Food & Home

When Dinnertime Becomes a Dinnersaga

Hi Amy,

So this isn’t going to sound like a problem starting out, but my husband is an excellent cook. Seriously, probably the best cook I know. He’s also home with our 11 month old daughter full-time. The issue is that, now that he spends his days dealing with an exhausting baby, we both end up treating that first hour after I get home from work as well-deserved down time. So if he starts working on a masterpiece meal after that…we’re eating a lot of meals at 9:00 PM. I feel like it might be time to switch to a few more family-style recipes, and for me to start cooking dinner more than 3 times a year (I actually like to cook…but I inevitably end up leaving a single droplet of water on his perfectly seasoned cast iron pan, or MOVING THE SALT AN INCH TO THE RIGHT OF ITS PERFECT PLACE, so it’s easy to just let him do everything). It seems like your family eats pretty well despite being busy people…do you have any secrets? Any secrets that conveniently leave no trace that you ever even looked at anything in the kitchen?

Thanks!
Eating-at-midnight-because-the-meat-had-to-salt

Haaaaaa, yes. YES. I also married a man who is a wonderful cook, and who generally loves to cook, but who also maaaayyyybe occassssssionally tends to be a little too ambitious and gets a little carried away in the face of a delicious-sounding recipe that he just HAS to try. Right then! On a Tuesday. At 6 p.m. After completely neglecting to read it all the way through, thus skipping the step that involves like, two and a half hours of cooking time plus an hour in the fridge and whaaaaattt?

(We are also a couple that has “issues” when we cook “together,” as Jason is a clean-as-you-go cook and I’m the sort who lets everything pile up into a mountainous pile of ingredient-caked ruin to deal with when I’m done. Thus he gets an eyelid twitch from the mess I make, then he follows me around and cleans up things I’m still using. We drive each other INSANE.)

Honestly, you guys will eventually be FORCED into better cooking/meal planning habits as your daughter gets older. You’ll need to get dinner together and on the table at a more reasonable time for her sake, lest you be making HER a meal of nuggets at 5:30 while you guys get the duck a l’orange at 11:45. And if you do that, I will know, and I will find you, and I will…uh. GLARE AT YOU TIREDLY. Or something. And may lightly smack you in the head with that Ellyn Satter book.

But now is as good of a time as ever to start moving dinnertime up to something that your daughter could realistically join in — 11 months old is a GREAT age to start including her in family meals and modeling good table manners and eating habits. So here’s some things that work for us:

1) CROCK POT. Don’t let your husband get in a snobby snit over the Crock Pot. It’s God’s gift to busy families and it’s NOT just for watery overcooked stews anymore. There are some really, really great slow cooker cookbooks out there that will blow your mind with what’s possible to make (and make WELL). You do all the prep the night before. Some recipes cook overnight and then rest in the fridge, while others just need to be turned on at some point during the next day. Some you serve right from the cooker, others benefit from a nice sear on the cast iron or grill — either way, your dinnertime duty just got demoted down to whipping up a salad or side, rather than putting the whole meal together from scratch. Your husband can still stay up late making his masterpiece…but it will be ready at a more realistic time the next day. We really love the America’s Test Kitchen Slow Cooker Revolution series (here’s volume one and volume two is available for pre-order) — think barbecue ribs, jerk chicken, ragus, etc. (And it’ll also help you learn to modify other non-Crock-Pot recipes, since it’s very educational.) We also use this Indian Slow Cooker cookbook since we loooooove Indian food. If there’s any ethnic food that’s a favorite of yours, there’s probably a guide to slow cooker versions out there. (Oh, and Smitten Kitchen has great slow cooker recipes. Have I mentioned the brisket? I believe I have mentioned the brisket. OMG, the brisket.)

2) MEAL PLANNING. This was a hard one for me. I liked deciding what I felt “in the mood” to eat each night, rather than committing to “Okay We Will Make Turkey Meatballs On Wednesday.” But that’s what we have to do in order to get reasonably-priced meals on the table by a reasonable time each night. Before we go grocery shopping we each get a couple votes on what we feel like eating/making that week and we make sure we have all the ingredients. If the recipe on the docket for Monday requires extra prepping time, we can plan accordingly for it. (Make a marinade on Sunday, or I set a reminder on my phone to do X, Y or Z when I get a minute in the afternoon. Get meat defrosted, vegetables chopped, let something come up to room temperature, etc.) Having a meal plan for the week has the extra bonus of reducing our food waste — no bunches of rotting vegetables getting tossed because we never got around to using them. We only buy what we actually plan to make that week.

3) EXPERIMENT ON THE WEEKENDS. Jason loves trying new recipes, but whenever he does it on a weeknight, it ends in semi-disaster. It takes longer than he expected, the kids are whining and can’t wait any longer, we’re missing some key ingredient and have to find a weird substitution, etc. So now, before anything can get added to the weeknight rotation, we try it out on the weekend. Practice! Plus it gives us a chance to see if any aspect of the recipe can be done ahead of time or if there are any other shortcuts we could take.

4) PREP/STOCK UP ON THE WEEKENDS. Make your go-to meat marinades and sauces and freeze them. Stale bread + herbs + food processor + freezer = all the seasoned breadcrumbs you’ll ever need. Chop up your onions/carrots/celery and bag it up all portioned in the fridge. Make and freeze dough for pizza, rolls, etc. Even if your husband still wants to whip together an improvisational masterpiece on Tuesday, there are still probably some basic building blocks he uses regularly that you can prep ahead of time.

5) DO WHATEVER YOU GOTTA DO. Look, the first hour after you get home from work? Absolutely 100% deserved down time and I would never mess with that. But let’s say the hour BEFORE you get home, your daughter maybe watches some Blue’s Clues from her play yard while your husband at least gets the ball sort of generally rolling in the direction of dinner. That would…not be terrible. Or all that different from hundreds of thousands of homes across the country around the witching hour. If he could commit to at least THINKING about dinner by say, 4 pm, he could at least get meat defrosted, oven preheated, chicken in a bag of the marinade you made a couple nights before, etc.

While Jason and I aren’t awesome at cooking together, we do operate in shifts. I take the first prep shift because I’m home and can start getting stuff together, then he comes home and will take over. We hang in the kitchen together and talk, so it’s a hybrid of active cooking and downtime — maybe I’ll make us a cocktail while Jason sears the meat, he’ll roll out dough while I make pot pie fillings, we both sit down and relax while the chili (made with a spice blend we make in bulk and keep on hand) simmers unattended because ahhhh, easy meal. The kids might be in the backyard or watching TV or just beating the crap out of each other in the basement. Meh. They’re fine.

It’s great that your husband cooks and enjoys it, but he does need to start planning it out a bit…not better, but tighter. Dinner just can’t happen at nine or 10 p.m. anymore, so if he wants to be ambitious and make gourmet meals every night, that’s fine: Just find the shortcuts and do-aheads, much like he would in a restaurant kitchen. Agree that maybe on Friday nights, you’ll make some mac-and-cheese for your daughter and he can go nuts on a later meal just for you, but the other weeknight meals need to happen at a more realistic time, even if it means simpler recipes, a slow cooker or — GOD FORBID — you are allowed in the kitchen to help out even though you never put the salt back in the right place.

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Kari Weber

10 years ago

I have started meal planning… for real. I used to WANT to do it… but never committed. Now on the weekend, I sit down with my cookbooks, the internet, or my own imagination and plan out dinners for the week. It gives me a chance to try some new things, or break away from the boring stand-bys… It also gives me a reason to make sure I know what is GOING ON that week. Husband working late on Wednesday? Then maybe that is the day my boys and I go to sushi (since my husband doesn’t eat fish… we call… Read more »

Susan

YES! Meal planning!

Plus preparing/cooking during naps. Thankfully with kid #2, I’ve been blessed with a great napper so I use that time to cook dinner every day. Sadly, we aren’t really eating any hot-off-the-stove meals these days, but eh, the food is home cooked and we all eat together (including the 7 month old, albeit pureed foods) and that’s more important to me.

Alissa

I only do easy meals (grilled meat and veggies) or I do crock pot meals. But we eat pretty much right when hubby comes in the door at 5:30, so kids can get to bed at a decent time. The ONLY way I can make that happen is with Independent Playtime. My son plays in his room, by himself, for an hour (he’s 4 years old). The baby plays by herself in a pack-n-play for 30 minutes (she’s 9 months old). I cook, set the table, get drinks on the table, and have everything set to go. It totally would… Read more »

Corinne

Oh my god, you just described the cooking relationship my husband and I have to a T. He gets ambitious and sometimes dinner doesn’t get served until 11pm because he decided to hand make ravioli and the dough wouldn’t firm or something. And the cleaning as you go vs. clean it all at the end. He takes away things I’m using!!! Or makes comments about it being a disaster. Of course the kitchen’s a disaster, I’m in the middle of cooking! We are desperately trying to figure out how to do family dinners with a 2 year old who must… Read more »

Olivia

We try to get dinner on the table no later than 6:15 for a 7:30 bedtime. My husband cooks in bulk and freezes so about half the week we just need to cook pasta or rice and a veg, and the other half I cook simple meat/starch/veg meals or use the crock pot. And I just got a cook book for cooking a variety of things in the rice cooker: set it and leave it FTW! And, this may not work for the OP, but I don’t do meal planning. Instead I go more with well stocked pantry sort of… Read more »

Eszter

Our son is only 6 month-old but I am already taking notes!

So far, we always had one of us cook and the other person took up the role of being the “Little Helper”-as we call it.

My husband and I also have an ongoing competition about who can waist less food. Whatever we pick out at the market or grocery shop we are in charge of meaning its the “pickers” responsibility that something eventually will happen to that vegetable, fruit etc.

Autumn

Kind of a role reversal, I’m at home 2 days a week and I’m the cook. When I”m working, those are days for fast and easy stuff or leftovers. Fridays are almost always pizza. I get to “play” and have fun on the weekends and during her nap times. Our 23 month old has a later nap (230 to 5) so she doesn’t go to bed till 9, which means she sleeps in till 730 or so. Which is Awesome! With the later nap time, the last hour is when I start all my prep work, get marinades going, etc… Read more »

Rebekah

We are in a similar boat over here. My son is 19 months and we’re still trying to figure this whole eating together thing out, too. I make him dinner that he eats by himself at around 5:30, husband comes home around 6:30, we do bed time routine together and then husband starts making dinner while I work. We’re normally eating by 9:30 or 10. I’d love to have our family eat together, and I’d love to model eating different foods in front of our 19 mo. old to expose him to more, but I just can’t figure out how… Read more »

Kate

Reply to Rebekah

This is what we did from the time my oldest was a baby until a few months ago. It seemed to work fine when he was little because he woudl be asleep at 7 and we could be eating by 8. But now, he’s 4 and sometimes isn’t asleep until 8:30, plus I have a toddler now too. The two meals schedule was becoming a nightmare because my oldest was used to only “kid food” and is a terribly picky eater. All my own doing, I know. So we had to make a change, which is that I gave up… Read more »

autumn

Reply to Kate

Satter would probably have a gentle frown, but I couldn’t say for sure cause my 23 month old found and hid my copy. My guess is under the couch but too lazy to look. . . We compromised with your situation. I generally pick our daughter up from day care between 5 and 530, and we go home and have a snack, which tends to be some chopped fresh fruit, cottage cheese (kiddo LOVEs) or a hard boiled egg, and sometimes part of a muffin if she’s in a growth spurt and eating everything. This satisfies her so she’s not… Read more »

Reply to autumn

OK, so Kate and Autumn, you’ve both inspired me to try to do the whole family dinner thing.

I do love just vegging out on the couch with hubby while we eat dinner and watch old episodes of Psych.

Thanks so much for the suggestions!

You have no idea how happy I was to see this post! Seriously, this is just like our situation, except our kids are older so they are waiting (NOT patiently) to eat as well, and/or have activities that throw the whole evening routine off. My husband also doesn’t like for me to cook because of the mess I make! I haven’t found a way to approach him about this problem without sounding like I’m nagging or not appreciative of his cooking. Would it be too passive/aggressive to send him a link to this post?!

Kristen

We do our meal planning on Sunday and write everything up in a Google Calendar we created to track dinners. We usually eat in front of the TV, but are transitioning to the table now that our baby is 5 months old (of course, we totally forgot to do it last night). We also instituted a rule that whoever cooks is exempt from cleaning the dishes. For all of you who use crockpots, do you leave the house with them cooking? I didn’t think that was safe, but then someone is tied to the house if we use one.… Read more »

bean

Reply to Kristen

For what it’s worth…. I’ve never stayed home to babysit the crockpot. 🙂

Liz

Yep! I leave the slow cooker on low all day while the house is empty. Slow cooker recipes are so forgiving that it can generally sit for 10 hours (who can get home in 8 hours, what with travel time?) until I’m back.

Ally

Kristen, I contacted our local fire department about using a crockpot while not at home. They said it is very safe and I shouldn’t worry about leaving it on all day.

Admin

Isabel Kallman

Reply to Ally

fabulous feedback. Thank you.

Jeannie

Meal planning is the bane of my existence as a parent, but is the only route to survival, IMO. Otherwise there is too much wastes food, too many late nights, and / or too many trips to the store …. Not to mention too much money! Like you, my husband is the better cook, and likes to do it, and like you, he also is often overly ambitious. When we tried to combine that with a kid who HAD to eat at 5:30, or didn’t eat at all and lost his mind in a meltdown … Well. Clearly that didn’t… Read more »

Alison

We don’t have kids but had a similar problem. Come home look in the fridge, then discuss what we want for dinner, then go to the store, buy ingredients, come home start cooking. I drove me nuts. Sundays I write up a meal plan for the week and grocery shop for everything. Early in the week are fresh meats etc, later in the week I use up the pre prepared meals from the freezer – marinaded chickedn / meatballs / soups etc. To stop waste in our house, top shelf in the fridge is dedicated to FOOD THAT MUST… Read more »

Diana

One of my friends just cooks a day ahead. So he cooks Monday night till late, then reheats and serves at dinnertime on Tuesday. Does it every day of the week. For me, I prefer to cook most of dinner during nap time, and just heat and serve at dinner.

JCF

I stay at home with my three kids (5, 4, 3), and I do the cooking. They need to eat by 6, because they’re hungry, and we need to start the bedtime routine, and my husband gets home by 6 at the earliest. I’ll hold dinner a bit if he’s on his way, but otherwise the kids and I eat together. I don’t love it, but they need to eat a real dinner (not kid food), and they need to sit down with a parent to form those family-dinner habits. As far as cooking goes with the kids awake… Read more »

Delora

That paragraph about not being able to cook together? I just had to read that out loud to my husband, because you basically just summed up our entire relationship right there.

Jesse

SPICE MIX RECIPE PLEASE!!

When Dinnertime Becomes a Dinnersaga

Amy Corbett Storch

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