New recipes put spice back in family meal time

 I’m trying something new lately. I’ve been picking new recipes on Pinterest and cooking a full dinner of dishes my family has never had before.

One night, it was onion-covered baked pork chops. Another night, it was baked chicken with a creamy Dijon sauce. Another night, I tried a Bavarian braised cabbage and was shocked to discover my 8-year-old actually ate it.

NICK SABAN COMMEMORATIVE BOOK:

If you’ve read this column for any length of time, you likely know that I’m not much of a chef. I enjoy entertaining, and cooking special meals for holidays or small gatherings of friends. But when it comes to the nightly ritual of dinner, nothing is worse than the 5 p.m. phone call between spouses, asking what’s the plan for dinner. And more often than not in our house, there’s not one.

Perhaps that is the problem.

I also didn’t grow up with my mother loving to cook, either. She definitely can cook, when she wants. But the dinners of my childhood revolve around eating once a week at my grandmother’s house, usually on Mondays.

Friday nights were pizza night, and the weekdays in between were determined on which restaurant offered “Kids Eat Free.” There aren’t many Shoney’s around any more, but we ate there so much on Wednesday nights during my childhood that the sight of the buffet is seared into my memory.

I may not have understood it as a kid, although I didn’t mind so much. But as an adult, I do.

With both my husband and I working full time and juggling three kids with packed schedules of soccer games or scout meetings, art class and band concerts — plus working some nights to boot ― cooking so often gets on the backburner.

Thank goodness for the weekends.

And so, on Sunday afternoons, I’ve started to make more of an effort. It’s not always successful — like the dinner when my children agreed my chicken was just “mid” — apparently teen slang for “just OK.” But there’s been surprises too, like when my oldest declared dinner was the “most Southern meal ever” because I made cornbread from scratch and baked in in my cast-iron frying pan.

Apparently, she wasn’t complaining, since she packed the cornbread leftovers for school lunch the next day.

As basic as it sounds, it’s been a bit of an adventure for me, getting out of our old routine of spaghetti night or taco salad. So often we get into the rut of rotating the same few dishes or just giving in and picking up something from a restaurant to go on the way home.

But I’ve found myself looking forward to finding the new dish I’ll cook each Sunday. And more than that, I look forward to sitting around the dinner table with the family and the conversation that follows. Even if the food is just “mid” it’s the family meal time that is worth the effort.

Now if only I can get the kids involved in the cooking. That’s my next step. 

 Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at [email protected].