When I think of our large family and how mealtimes should be, I envision us sitting around a large table, with the food sitting in the middle, and each person waiting patiently before prayer is said and then we begin by each grabbing a dish and passing it to the next. Everything is uniform and neat, no chaos, and you can actually carry on a conversation at the table.
But that is NOT a reality in our household and I don’t think we ever will have that.
For one problem in large families is that there sometimes are not enough seats for everyone. Especially if you have an XL family. It might be impossible to find a table that fits everyone. You do what works. If you have to set up folding chairs or have some sit around the kitchen counter, you do what you have to do. I know of one family that purchased plastic picnic tables to use as tables for their large family. Others use tv trays around the couch. You gotta do whatever works.
I remember going shopping for tables and loving the nice long ones with perfectly smooth tops and envisioned how I “thought” it would look in our house. Well then reality set in and I knew I would spend my time constantly getting after children for playing too roughly on it. So I settled for a “worn” weathered look tabletop. I am very grateful that I did that. After having ours for 2 years, it definitely has some “real-scrapes and weatheredness” that can only come from 10 children playing roughly on it. I think my children could go in business by turning perfectly good furniture into that weathered and worn look. Hmmmm that could be a good business–smile.
Back to meal time. It seems that it sometimes takes me hours to prepare a nice meal for my family, only to find that they barely sit down for 15-20 minutes to enjoy it!!! I used to take lots of time and try and prepare that perfect looking meal, then I realized that they just eat and go on. I learned to be less perfected and make quick and easy meals. If I had to make a large meal, I would make enough so that we could eat it the next day. If I was going to go to all that work, at least let me have the next day off–smile.
I really enjoyed this last month taking 2 days and preparing a bunch of freezer meals. That helped hugely to give me more time in my day. I know I will continue doing that, especially throughout the warmer months. I want to spend less time in the kitchen and more time outdoors with my children. I will probably look for more crockpot style dinners, to help cut back on using the oven.
If I could give any advice to someone struggling with meals, I would say, SIMPLIFY your meals. You can make many healthy, from scratch dinners, that don’t cost a whole lot and DO NOT take up all of your day. Look at food as nutrition for your body, forget the whole picture perfect part of it. I always wanted to have a variety of snacks for my children and then I realized that they were perfectly happy eating the same snack each day. So we made things in bulk and froze them. It is just food and they are just as happy. Keep meals the same. If your husband and children enjoy a certain food, make a large pot of it and save yourself some time. Today I made spaghetti for dinner. It is a dish that my husband can eat over and over again. My children enjoy it as well. But in my mind, I think everyone needs variety, why?? They don’t, so I made a big pot of sauce and will cook some noodles for dinner today and then tomorrow use the leftover sauce and heat up some more noodles. It is much easier and my life is less complicated. I have salad material in the refrigerator and will eat that myself.
Keep the basics and go from there.
Keep the ingredients for a meal simple and life will be easier.
For the actual mealtimes………..give up the quietness factor. Remember the last post about noise?? Dinner time is usually worse. You are confined to a room and most of the time it echos–smile. For our family, it is impossible to keep the food on the table. We have such large trays of food and it is much easier to leave it on the buffet and let everyone go cafeteria style to fill up their plates. We normally pray before we even begin scooping. Then we scoop out the little ones plates. We are down to only having to make 4 plates. We keep it small, children do not need that much food. We then grab forks and spoons and place it on the plate. We put theirs on the table and then they can sit and start eating. The rest of us, gets their own food. Mom is usually last, and by the time everyone is seated and chowing down, someone needs a refill. Mom is left to get it and by the time you go to sit down, little ones are finished. If you can train your little ones to sit and wait, then great—but in the land of real, little ones are best to get down and go play. Then the quietness can occur. I try and keep a rag right at the table with me, to wipe hands up right away. I can usually continue eating, as they trail off away from the table.
Drinks—–drinks are something I do not like to worry about at meal time. We have water bottles and I have all the little ones get their own water bottle from the refrigerator. I never enjoy refilling a million little cups, each child gets their own. Usually the 2 year old, enjoys getting them for everyone.
When they were really little, I had to start cleaning up the table right away, as they would sometimes climb back up and start making a mess again. I just resorted to not eating during meal time. I gave them food, cleaned them up, and started cleaning up the meal. It was easier to watch them play and grab a quick bite myself.
Speaking of quick bites, another thing you learn to do in a large family is to eat FAST!! For myself, it was out of necessity. The only way to get my food in me, was to eat quickly. I can say that now, I can usually sit most of the meal and enjoy my food. I prefer to eat quickly and start cleaning up right away but if I wanted to sit and socialize, I could.
I have found that clean up can take just as long as preparing the meal when you have a large family. This is sometimes the hardest part of the meal. I know especially when I prepare a large, special dinner I spend much time making it and it seems they eat so quickly and then I begin with taking forever to clean it up I have learned to simplify that. Over the years, I grew tired of washing so many plates, so for big get togethers or for holidays when I have been cooking all day, I pull out the paper plates. Yes completely informal, but it saves on having to spend all of my time in the kitchen. This works well when we have other families visit with us. No one wants to spend time washing dishes, paper plates work great to avoid this.
Also learn to use only one bowl or plate to put all the food into. If at all possibly, skip using multiple dishes, it only leads to more dishwashing. I have eliminated cups from the meals by having them use bottles. Less is best. Hmmmm my next step might be to buy some sporks. The fork and spoon in one, another time saver. I am going to look into that. smile.
Another big waste of time is the amount of serving bowls you use. I try to wash dishes as I go when preparing meals. Even if that means washing a few big pots before we sit down to eat. It saves on much washing afterwards.
Another huge time saver, especially when we have much food at holidays is to use disposable foil pans. It is much easier to throw away a pan then try and scrub it off. I don’t recommend it for everyday use, but for a few special meals each year, save yourself some sanity.
Keep everything in one central location and let everyone grab their own stuff. That includes any napkins, silverware, and salt and pepper. I loved when I had a container and put all of our forks and spoons in it and left it right on the buffet. We ate 3 times a day, why waste time putting away something that you constantly used. Unfortunately it got broken when moving here, I will have to find another. Simplify. Use less, always better.
Cooking for a large family is not that much harder than cooking for a small family. You just use larger amounts of items. Plus you can usually stretch things more. I know for our family we have started going from 2 boxes of pasta up to 3. We are sometimes border line and there is sometimes more leftover than others, but it works good for leftovers. When we make spaghetti sauce, we can usually add a couple of extra cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and it stretches the sauce more.
It isn’t really about making tons of food, just more stretching what you have already. I know if we are going to have tacos that can get costly, especially if I ONLY used ground beef. I make up batches of bulgur burger and freeze it and use this to stretch our meat anyways. I add equal amounts of ground beef and bulgur burger for the meat. Tastes the same and no one complains. I also make sure to make up some refried beans–pinto beans ground up in food processor. I offer this with the meat, to help stretch the protein for everyone. When we use canned nacho cheese, I add more water to it with some chicken bouillon. Tastes the same, just a tad more liquidy.
When we use sausage or hotdogs in a dish, I cut them up thinner and it helps stretch the meat. If we used chunked up ham, I found that if I ground it up in the food processor it stretched it way more. For soups, if I add more liquid and a thickener like mashed potato flakes, it stretches the soup more.
For chili and dishes with beans, adding a few more cans of beans always stretches the meal without any noticeable difference.
Haystacks are a great dish to make that is inexpensive, but looks like you have a lot of food, plus it tastes great. Check out Danielles haystacks and Mexican haystack recipe.
When we just had a few children it was cheap enough to eat a bag of chips for snacks, but no more. We now can chow through a family sized bag of Doritoes in no time. We have since enjoyed making popcorn and then we sprinkle half a bag in with the popped corn. This allows the yumminess of Doritoes without all the junk food aspect of it and they fill up more on popcorn.
Another trick that I have learned, especially if I am having a salt craving is to use those popcorn topper flavors and sprinkle it on things. I like homemade pita chips and I can sprinkle that with ranch powder and it tastes delicious. We use the popcorn toppers every time we make popcorn. Inexpensive way to spice it up.
We prepare treats in bulk which is cheaper than buying at the store. You can make up a huge batch of homemade ice cream or popsicle treats for way less than the cost of a box of popsicles. Plus the added healthy factor can’t be beat. You can check out what we enjoy making for frozen treats under our large family food tab.
Having a large family doesn’t always mean that you have to spend more in groceries either. I think back to when we were first married. I bought most of our food and would spend $200 on groceries and that was for 4 people!!! We now cook for 11 and I can easily keep our grocery budget under $200. Most weeks it is around $125-150.
Hopefully I have let you see a little bit into the life of a large family at mealtimes. It can be crazy, it can be loud. But, it doesn’t have to be much more work than a smaller family, it doesn’t have to cost as much, and it can bring more smiles cause there is always something going on. Enjoy…
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