My husband and I live 200 miles away from our nearest family. We don’t have the luxury of having grandparents popping in for a quick visit while we slip out for dinner together. While that would be lovely, we’ve come up with creative ways to adapt and have dinner dates at home.
I never plan these evenings, simply because I’m not a planner. They are just impromptu dinners, taking advantage of the time, hungry kids who need an early dinner and having something good in the fridge to cook for us parents. Hubby doesn’t usually get home till about 6:30, so we are used to eating around 7:00. Which I know is late for most families, but I insist on us eating together for daily family dinners.
But once in a while, I do something easy for the kids, like pizza, sandwiches and fruit. And let them eat in front of the TV. I enjoy a peaceful glass of wine and get cooking in the kitchen. Then it’s off to an early bath and bedtime for the kids. Once they are tucked in, we enjoy our grown up dinner with the table to ourselves.
We like doing these late dinners once in a while. It sort of reminds us of our summers together in Europe as students living with host families, where it’s customary to start dinner 8:00.
For our most recent date dinner at home, we ate pan seared salmon, herbed potatoes, squash and salad. It was tasty, but really, it’s not about the food. It’s about making time for some grown up, uninterrupted conversation. Which doesn’t happen too frequently for us.
Cheers!
Oh my! How I miss a grown up dinner+ conversation!
Gotta think on how to do that…maybe my mum could help us…she lives near but I do not want to “take advantage” of her, even if she loves my little boy!
7 pm is late for you?? Oh my!!! We eat at 8 pm and there’s no way to make my little one going to bed before 9…oh!
Fra