…I’ll start cooking again. The twins are almost seven months old, and we are in a great schedule and a great routine. They’ve been extremely good babies the whole time, but we are now in a much more manageable place. I’ve even figured out how to make dinner. (I started writing this blog post at the beginning of last week, and then the babies started getting their top two teeth and “manageable” is not really the right adjective this week. It’s amazing how quickly things can change with little ones.) But even through teething (poor little babies), I’ve figured out how to make dinner happen.
Even pre-babies, I didn’t really love to cook. I like simple, easy recipes that take absolutely no longer than 10 minutes of prep time. I’m not into the fancy stuff with a million pots and pan to clean, so we’ve figured out a few meals we love. These meals are healthy, delicious and take minimal amount of time (and minimal amount of clean up). Since we’ve had the babies, we’ve had a clean eating meal service deliver us food, lots of takeout sushi, salads from Verde, salmon salads from a closeby restaurant and meals from the prepared foods section of Whole Foods. It was fine to do that while we were adjusting to parenthood, but now it’s time to get back in complete control of our food. Here are some key groceries that I’m loving right now. They have helped me manage to make a 5 minute dinner. (I use the term “make” loosely, because it’s more “putting the meal together.” I’m not really making anything)
These chicken burgers are awesome! You just put them in the microwave for 1 minute and they are 150 calories each.
Roasted veggies. I cup them up during naptime (or buy them from Whole Foods already precut). Put them on some aluminum foil (to avoid having to clean the pan) put a small amount of olive oil and garlic salt and stick them in the oven for 15 minutes on 350. So easy and so delish. Brussel sprouts are my favorite right now, but you could do broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, etc.
This stuff is awesome. There are a lot of different kinds to choose from, and all you have to do is put the bag in the microwave for 90 seconds and there is no clean up. Does it get easier?
These chicken meatballs are so good. You can microwave them or brown them in a skillet.
If I don’t roast veggies, I just use one of these awesome steam bags. Organic frozen veggies that you steam in the microwave (no clean up).
We do pretty much all of our shopping at Whole Foods, but I know you can get most of these products or something similar at any grocery store. Hopefully this will help you when you are tired and worn out, but still want to figure out how to make a super easy, healthy meal for your family.
