'The burden shouldn't fall on any one person:' Making time for dinner time during the school year
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - As we continue to help you get ready for when the school bell rings, we want to address a critical time in every schoolday - we're talking about dinner time.
It's often squeezed in between after-school activities, homework, and eventually bedtime.
Dinner alone can be a stressor so we went looking for some easy, economical help.
In the midst of the post-schoolday wind-down, the last thing you want to do is suddenly have to come up with something to feed the family.
"I don't think the burden should fall on any one person in the house to have to do this all, even little ones, can be involved," said registered dietician Leslie Bonci.
Both Bonci and Laura Zervos, as dieticians, said to think ahead and involve the whole family.
Zervos said to make a list of meals that everyone likes, and then categorize them into categories like beef meals, chicken meals, etc...and then compare that to what the family has on the calendar that week.
"We could plot those on a calendar and then see which meal makes the most sense for a certain day," she added.
Bonci said that something like ground beef can cover a lot of plates.
"That could be for tacos, right? That could also be for Chili and that could be for spaghetti sauce," she said. "So it's three meals out of one thing, and they all look a little bit different."
The plan is kind of important because Zervos said it "ensures that you're not getting takeout at the last minute."
"If you've got that crock pot or in the pot, you let's take it out of the box," Bonci added. "Let's dust it off, maybe clean it out and use it."
Zervos recommends if you're going to be gone for the whole day, maybe that's the day for the crock pot.
This means by dinnertime, the hard part is done but the key is getting what you need in the house in advance.
"If you make your list just from what you have that week, you will save money at the grocery store, as well," Zervos said.
Plus, if you're looking to save a buck, don't be afraid of store brands.
"You're not losing anything at all nutritionally," Bonci explained. "It's the identical amount. What is different is the price point, and everybody has to operate within their price point. So we don't have to go fancy to nourish our body as well."
The more your kids are involved in the process, the easier meal times will be, especially if everyone has input on that initial list of meals that the family likes.
Then you can just use those meals to vary the menu week-to-week and don't forget to have something fun like breakfast at dinner time to keep the family happy and frankly, it's amazing what you can do with eggs!