Question of the Week: Dinner

Everyone,

This week's question of the week is about dinner.

What are your Go-To meals? Please include recipes/links if possible.



My go to meal is Macaroni and Cheese. The Kraft kind. Or Annie's (the one with the bunny) if I get it on sale. We probably eat that 3 times a week for lunches. The kids love it. Pirate is not a fan of cold cereal in the morning and sometimes he eats that for breakfast. Or if they won't eat the dinner I cook, they have mac and cheese. Very healthy, I know.

If I'm strapped for time, we often have pancakes or eggs for dinner. Sometimes we have spaghetti and meatballs. The one meal that I know I can count on everyone eating is pasta with goat cheese. It come from my favorite cookbook, "The One Armed Cook". I seriously use this book at least 2 times a week for super fast, easy, and tasty meals.

1. Pasta with Goat Cheese Sauce (or pink pasta as Butterfly calls it)

1 jar (2 cups) of spaghetti sauce
4 oz goat cheese
noodles

Cook the noodles according to the package directions. In a medium pan, heat up the spaghetti sauce. Cut the goat cheese into chunks and add it too the sauce, stirring the whole time until cheese is melted. Serve over noodles.

See? Super easy. We have it with bow tie pasta noodles because that's what Butterfly wanted one day. Now we can't have this meal with out it. The boys LOVE it and inhale as much as their little tummies will hold. It is really tasty. I like to sprinkle some parsley over the top of mine and add a little garlic. With bread and a salad on the side, it makes an amazing meal in about 10 minutes.

One of the sub-questions of this week's question is:

Do you have picky eaters? How do you handle it?

Yes, I have ONE picky eater. Professor loves anything with sauce, but will only eat the sauce. He will eat noodles on occasion. He likes hot dogs, butter, chips, and crackers. Oh, and ANYTHING sweet. Cakes, cookies, ice cream, yogurts, whipped cream, etc. Anything else is flat out refused.

I try very hard not to stress over his eating. He'll eat when he eats. It's not like I can cram food into his mouth and make him eat it! Then he won't eat anything (yes, I have actually tried) and cries for a long time after that. So I offer him what the rest of us are eating, and take it away when he tries to throw it on the floor.

This could be the reason why he is several pounds lighter than his brother, and also several inches shorter. I do worry about him and not eating enough through out the day. But seriously, I can't force him to eat things so I really just don't make a big deal out of it.

This summer, my goal is to make smoothies a lot at home (he will drink those) and add things like spinach and avocado to them to get him more veggies. To get them ALL more veggies.

When I have time (and Juice to help me out) I love to make a big meal. Today for Easter we are having ham cooked in the crock pot, home made rolls, steamed green beans, roasted asparagus, salad with home made ranch dressing, parsley potatoes, and fresh strawberries for desert. Yummy!

Safire