Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers

I just had one of these for the first time today. I had Grilled White Meat Chicken & Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo sauce with linguini and broccoli Florets.

I must say, this was FABULOUS!! I was VERY pleasantly surprised. I normally hate microwaved food, but this wasn't bad at all.

Now, I'm not a food snob, but I was raised by my grandparents and my Mommy (yes I called my grandmother Mommy)cooked 3 hot meals a day. FROM SCRATCH!!! So, I didn't get a lot of microwave stuff until I was out on my own and realized my mistake in racing from the kitchen everytime she tried to teach me to cook. You could tell the Cafe Steamers was a micro meal, but it was as close to gourmet/homecooked as a micro meal can get.

The meal was filling and not too hard on the budget. Now, I only bought it for today cause I have 4 kids at home for Fall Break and they ALL like PB & J sandwiches and that's just not a favorite of mine nor is it on my diet. So, this isn't something that I would normally buy, but on a rare occasion when the schedule demands quickness, I'll know that for less than the price of most kids meals at the local drive thru fat factories I can have something nutritious, delicious and FAST!!!

Family Dinners

I'm an advocate of Family Dinners. I know that in today's busy world, dinner's at the family table are few are far between. As a Suburban Soccer Mom, I'm constantly being pulled in a thousand directions. Prime example was last night. Hunter had football practice at 6pm on one side of town and Emily had soccer practice at 6:30pm on the opposite side of town. On nights like last night I'm lucky that everyone gets fed and I'm a SAHM, so I understand why Wendy's and McDonald's makes the money they do. All I ask is you TRY to use that dining table 1 or 2 nights a week. You really do learn a lot about your kids when you take the time to sit down for dinner.

At our table tonight it was Emily keeping us entertained. We sat down to have a bowl of that absolutely FABULOUS Chicken Noodle soup and some crusty Sourdough bread. It was YUMMY, by the way!! Terry said he loved that I'd accidentally dumped the entire bag of noodles in the pot. (I bought a 12 or 16oz bag.) Hunter said his favorite part was the green things (Celery). Emily piped up and says, "I LOVE THE PURPLE THINGS!" Realizing that there wasn't anything purple on the table I asked, "What purple things, Goo?" "LIFESAVERS!", was the answer. LOL!

Later, Hunter was singing us a song they learned in school about the multiples of 3. Too cute for words. He was using his fingers to keep track and when he got to 30, he had all 10 fingers in the air and Emily says, "That's 10, Hunter!" in the most annoying little sister voice possible. LOL!! I died laughing at her!

Had we been eating on the run or sitting at a restuarant, we'd never had that moment. We'd missed that memory forever. So, while I know that it's supremely hard in today's world and not every Mom is channeling Donna Reed like I get to, try to find sometime for your family at your dining table. You'll never regret it.

Here's my adorable middle child, Emily Paige. Doesn't she look older than 3? She'll be 4 in a couple weeks and I can't for the life of me figure out where the time went.