Source: Creative Review

While I really appreciate the moments that we can be spontaneous, my whole family does really well with a schedule. We’re planners. We like routine. I like to plan out certain things, like our meals, so that we can be flexible in other areas. Like our weekends!

This is why we tend to rotate through about 20 to 30 different quick and easy, family favorite recipes for our mid-week dinners. Keeping it simple helps because I don’t need to think much about dinner, and whether the kids will like it enough to take leftovers to school for lunch.

But then something happens that messes with my plans!

I take mass transit to and from work in downtown Portland. Most days it’s pretty reliable. Except when it’s not. Like tonight when we had a 20 minute delay.

Of course we had the delay tonight: I promised my kids that I’d make their favorite dish. My son has been patiently requesting macaroni and cheese with Daiya cheese for weeks and we’ve just not had the right ingredients, until this week. But, since I left the office later than I planned to, the train delay meant that mac and cheese were not in the cards.

Most nights this would result in a bit of a scramble for dinner. Maybe scrambled eggs, sandwiches or snack dinner. Thankfully, we picked up a Tofurkey pizza at the store just yesterday. I’m not really sure why, but I was so glad we had it! And the kids will get their mac and cheese another night this week.

Life happens, sometimes when it’s not very convenient for us. Do you keep a few things on hand for evenings like this? What are some of your go-to meals that you turn to when plans fall through?