Meal planning

I just totally rocked "dinner" ideas for the week!

I usually hate cooking as you know, I love to bake

haven't had a working full size oven in over a year

I am pretty good making do with our toaster oven!

Talk about taking a lemon and making darn good lemonade!

But when stars are aligned for my little guy

lots of other things start to fall into place as well!

And first thing is I have way more energy to put into "other things'

like cooking a meal for my family!

It's not motivated (or easy) trying to prepare meals, during our roughest time of day (dinner time)

lots of noises, smells, everyone is home, lots of sensory overload

lots of behaviors and therefore interruptions

so how do you possibly cook dinner when you can't "attend" to it!

Thank goodness for sandwiches

oh and cereal of course!

But this past week- even with it being busy with back to school nights, meetings, I made dinner that

get this

my children all loved!

As always every dinner meal is gluten and dairy free

it's our common meal and one that we share so nothing is "different'

I made Chicken with broccoli Alfredo (never have I made a creamy sauce like this before- it's really hard to make it good when it's dairy free)

I made stove top Chicken Enchiladas..... those were a hit!

and I made a delicious Chinese noodle dish with vegetables

and I made an old favorite comfort food Chicken and Dumplings!

So that is the type of week we continued to have!

And do I dare say it but I actually enjoyed cooking... and even better

I enjoyed seeing my family around the dinner table (as we always do)

but this week was different, a lot more smiles, a lot more simple talk, and lots of "mom this is so good!"

Talk about motivating to get cooking for this next week!

Top of my "meal planning list"

1. crock pot cream cheese chicken chili

2.Spinach Artichoke chicken bake

3. Chicken chow mein

4.BBQ Chicken

5.Braised Balsamic Chicken

6.Asian Beef lettuce wraps

7.Beef stroganoff

8.Slow cooker honey sesame chicken

9.Ham and Cheese Fritata

Well, at least I"m motivated to come up with the list, right!

Now the rest depends on how each day goes!

Please Please Please keep the stars aligned......

it's really good for all of us!