What's for dinner? Salmon!

I am not a short order cook and I never will be. I have four kids and they would all like to order something different for dinner every night. I don't think so! My kitchen is not a restaurant and I make one thing for dinner... most of the time. Some nights my husband and I will have a late dinner by ourselves, so the kids get to eat a different meal than us. But 6 out of 7 nights a week we all eat the same thing and it is usually healthy. Notice I am saying "most of the time" and "usually." That is because living a healthy lifestyle means that you can have some things that may not be perfectly healthy by some standards just as long as you don't do it all the time. I enjoy pizza and burgers and spaghetti with meatballs with lots of parmesan cheese. We eat out once a week as a family, it just works with better with our schedules and lifestyle to do that. More about eating out another time. So, back to dinner. It works best for our busy family to create a menu plan. If you have never created one or used one religiously I highly recommend it. Whether you have kids or not, it helps to keep you accountable to what you are eating and you can even include calories to make sure you are staying on track with your caloric goals. Start creating a menu plan by just planning a week of dinners. Here is our dinner plan this week: Monday: dining out night Tuesday: Steaks, Steamed Veggies and Salad Wednesday: Salmon, Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) and Salad Thursday: Chicken Fajitas, Refried Beans, Salsa and Chips Friday: BBQ Pork Chops, Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Peas Saturday: Salad and left overs I wouldn't consider anything on this list weird, maybe the Quinoa - but once you have it you will realize it isn't weird at all. Everything has passed the test of my four kids, and a couple of them are very picky eaters. Even the salmon gets eaten because when kids are hungry, they will eat. I am not going to get into parenting here, but I will tell you that if you enforce a rule that everyone eats the same thing you will find that your kids will eat, they will not starve themselves, they will try new things and they will eventually become less picky. Preparing tonight's dinner: Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) can be found near rice at the grocery store. It is becoming very common because it is a grain that is loaded with protein! Such a great choice over rice or potatoes. I make the entire box according to the box instructions not adding salt or butter. Once it is cooked I add freshly squeezed lemon juice, chopped green onions (chopped so small the kids don't know they are in there), a little dried parsley and a little sea salt. It is wonderful! You can adjust any of these ingredients to your own liking. Note: the reason I make the entire box is that any left-over I put into zip locs bags and put in the freezer so I have a quick side dish on a busy evening. I use salmon from Schwans, the Alaskan wild-caught salmon. I like their salmon because it is wild so it has all of the essential oils that I would want in fish, in other words avoid the farm-raised fish! It is also individually packaged so I know my serving size and calories. One good size piece has only 120 calories! It also turns out great cooked from frozen, which makes busy nights much easier! Sprinkle some garlic powder or use fresh minced garlic on the salmon. Then brush a little REAL maple syrup on top - none of that fake stuff loaded with high-fructose corn syrup! Put it in the oven for about 20 min at 375 degrees. Make a fresh salad and choose a healthy salad dressing. Read the labels and look at the ingredients. Keep reading my blogs and you will definitely learn more about label reading through me. So that is tonight's dinner. Healthy not Weird!