CrunchTime – A New Culinary Reality Show

My children love the Food Network! I like them watching it.  The shows on this network are some of the most wholesome shows you can watch on tv.  Watching this has also led the kids to take more interest in the food they are eating and how to prepare it – inspiring a few months worth of them taking turns cooking dinner.  This is a picture of a dinner Number 3 made (with some help) – rum-glazed pork, candied carrots and rice.

Spouse and I came up with a new reality show for Food Network.  It is called CrunchTime and is based upon the reality of working parents trying to come home from work and immediately make dinner for kids that are hungry for food, but hungrier for attention from their parents.  It has nothing to do with my life 🙂

In the CrunchTime kitchen contestants must prepare a meal in 30 minutes that is delicious for both kids and adults.  It must also be nutritious enough that you are not left thinking that the kids were better off eating at a fast food restaurant. When you make the dinner, you must include items from the food basket which contains items working parents commonly have around the house towards the end of the week:  peanut butter, ketchup, pasta, a soft onion and canned soup. All meals are judged by a panel of judges that include adults and children.

While the contestants are making dinner, they are thrown curve balls.  They will be tripped by a dog causing them to drop one of the ingredients.  A toddler will wrap himself around one of their legs crying to be picked up.  From just outside the kitchen an argument will erupt between two  children that they will have to deal with.

Sound familiar?

I thought this dinner mayhem would end when I became a SAHM.  I now have the time to do major dinner prep in the mid-afternoon when Number 5 is napping.  I use the timed cook and delay start settings on my oven because I am home around 3 or 4 when I think it is safe to put meat in the oven without letting it sit too long.  But the disastrous evenings continue.  Despite all the prep, I still need to do the last touches for dinner. The 6 o’clock hour is still filled with cranky, needy children that are “starving”.    And the dog is still underfoot.

I guess some things won’t ever change!