Not-All-That-Clever Ideas

My kids like a fairly tight, predictable rotation of dinners:  pizza, tacos, pasta, chicken cutlets, pork tenderloin, macaroni and cheese.  Every once in a while I try to throw in some variety; sometimes it works, other times it fails miserably.  But sometimes a Dinnertime Fail can be saved with a little change.  Here are some of my favorite changes.  Note that none are earth-shaking or particularly ingenious.

1. Sloppy Joe Night.  My kids like Sloppy Joes, but serving them on hamburger buns is, well, sloppy.  So I serve them on hot dog buns instead.  The filling still spills out of the bun, but it's far less sloppy this way.
2. Taco Night.  I used to wrap the taco meat and cheese in a soft taco shell, but now that they're as thin as notebook paper, it's another guaranteed mess.  And forget about hard shells.  If I can't eat one without the shell splitting down the middle, imagine the mess a four-year-old will make.  Instead, I bake nacho chips sprinkled with shredded cheddar in a 350 degree oven until the cheese just starts to brown, and then top the nachos with the taco meat.  I also give each of the boys a spoon, so they can push the meat onto the chip, or scoop it and eat it separately.

I had something else I wanted to talk about, but I can't think of it now.  Oh well...