The Great Expectations of Dinner
And a visit to someone else's kitchen
For the Oven Window’s first real-life profile, I’m featuring a good friend’s dinner story. Faye and I have had many conversations about dinner over the years. We have a shared love of food, yet frustration with the daily grind of dinner. Our talks are part of the inspiration for starting this newsletter, and also what I hope it embodies – a casual conversation with a friend about figuring out what to eat and serve day after day.
“The idea that dinner has to be more elaborate than breakfast or lunch adds pressure,” she notes. I can relate to this. Breakfast and lunch may come with their own issues, but in general, they are a free-for-all in my house. Each person has their own meal, with my husband and me doling out toast, waffles, and bowls of Cheerios like short order cooks. Yet, dinner carries weightier expectations – often one main meal for the family, a chance to make up for all the vegetables not eaten earlier, and the bonding dinner conversation we’re supposed to be having.
Some nights, dinner is a successful production, by which I mean that I had a meal plan, executed on it, and people ate it together. Yet other nights, dinner is just a short time (truly – the actual average length of a family dinner is only 15-30 minutes) when stomachs are filled before bed. On these days, I take a cue from food writer and cookbook author Julia Turshen who says, “The advice I give to everyone including myself: not every meal you eat has to be the best meal you ever had. Liberate yourself from that stress and pressure and embrace the satisfaction of really simple stuff.”
Dinner at Faye’s
First, can you share a little about what dinner typically looks like in your house on a weeknight?
Each week looks a little different. The goal is to cook about four nights a week, but realistically it ends up being about two. My go-to meals are Crockpot chicken dishes (with BBQ sauce or salsa), easy Greek bowls, baked salmon with different marinades, tacos, pasta dishes, Korean beef bowls, tofu stir fry or lentils. My daughter is a "selective eater," so I often have to make separate portions for her (e.g., just the plain noodles if making pasta or plain tofu). I usually eat with my daughter (age 5) and son (age 1) around 5:30/6:00 pm. My husband often gets home around 6:30/7:00 pm, so he eats later.
Tell me a bit about how you make dinner happen in your household. Who handles the cooking and when do they do it?
This varies week by week. On a "good" week (one where we have time to prepare), my husband and I meal plan on the weekend. Usually he cooks on Sunday and makes enough for dinner on Monday, too. I typically cook the rest of the week and try to plan my meals in advance, but sometimes dinner is in the moment (e.g. buying fish the same day and baking it with a marinade, roasting veggies and serving with rice or potatoes).
Considering all parts of the process, what do you think is the hardest part about dinner?
Dinner feels so hard every week and I'm still trying to figure out why. It can be daunting to sit down each weekend and meal plan. Even when I stick with familiar, easy recipes, it often feels overwhelming to identify all the ingredients needed, figure out what we already have, and then either go grocery shopping or order those groceries. Finding time to actually prep and cook dinner is difficult when you have a million other tasks to get done throughout the day. The idea that dinner has to be more elaborate than breakfast or lunch adds pressure to the "success" of the meal.
What’s your best dinner tip or recipe?
I would say to get as much done ahead of time as you can. If you can wash and chop vegetables for a recipe in the morning, definitely do that. A friend re-introduced me to the Crockpot and that's been life-changing. The whole "set it and forget it" aspect makes everything so much easier. The less actual cooking you have to do at dinnertime, the better!
Food For Thought
Some helpful and interesting finds from around the internet:
An actually-easy recipe from Faye:
2-ingredient Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken from Gimme Some Oven. Anything with “2 ingredient” and “slow cooker” in the same title sounds impressively manageable (and after making this last week, I can second that it is delicious).
Inspired by last-minute fish, here’s a fun list of the best store-bought teriyaki sauces from Serious Eats. (Spoiler alert: the winner is Annie Chun’s Gourmet Teriyaki.)