On my post last week about what my mother taught me about getting dinner on the table, a reader asked for the list of “staple” meals that are in our regular rotation. As I was writing it out I realized how many of them are the classic, meat-centric meals I grew up on. We’re veggie lovers, too; but I’ve found that simple meat-veg-potatoes dinners are the ones that go over best in our house.
I used to avoid cooking those kind of meals. First of all, I thought that I should try harder to be inventive at dinnertime. Second, I was intimidated by choosing and cooking unfamiliar cuts of meat – and all of them were unfamiliar to me when I first “set up housekeeping”.
I wrote this about my five biggest go-to meals at my Babble blog yesterday:
…When it comes to the dinners my kids will actually eat, it’s pretty clear what wins: classic, hearty, meaty dishes with simple flavorings. That’s why as my kids have gotten older, I’ve increasingly gravitated toward the kind of meals I grew up with as a kid: roasts, stews, and soups.
You don’t have to serve a ton of meat to satisfy a family – a small roasting chicken feeds all 7 of us with meat left over for soup – but just having that main dish out of the way makes it so easy to pull a meal together: roast some carrots, smash some potatoes, or even just rip open a bag of frozen green beans and some instant rice, and you’ve got a meal.
Click over to read my list of hearty, meaty, go-to meals (with recipes, of course!)
Our family is a veggie-lover, too, but sometimes I make some chicken breasts grilled with salad, that one of our favorites as well.
Nice post! Our family is a veggie-lover, too, but sometimes I make some chicken breasts grilled with salad, that one of our favorites as well.
Love it! Except the Chicken Noodle soup, I make the other four of these ALL THE TIME. They are definitely easy favorites!
Another favourite here is when I do is a braised beef shoulder, that when it’s pulled makes amazing tacos/quesadillas etc. It’s about 4lbs worth, and I have enough to save and freeze. It reheats beautifully, and everyone loves it!
Wonderful post! My family loves my dishes especially my entree.. Chicken is really their favorite so it’s very easy to prepare..