Ah yes, dinner at the RDM family can be the greatest time of the day or the most stressful one! Either we are all sitting at the dining room table and finding out how everyone’s day went or it’s that time of day where I use my bargaining powers, false promises and even blackmail desperately trying to get my kids to stay seated and eat!!! Honestly, the stress starts even before then, I like to think I’m a creative person, but when it comes to cooking I lack all imagination, I don’t even like to do the groceries. To top it off, my kids have opposite tastes and they both don’t like potatoes, so I can’t stuff them with all that starch! Lastly, my husband doesn’t cook at all, so it’s all up to me; at least he does all the cleaning up…

On the weekdays, I usually pick the kids up from daycare around 5PM and by the time we walk home it’s usually 5:30PM, so while the kids play I try to cook some dinner, it has to be something relatively easy and quick. My kids have a snack at school around 3:30 and they get pretty hungry around 6PM. My husband doesn’t get home until 6:45, so usually by the time we start eating, the kids are having their desert. Thursdays, it’s just the kids and me, so I try to make something they really enjoy, like pasta or grilled cheese. Fridays we alternate and eat at my mom’s or my in-laws and finally, the weekends are pretty chill, we sometimes eat out, order in, eat leftovers or frozen pizzas and sometimes I’ll make crepes.

My daughter is a “snacker”, she would rather eat a little all day while standing up (don’t ask!), and she could live on bread and butter, cheese and ice cream! She doesn’t like pizza, she doesn’t love pasta and I need to cut her grilled cheese in cute shapes, like a bunny for her to eat it, she has just started to eat meat and some chicken, but at least she likes fish. One meal both my kids enjoy is toasted bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, and I usually serve that with some fresh veggies and avocado.

My son on the other hand could eat pasta every night… He enjoys beef fajitas, pizza, grilled cheese and any type of raw vegetable; fish on the other hand he has a hard time with. If the kids want dessert, which usually consists of yogurt, applesauce or some type of berries, then they must eat a little and try at least one bite of whatever is on their plate. Dessert is always a great motivation or bargaining tool in my home!

The one meal the whole family can agree on is Spinach Quiche. This is pretty easy to make and you can substitute the spinach for so many different ingrdients such as mushrooms, asparagus, ham, olives… The kids will have some veggies with their quiche and us grown-ups will have a tomato and mozarella salad or a green salad of some sort.

Here’s my QUICHE recipe…

-Celina