The truth about dinner isn’t that you don’t like to cook, or for most people that you can’t, it’s deciding what to have for dinner.  I have done some extensive research on this, talked to 2 neighbors and 3 co-workers so it’s fairly extensive, and they have come to the conclusion that I am right.

The other truth I have found about dinner is that there is some great inspiration and fun things to look at on Pintrest, and food and cooking blogs, but the truth is all I ever did with most of that information is Pin it, or think about how lucky that authors family is that they make meals like that for them.

Another truth, what I am looking for in dinner is that it a) make it to the table by 7:15 pm, and b) mostly not suck.  At other points in my life I had much higher standards but the reality of 6 kids, working full time, owning a business, and wanting to watch The Voice brought me back to reality and I have accepted that the meals may not be Whole30, or Paleo, Gluten Free, and so on and so forth and that is okay.

What the meals are; dinner on the table within an hour or less effort (I promise that time commitment doesn’t mean much if you have already decided what you are having and are prepared to make it!)  they are decent, they don’t require a lot of preparation prior to the actually time before dinner, and most of your kids will eat it most of the time.  In my world of parenting most of the time for most of my kids is a parenting WIN!

I have gone through variations of planning meals for a month, that’s a  bit much for me, not planning meals which translates to eating a lot of pizza and frozen burritos, and planning for a week possibly two at a time.  I have a list of 66 dinners on it, I’ve had lists in the past with 100 or so dinners on it, I tend to lose these lists ever couple or years and so they get rewritten.  In this process I am familiar with some of the tried and true meals of success, what is takes to become one of those meals, and how a meal can get kicked off the list (if three or more people reject the dinner it’s most likely not being invited back).

Every week or so I will post my menu, the recipes (or a link to the recipe), and the method to my madness.  I will be honest about how my family feels about the meal.  And if you don’t like it or think it needs this that or the other to make it good by all means make note of that for yourself and carry on the good fight or dinner time.  The first list of recipes is HERE Menu Number 1.