Family home-made cooking and meals are the best!

Here’s a nice look at some of the meals that my mother used to make for us kids when we were young. And we will also chat some about family meals eaten together.

I can tell you, with my first-hand experience that as we grew up and moved away from home, these delicious home cooked meals were replaced by fast food, and restaurant set meals. In truth, for decades I lived off of a mixture of fast food, easy to prepare cheap foods at home (spaghetti, hamburger, chicken) and restaurant staples.

I argue that many people still live this kind of pitiful life; not getting to live a life filled with delicious and tasty, healthy food.

This article looks at what my family used to cook for me that no longer exists in the diets of most Americans today. How many families in America today have sit-down family meals with lamb-chops, fresh fish, or a rump roast?

I personally beleive that once you start taking the time to eat well planned, healthy meals at home, your life and your families lives will become better and greater in every way possible.

The Real Benefit of Family Dinners

The importance of regular family dinners has been a hot topic in the world of sociology and family studies, and you’ve probably seen many articles these last few years touting their benefits. It’s been argued that family dinners do everything from decrease obesity to lower your children’s risk for teen pregnancy, crime, and drug use. It seemed as though family dinners were a silver bullet in preventing your kids from becoming deadbeats, and a failure to regularly sup together pretty much destined your child for a life on skid-row.

However, when researchers recently took a closer look at the supposed benefits of family dinners, what they found was that a lot of them could be chalked up to correlation rather than causation. That is, parents who had a strong marriage, better relationships with their kids, and set more guidelines for them, were more likely to have family dinners, and more likely to have well-adjusted children. It is these other factors, rather than the dinners themselves, that account for this effect.

The study’s authors concluded that while family dinners alone won’t prevent your kids from turning into cigarette smoking, teen mom juvies, the ritual can serve as a valuable part of a set of family habits, routines, and practices that contribute to a child’s overall well-being.

One clear benefit of family dinners that they found held up, even when controlling for the other factors, was a significant reduction in adolescent depression.

So consider family dinners to be another tool in your goal of building a positive family culture.

Their real benefit is the chance they provide for your family to slow down, get together face-to-face, talk without distractions, cement your values, create a feeling of support, and build loving bonds.

These benefits accrue to families who not only try to regularly have dinner (or another meal) together, but who approach these chances to break bread in an intentional way.

Let’s look at some of the tasty reasons why dinners whould be cooked at home.

Roasts have existed for centuries, but the simplest versions are often to be the best. This double pork combo features a rich and luscious tenderloin wrapped in crispy, salty bacon that will leave your mouth watering. Just make sure to cook up some extra portions, as you know everyone will want seconds of this classic dish.

Stews have existed through time as some of the most durable, family-favorite dinners.

This recipe allows you to whip up a pot of this classic dish that could feed an army and explore the original flavors that made stew such an appealing dinner.

By adding in some dumplings, you can guarantee this meal will stick to your ribs and keep you well-fed.

Instant Pots have been a kitchen blessing, and they can make cooking classic recipes a whole lot easier.

This quick and easy pot roast will make you see this dish in a new light and fill in any craving you have for a meat-and-potatoes meal. After just one bite, you might find your new weekday meal.

I must tell youse guys that I ate a lot of this when I was growing up. Pot roasts were my absolute favorite, and I just loved the potates, and we ate them with a full salad, at least two vegitable sides and a pile of sliced bread. Good eating, and long neglected.

This retro recipe takes a twist on the classic lamb and mint jelly formula by turning the jelly into a mint chimichurri. This recipe is sophisticated enough to serve at any dinner party and can be easy enough to make any day of the week. If you haven’t given lamb a shot, this should be your gateway in.

Pot pies are instant classics, but very few home cooks tend to make them these days. Why not explore the past with this classic recipe that takes all the flavors of this vintage dish and makes it easy to fix up at home?

This easy-to-concoct meal is a great way to start more comfortable working with pastries, and if you don’t feel confident in your abilities, you can use store-bought dough to save some time.

You may have seen canned corned beef hash for sale at stores or watched your grandparents eat it, but nothing compares to making it at home. With one bite, you’ll remember why this dish became such a staple that has survived through the years. Just make sure to pace yourself, as you’ll want to gobble everything you make up in one go.

Rediscover why lamb chops were such a hit by grilling up the perfect lamb with an herb crust that could please any palate. The deep flavor combinations can’t compare to any other boring lamb you’ve had in the past, and the herbs liven up this retro dish for the new era.

I have to tell youse guys, I really ate well as a kid. What the Hell went so wrong? My mother really knew how to cook and budget great meals for us kids. But then, somehow, I ended up living off of spaghetti and hamburger. Man, oh man!

But the kids don’t want to sit at supper…

Well, then your family must be too far gone.

And you are just a limp-wristed pale shadow of a parent. You must provide rules, and guidelines and routines. Your children will grow to respect them, and after a month, they will learn to love them.

Ugh.

Sounds like me. So don’t get too offended. I’m talking about myself here.

Electronic media is a terrible seduction.

How to get the kids “on board”…

Yeah. It’s tough to pry them away from games, social media, and movies. But here’s some (lame) idea to get them interested.

[1] Teach them how to prepare their favorite food, and make a meal out of it. Then you make it formal and strat the ritualization of it.

[2] When you make their favorite food, make sure it is always formalized and ritualized. Make it special. There are different ways to make it special. Everyone is different. When I lived in the monastery, there was a bell that was rung. But it could be anything that fits your life, and your home.

[3] Always have delicious desserts. Let the children know that after they eat, they will have a very tasty dessert.

[4] Kids are easily distracted. So make sure that all distractions are switched to “off”.

How to Get the Most Out of Family Meal Times

Ritual. Strive for consistency. Try to make family dinner a sacrosanct ritual. Whenever you can, schedule your work and activities around this immovable block. Sometimes very busy high-powered executives will come home from work, eat dinner with the family, and then go back to work later. They do what they can not to miss it.

What’s great about prioritizing family dinners is that it gives you a goal to shoot for. If you know the wife and kids won’t be sitting down together and will just be fending for themselves, it’s tempting to rationalize continuing to plow through your work. But if you’re expected to be at the table, it’s easier to break away from what you’re doing and get home.

Don’t beat yourself up if you have to forgo your family dinner sometimes. Research indicates that children who have dinner with their family at least three times a week enjoy the benefits of family dinners. So just try to be as consistent with it as you can.

Any meal will do. It doesn’t actually have to be dinner. Many families today have schedules that make it hard to get everyone home for dinnertime. Dad or Mom works late, and one kid has soccer practice at 6PM while the other kid has a piano recital on the other side of town at 7. It only gets worse as the kids get older. I remember when I got into high school, I was barely ever home for family dinner due to football, work, or student council.

Sometimes the solution is a much-needed simplification of our schedules, but it’s just not always possible to get everyone to the table at 6:00. Because of this, many families simply give up altogether on the idea of regularly sharing a meal.

But research shows that when it comes to the benefits of breaking bread as a family, there’s nothing magical about doing it at dinnertime. It’s just as beneficial to sit down together for other meals — breakfast, lunch, even dessert! The key is that you’re together as a family on a regular basis (food helps in this by adding a level of comfort, texture, and enjoyment).

Maybe evenings are crazy for your family, but mornings not so much. Make family breakfast your thing. Let’s say mornings and evenings are bad, but things are pretty chill right before bedtime. Make time for a pre-bed snack as a family. It could be cookies and milk, or if you’re paleo, try some coconut blueberry balls. The important thing is that you get together with your family on a regular basis for some quality conversation and bonding time.

So instead of thinking about making the most of family dinnertime, think of it as getting the most of family meal times.

Teach them the love of cooking. Get your kids involved with making the meal. Kids love to help out with cooking. And letting them do so will help them forge a better appreciation of food and teach them a valuable skill in self-reliance that will really come in handy once they head out on their own. Plus, it gives you a chance to start talking to your kids before you even get to the table.

Take-out (or dining out) is a-okay sometimes. Home cooking is ideal for reasons of both health and cost, but there are always going to be times where you or your wife don’t have time to make a meal from scratch. That’s okay – remember, the important thing is just making the time to sit down together. Getting take-out or going to a restaurant can actually be more relaxing for everyone, and the latter is a lot of fun for the kids.

No TV, cellphones, or tablets. The purpose of family meal times is to strengthen the familial bond. You can’t do that when you’re all silently staring at the TV or while everyone has their eyes glued to their phone. Make it an ironclad rule: no electronic devices at the table.

Play music in the background. This is something we do in our house sometimes. We often play big band or classical tunes, and I try to teach Gus the sounds of the different instruments. If we’re eating Mexican food, I’ll put on some rock en español — Maná and Juanes are two of our favorites. If Kate’s the DJ, it’s often the Guster channel on Pandora. Some quiet background music adds to the atmosphere and just makes the occasion feel a little more special and fun.

Say grace. Saying grace before a meal teaches your kids the importance of gratitude and what a blessing it is to simply have food on their plates. It also teaches delayed gratification – it can be hard for kids to even wait a minute before digging in! If you’re religious, saying grace reaffirms your family’s religious identity as well.

Teach manners. Shared meals are the perfect time for teaching your kids manners. It’s something you have to reiterate over and over and over again with the little ones, but ingraining this ritual will help them cultivate a civil and polite mindset that will extend far beyond the dinner table.

Practice the 10-50-1 Rule. To get the most out of family meal times, you need to get your family talking. And not just about whether the food is too spicy (research has found that most conversation at family meals centers on the quality of the food!). In his book, The Secrets of Happy Families, author Bruce Feiler shares a guideline he uses for family meal times: the 10-50-1 Rule.

• Aim for 10 minutes of quality talk. Researchers have found that’s about the average amount of quality talk time an average meal yields, so it’s a good minimum goal. It’s not much, but a little bit each day on a sustained basis really adds up over the long haul.
• Let your kid speak 50 percent of the time. Research shows that adults usually hold the floor for 2/3 of that 10-minute conversation time. There are benefits for kids in overhearing adult conversations, but you want to hear what they have to say, too.
• Teach your kids 1 new word every meal. Studies indicate that kids who have regular family meal times have larger vocabularies than kids who don’t. But holding regular family dinners won’t magically teach kids new words. Be intentional about it like Bruce is. At every dinner he teaches his kids one new word by playing different games. For example, he’ll throw out a word like “fruit” and then have everyone come up with as many related words as possible. Another game he’ll do is to bring a newspaper to the table and have everyone find a word they don’t know, try to figure out what the word means, and discuss it with the rest of the family.

Conversation. Get good conversation going. If you want to have at least ten minutes of quality talk at each meal, and you want your kids to do half of the talking, you’re going to have to ask them questions. Sometimes kids will give you one-word or non-answers, but just keep trying to elicit a response from different angles. Don’t just ask, “How was your day?” Ask them to tell you one thing they learned that day or what the best part of their day was so far. Ask them if they saw or read anything interesting. As they get older, bring up current events and ask for their opinions on them.

History. Talk about your family history. Psychologist Marshall Duke and his colleague Robyn Fivush found that children who know about their family’s history have a stronger sense of control over their lives, higher self-esteem, and feel more connected to their families than children who don’t know their family’s history. In fact, they discovered that the best single predictor of a child’s emotional health and happiness was their ability to answer questions about their family history, such as:

• Do you know where your grandparents grew up?
• Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school?
• Do you know where your parents met?
• Do you know of an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family?
• Do you know what went on when you were being born?

Duke and Fivush believe that knowledge of his or her personal family history provides a child with a strong “intergenerational self,” which makes them feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

As they hear stories of family struggles and triumphs, kids learn about family narratives that instill resilience.

According to Duke, the most powerful narrative for building resilience in children is the oscillating narrative.

It’s basically the story of continual ups and downs in your family, where, despite what happened, the family always stuck together.

How empowering and inspiring is that for a kid who’s going through a tough time?

Knowing that great-great-great grandpa managed to create a thriving business even after suffering hardship and the death of family members along a wagon trail in the middle of nowhere can help a kid understand that life will be okay even if he doesn’t get into his college of choice.

If grandpa thrived during adversity, he can thrive, too.

No children?

No problem.

Dinners are a time to build your relationship, talk and discuss and make special moments over food and drink. You can make it very special. And that is wonderful.

Make the dinner a little romantic and memorable Apart from making a great dinner, here are some tips that you must know if you want to make this night memorable.

1. Choose the right drinks

A romantic dinner is not complete without drinks – but your choice of beverages depends on your dishes.

• A steak dinner can be paired with an earthy red wine.
• You could serve a crisp, chilled white wine if you decided on chicken.

Whatever your decision, make sure you have a bottle opener handy, you don’t want to be caught without one.

If you’re not into alcohol, pick up some fruity, fizzy drinks to go with your date night meals. LIke orange juice, or a nice tea. Or, a well made coffee.

Be sure to have your date’s favorite drinks on hand for after dinner – so stock up on beers, whiskey, or gin. And if it is to be served cola,, make sure that it’s really cold.

Their favorite drink will go well with dessert.

2. Choose easy, simple recipes

When people are trying to find out how to make a romantic dinner, they probably forget that the most romantic dinner recipes are a piece of cake.

You don’t want to worry about too many aspects, complicated sauces, and preparations. Choose a dish that is easy to make with only a few ingredients. Remember this one tip as one of the most important romantic dinner ideas. Else you would be thrown in for a loop!

In a pinch, you can buy a premade instant pizza, and toss a bunch of extra pepperoni and globs of cheese on top of it. Think “adaptation” and “improvement”. You are striving for an event. Not particuliarly a meal.

3. Create the perfect setting

When you are looking up romantic dinner date ideas and trying to figure out how to plan a romantic dinner, you might think of recipes and ingredients.

But here’s the thing – you want to create the entire package. That means food, drinks, and the most important of all – the setting! It could be anything from a home-made special moment, to a plain tablecloth and a candle. Just try to make the dinner a little special.

A special and relaxed atmosphere is the perfect backdrop for a romantic dinner.

4. Relax and enjoy the meal and the company

Don’t forget to sit back, relax, and relish the romantic dinner. If something goes wrong with the food, let it. You don’t want to be stressing over everything so much that you forget to enjoy the experience. It’s all about the conversation and the food.

5. Talk about the good things

Nothing really serious, or anger generating.

You can spend some time reminiscing about the good times, especially if you both have had very little time together recently. So just keep it light and easy. Nothing serious. It’s a time of relaxation and rest.

6. Do not exert yourself too much

As much as you want to make this special, make sure you are not too tired by the end of all of it. Take time to rest and feel good about the night.

7. Dress up

Even if you are both staying home, dress up nicely for each other. You will feel so much better when you put on nice clothes and sit with each other. Guys, maybe you wear a T-shirt all the time, but what’s the harm of thowing on a blazer over it?

I well remember my Zambian (African) girlfriend, who would dress up for every meal. It did not matter if it was at home or outside. Nice outfit. Hair done. Perfume. And ladies, let me tell you what, it’s hard to compete against THAT.

8. Take photos together

Take out some time to take photos of each other, of the food, and together. Pictures are a great way to create memories, and you can always look back on them and relive these moments.

I put mine in a ton load of folders.

Don’t be like MM here. Organize better. My filing system is a shambles. Ugh!

9. Try something new

Make it a point to try something new. It could be a new cuisine, drink, or dish. New experiences with the one you love are a great way to bond. Even the shitty events, and the meals and places that didn’t work out are bonds and stories that we share and remember.

10. Get rid of distractions

Again. No distractions. Put your phone, laptops, and other gadgets away. Put away anything that distracts you and your partner, and spend time only with each other.

I will tell you that even I, almighty MM, slip up and forget this rule from time to time. And my wife, Mrs. MM hits me on the head (as she’s the only pne premitted to do this) and stops me from getting sucked into the information overload vortex.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Food Index associated with my Happiness Index here…

Food!

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