Mom to Mom: 90 Days of No Repeat Dinners

When my good friend Maureen Slaughter told me she planned not to repeat a dinner recipe all summer long, I demanded she write about it for Go West Young Mom. Luckily she obliged. I'll post some of her family's favorite recipes later today. -- Tara

I always find it a challenge to come up with dinner ideas for my family. In order to get out of a recent dinner rut, I came up with a personal challenge: I would not repeat a meal all summer long. My family was not very excited about my idea. One son exclaimed “What?! Even Tacos? You have GOT to be kidding!” and the other said with a lump in his throat, “We can only have chicken parmesan once all summer?”

Photo by Leo Reynolds on Flickr.Despite my family’s opposition, I created a master list of more than 100 dinner ideas. For ideas, I enlisted the help of friends, relatives, cookbooks and websites (including Go West Young Mom’s "Weeknight Dinners" feature). I divided the meals into categories such as Beef, Chicken, Meatless, etc. and further divided them into subcategories like Mexican, Italian, etc. Some meals were just variations on the same theme – I counted shredded beef tacos, ground beef enchiladas, and chicken quesadillas as three different meals even though they had many of the same ingredients. 

Each week, one of my boys is in charge of going through the dinner list with me and picking out the meals for the upcoming week. He has to pick meals from different subcategories to create a good balance. Plus, one of the meals he chooses has to be a new meal – something we have never made before. The weekly dinner chooser also helps prepare these dinners each night. (The other child isn’t off the hook. He’s the dish helper.)

We are now more than halfway through our 90 days of no repeat dinners. I have a master list of all possible meals in an Excel spreadsheet which includes columns for meal name, category and subcategory, date eaten, rating of how well each family member liked the meal, and comments such as what I served with it and ways to improve it for next time. We have found some new recipes to add into our regular rotation, such as shredded beef enchiladas using a new enchilada sauce recipe. But we also discovered some meals that we never need to try again, like chicken and poblano soup.

The highest rated meals so far are some of the simplest ones:

• Grilled Pork Chops seasoned with Jane’s Krazy Mixed-Up Salt
• Kabobs with sirloin, potatoes (parboiled), onions, peppers and Lowery’s Steak & Chop marinade
• Ground Beef tacos seasoned with diced tomatoes, onion, and cumin
• Jumbo pasta shells stuffed with ricotta and Italian blend cheese topped with spaghetti sauce
• Quesadillas filled with chopped cooked chicken, sautéed red pepper, and lots of cheese

My kids almost like the no repeat challenge. They enjoy picking out the meals for the week and they are putting up with going through recipes and grocery shopping for all the ingredients. They are learning some simple kitchen skills – everything from how to boil water to how to sauté garlic and onions. They are also gaining an appreciation for providing a good balance of food within a meal and within a week. They are trying to hold off as long as possible on selecting chicken parmesan. That might be the meal they miss the most. Before the challenge, they asked for it every week.

Once summer and my 90-meal challenge is over, I’m hopeful my master list will help make the question “What’s for dinner?” easier to answer for many months to come. Not only do I have a big list to refer to, but also we have found a few new dinners to include in our regular rotation. My challenge for fall is to discover simple ways to prepare fish and to find more vegetables my family will eat. Any suggestions?

Maureen Slaughter is a full time mom and part-time swim instructor with two growing boys. Her favorite foods are chocolate chip cookies and chicken parmesan. She started making dinner for her parents when she was 13, and she is always on the lookout for new simple dinners for her own family to enjoy. Watch for some of her family’s favorite recipes in upcoming “Weeknight Dinners” on Go West Young Mom.

Comments

[Natalie]

I love how you got the boys involved in this! My son isn't quite old enough to do that part yet, but you've given me some really great ideas here. Thanks!

[Maureen's Mom]

Maureen's grandmother would be so proud! I think this is fabulous and am looking forward to the final evaluation from Maureen and all the boys.