There are nights that as parents we just aren’t interested in turning on the oven or stove and even less inclined to make a mess for a meal are kids may or may not willingly eat.
Go-to Meals For Life On The Go
Life is always changing and finding time to stick to a plan is rough, especially when that plan is a dinner plan. We have found a collection of easy meals (check our Food & Recipes section including pupusas, breakfast burritos, and Italian Sausage And Zucchini Topped Pasta) that reheat really well and that are kids will eat happily. Let me start this by saying that we are in no way against those who meal plan and are able to stick to a meal plan long term, especially when those meal plans are for a month at a time or longer. I truly admire those that can do that, but it is not a doable option for my husband and I to attempt with our family. Our schedules seem to be ever changing and it gets tough to manage a good night at the family table as it is; trying to cook a fresh meal every night, be something different, and hit all the requirements that are needed would be a real challenge. So we rely on leftovers. We do cook favorite meals 2-3 nights a week but we do it in a way that allows for leftovers that can be reheated quickly on the other nights and also allow us time around the table together as a family. Now this does require a level of planning and we do approach our shopping trips with the meals we want in mind, but it’s a weekly to every other week kind of plan, not a month or more in advance.
Beyond making life a little easier utilizing meals to have leftovers is budget friendly and fights against food waste. It’s really simple to get started doing this, to the point where it will become a natural reaction to meals and saving money throughout the week. To start we choose meals not only that our kids will eat with minimal fights at the table but that also can be made in larger portions and are still delicious after being reheated.
Portion Packs to “Heat & Eat”
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My biggest worry when we started this pattern of cooking and eating leftovers was forgetting foods in the fridge and having the food go bad which would ultimately end up being a waste of food and money. So we store our all of our leftovers very specifically. To start we use clear storage containers to easily determine what is in there. A big step that saves us however is how we portion off the leftovers which we do in individual meal sized portions. These have become a really good grab and go in my house. I know that when some are gone my husband has taken some to work for a quick lunch which means he is likely to break to eat that day. Same for my son, he has a half schedule some school days and when he comes home I am relieved he can heat himself up a good meal with some of the leftovers from dinner a previous day.
We don’t purely survive on leftovers alone. We do special nights where we order food, or even have a quick night where the kids will want to eat a toasted sub sandwich or something along those lines. At the end of the day if my husband and I have been successful in sending our kids to bed with full stomachs, spent some quality time with them around the table, and managed to save some money then we consider ourselves to be doing a good job.