The Mediocre Mom's Guide to Greatness

Tuesday August 3rd, 2010

Today’s Activity:

Make individual pizzas for dinner.

Note:

If your kids are picky eaters you may want to provide several options for toppings.

Evaluate:

I’ve been meaning to make these  pizzas for a while and I finally got around to it.  They were REALLY yummy!  Elese didn’t quite get on board with them but the rest of us loved them.  Here’s how you make them:

Tags: bbq chicken, Cooking, indoor, pizza, recipe
Posted in Quick Activities | 1 Comment »

Saturday May 22nd, 2010

Today’s Activity:

Let the kids help cook dinner.

Note:

Try making something that you know your little ones like.

Evaluate:

Elese LOVED helping me crush up all the crackers for our Parmesan Chicken and Max thought it was pretty cool to see the Pillsbury dough roll pop.  At first Max was reluctant to help me roll the dough but once her realized that it wasn’t gooey he decided it was pretty darn cool.  Although there were several spills while having them help it was still so much fun to have them help me in our new kitchen.

Tags: Cooking, dinner, helping
Posted in Average Length Activities | 1 Comment »

Saturday March 27th, 2010

Today’s Activity:

Let your kids choose what to cook for dinner.

Note:

That’s right, I said “cook”.  Chances are they will say McDonalds but make sure they know it is something that you can cook at home.  You can even have them help you make it.

Evaluate:

Elese got to choose what to have for dinner and the first thing she said was “McDonalds”.  So I gave her a few at home choices.  She chose eggs and tortillas aka huevos rancheros.

Tags: Cooking, dinner
Posted in Average Length Activities | No Comments »

Saturday November 14th, 2009

Today’s Activity:

Are you like me and get sick and tired of cooking by the time Saturday comes around?  Well I say delegate!  Set a budget for your kids and put them in charge of dinner.  You can either supervise or ask your husband to.

FREE:

If you’re grocery money has already been spent for the pay period then let them shop in the cupboards.

Note:

Be patient and when they serve you Peanut Butter and pickle sandwiches eat them with a smile on your face.  You don’t want to make them feel the way they make you feel when they don’t like what you cooked.  Besides, once they are in bed you could always have a pizza delivered.

Evaluate:

When I told Max he and his sister got to be in charge of dinner he immediately suggested rice & beans “because that will be easy!”  Well when he says rice & beans he is referring to the “rice and beans place” aka Cancun Cafe, his favorite restaurant.  He wasn’t terbbly upset when I told him he had to cook it.  So we attempted to make our own rice and beans.  I googled a recipe for Mexican rice because honestly, I’ve only made Spanish rice.  The problem is that it called for an onion and I didn’t have one (grocery day is tomorrow, well today now) and I really didn’t want to go the the store just to go again tomorrow, so we found some OLD onion powder in my moms cupboard and used that.  It was date night so Steven and I actually went to the rice and beans place to enjoy the real thing while we left the kids and their sitter home with our attempt at rice and canned beans (really, you think I was going to try to make homemade re-fried beans with a 5 & 2 year old?).

Tags: budget, Cooking
Posted in Average Length Activities, Cooking | No Comments »

Tuesday October 27, 2009

Today’s Activity:

My friend Jana tells a story about how when she was in high school she mentioned that she was going to have breakfast for dinner and she was very excited about it.  While telling her friends all about it a passer by said, “Well at my house we have breakfast for breakfast!”  Well tonight, at our homes we are going to have breakfast for dinner!  You can do this one all on your own or let your kids help you plan and cook.  Either way they’ll love having bacon and eggs for dinner, or maybe even chocolate chip pancakes.

Note:

I’m lucky to have a husband that enjoys cooking breakfast and he does it nearly every morning (we have cereal when he doesn’t).  Every so often I come across a breakfast meal (usually on the food network) that I really want to try and make.  Take this opportunity to make something you’ve been dying to try but haven’t wanted to deal with early in the morning while pushing the kids out the door to school.

Evaluate:

My favorite breakfast place closed several years ago so I like to make my own version of my favorite thing on the menu.  It’s hash browns with sauted green peppers, onions and bacon in them topped with cheese and scrambled eggs.  As you can tell by the picture I forgot that the green peppers, onions and bacon go in the hash browns and I put them in the eggs…it was still yummy but not the same as my favorite breakfast place.  Max kept saying, “Time for Breakfast!” and thought it was great to be eating bacon at dinner time.  Oh, and I don’t recomend buying the cheap bacon…that’s what I did and it was horrible!  So I went and bought the brand that I prefer and it turned out that it was on an unposted sale and was only .50 more than the cheap kind I bought.

Tags: breakfast, Cooking, dinner, indoor
Posted in Average Length Activities, Cooking | No Comments »