I realize that the very name of this website would indicate that perhaps I am not the ideal guest blogger, but bear with me, please!
I fully realize that in no way would I ever qualify as a Dainty Mom, but I would like to think that I can fully embrace the lifestyle and desires embodied here on a regular basis. For instance, in my house, I was on carpool duty, delivering and picking kids up from schools, from elementary to middle and finishing up with high school.
And I know what a dishwasher is! I even use it, every day! I’m still a little hesitant about those washer and dryer machines, not my favorites, but I know how they work.
And I too am concerned about my kids, about what they eat, who their friends are, their exposure to big ideas, great books and interesting conversations. In many ways, I relate very closely to the stereo-typical stay at home mom of a generation or two ago.
In the last few years, there has been something of an explosion of “daddy blogs,” but when my wife and I first made the decision that I should stay home and help with the kids while she pursued her professional career, there weren’t many online resource sites available for reference.
So I figured it out as I went. Which in the end, is really what we are all doing, isn’t it?
But in the end, I did develop one or two tricks that worked wonders for our family, which a few of you may find interesting. Or not. Maybe you had this nailed down years ago!
Around the same time I was gearing up my career as a stay at home dad, I was also becoming very conscious of food sourcing issues and started paying extremely careful attention to what my family was eating, and what consequences those choices might be having on our physical and mental well being.
All of that is to say that school provided lunches weren’t going to cut it. And since I was now in charge of daily lunches as I hurried the kids out the door for school each day, that meant that I would have to find a convenient method of preparing convenient meals on the go, in addition to all of the other chores and tasks stay at home parents are asked to perform.
Seeing as my family had reduced our carbohydrate consumption, at my request, we weren’t packing chips or crackers for lunches. Convenient, yes. Healthy, no. So each lunch consisted of a protein, a vegetable and one piece of fruit. Carrots and apples were easy, and a crowd favorite, which simplified much of the process.
But what about a protein? In a pinch, I sent two or three pieces of bacon, from pasture raised pigs, and not the mass produced bacon you might find coming out of concentrated animal factories. Remember, where your food comes from is as important as what the food actually is.
But when I had my schedule under control and I was working on all cylinders, I cooked like our great-grandparents, and had a big Sunday dinner! And I made sure that Sunday dinner produced great leftovers, that bagged up easily for lunches during the week!
Would the leftovers always lead to a full weeks worth of lunches? Of course not, but more often than not, I got at least three or four days worth, which meant that I had only one or two days to scramble at the end of the week. Not too bad.
What was my all time favorite go-to leftover producing Sunday dinner? Glad you asked! We had two. The first was chicken strips that I fried in coconut oil, but it has a flour crust. So if we were in the mood to avoid flour and gluten for awhile, then we moved on to a homemade chicken saltimbocca recipe, which is basically chicken cutlets that are wrapped up in prosciutto or pancetta, topped off with a little cheese!
Either way, make too many of those chicken pieces, and shove them in the refrigerator, and you’ll have great leftovers to feed your kids during the week. In fact, as my daughter has gotten older, she says she actually prefers the chicken saltimbocca cold!
Thank you, Greg, for this lovely guest post!
