Dinners for the exhausted

I have been surveying friends about their favorite go-to meals when they are almost too tired to cook (other than takeout, pizza, frozen pizza, etc.).  Dump recipes are my very favorites for this, as they are almost no effort to prep or to cook, but if your freezer is not already stocked, you need other options.  Last night, I made creamy goat cheese pasta with roasted veggies, and it was outstandingly delicious.  I did tweak the original recipe just a bit to use what I had on hand - I used a fiber-enriched pasta, I only had 4 oz of goat cheese, I used some of a tube of basil paste instead of fresh basil, I subbed baby kale mix for the fresh spinach, and I added cooked turkey (which I already had in the freezer).  The roasted mushrooms, which are doused in olive oil and balsamic vinegar before going in the oven, really made the flavors stand out, and I think next time I make it, I will roast more veggies - maybe some zucchini and carrots and cherry tomatoes.  The family enjoyed it, and the newly picky eater just picked out the mushrooms.

A note on the basil paste - those tubes are awesome.  I have not tried all the flavors, and I will not swear that the basil paste is better than or quite as good as fresh.  But it is much more vibrantly flavored than dried, and if you didn't think to freeze any of your own basil in advance, it is wonderful in the winter.  I particularly like the lemongrass paste - it is a thousand times easier than chopping and pulverizing my own lemongrass stalks, and really tasty.  I keep all of them in the freezer and then just squeeze out what I need - they last a long time that way, which makes the $3.99 price a little easier to bear.  (They do occasionally go on sale at King Soopers for $3.50 per tube.)

S, my 5 year old, has recently decided that there are a whole host of foods he doesn't like anymore, and the list changes from day to day or meal to meal.  Two nights ago, he gobbled down a reuben sandwich and yellow beet soup and said how much he loved it.  Today at lunch, he suddenly decided that while rye bread, pastrami and sauerkraut are all delicious, he couldn't stand baby swiss.  Also, today, the soup was not a hit.  Same soup he asked for third helpings of two nights ago, but now apparently less awesome.  It is frustrating and hard to not take it as a criticism.  At the same time, picking his own food and clothes are reasonable ways to assert his independence, and I am trying very hard to move to a more gentle and respectful mode of parenting.  I remind myself often to treat him like I would a guest, and I can't see myself shaming a guest into eating his swiss cheese.  I am tired of disciplining my little boy - I want to just love and enjoy him.  Plus, trying to correct his behavior frequently leads to clashes that spiral and take down the whole day.  So if I can just let it go, I am trying to do so.  I can see how much it means to S when that happens, so I am trying to make that the norm.  Parenting - it's all about trying.

Tonight, we are going to start having family night.  I remember really loving family home evenings when I was a kid (I grew up LDS or Mormon), and I want to foster those close, friendly, fun feelings for my family now. Tomorrow night, S wants to make dinner all by himself for the first time.  Hard to believe he is old enough for that, but I think he can do it with some very minimal help.  (I can pour the pasta water into the colander, for example.)  I am excited to see how it goes.