Weeknights around our house are slightly hectic, perhaps an understatement. We have roughly 42.5 minutes between pick-up and swim practice Monday, Wednesday and Fridays to get home, make dinner, get suits on and get out the door. Tuesdays and Thursdays that time is cut to about 32.3 minutes due to soccer practice.
Our family has always cherished eating dinner together around the table, at home. When this schedule first started we found ourselves eating out too often, not good for the health or the pocketbook. So Sunday we finally got it together to create a game plan for the week.
So here it goes, my chronicles of our first week attempting to squish making and eating dinner around the table into way too little time.
We realized that for this to work we would have to go with some prepackaged foods, so like we always do, we hit up Trader Joe’s for our favorite options.
Today we decided on Butternut Squash Soup with Brie Panini’s.
- Pre-heat oven
- Open the Butternut Squash Soup box, pour into pot, warm up on stove
- Slice brie into thin slices
- Slice one apple into thin slices
- Butter and rub with olive oil slices of good Tuscan bread
- Place Brie and Apple slices on one slice of bread, top with crasins then the second piece of bread*
- Place in Panini press, put in oven until cheese is melted.**
*Here is where I warmed up leftover macaroni and cheese because I realized dinner was not going to be finished in time for my daughter.
**Here is where I watched my husband and daughter leave before my husband got to eat – well, I guess I’ll keep it warm until he gets home from practice!
So, it was delicious, and I enjoyed dinner with a lovely glass of red wine eating around the table with my youngest daughter and okay, to be honest we decided the coffee table would fit our needs just fine.
So here’s hopeful thinking for tomorrow to go a little more smoothly!