I’m thankful that with our preschool schedule the kids really get a three day weekend and Fridays can be a little bit lazier too. We slept in, and focused on chores at home. I was able to get dinner prepped which just means soaking rice and thawing chicken. We were flexible yesterday, you can read about here, and we strayed from the meal plan. Instead we did a dinner as part of our fall bucket list. That meant that yesterday’s dinner could be used today! And it’s a favorite so even pulling the ingredients out this morning made my mouth water.
Here’s what I really want to tell you today about feeding my family. It can be simple. Really that extends to feeding others as well. I say master a handful of recipes evening to use whenever people come to your house. And it’s OK that you serve it every single time your friends come, even if they’re the same friends, and they’ve had it before. You see… If it’s your specialty they don’t usually eat it at home and that means that they enjoy having it at your house, maybe even look forward to it. I have a couple of recipes like that. I make Japanese Curry and everybody knows it. Even though it’s a simple recipe most people don’t tend to make it for their own families, even when they ask me for the recipe. I also make this chicken and rice dish we are having tonight. I talked about yesterday too. It’s just chicken drumsticks, sticky rice, served with a pepper green sauce that’s made with the mortar and pestle. Again it is so incredibly easy, but most people don’t have the tools so they don’t make it at home. That makes it a great recipe to serve friends. Simple, tried-and-true, and totally tasty!
Here is another example of how simplicity can do the trick. We spent the day with cousins and all it took was a paper plate filled with apple slices and goldfish to occupy them and fill their tummies. That is what childhood memories are made of.
They sang songs about little fishies to the tune of “I’m a little teapot.” They literally sat at this child size picnic table and had conversations. Just like we would if we were sitting around a table with tasty treats. It’s true that if we model this for a kids, they’ll do it too. Getting around the table, sharing stories, and good food – whatever your measure of “good” is. For them it’s these little snacks, for me a cup of coffee and a pastry, maybe for you it’s a piece of gluten-free toast with smashed avocados…
I mean who can argue with a strong cup of coffee and a sleeping baby… Again you see it’s the simple things, and appreciating them. When it comes to feeding my family sometimes it feels laborious, it’s not always fun, and often times I’m exhausted and have no idea what to cook. That is when I pull out raw foods, do something that doesn’t take a lot of preparation, or we even hit up our favorite restaurant (Pho all the way) but the key is to find the joy in the simple things no matter how hard, complicated, or exhausting it might be.
I took a great recommendation from a friend and snagged these individual naan breads from Costco. She suggested toasting it and adding smashed avocado. Boy did it hit the spot! She also suggested hummus and veggies. I’ll try that next time.
Often times by the time it’s lunchtime the kids have had a meal and are now onto their second before I get one in my system. So this meal with some healthy fats, that was delicious, and filled my tummy did just the trick.
You know I’m going for simple that day when I serve multiple meals on paper plates. The only meal I’m committed to not using paper is dinner. For some reason I’ve just made that commitment to myself and my family that we will use our real plates we gather around our dinner table for our family time.
Now I’m off to prep dinner. And you can see more of how that goes down over on my Instagram stories. I’ll update this post with the photo at dinner when we’re done. But I wanted to toss it out there to you faithful readers that really it’s the simple things, especially when it comes to feeding your family. No fancy recipes today, just our people around the table.