Confession: I don’t like making dinner.

I grew up with just my Mom and sister. My Mom cooked a lot of chili, goulash and easy one pot meals. I’m not complaining, I love comfort food! As a single Mom with only girls in the house, we were able to make our groceries stretch. Some nights we ate cereal, and that was just fine. We always had leftovers and dinner never seemed like a big ordeal.

Luke was one of three boys. His Mom had to have a plethora of inexpensive and filling recipes on hand. Every night she spent time in the kitchen making meals for their big family of hungry boys and rarely did they have leftovers.

We both came into this marriage with different expectations on what dinner was to look like. Luke for some reason expected that we’d eat every day. Where would he get a crazy idea like that?! In the beginning of our relationship, we were both in college and without kids. Our meals were simple and they stretched. Fast forward 11 years and we’re a family of 6, busier than ever and I still hadn’t mastered this whole ‘we have to eat’ thing.

I’d go in spurts. I’d be really great about making new healthy recipes and having hot meals each night for about a week or two and then I’d be off for two weeks struggling to get dinner on the table. This was complicated by my conflicting desire to serve healthy meals with ‘clean’ and organic ingredients. I struggle between reaching for the convenient options like various casseroles with cream of sodium mushroom soup and the more time consuming healthier options that include chopping, slicing, and dicing.

There are countless resources for healthy lifestyles and diets. We love watching documentaries, and there are few other categories that catch my eye than those regarding health, wellness, and food. The problem is the conflicting information. There are great arguments for the validity of many different lifestyles and diets; Paleo, Veganism, Vegetarianism, Keto, Gluten-free, etc. There are also many resources that talk about how disease prevention in many cases starts with what we are putting into our bodies. It’s important to be an educated consumer and make decisions for your family that contribute to their overall health and wellness.

I feel like it’s my responsibility to make the best decision for my family, but how on earth do you decide which lifestyle is best with so much conflicting or convincing information? For me, this led to decision paralysis. At any stage of the meal process, if I felt overwhelmed with choices I struggled to make any decision at all. Mom guilt and fear were mounting. On one hand, I grew up eating spaghettios and pop tarts like any other child of the ’80s and I turned out just fine! On the other hand, I was afraid that my choices would harm my family. Food shaming is real you guys, especially on social.

The Problem: When it came to not having time or energy to cook healthy food vs. cooking something I knew wasn’t ‘good’ for my family I was choosing not to cook anything at all.

Dilemma #1: My husband’s metabolism

My husband is 5’11 and has a metabolism that just won’t quit. He works long 10 hour days and comes home hungry. I get it. He’s a hard worker and I want nothing more than to bless that man with a hot meal when he walks through the door. I know how much he appreciates it when he has dinner waiting. This is not a 1950s living arrangement, but Luke makes dinner more than I’d like to admit. That being said, we’re both tired at the end of the day and quite frankly the last place either of us wants to be is in the kitchen. Between our 4 kids and his appetite and metabolism we never have left overs. This means I feel like I’m always in the kitchen (because I am) and it’s exhausting. I’m already double and tripling recipes and my boys aren’t even teenagers!

Dilemma #2: Meal planning doesn’t come easy for me

It’s not just that I don’t enjoy it, it’s an issue of organization and focus. It’s very time-consuming. It takes a lot of mental clarity with 4 kids running around to create a list of *healthy* recipes that everyone will eat. Then you have to determine what ingredients you have and which you need, and write an organized list by aisle. Why by aisle? Easy answer, I’m a type A personality with suspected ADHD. If my list isn’t hyper-organized, I don’t even want the dang list. I’ve traveled the distance between the checkout lanes and the milk cooler too many times to not organize my list! If I don’t meal plan and write the list, I’ll come out with exactly $247 worth of food that will sit in our pantry as we claim ‘we have nothing to make’.

Truthfully, I feel foolish even typing this struggle out. It sounds easy on paper, “just plan your meals!” BUT If it was that easy why would there be 344 MILLION search results on google for ‘meal planning’? Just sayin ya’ll.

Dilemma #3: Grocery Shopping

After the meal planning comes grocery shopping and that is what really gets me. We live in the Midwest with access to a popular grocery chain that is on average 150,000 square feet. I should know… I used to work for the corporate office. They carry everything from groceries, dog food, TVs, shoes, clothes, you name it. It’s a higher quality, more local version of Walmart. It’s BIG and I cannot get in and out of there in less than an hour and a half.

 

Here’s what I don’t like about big grocery stores:

1. Even with a list, I’ll get clear across the 100,000 sq ft store and realize I forgot eggs in the back corner. Lovely.
2. The sheer amount of options overwhelms me and I feel almost paralyzed in making decisions. Do I go for better price or better ingredients? Where on the spectrum of 30 different brands and options should I land and make a decision.
3. Impulse buying: I went in for milk, I came out with a Betta fish. That’s a true story.
4. You’re paying for overhead; electricity, staffing, stocking, etc.

I did find a solution to this particular dilemma.

ALDI.

That’s a post or several posts for another day.

Dilemma #4: The time it takes to cook normal meals

I’m not an organized cook. If the recipe says estimated time 20 minutes, it’s going to take me 40. That’s just the way it is. It is a delicate dance trying to prepare all the different components of a meal and still serve everything hot! Add to that 3 kids who are “starving” in Hunger Games mode fighting for my attention and a baby hanging from my leg. We often times end up with something burned and something mush. It’s not just the cooking time either, it’s the dishes afterward. Especially if a recipe requires multiple pots and pans! Forget about it, order organic pizza. That’s a thing, right?

 

Solution: In July of 2017 I met my Knight in stainless steel armor, My Instant Pot… and life has never been the same.

 

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was Amazon Prime Day 2017 and I had just placed my order for this gadget and was reading reviews when Luke came in and said, “Don’t buy that thing.” See, I have a habit of buying kitchen gadgets, telling Luke I’ll cook more and then putting it on a shelf. He didn’t believe that this would be any different than the $300 Pampered Chef order from the previous year. Sure I used some of my PC gadgets but certainly didn’t need them all.

 

It was too late. I sassed him for telling me what to do and that was that until my Instant pot came in the mail 2 days later.

 

I was intimidated when I opened the box. I heard horror stories of people’s faces exploding with the old school pressure cookers that sat on the stove. I felt reassured after learning the Instant Pot has 10 safety mechanisms in place to prevent that from happening.

 

The women at my church had been RAVING about their Instant Pots for months on Facebook and the idea of cooking chicken in 12 minutes or a frozen roast in less than an hour intrigued me. You can find the Instant Pot on average right around $100. If it solved even half of the tension and stress surrounding meal time in our house, it was worth the investment.

If you’re looking for a technical guide of how it works or a description of the features, this isn’t it! Amazon has a great description if you want to head over. You’ll also see that the Instant Pot has a 4.5-star rating over 28,000 reviews. People LOVE this product. In fact, if you search the reviews you’ll find 11,305 reviews with the word ‘love’. I get it! One of them is mine! Instead, I want to explain how this product has solved the problems listed above.

In short, the Instant Pot is a crockpot on steroids. Here is a very truncated description from the manufacturer, visit Amazon for more details; “Instant Pot is a 7-in-1 programmable cooker, it replaces 7 kitchen appliances as it has the functions of a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, sauté, yogurt maker & warmer. It speeds up cooking by 2~6 times using up to 70% less energy and, above all, produces nutritious healthy food in a convenient and consistent fashion.”

The verdict is in: We cannot do life without this appliance. It has solved so many of our mealtime struggles that I could just kiss the manufacturer for this good gift to humanity. My husband is happy, peace is restored and my children are well fed.

 

Here are the top 7 reasons why we love our DUO 8qt 7-in-1 Instant Pot

1. We save SO.MUCH.TIME. I can have a meal on the table from start to finish in less than an hour. I can have most recipes on the table start to finish (including prep and clean up) in less than 30 minutes… even if the meat is frozen. We can also set it and forget it, except instead of a crockpot that you forget for 4-8hrs, you forget it for 30-60 minutes. I still have to cook most nights on account of dilemma #1, but it cuts down the time in the kitchen.
2. The 7-in-1 dual functions saves cupboard space. I got rid of my crock pot and rice cooker! I have tried to embrace minimalism, and this pot has helped immensely.
3. The pressure cooking method retains 90-95% of nutrients. It uses a lower temperature and shorter cooking time which leaves less time for nutrient loss. Faster and more nutritious? I’m in love.
4. It’s stainless steel which means clean up is a breeze and we can avoid any health concerns with non-stick coatings.
5. You can freestyle with this baby. No recipe? No problem. As long as you know the time guidelines for certain meats/ingredients you can throw just about anything in and it will turn out like it would in a crock pot… you know, hard to wreck? This is not a science. If I can do it, you can do it.
6. Fewer dishes to clean, can I get an Amen?! I stick with ‘one pot meals’ as much as I can. No pots and pans.
7. It’s portable. With a locking lid and carrying handles, I can bring it to church, the campground, a hotel… you name the place, I’ll bring the pot!

If you find yourself in a similar situation and your marriage is in trouble because of mealtime drama, do yourself a favor and invest in what I think is the best household purchase we’ve ever made. You won’t be disappointed!

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