When Hershey and I get home from school, it's about 4:00 and it is on like Donkey Kong.  Jane and Emma are done with their naps for the day, and ready to play with Mama and Daddy.  But by 4:45, they just want to chow down.

For the past few weeks, we have been waiting to eat until after they go to bed, which means we were eating at around 8:00 every night, and then going to bed at 9:30.  That's just NO GOOD.  It's no good for our waistlines, and no good for avoiding heartburn and getting a full night of restful sleep now that the babies are pretty much sleeping through the night.

When I shop, I often find myself drawn to chicken thighs.  I have a chicken teriyaki recipe that I've been using for years that uses chicken thighs, and they are so versatile, so I buy them often.  And the best part is that they are SO SUPER CHEAP and have equal parts light and dark meat.  I mean, they are a pain in the butt to clean if you plan to strip them of all of the fat, but I learned long ago to just let the fat lie, as it adds an extra layer of nomminess to the dish.

But I was sick of teriyaki.

So I found this recipe on Pinterest, and it was SO EASY.  I used skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, but I stripped the skin and most of the fat from the thighs.  I put brown rice in my awesome rice cooker while we gave the girls their bedtime bottles, and sauteed some sliced up onions and red peppers (I sautee them in canola oil, put some s&p once they get a lil crispy, and then toss in about 1/4 cup of white wine and let it all cook down).  I threw all of it together on a plate, and the whole dish took 20 minutes.  We ate before 8:00, and I had enough to bring to work with me for lunch the next day.

This is an extra great recipe because I now know that I can make it as the girls are having some Cheerios or Puffs before dinner, and then we can eat WITH the girls at 5:00, which is well worth it because once we put the girls to bed, I can just SIT DOWN for the rest of the night.  This is key, because the 3 hours between when we get home and when the twincesses go to bed are CRAYYYY!

Additionally, I've been trying to do some different things for Jane and Emma in the food world, since they are chewing now.  It's super easy to just take the ingredients of whatever I am making for us for dinner and throw them together into a dish and bake them in the oven.  I also keep sweet potatoes and zucchini on hand at all time.  Here's why:

The girls LOOVE sweet potatoes, and they mix with almost anything, or they can even eat them alone.  I wrap them in tin foil and bake them in the oven on 350 for about an hour or so.  Then I slice them open, peel the skins off of them, and mix a bunch of cinnamon in.  I mash them up with a fork, and they LOVE them!

Zucchini is another fave of Jane and Emma, and it mixes with everything and gets them some greens.  The taste is so light, I can literally put them with anything and the girls will eat them.  Sometimes I even just mix them with some cheddar cheese and toss them with the sweet potato for a hearty, easy meal for them.  I put the zucchini into little 2 oz OXO containers and freeze them, so that I can just pop one out and mix it with whatever the girls are eating.  It's such a great way to get them their balanced meals!

Side note:  I took one of the thighs from the package from the other night and baked it in the oven, and then mixed it with some sweet potato and shredded cheddar cheese.  I cut the chicken up really small, and served it to them chunky.  They initially made a funny face because of the texture, but once they got the hang of chewing it, they loved it!

Another really fun thing that we do now is have scrambled eggs together for breakfast on the weekends.  At 8:00 I pop Jane and Emma in their chairs and give them some Cheerios, and they watch as I scramble eggs.  I mix the eggs with some cheese and sometimes a peeled, seeded tomato, and they have a ball feeding themselves and watching me eat with them!  It's such a fun weekend tradition that we have made!



Listen, there are only a few hours left to enter the giveaway!  I'll be announcing winners tomorrow, so keep a lookout!

I hope that these recipes help you to simplify your life.  Please keep an eye on my Pinterest page for more recipes like this one, as I am a TOTAL foodie, I love to cook, and I'm always looking for the path of least resistance for making family dinners fun and delicious.

Happy Humpday!  xoxo