You know the kind of night, right?
Your brain says “put dinner on the table” and your heart just sighs.
Maybe you had a really hard day. The baby cried all.the.time.
Maybe your kitchen is a mess, or you simply don’t have the headspace to multi-task tonight.
And let’s face it: Cooking with young kids at home while tending to three different pots is definitely the mother of all multi-tasking situations.
I have been in this place a lot. Trying to put good food on the table to keep my family well-fed and healthy is one of my top priorities in life. But there’s also the fact that cooking with a 2 year old and a newborn in tow can be pretty hard at first.
It’s a huge learning experience, and the more often you do it, the better you get at managing toddler chatter, baby fussiness and the pot of spaghetti’s 11 minute countdown at the same time.
But no matter how smart and savvy you get in the kitchen — or how you choose to otherwise occupy the kids while you cook (TV, dad and iPad are all equal choices around our home, so this is a judgment-free zone right here) — there will always, always be the nights you just… Can’t.
The nights you know in advance that either a) you’re going to get really frustrated, b) dinner is going to be really awful, c) the kitchen is going to be a crazy mess or d) all of the above.
But because you are a responsible mother, you know you still have to feed your family. And so you half-heartedly start cooking what you put on your meal plan (which you happened to write on a day your kids behaved notably well), and alas, d) happens.
You ask yourself — but where did I go wrong? You planned, you shopped accordingly and you followed through with your plan, because #adulting.
I’ll tell you where you went wrong: You weren’t flexible.
Especially if you make an over-ambitious meal plan, or use one from the Internet (or even your sister’s), it’s incredibly hard to stay flexible over the course of a real-life family’s week.
The solution? First of all, always write your own meal plan (because nobody knows your skills, your kitchen equipment or your family’s taste as well as you do) and secondly, plan according to your current season.
I’m a firm believer in finding joy in your crazy, messy, wonderful life - but there’s no need to make things more complicated than they need be. So put those seemingly too-simple meals on your plan without guilt or shame. And always, always allow yourself to stay flexible.
Don’t feel like cooking the pot roast on Sunday? Well, then make Monday’s one pot dinner instead.
To show you how truly simple you can keep things while still getting your tastebuds excited, I’m sharing a recipe I make all the time for my family these days: A Chicken, Potato and Brussels Sprouts Sheet Pan Dinner. The trick is to add a great seasoning blend (in this case, Za’atar — which, if you’re not familiar with it yet, you need to order ASAP because it truly is dinner-saving magic in a jar) and something to add a little pop and freshness, in this case I’m using pomegranate seeds.
So, friend, here’s to real-life dinner recipes. Here’s to keeping things simple while adding beauty to our lives. And here’s to never, ever forgetting the wonderful in the middle of our crazy, messy, I-don’t-feel-like-making-dinner days.
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Chicken, Potato and Brussels Sprout Sheet Pan Dinner Recipe
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Ingredients
20 ounces baby potatoes, quartered
1 pound brussels sprouts, halved if large
1 onion, quartered and then cut into wedges
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound chicken breast, cut into chunks
1-2 tablespoons za'atar
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place the potatoes, Brussels sprouts and onion on a sheet pan and toss with the oil and salt. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are starting to get brown and crispy.
Remove the pan from the oven and carefully stir in the chicken and Za'atar. Return to the oven and finish baking for 5-10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked all the way through.
Toss in the pomegranate and serve immediately.
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