Dinner. You have it every night. So many opportunities to meet emotion needs. So many opportunities to take good care of yourself and those you love.

Let's share our dinner successes!

Okay, tonight I'm making a family favorite - Greek chicken packets.

Basically, it's orzo, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, feta cheese, olives, and chicken, seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and cooked in foil packets. Yummy, healthy, and very easy to make.

I'll go first.

Tonight, I am making crepes for dinner. Crepes sound difficult and complicated, but they are not. You mix eggs, flour, and milk in the blender, and voila'! you have crepe batter. Fry up the pancakes, and you've got crepes that you can fill right away, or save for later.

Crepes are a fabulous way to serve leftovers. Tonight I will be filling some of my crepes with leftover pork chop and some with leftover chicken. I had some unused leeks in the fridge, so I cooked them up and added them to both fillings. Sauces: leftover mushroom soup for the pork crepes; sauce from chicken for chicken crepes.

Crepes provide Domestic Support: I can totally see people (*cough* men *cough*) who are weak in the domestic support category learning how to make crepes and making them once a week to help meet family dining needs.

Crepes provide Family Commitment: Kids love to make crepes. Little kids can help in little ways (hold the ladle, tell you when to turn the crepe). Big kids can help in big ways (teaming with a parent to make dinner, teaming with a sib to make dinner, making dinner). Get those rug rats into the kitchen and make them earn their keep!

Crepes provide Undivided Attention time: Couples can make crepes together. Create an assembly line. Plot your fillings and sauces. Toss a salad, open a bottle of wine, light the candles, and enjoy!

Crepes are great for people in Plan B/Plan D: This is the perfect way to fix up your leftovers in a way that feels "special."

What did you have for dinner tonight, and how did you make it a marriage building (or recovery) experience?

That sounds great! I assume everything is sort of pre-prepared before it goes into the foil packets? I.e., orzo and chicken pre-cooked?

I made steak kabobs, with button and baby bella mushrooms, marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, herbs from my garden (thyme and oregano). H doesn't like mushrooms but after our "anniversary weekend" I don't care what he likes. They were flipping delish. I love mushrooms.

Orzo doesn't take long to cook, so I'm assuming the juice from the chicken and lemon cooked it?

Al is making me baked chicken with lemon pepper seasoning. Mmmm.

I'm very easy to keep happy as far as cooking goes.

Markos is bringing home a Carribbean Shrimp Salad for me, Chicken fried steak with the BEST corn on the cob in the country for him, and a Molton Chocolate Lava Cake from Chilis. We're planning a romantic dinner to escape together from a hard day

We actually like to cook romantic dinners together a lot. One of our favorite UA time activities is making chocolate souffle. And he makes the best risotto while I chat his ear off ...

Mmmmmm . . . I love risotto. What does he put in it? Or does it vary?

My favorite risotto recipe uses red wine and is topped with grilled steak.

The orzo is pre-cooked but not the chicken.

Basically you mix the cooked orzo with the artichoke hearts and half the sundried tomatoes and a tablespoon or so of oil from the tomatoes. You put that on the bottom of the foil, then top it with 4 or 5 strips of chicken, season with salt and pepper, then top the chicken with olives, the rest of the sundried tomatoes, and the feta. Then sprinkle everything with lemon juice. Then, you seal the foil packet well, put them on a cookie sheet, and bake them at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Honestly, I don't even know what half of this stuff is, y'all!! For dinner we had BBQ chicken and green beans with bacon. yum....... DH did the BBQ and I made the green beans and bacon.

LOL.

Okay, last night we had sausages on the BBQ with roasted potatoes and BBQ corn on the cob. Is that better?

At least I KNOW what that is!

My favorite Chinese chopsey

Inspired by writer1, tonight we made Orzo with Grilled Shrimp, Summer Vegetables, and Pesto Vinaigrette.

It was teh awesome! I already had homemade pesto in the fridge, which was cool. The only variation we made to the recipe was to reduce the amount of vinegar, per the recommendations in the Epicurious reviews. Also, we used mozzarella perline (tiny balls) instead of slicing a single ball into pieces.

Supports family commitment: The recipe includes a bunch of small steps, so it�s a great cook-together opportunity for a parent and a child.

Supports recreational companionship: This is served cold or room temperature, making it perfect for a picnic, or a boxed lunch for a recreational outing.

Supports attractive spouse: So healthy! The veggie-to-pasta ratio is high. You can also find ways to lower calories, like using scallops instead of shrimp, cutting back on the olive oil, skipping the mozzarella.

I love Pesto!

Glad I could serve as an inspiration. That sounds very good. I'll have to try it sometime.

Tonight, I am making a chicken and vegetable stir fry over brown basmati rice.

He uses white wine, I believe, and often makes it with sundried tomatoes since I love them so much.

Tonight we will be having Grilled Chicken Pan Bagnat. I just got the chicken started marinating.

Variations: I�m only using 2 chicken breasts and cutting everything else by a third-ish. Instead of sourdough, I�m using a large loaf of ciabatta (I don�t expect to use the whole thing). I�m using fresh herbs from my garden (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano) in place of the dried herbs de Provence. Since dried herbs have a more concentrated flavor than fresh, I went heavy on the fresh. I plan to spread the last teaspoons of homemade pesto still sitting in the fridge onto the bread. If my husband notices the call for anchovy paste, I�m sure he�ll talk me out of using it. I will be cooking the chicken inside rather than sending my husband out into the 100 degree heat to grill two measly chicken breasts!

This recipe was designed to be made in advance and eaten later. Therefore, it is perfect for taking with you on some sort of recreational companionship outing or a family commitment outing. As it doesn�t dirty up a lot of dishes, it gives you a small break on providing domestic support.

Tonight we enjoyed grilled steak with chimichurri sauce, grilled tomatoes, and grilled ciabatta (leftover from the Pan Bagnat).

The best part: take the grilled ciabatta, rub the grilled surface with garlic, spread over it the grilled tomato pulp, drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Awesome! Just like in Spain. (sigh)

Since everything is grilled, there are few dishes to clean, which is great for your domestic support efforts.

Tonight we are having grilled hamburgers and cole slaw and green beans with bacon!

Homemade coleslaw: a sack of shredded cabbage from Sam's, throw in some dill weed, malt vinegar, and real mayo to taste. So yum!