Defrazzle Dinner!

 

My dear, I love you ardently
Adore your charm, the way you look,
I'm captivated by your voice,
I've read with pride your latest book,
And yet I will not marry you
Until, sweetheart, you've learned to cook.

~Martyno 'Ultimatum'

In a hurry? Jump right to the part you need:

• Quick Resources
• Little Tips
• Middle Tips
• "Oh My Goodness I Need Serious Help!" Tips

In November of 2006 I came third in a Toastmaster's speech contest for all of Alberta and Saskatchewan after having won the club level, the area level, and the division level. I competed against about 3000 people in total, and it was my very first speech contest, and my very first attempt at a humorous speech. (You can see my speech here if you're interested) (Nick, please attach the word “here” to my DVD clip. Thanks)

My topic?

My cooking skills (or lack of them!).

I simply told the truth about some of the interesting adventures I've had in my kitchen. Actually I only shared the stories that deal with the fire alarm (you can check it out, here). I didn't exaggerate any of my stories - I didn't need to. I just “told it like it was”.

Cooking is not my greatest skill. Thankfully my husband (who's an excellent cook!) married me anyway!

Well, perhaps I'm not completely honest here. When we lived in France and I was isolated up in the mountains with no car - or other means of transportation other than my own two feet - and with two kids under three, it was cooking that staved off debilitating boredom. Sometimes dinner preparations would take as many as four hours. The results were usually delicious - and if they weren't it was because of the particular recipe, not my skills - honest!

Now that we're back in Calgary, living in the suburbs with a car at my disposal along with Homeschooling, running a business, being actively involved in my church, and taking various courses, boredom is NOT an issue. Dinner is often “tagged on” instead of planned out properly, and I get so easily distracted that I end up with regular conversations with our fire alarm monitoring company.

Sigh.

However, I have learned a few tricks along the way, and I'd love to share them with you. Before I go too far, however, let me share some real wisdom I've learned about mealtimes.

• Don't make your kids clear their plates. We tend to force our kids to eat everything they take (or that we give them) but that does not train them to listen to their bodies needs. I serve my children very small servings of food. They make take seconds, but only a very small serving, until they feel full. If they've taken too much and can't finish it, I allow that, but we talk about the importance of understanding what our needs are, and starting small so we don't waste.

  My kids are rewarded for listening to their body's signals by getting dessert even if they don't finish their whole meal. They have to have eaten some of everything, and have to have had balance in their choices, but I don't punish them for knowing when they're full by refusing them dessert.

  My daughter, especially, has learned to listen to her needs, and will often refuse dessert if she's too full, or will say something like, “Mom, I can finish what's on my plate, but if I do, I won't have enough room for dessert”. This kind of wisdom is to be rewarded in my book. She has learned to listen to her body, and only eats what it needs. What a gift that is!

• Also, plan your family time at meal time. Play an audio book, read something aloud that you can discuss, use a Journal Jar to ask great questions. Make your meals something to look forward to, and a time of deep connecting with your family. Make it a priority worth sacrificing other less important things for (like lessons, sports, or TV)

Anyway, on to meal time tips:

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First of all, grab your “50 Ways to Defrazzle Meals” Fridge Sheet Check out my articles Defrazzle with Simple Meals Defrazzled Dinners Check out the “Quick Meals” posts on my blog: Check out my handy “Defrazzled Lunches” page, as well as my Defrazzled Breakfasts page. I also have a whole list of recipes here that take less than half an hour to prepare and use everyday ingredients. You can get some one-on-one mentoring with me in this area or even . . . Get a bunch of friends together and host a workshop or seminar! Check out my "Defrazzle Dinner Store" on Amazon for great books and products to you master the dinner hour. And, of course, there's my newsletter which will give you a tip or a giggle every 4 days! Some of those tips will be about streamlining the dinner process, and I'll also share some great, quick recipes. Be sure to check it out!

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Little Tips

• Prepare lunch and dinner right after breakfast. That way you have time to get missing ingredients or to marinate something. You can also get most of the mess out of the way in one go, instead of preparing, cleaning up, preparing, cleaning up, preparing, cleaning up. What a way to spend a day!
• Learn to LOVE your crock pot. I do a lot of meals in mine, and it saves me huge amounts of time. We are big soup and stew lovers here so that makes things easy. I also use a timed oven regularly. This is another big time-saver.
• Keep a shopping list on your fridge and write things down as you run out.
• Keep several “mixes” on hand
• Recruit your kids to help you. Here's a great article with good ideas for that: “Teach Your Kids to Cook”
• Get some friends together and cook in bulk once a week/month. Here are some great resources for that:
• “A Beginner's Guide to Once A Month Cooking”
• Once-a-Month Cooking: Revised and Expanded: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Every Day
• You can also try “Supper Swapping”
• Have a list of 5 or 6 really quick and delicious meals that you and your family love - and that you could serve to company in a pinch or with a little imagination - and keep those ingredients on hand all the time.
• Need a last-minute idea for dinner? Check out “Free Quick Recipes”
• Want a whole month of ideas? Check Cooking Village's “Everyday Cooking”
• I also have a whole list of recipes here that take less than half an hour to prepare and use everyday ingredients. These are all “Tried and True” recipes, so you can use them with confidence.
• Here are some e-books you can try, too:
• Health-E-Meals.com
• Munchkin Menus
• Is it school lunches that get you down? Check out my handy “Defrazzled Lunches” page

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Middle Tips

Perhaps you need just a little more than an occasional nudge. Perhaps you are really short on ideas and are somewhat frustrated by the whole idea of the dinner hour. Well, let me offer you some other good meal preparation ideas and recipe sources here:

• Go here for a free report on learning how to plan your meals. You can also get some sample menus and learn about programs that will help make this much easier for you.
• This is a great site with good, healthy meal ideas:
• “Quick, Healthy Meals”
• Here's a tool that will help you keep the recipes you find, organized:
  • The Recipe Builder

• Get some mentoring. Let me work with you to set up a program just for you, to help you organize your dinners! Click here for details.

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“Oh My Goodness I Need Serious Help!” Tips

Ok, so you can't cook, hate cooking, and are allergic to the kitchen.

There's even hope for you!

My biggest word of advice is to create a working kitchen, first. Here's the best book I've read on the kitchen

• The Sidetracked Sisters Catch Up on the Kitchen

You can then move on to this great link:

• Cooking 101: Tips to Jump Start your Cooking Skills

Ok, the next step would be to learn how to work with menus.

All of these books teach a menu system and come with a selection of truly delicious recipes:

• The Phony Gourmet: Includes 75 Delicious Recipes for Shortcut Cooking
• Healthy Family
• Life's on Fire Cooking for the Rushed.
• Getting' Ya Through the Summer - Cooking for the Rushed”

And if even those books are too much effort, there are these sites that send you a menu and shopping list every week:

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Here's a recipe book called The Cookbook for People who Think They Cannot Cook” for the “cooking challenged”. A great place to start - I mean, the name says it all!

Get some mentoring. Let me work with you to set up a program just for you, to help you organize your dinners! Click here for details.

And if your biggest problem is picky eaters, here are some tips:

• Don't force them to clear their plates, but do make them eat ½ tsp. of EVERYTHING being served.
• If there's something they really don't like, serve it regularly but only give them a tiny little bit that they must finish - they will most likely learn to like it eventually, and if not, they will learn to eat it when it's being served
• Make “yukky” meals fun - create a picture with their food, have a contest, tell a funny story, whatever it takes to make them laugh or smile about what you're serving.
• Don't lose your temper - keep calmly repeating that they can leave the table (or whatever) just as soon as they finish that one spoonful of food.
• Just an aside here - my daughter was a very picky eater - and allergic to everything else - as a baby and toddler. We had LOOONG dinner hours, and my comment to her was, “Christina, the winner of this battle has already been decided. It's me. All you can decide is how long this battle is going to take.” Christina is now an excellent eater, and eats many things she dislikes with very little fuss. We had a long year or two making that happen however! (and there were moments when the victory was truly uncertain in spite of my resolve!)
• Here's an e-book you can also try:

• My Picky Eater

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Darlene Hull donates 10% of all her profits from the Mom-Defrazzler to Compassion Canada with the goal of being able to sponsor 30 children by the end of 2010. If you're interested in finding out more about Compassion Canada, please click on the button below: