Feeding the Family

I am not sure where I am going with this post but I thought I would talk about food and the struggles/successes I have in this area.  There was a time when I loved to cook and enjoyed making food for my family.  I would make weekly menus and go to the grocery store once a week and buy everything I needed. I would often prep dinner in the morning or during naptime and everyone would be home to eat dinner around 5 or 5:30.  We ate everything--meat, dairy, vegetables, there were basically no real food restrictions and I tried tons of recipes and took great joy in feeding my family.  Fast forward to today--I am about 20 pounds overweight and have a dairy sensitivity (too much dairy and I have joint pain but can handle half and half in my coffee and occasionally cheese), I am trying to eat healthy but not go overboard on any one diet.  Ideally, I try to eat low carbs, little to no sugar, small portions, etc.  I also recently discovered that I have low iron and need to eat more iron rich foods or take a supplement. Ollie is always trying to gain weight or at least maintain his weight and prefers to do that by eating a lot of carbs--bread and pasta to bulk up meals.  He also prefers to eat a vegetarian diet and has showed me so many documentaries that I'm convinced that I shouldn't eat much meat either but am unwilling to go full vegetarian.  Of course, I also have three growing kids to feed and one who is sort of picky (Joe).  Our schedule is extremely busy in the afternoons and evenings.  Mondays and Fridays Ollie works late and doesn't get home until almost 8 pm. The kids are in theatre from 4:30 to 6:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays (and Grace is going on Tuesdays and Fridays as well right now) and I tutor in the afternoon/early evening most Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.   Are you getting the picture of how hard it is to feed the family right now??  So, dinnertime is around 7 at the earliest and we only all make it around the table at the same time a few days a week.  I don't menu plan at all and find myself at the grocery store about 3 times a week picking up food for that day. Ollie cooks once a week and I love not having to worry about it.  I often wake up thinking about what my day looks like and what in the world I can make us for dinner.  We shop the sales and have a freezer full of convenience food so I often end up pulling from there or making one of a few standbys--black beans and rice, tater tot casserole made with eggs, pinto beans in the crockpot with tortilla chips and toppings, or pasta with jarred sauce.  I want to do things different and go back to a meal plan but it seems impossible these days so I try not to beat myself up and just know it's a stage of life that I'm in.  Somedays like today I do pull it together enough to plan a couple of meals and shop for them.  In just a bit I will be making a casserole that my family loves--chicken fingers (bought from Publix already cooked), topped with chicken gravy, refrigerated mashed potatoes (on sale!), corn and cheese.  It's a Publix Aprons meal that we tried and they loved.  I'll probably cook either spinach or canned green beans for a side dish.  The spinach would be a good source of iron for me... On Wednesday I'll make a Sloppy Joe Casserole but make it with lentils instead of ground beef.  I've discovered that in casseroles, lentils make a good substitute for meat when I'm going for vegetarian.  Unfortunately, Joe hates lentils so he will hate that meal.  Ollie will love it because it's meatless and the girls will probably like it okay but I doubt they will love it.  It will have pasta in it so that will add to my butt.  :0)  My plan in this blog post was not just to moan, groan, whine, and complain but that's as far as I've gotten with my thoughts and now it's time to go make the casserole so that we can eat at 8 pm when everyone is home.  Any advice is welcome!