Be creative, and get help, for family meals

I grew up in a very untraditional home—a log cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water. We were homeschooled and had a family bed. We mostly lived off the land and ate what we grew. Yes, I am a child of the 70s!

Meal times were untraditional too, but not in the way you may think. While my father rebelled against a formal family dining experience, we always ate together and talked. In the summer, our gathering was around a campfire, and usually consisted of food we had grown ourselves. In the winter, we sat on the floor around a small card table that held a nutritious meal, usually made in one pot.

As we grew to be teens we still valued meal time, though we did have some changes. For example, my brother and I would take turns with my father doing the cooking. My mother worked long hours and was away most of the week, and we often ate in the living room—sometimes while watching TV, but we always did it together and there were always many compliments to the chef. I was often envied by my friends who had different home experiences.

Now that I’m a mother I realize once again the importance of family meal time. Although I much prefer our dining room table and food that comes in a variety of courses, I, too, have become known for my one-pot meals.

When my first child was born, I had no idea meals would be such an issue—finding time to cook them was a chore as well as figuring out what to eat and when to shop. I was lucky enough during those first weeks to have a sister-in-law with some insight who gave me the gift of meals. She hand-wrote certificates giving us a meal a week for a couple of months. Her generosity has never been lost on me and I repaid her when her own baby arrived six months later (although much less so as I was still figuring out meals for my own family). Three years later she again gave me the gift of a casserole shower when my second child was to be born, and we ate like royalty for months!

As my children have grown and I’ve become busier, I’ve sought other ways to make meals simple yet nutritious. Last year I made the discovery of meal services, and what a treasure they are! There are a variety of meal services in the Puget Sound area, ranging from vegetarian (Lucky Palate in Seattle) to grain-fed cattle and mostly organic meats (Month of Meals in Redmond).

Some services have you come to their kitchen to prepare meals for your freezer, like Designed Dinners. Alternatively, there are services that make and deliver meals. One local delivery service is Dancing Women—they will fix your meals and deliver them fresh to your door. Also, companies like Pioneer Organics will deliver fresh produce to your door weekly or bi-weekly.

These services can be lifesaving—freeing up your time in the kitchen as well as at the grocery store—allowing you more time to take care of yourself and your children. They make a great new baby gift too.

If you are like me you will immediately balk at the expense, but really you should look into the cost per meal. Our family currently uses a meal service conservatively. Instead of ordering every month we order every three months, having an average of one meal-service meal a week. I don’t feel guilty feeding my family healthy food made from scratch (it just wasn’t me who made it) and I don’t worry about spending the extra money—it is much cheaper than eating at a restaurant (even fast-food) and more nutritious too.

Another meal-time strategy I have found is to include my children in the preparations. I have been doing this since my children were old enough to stand on a chair and tear lettuce. This allows them to learn about nutrition, how to cook, and what goes into preparing a meal. An added benefit is they are much more likely to eat what they helped prepare.

Most of all, I value the time I have with my children and this is a wonderful way to connect. There are few things more satisfying to me than sitting down to a meal to which everyone in the family has contributed.

Of course I have also discovered other secrets to making cooking easier, such as doing it less often. I often make a double recipe and freeze it, or make one meal into a few meals (i.e. cook a whole chicken, then turn that into chicken and dumplings, then into chicken soup etc.). I even read books and attended a class about once-a-month cooking, but this task seemed daunting for me, and I do enjoy cooking—just not every night of the week.

Recent studies show that families who eat together are healthier; the children develop healthier eating habits as well as great communication skills, and they also tend to be more attached and foster a closer relationship with their families. Whether the idea of cooking together, using a meal service, or freezing meals is appealing to you, do what works best for your family. But do eat together—it’s fun and your children enjoy the social time at the table, or wherever your eating place is.