Why is dinner so hard?

I have a goal to eat dinner as a family. But getting my family to wait until dinnertime is only part of the problem. The other part is what the hell to fix.

My children and I are vegetarians. (Not that this is a huge issue with Kai at the moment.) So our boxed-crap options are pretty slim. And I'm sick of them all. I love pasta, but am burned out on store-bought sauce. And that's pretty much the food industry's answer to prepackaged vegetarian food, at least at my grocery store. (Oh, Schnucks, I miss you.)

My daughter thinks macaroni and cheese is a food group.

My partner thinks ramen and freezer burritos are acceptable meal options.

I have a collection of recipes that I am working to expand, but right now it's pretty small. And when I ask "What do you want for dinner?" the answers never come from my recipe box.

I tried making a menu planning board. I put the names of recipes we all like on cards and put the board in the kitchen. All we have to do is select and post a handful of recipe names each week. We did that once. The same dishes have been up there since around June.

I created a similar list on my phone. The names and recipes for all our standby meals are all there -- I just have to pick a few, then go to the store and buy what we need. But apparently even that is too much work.

When I lived alone, I made a pile of new recipes and planned menus around them. I shopped every two weeks, and tried out 4 or so recipes between shopping trips. I planned the menus to reduce food waste but still afford myself a little variety. I ate healthy food, dropped a few extra pounds, and felt great.

Suggesting we try a new recipe to this crowd is about as popular as suggesting we play a fun new game called Russian roulette. Even when I promise we can go to Sonic if it sucks.

I am not completely innocent here. I hate going to the grocery store so very much that usually I buy whatever we used the week before, toss in some healthyish junk food for Anya to nosh on, and call it done. So my pantry remains full of pasta and tomato sauce that I don't want to eat.

I need to get a handle on this before Kai is old enough to grab snacks on his own, or it'll be anarchy around here.

Eat days

This year marks a momentous occasion: I am taking over part of the Thanksgiving preparations.

Not just kicking in a casserole or lending the use of my oven. In addition to baking my homemade mac and cheese, I am making the dressing and the pumpkin pie.

The pumpkin pie, especially, feels sacred. Like it's an honor to be allowed to prepare such a dish. I feel like a kid who gets to sit at the grown-ups table at last.

Part of this new order is just shifting our thinking. Though I am not just an adult but a mommy (and middle aged, for pete's sake), my parents still think of me as a kid. (And always will...I have no illusions about that.) So I have to remind them occasionally that I've been feeding and housing myself, paying taxes and keeping the lights on, for 20 years now. And occasionally, I have to say things like, "I'm making part of Thanksgiving dinner this year." Because they're not going to ask me to do that...I'm just a kid.

Mom's RA is better this week, but she has her ups and downs. She's in a bad flare lately, and winding down on her latest prednisone pack. Which means she never knows from one day to the next if she will be able to dress herself. I figure asking her to cube a loaf of bread and roll out a pie crust is a bit much, considering.

Also, I've come to realize that Mom doesn't really like to cook. She likes traditions, and food is one of those. But the actual act of cooking is not one of her favorites. I, on the other hand, love to cook. (It's washing the dishes I'm not crazy about.) So it just makes sense that I take some of the load.

When Anya was younger, she told Mimi that holidays are "eat days." Nobody goes to work; everyone goes to Mimi's house to eat. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the eating season. Hopefully I (and my oven!) are up to the task.