gnaw on a green pepper?? Le sigh.

    But you’re absolutely right–circumstances (and child’s personality) is everything.

    We have a very small house, and our dining room table is rarely used for dining. One of my Big Life Goals is to remedy that.

    1. That’s why this may or may not be toddler-focused. Baguette seems to be going through a snack phase right now. But I know what you mean. We were at a neighborhood party, and a little boy from a block over was munching his way through a plate of grilled vegetables. If I held that plate out to Baguette, she would gently push it away with a faint look of disgust, as if to say, “I really don’t know what you’re thinking right now, Mommy.”

      I’m making up this series as I go (hey, it’s my series!), so a lot of it will be what I eat. What Baguette eats, and what we try to get her to eat, will also be a part of it. But right now it would be a really short series if I made that the mainstay.

  2. I may not be the mom anybody wants to hear from here – I have a kid who will eat anything. You’re so right about perspective and circumstances. I never bothered making a separate kid meal for her when she started eating because I was working full time (and then some) and really just didn’t have the energy left to think about a second meal for anybody – kid or adult. I did do things like pull the heat down on spices, maybe, but for the most part, what we ate, she ate. Like any other kid, she goes through particular phases. Relative to what Kristin said about “why won’t my kid gnaw on a green pepper?” Sometimes, we do the sighing when at a gathering and she turns her nose up at the kids’ platter of chicken nuggets and asks for a salad with balsamic vinaigrette. It’s easy as a mom to think everybody else does it better, faster, whatever – we ALL do that at some point about some thing, I think. Goes with the job description. 🙂

    I love your series idea – looking forward to seeing what you cook up!

    1. Good for you! And I say that without sarcasm, which is rare for me. Seriously, I was amazed by the little boy from our neighborhood, and for a second wondered what his parents did to achieve that, and then thought, “Well, part of it is probably that they simply have a different child.” I want to broaden Baguette’s range, but I have to do that from where we are, not from what we might have done a year or two ago. If I look back too much, well, that way lies madness.

      Baguette loves spicy things, but I think the trick is to make them *look* simple. There will be a post about that, too.

  3. I hear you on the circumstances thing. When Stella was little, I was a real dedicated home cook (although it cost me much in terms of stress because that child would not let me put her down ever ever ever). Now that we’re in more relaxed circumstances (read: a babysitter who can help wrangle while I cook), I’m totally not taking advantage of this and calling out for food more often than I would like. But this is *somewhat* due to the fact that my circumstances are different right now (more work, more activities, longer travel times, less energy). I’m keen to get back into the cooking game, so I look forward to following this series!

    And re. the discussion about picky kids / eat anything kids (mine tends mid-eat anything), you’re totally right that it’s due in large part to who that kid is. As much as I’d love to congratulate myself for parenting my child to eat kale and bok choy, I can’t in good conscious do that. Because then I’d have to admonish myself for parenting my child to sleeps poorly, and omg, no. It’s entirely because of who she is.

    1. LOL! I do think there are things we could have done differently, and maybe she’d eat a wider range of things. But all I can do is go forward. Which is hard to do on so little sleep.

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