Tuesday Tip: Taming the "witching hour" (a.k.a Surviving Dinnertime with tots)

According to Wikipedia, the witching hour is "the time of day when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful."  If you ask me,  it's the window between 5:30 and 6:30pm when our darling children turn into whining witches and demanding demons -- just as any power I have left is officially waning.  And, if you ask them, the kids will probably tell you that when I get home from work, I can be the biggest, baddest witch of all.

It happens to all of us (or so I'd like to think, if only to make myself feel better!)... that time when late afternoon slips into early evening and the pressure mounts to slip something delicious and nutritious onto the table before the wee ones slip off to sleep.  It's a recipe for disaster -- and a really tough time to follow any recipe!  So, how do we handle it here in the Lyons Den?  Some days, better than others.  But on the good days, there are some common themes:

• Feed the hungry beast. Or, in my case, beasts.  Today, after I changed out of my work clothes and into my comfy clothes, I discovered a few grabbing goblins sneakily snarfing fruit snacks.  This is a major no-no.  I started to shout.  "No! NO fruit snacks before dinner!"  And then I thought of the cute little pack of sweet peppers I'd picked up at Trader Joe's this weekend; faster than Glenda the Good Witch, I snatched the fruit snacks, chopped the peppers, and served them up with a smile.  The moral of the story: offer up a healthy snack to keep your hungry clan occupied while you whip up dinner.
•  Keep it simple.  I like to cook (which is not to say I am a good cook!) but, weeknight dinners are no time for experimentation.  Stick to the basics and keep the fancy stuff for weekends.  Tonight's dinner plan?  Hot dogs, turkey burgers, corn on the cob and homemade cole slaw, followed by donut peaches for dessert.  Simple, summery and quick. Bye bye goblins and ghouls; hello happy campers! 
• TV is your friend.  Well, more accurately put, the TV is the kids' friend and your sanity saver when used judiciously!  Take today, for example.  It was 93 degrees and humid when I got home from work.  A game of wiffle ball in the backyard was taking a turn for the worse as the plastic bat was thrown across the yard and our trio of three-year olds started swinging aluminum.  Talk about a recipe for disaster!  Once again, I started to yell, and then I remembered the magic box inside the house -- the one that enchants and yes, one might even say bewitches our brood, bringing quiet and calm to our otherwise raucous and rowdy bunch.  After a half hour of The Smurfs, calm was restored, dinner was ready and the witching hour was over... until a new day begins, a day I hope to keep my patience, tame my inner witch and if all else fails, turn to Papa Smurf to be my savior once again!

Tuesday Tip: Easy weeknight dinners

I'm constantly asked how I get dinner on the table for our brood -- especially after a long day of work when tension is high and energy is low... speaking for myself, anyway!  The answer is that sometimes I do it better than others; tonight was kind of a low point.  The main entree was "Dinner Eggs" -- your basic scrambled eggs served with a side of toast and vanilla yogurt as dessert.  Last week, we fared much better -- we had the kind of plan we strive for, which included making a double batch of Giada's chicken stew on Sunday night and repurposing it over the course of the week -- one night we had it over rice, one night we added kale and one night an extra can of beans and egg noodles made it a hearty meal our hungry clan.

A gameplan is often the key to our success and I shared some of my plan-ahead tips in an earlier post that you can check out here:  Lyons Den Tips for easy weeknight dinners. 

As much as I would like to prevent "picky palate syndrome" and expose our kids to a broad range of meals, tastes and flavors, I admit to having a few tried and true staples that I go back to again and again.  I was raised this way myself.  In the O'Connor household in the late 70s and early 80s, you could count on Meatloaf on Mondays, Shake and Bake Chicken on Tuesdays, Meatballs and Spaghetti on Wednesdays and some sort of chicken casserole made with Campbell's Condensed Mushroom soup on Thursday.  On Fridays, it was pizza or fish sticks. Saturday was often burger night and on Sundays, my Dad would cook -- often an Irish stew or other "meat and potatoes" meal.  It seems pretty clear that my Mom had some standards she relied on and the reality is that I do too;  you can find them here: Quick friendly weeknight meals.

As much as we all appreciate and rely on the standards, it's always good to branch out and try new things.  With that in mind, here are some of my favorite family friendly sites for simple, crowd-pleasing dinners:

• Check out The Food Yenta for an amazing archive of recipes for both everyday and entertaining... including her famous apple chips for a healthy kid-friendly snack.
• For great recipes, amazing stories and a side portion of user-friendly gardening tips, check out Donuts, Dresses and Dirt -- the cornflake crusted chicken has become of of our family's favorites
• Jodi's Kitchen and Home is another great resource. In her own words, Jodi is raising a kid in the kitchen and writing about it. With the winter chill setting in, her Braised Short Rib and Potato Pot Pie is a must try.

I'll continue to share my go-to solutions for the inevitable weeknight mayhem and hope that you will too!