Did you follow that post title? 🙂
While I would love to have a perfectly planned out meal plan week after week, that’s just not a reality around the DeSpain household these days. I’m a planner by nature though, so I usually decide in the morning what we’re going to do for dinner that night just incase I need to thaw any meat or do any other early prep (like quickly whip together dough to rise).
It’s inevitable though that a couple of nights a week I’ll glance at the clock at 5 p.m. (or 6:15 p.m. like I did Wednesday night!) and realize that I have no clue what to feed my family of four.
“I have no idea what to make for dinner!” -> a few solutions
We have a few go-tos when we’re totally wingin’ it, and here’s what those nights look like when I need to get something on the table in 10-15 minutes or less.
- A variation of pasta (sometimes mixed with pasta sauce, sometimes with olive oil and spices, or sometimes I’ll even whip together homemade mac and cheese since it’s so easy and so delicious)
2. Frozen pizza with a bag of steamed vegetables or a bagged salad
3. Grilled sandwich (we basically grab whatever we can out of our deli and veggie drawers and throw whatever we want on our sandwiches before grilling it on our favorite ) <—- Everybody needs this in their kitchen!
4. A variation of eggs (Thank goodness both of my girls enjoy scrambled eggs with cheese. They get this frequently for dinner when Daddy is gone.)
5. Leftovers… we love leftovers.
When I go to the store, I intentionally always pick up these items for nights when we’re wingin’ dinner.
- Whole grain pasta
- Pasta sauce
- Eggs
- Shredded cheese
- Lunch meat
- Sliced cheese
- Frozen pizza
- Bagged vegetables
- Bagged salad
- Loaf of bread
- Red onion
- Tomato
I had somewhat selfish intentions with writing this post because I would LOVE more ideas of what to do when we have nights with no dinner plans. 🙂 So, what’s on your table when you didn’t give dinner a second thought until your stomach started growling?
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo