Shame

So I have told you about shaming our family at Friendly's, and I have told you about terrible, terrible behavior on dates. And I've even told you my worst fart story ever.

Still, with all this, I'm so ashamed to tell you about dinner in our house. Here is the mega-shame part: We eat terribly and I don't know how to make real dinner.

And here is where I'm going to ask for your help.

So dinner in our house is mainly kid dinner, because it happens around 6:00-6:30, hours before Nick is home. Here is our main course repertoire, in no particular order: Fish sticks; chicken patties; spaghetti and meatballs (no sauce! the horror!); mac & cheese; grilled cheese; pizza; eggs - scrambled, fried, in a sandwich, with sausage, in a box with a fox.

India will eat vegetables and beans as well. She also likes tomatoes and mozzarella. Jordan will eat broccoli, but that's it. But still, it's something. We have a lot of steamed broccoli.

Betty and I eat dinner with the kids. We typically have what they're having, at least in part. I quite like fish sticks, actually. I love eggs. But otherwise, I only eat the vegetable portion. Maybe Betty heats some tomato soup or maybe I make myself a smoothie later.

And then Nick comes home around 8:30 or so and fixes himself a sandwich.

We have been doing this for a long, long time. It works, but it doesn't, in that it's not healthy. It's not how I grew up, with mandatory family dinner at 7:00 pm, and with a meat and a veg and a starch.

I hated those dinners. They were often tense and when I was in high school and trying to avoid food and my dad was sliding into crazy, they were particularly terrible.

And I've never liked to cook. So I've hated dinnertime for a long, long time. And now that you add the stress of trying to get kids to sit on their bottoms and not put their fists into their water cups and please don't poke your sister and India! Biting is not what we do to people! It is all the less appealing.

But dinner is important. It's unavoidable. And I need to get better at it.

Even on weekends, we rarely have a cohesive dinner. Nick and I will sit with the kids, and then we'll figure out later what we're having. But historically we haven't liked the same things, so we don't really have an actual together meal. Or we'll go out or get takeout.

I feel a strong need to change this. Nick has lost 15 pounds since August, and he is energized to lose quite a bit more. He's in a place where he is open, for the first ime, to changing how he eats. I want to foster this.

So what I need to have to MUST do is start cooking. We have to start eating real food, and it has to be me.

Betty is an excellent cook, but she's not remotely interested. It's all on me.

And so I'm asking you.

I am looking for easy, nutritious, tasty recipes. Could be anything - chicken, lentils, soup, stew, you name it. I do not know how to cook meat, so it needs to be super easy, like meat for dummies. And just about the only thing I know how to do with vegetables is steam them. Beans? I know how to open a can and put the pot on low. I do know how to roast Brussels sprouts. Mmmm.

Jordan won't like any of these things, because he is five and hates everything. I'm not worried about him.

But the rest of us need to start eating real food.

This is my shame. Can you help me?