So here’s the deal. My goal next month is to make at least three (or four) decent, healthy meals a week for my family.

But Kelli, don’t you already make meals for your family?

You had to ask, didn’t you?

…

Yes, alright?! I make meals for my family. Every day, in fact. Well…every day that I’m not reheating a meal for my family, which if you think about it, is simply heating up a meal that I already prepared, so it’s kind of like double preparing a meal, which clearly shows double the love, right?

Who says I’m bad at math?

A typical dinnertime hour in our house usually involves me flying around the kitchen like a crazy lady, trying desperately to defrost meat or chicken and popping open cans of vegetables that I know my kids won’t eat, but I’m going to prepare anyway because a well rounded dinner plate involves vegetables. I will whip together a decent, if not all that coordinating, meal in less than thirty minutes and will plop those plates in front of wide eyed cherubs who will ultimately turn up their noses in disdain.

Unless that which I plopped in front of them happens to be chicken nuggets or Mac and Cheese, which I rarely buy because I’m fairly certain there is neither chicken nor cheese in either of those items.

But I digress…

I will watch them smother their meat in ketchup or Barbeque…or Frank’s Hot Sauce for Landon because the child was born without taste buds, and they will choke down the required number of bites before pushing their plates away and declaring how NOT hungry they are.

This is usually followed by an immediate request for a snack, which leads me to shoot flaming daggers from my eyes as I huff around the kitchen and boldly declare that no one will eat snacks before bedtime because I had to throw away so much food.

And sometimes I throw in a side of guilt by reminding them of children in Africa with no food, which is basically lifted straight from the Mother’s Guide to Driving Your Kid’s Crazy.

So all that to say…cooking isn’t my forte. It’s not that I can’t cook. It’s that I seem to be allergic to planning ahead. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I coach Tia’s gymnastics class, so I generally try to put something in the crock pot those days so the boys aren’t left to eat cereal for dinner, but other than that, I just tend to prepare meals on the fly, which leaves very little room for creativity and has left my children with less than adventurous pallets.

So part of my 31 Days series, was to plan out and ffeed my family a week’s worth of real meals. The kind that you plan ahead and prepare for and that require fresh ingredients and what not. Since Octobre is almost over, I’m just going to push this plan to next month. I put it off because…well, because I’m scared, quite frankly. I mean, you read what I wrote above, right?

I AM ALLERGIC TO PLANNING AHEAD!

I am writing this post in faith knowing that I will need plenty of encouragement along that way, because friends this is one thing I don’t believe I am capable of.

I need to believe in my ability to cook a decent meal for my family and to start planning said meal before 4:30 in the afternoon.

So how can you help?

I did not make this meal. My friend Wendy made this meal. I ate this meal. It was delicious.

If you have a favorite recipe, or a meal that your kids really enjoy, please leave it in the comments.

If you have a link to a pin on Pinterest with a killer recipe, leave the link. I’ll pin it to my board (if I can figure out how…I’m a Pinterest newbie) and I’ll stockpile a few good recipes from the internet to try out.

There are a few guidelines, though:

– Don’t go too easy on me. I want to try real recipes – nothing canned or boxed. I need to prove to myself and my family that I can make real food from time to time.

– No fancy ingredients. If the recipe calls for Gouda or shallots or any obscure fair that can only be found in the fresh market section of Whole Foods on Fridays and Tuesdays between 9:00 and 9:22 am, then there’s a really good chance I will never make that meal.

– Nothing that involves pasta sauce, because my children don’t like pasta sauce. Can you believe it? I birthed children who don’t like spaghetti! Or frozen pizza! Sometimes I wonder if they’re really even my children…

– Crock Pot recipes are my friends. I am fairly convinced that whoever invented the Crock Pot has been granted a special place in heaven because if I can toss all ingredients in a big pot in the morning and POOF! At 5:00 dinner is ready? Um…yes, please. Yes. Please. 

Other than those simple rules, the sky’s the limit. Lay it on me. What is your favorite dinnertime recipe? Who’s gonna help a slacking sister out?!

Pretty please?