As much as I love to cook, one of the hardest things is feeling like I successfully planned a week of dinners for my family. Of course, success can be described in many different ways. Just getting everyone around the dinner table at the same time, is success in of itself. But what’s also very important to me is trying our best to eat mostly fresh healthy satisfying meals.
When it was just my husband and I, dinner felt so much easier. For starters, my husband and I could just head out to any restaurant in SF if we wanted. We used to actually have date nights on Mondays so that the beginning of the week was super awesome instead of super awful. And the rest of the week, we could choose to eat cereal for dinner if we wanted. But when you have a little one, you feel a little more guilty about those kind of decisions. We still eat out on occasion and we still sometimes have breakfast for dinner. But even in those moments, we’re constantly thinking about how we can ensure our little one is eating enough vegetables, enough protein, enough grains, etc.
Over the last couple years, I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at making breakfast and packing healthy lunches for us. Planning dinner is a constant work in progress. But here are some of the things I try to do (or try not do) that have been a big help so far. If you have more tips to share, please do! I would LOVE to hear what gets you from one dinner to the next!
- I buy proteins and vegetables for only 3 dinners at a time. This helps in a lot of ways.
- Ensures all of my ingredients are fresh.
- Helps me avoid wasting food. Wasting food is a serious pet peeve of mine. I hate finding a lonesome spoiled vegetable in the back of the fridge that somehow got lost.
- Gives us variety, but we don’t have to be totally committed to eating in every night. I know that at least once a week we’ll either go out because we don’t want to do dishes. Or we’ll do some kind of potluck get together with friends.
- We almost always have leftovers from our 3 dinners. So these can either be used in breakfast or lunch OR help us get through the rest of the week for dinner.
- About every other Sunday I make a soup, stew, pasta, or casserole to start our week easy peasy. It makes Mondays feel much less stressful.
- I don’t make separate meals for our toddler. Occasionally, I plan on an extra side that he might like (like corn or mac n’ cheese). But generally, he eats what we eat. There are plenty of times when he won’t try everything I’ve put on his plate. But I love that I’m putting different things in front of him all the time. And he knows that if he asks to be excused, he doesn’t get any other food from the rest of the night.
- I don’t freeze a lot of protein. I actually find it much easier to pick up an additional fresh protein on the way home instead of waiting for something to defrost or trying to defrost it properly in a microwave. But there are some favorite frozen family items I keep handy just in case…meatballs, taquitos, tamales, chicken nuggets…the standard go to’s that are not necessarily the healthiest, but have saved us on some of our busier work days. And I usually end up combining them with other ingredients…like taquitos served over black beans with a sautéed zucchini.
- We don’t have a huge pantry, but I do keep several go-to items on hand…grains, pasta, legumes (canned or whole uncooked), canned artichokes, canned olives, canned whole/diced tomatoes.
So this very simple capellini recipe falls into the categories of Sunday prep and mostly pantry items. It’s also easy to whip up on a weeknight because it is only four ingredients. It’s one of my favorite go-to’s because it is great hot, warm, or cold, and it can be eaten alone or topped with a protein (like a grilled chicken, shrimp, or even flank steak).
Although sundried tomatoes are not as trendy as they once were, I still love them and all their chewy sweet goodness. For this recipe, I use sundried tomatoes that have been marinating in olive oil. The olive oil is so full of flavor and becomes the ‘sauce’ for this dish. Then you simply add a jar of artichoke hearts (drained and chopped) and toss to combine all the capellini with that flavored olive oil. And then top with crumbled feta and lightly toss again. So ridiculously easy!
Another plus is that this pasta is even better the next day after it’s had even longer to soak in that flavored olive oil.
- 16 oz. package capellini pasta
- 8 oz. jar of sun-dried tomatoes, in olive oil
- 14 oz. Jar or can of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
- ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
- Cook capellini in salted boiling water for 8 minutes, until al dente.
- Before draining, set aside ¼ cup of pasta water.
- Drain pasta and place in a large serving bowl.
- Pour jar of sun-dried tomatoes with olive oil over the pasta. Add chopped artichoke hearts. Then toss well to combine and coat all the pasta with the olive oil.
- Add crumbled feta cheese, give another gentle toss, and serve.
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