Sometimes Nutrition Goes Out the Window

As a general rule, I plan dinners that have a decent level of nutrition, and a nice balance of food groups. We have a meat, a grain, vegetables and maybe fruits, and often a whole-grain bread. And sometimes we have biscuits or not-so-healthy breads when they are a better accompaniment to the rest of the meal.

But every once in awhile, it's really fun to just toss out the idea of being healthy and just have an off-the-wall, fun kind of dinner. We had one of those tonight. DH has a meeting, where he will be eating pizza. I knew the kids would be sad that they weren't getting pizza, too, so I wanted to give them a meal that would excite them. And maybe I also wanted to be told how cool I am...but that's another issue entirely. :)

So for dinner tonight, we had ham and cheese crustless quiche (they LOVE this) and.....wait for it..........cinnamon rolls!!! Barely a bit of healthy stuff in the entire meal, but it was just so much fun, and they weren't upset at all about missing out on pizza! I let those cinnamon rolls rise for about 2 1/2 hours and they were huge and fluffy and sooooo gooey. Yummmmm!!!!

Another pretty much nutritionally defunct dinner I've made is hamburgers, french fries, and strawberry shakes. Again, they absolutely loved it. And if we had gone out to a fast food place for dinner, isn't there a good chance they would have ordered a very similar meal? At least I know what exactly they were eating by making everything at home!!

So what do you make when you throw nutrition out the window and make a fun family meal? I'm definitely not suggesting that you practice this often, but just every now and again when you just want something different. I'd love to hear some new suggestions, although I'm SURE it will be a long while before I do this again. Yeah...at least a week! ;-)