Anonymous
05/19/2015 19:44
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Just to give an idea of what are appropriate amounts of animal fats according to the American Heart Association:
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Caregiver/Replenish/WhatisaServing/What-is-a-Serving_UCM_301838_Article.jsp
That list doesn't specify what age is being targeted with "serving". Clearly those servings are far too much for toddlers. And nowhere near enough for growing adolescents. Who need FAT!
No one needs the amount of animal fat in two steaks. The portion sizes for teens are the same as for adults.
http://blog.childrens.com/portion-size-age-has-plenty-to-do-with-it/
Anonymous
05/19/2015 19:38
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Last night I made steaks. Enough for 2 per son and husband, 1 for each me and dd. I made 1 for the 3 yo. Salad with spinach, lettuce, egg, and beans. Baked potatoes and cauliflower/ broccoli medley. No leftovers still, but I bellow everyone was satisfied. Dh has also mentioned that he likes dinner lately.
sounds great! do all your kids eat everything? sounds like you don;t have finicky eaters! I think you are cooking great meals!
Anonymous
05/19/2015 19:37
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Just to give an idea of what are appropriate amounts of animal fats according to the American Heart Association:
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Caregiver/Replenish/WhatisaServing/What-is-a-Serving_UCM_301838_Article.jsp
That list doesn't specify what age is being targeted with "serving". Clearly those servings are far too much for toddlers. And nowhere near enough for growing adolescents. Who need FAT!
Anonymous
05/19/2015 14:25
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Just to give an idea of what are appropriate amounts of animal fats according to the American Heart Association:
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Caregiver/Replenish/WhatisaServing/What-is-a-Serving_UCM_301838_Article.jsp
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Caregiver/Replenish/WhatisaServing/What-is-a-Serving_UCM_301838_Article.jsp
Anonymous
05/19/2015 10:36
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Last night I made steaks. Enough for 2 per son and husband, 1 for each me and dd. I made 1 for the 3 yo. Salad with spinach, lettuce, egg, and beans. Baked potatoes and cauliflower/ broccoli medley. No leftovers still, but I bellow everyone was satisfied. Dh has also mentioned that he likes dinner lately.
PP who has said you feed your family like dieting middle aged women. Well despite no leftovers, that sounds like enough food even for the teenagers. Sometimes, it's better not to fill the bottomless pits. I think if you fed them more than this on a regular basis that they would be be in danger of getting overweight.
A more realistic measure than leftovers here, did anyone snack at any time after dinner?
Anonymous
05/19/2015 09:59
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Last night I made steaks. Enough for 2 per son and husband, 1 for each me and dd. I made 1 for the 3 yo. Salad with spinach, lettuce, egg, and beans. Baked potatoes and cauliflower/ broccoli medley. No leftovers still, but I bellow everyone was satisfied. Dh has also mentioned that he likes dinner lately.
Sounds delicious.
Anonymous
05/19/2015 09:49
Subject: Re:I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Haha it fascinates me too. There are always leftovers when I cook. But there are no teenagers at my house yet.
Anonymous
05/19/2015 09:40
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Last night I made steaks. Enough for 2 per son and husband, 1 for each me and dd. I made 1 for the 3 yo. Salad with spinach, lettuce, egg, and beans. Baked potatoes and cauliflower/ broccoli medley. No leftovers still, but I bellow everyone was satisfied. Dh has also mentioned that he likes dinner lately.
Anonymous
05/19/2015 09:28
Subject: Re:I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
OP, what did you serve last night and how did it go? This thread fascinates me.
Anonymous
05/18/2015 11:45
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Oh, and beans - just soak them and cook them over the weekend, if you have a large family do two lbs at once. That is ALOT of beans. Then keep in the fridge. Here is a nice bean dish:
Soak beans. Cook with a couple of bay or sage leaves thrown in. Drain, refrigerate for later.
Heat up a big skillet. Cover bottom with a thin layer of olive oil (more is yummier, use your judgement). When hot, toss in beans about one layer thick. Let them sizzle till they begin to brown, then stir. Let sizzle. When brown and crunchy all over sprinkle with salt and pepper.
They are fabulous with sausages on top. Also very nice with gremolata if you want to get fancy - chopped up garlic, lemon peel, and parsley.
Soak beans. Cook with a couple of bay or sage leaves thrown in. Drain, refrigerate for later.
Heat up a big skillet. Cover bottom with a thin layer of olive oil (more is yummier, use your judgement). When hot, toss in beans about one layer thick. Let them sizzle till they begin to brown, then stir. Let sizzle. When brown and crunchy all over sprinkle with salt and pepper.
They are fabulous with sausages on top. Also very nice with gremolata if you want to get fancy - chopped up garlic, lemon peel, and parsley.
Anonymous
05/18/2015 11:40
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
This is the PP who posted about stew, and then another poster asked how I learned to cook. I've always cooked, since I was a kid, so I never had the feeling of having to learn. I always had enough confidence to just give it a whirl, and that is the key to cooking, I think. But here are a few things:
Forget recipes. Instead, think techniques. Look up how to roast veggies. Apply that to ANY veggie. It'll be fine. Learn how to make something you like quickly and without a recipe, then make it twice a week until you never have to think of it again. I do biscuits and home made pasta this way - my family loves them, and either one is on the table in half an hour, start to finish.
For the love of god, don't peel anything. Mashed potatoes with peels are fine. So are carrots.
Cook without books. Recipes are often too complicated and long for week night dinner. Do things that don't need them, like chili, stir fry, roasted veggies and chicken or beef, tacos.
Give those teens a night a week to make dinner. They need to know how to feed themselves!
Forget recipes. Instead, think techniques. Look up how to roast veggies. Apply that to ANY veggie. It'll be fine. Learn how to make something you like quickly and without a recipe, then make it twice a week until you never have to think of it again. I do biscuits and home made pasta this way - my family loves them, and either one is on the table in half an hour, start to finish.
For the love of god, don't peel anything. Mashed potatoes with peels are fine. So are carrots.
Cook without books. Recipes are often too complicated and long for week night dinner. Do things that don't need them, like chili, stir fry, roasted veggies and chicken or beef, tacos.
Give those teens a night a week to make dinner. They need to know how to feed themselves!
Anonymous
05/18/2015 11:30
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I'm the one who suggested stew, and I also saw your post about soup. So, with this stew, you are going to add potatoes. Lots of them. You can either use up the ones you roasted with the chicken, or add more. Also carrots, lots of those, too. Or sweet potato. If you make dumplings the stew will thicken by pulling flour out of the dumplings, but if you make biscuits instead thicken the stew with 1/4 cup of flour mashed into 3 tbs butter, then dropped into the broth. You can also add pasta and beans to the stew for extra oomph. That thickening with potatoes, flour, and beans is what turns a stew into a filling meal rather than the kind of food you and I (middle aged women, no?) prefer to eat.
NP here- I have a question for above poster- where did you learn how to cook? Seriously curious, not trying to be snarky. Are these methods you learned from your family growing up or learned from cookbooks or shows? I cook a lot for my family of 4, but I would be overwhelmed doing 3 chickens and peeling the vast quantities of veg prep like carrot and peeling 5 pounds of potatoes?? How did you know how to do the 1/4 cup flour and 3 tbs butter? It takes me a long time, like 2 hours, to get from start to finish for dinner for husband and 2 elementary kids. There's no one to help me or watch kids, and I'm trying to make recipes up as I go along as fast as I can. When do people like above prep for so much quantity for larger families?? Where is the time?????? Who's watching the kids????
Not PP but two hours for a basic meal for 4 people is ridiculous. 30 minutes is more reasonable. Make meal prep a family activity. Maybe it takes slightly longer but you are together.
Peeling and prepping 5 pounds of potatoes takes maybe 10 minutes, btw. Prepping 3 chickens to roast takes only marginally more time than 1. I could get three chickens from fridge to oven in 5 minutes. Potatoes from bag to perked to cut to pot in 10. A side of say asparagus rinsed and in a pot to steam in two or dried and on a tray with oil and s&p waiting to hit the oven in 4. Plus, by doing things in the right order or ahead of time you minimize the wait.
For example I might prep the chickens in the am before work and put the pan in the fridge. Peel and cut the potatoes, put in a pot on the stove in water. Cover and leave it.
Toss the chicken in the oven as soon as I get home. Go change. Turn the potatoes on 20 minutes later. Prep the asparagus. When the chickens come out of the oven (maybe an hourish after I have gotten home) up the temp and toss the asparagus in. It cooks while the chicken rests. A quick gravy, potatoes are mashed, and dinner is done.
Not a lot of active cooking time for stuff like this. Even easier if you have someone getting home earlier who can turn the oven on to preheat, put the stuff in. Or you can use a crockpot for stews, etc.
But if you don't already know how to cook it's harder to do when you are doing for more people. Start with low expectations. Read cookbooks sometimes when you aren't actively cooking. It's a skill and a science, in some ways.
It's easy to cook fast with meat as the main course, but cooking veggies fast is time consuming! Impressed that you can peel potatoes for 4 in only 10 minutes ... The quick veggie route seems to be using a pressure cooker for beans, but I'm scared of pressure cookers
Anonymous
05/18/2015 11:28
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Anonymous wrote:Maybe these teenagers are recently adopted or foster children? Otherwise I can't figure out why OP is so clueless.
Read the thread.
Anonymous
05/18/2015 11:27
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Op here. My kids do help, just not every night. They mainly do cleaning on weekends. They're in charge of washing their own clothes (except for the youngest!), and between them all they're responsible for vacuuming their rooms, the hallway and the den once a week.
As for cleaning in the kitchen, it's my "me time" so to speak. Sometimes I have a glass of wine while washing dishes and I like to listen to music while in there. I enter act with people all day at work, I like some alone time
As for cleaning in the kitchen, it's my "me time" so to speak. Sometimes I have a glass of wine while washing dishes and I like to listen to music while in there. I enter act with people all day at work, I like some alone time
Anonymous
05/18/2015 11:27
Subject: I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
Maybe these teenagers are recently adopted or foster children? Otherwise I can't figure out why OP is so clueless.