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Spending Time At The Family Dinner Table

I set a few new goals for this school year. I have big plans. Always. Haha! Anyway, my goal has been to try to add one new recipe per week to our rotation of meals as well as use our slow cooker once a week. So far, we have been doing pretty well and so far, we have enjoyed all of our new meals. We did have a week of set back so far when we had no power after Hurricane Irma so that we didn't make any new meals or anything. The current week was another difficult week as we had to spend money restocking some essentials in our kitchen that we lost due to the power outage so we had to hold off on anything new this week, as well.

The main goal of all of this has been to add new recipes but also make sure that we are spending time at the dinner table as a family. This is something we have tried to do since our kids have been old enough to understand eating dinner as a family. BC (Before Children) and even when Kenzie was small, we ate in the living room while watching TV a lot, but as Kenzie got older and ate with us and even more so when Will came along, we decided that we needed to spend more time around the dinner table as a family. We think it is really important. Usually Steven is walking in right as dinner is finishing unless he is working late or out of town so it lets him sit down with us and for everyone to recap their day. Kenzie likes to tell us about school and Will likes to try to annoy his sister (and usually us too in the process).

Our kids are picky. No secret there. Kenzie used to be worse but the older she gets, the more she is coming around. Will is more in the picky stage now but we luck out that he has always been a slightly more adventurous eater overall. It doesn't mean that he would choose certain foods but he eats more random things than Kenzie ever did. When we serve dinner, we usually serve everyone the same thing unless there is no way they would eat what we are eating (like the buffalo chicken wraps I made) and then the kids are given something different but usually similar such as quesadillas when I make tacos. Otherwise, I was once told to always make one food that you know your kids will eat (that you eat too) to serve alongside things that they may be less sure of. That encourages them to try the other foods and allows them to eat with everyone else. We also do not make different meals for the kids other than those rare situations. That was something we learned through trial and error. We knew it was a bad idea to feed either kid something different when they wouldn't eat what we had but when Kenzie was about 2 and hit her picky stage, she stopped eating foods she used to eat and would eat NOTHING I served, it seemed. So we started making her peanut butter sandwiches to supplement her not eating. Bad idea and that took us a while to break. We didn't do the same with Will. You live, you learn. Now, I make something that I know the kids will eat along with things they may or may not try. For instance, Kenzie loves fish but Will isn't in to it (though he used to be) so when I made salmon the other night, Kenzie ate that. I also made it with wild rice, which Will ate. So they each ate something but they were served the same thing as everyone else. Our other rule is that unless you finish everything on your plate, you do not get any sort of after dinner treat, like goldfish. We also always serve the kids fruit with dinner. We serve them fruit with every meal but it adds something we know they will eat at dinner.

Just some info on what works for us. Though I'm sure it's different for each family. It took us a while to find our groove on this and I felt terrible for a while when our kids wouldn't eat some things. Some people talk about how their kids eat it all. And I feel bad because ours don't. Ours used to. Then they became toddlers and became picky. I know not all kids do that but both of ours did through no fault of our own. It has taken me quite a while to believe that it wasn't my fault that they became picky. I blamed myself that they wouldn't eat veggies. Now, they eat some and Kenzie tries more and more so I have learned that some kids are just like that. I want to make sure that if someone else is dealing with the picky stage, they know they aren't alone and they didn't screw their kids up. Haha! They won't grow up into adults that eat only chicken fingers. More than likely. =) I like chicken fingers. (I even make homemade ones sometimes or serve my kids pre-made chicken nuggets. Such is life.)

Anyway, I wanted to highlight a few of the new meals we have done so far in case anyone is in need of some ideas. I'm always looking for recipe ideas. I love Pinterest and asking others for tried and true recipes. Especially ones that don't take too long or involve too many obscure ingredients.

I wanted to highlight 3 of the crock pot meals we have tried because they were some of the best so far.

Buffalo Chicken Wraps 
2-3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/2 bottle of Texas Pete Buffalo Sauce (any buffalo sauce would work, I just had this already)
2 tbsp butter

I threw the chicken in the crockpot with the sauce and butter and cooked on low for 6 hours. Then I shredded the chicken and added them to Flat Out Flatbreads with some light ranch dressing, light chedddar cheese, and shredded lettuce. I would have used tomato too if I had that available.


Honey Garlic Chicken

This one I put on top of brown rice. I used success rice so it cooked quickly but I usually use my rice cooker. If you don't have one, I highly recommend it. Takes the tempermentalness out of rice, for sure. I use it for white, brown, and wild rice. I also made a steam fresh bag of Asian vegetables that I stirred into the chicken mixture to make it a full meal.


BBQ Chicken Flatbreads

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Flat Out Low Carb Flatbreads
Red Onion
BBQ Sauce (whatever your favorite flavor is)
Cheddar Cheese

I cooked the chicken on low for about 6 hours in about a cup of BBQ sauce. Next time I might use THIS recipe though. (Another option is to boil the chicken and shred then toss in BBQ or cut the chicken and saute then toss in BBQ sauce. I prefer it shredded so the crock pot or boiling is a better option for me.) When it was done I shredded the chicken and returned it to the crock pot for about 30 minutes. I put shredded cheddar cheese on the flatbreads and baked for about 10 minutes on 350 until the cheese melted and the flat breads crisped up a bit. Then I spread chicken on the flatbreads, added red onion to mine (as Steven is anti onion a lot of the time) and drizzled more BBQ sauce on top.


So there are three of our favorite using the crock pot so far. If we come up with a few non-crock pot that I think are worth sharing I may do that sometime. We have a few that we have liked but I know a lot of people are like us and enjoy the ease of using a slow cooker when possible. I may not work outside the home at this point, but we are busy around here a lot of the time so a slow cooker is an amazing invention. I remember when I worked, slow cooker meals were some of my favorites so I highly recommend them. If anyone has any slow cooker (or just other simple) recipes they would like to share, please do!

Enjoy!

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