Foil Packet Dinners--Written By Katherine McPherson

In an ideal world, dinner would be a great time to relax and enjoy spending time with your family while consuming delicious and healthy food. As a caregiver, you may feel a responsibility to provide your loved one with good nutrition. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Often, we have competing priorities and lack of time. This can be further complicated by various family food preferences. If this sounds familiar, I hope this dinner idea can help you.
Currently, I have an abundance of squash and zucchini in my garden. So I simply sliced these vegetables along with some onion and used them as the base for individual tin foil dinners for each person at our house. This mixture was then seasoned with salt and pepper and a pat of butter was added to each packet. Individual chicken breasts that had been marinating in Italian dressing were placed on the vegetables. I sealed up each packet and put everyone's dinner on a cooking sheet together. I baked them at 375 degrees for 45 minutes (until the chicken was done at 170 degrees in the thickest part of the breast). Lastly, I transferred each dinner from its packet to a plate (be careful when opening the packets) and added some Parmesan cheese to each serving. I served this alongside some steamed broccoli and it was a complete and fresh meal. It took less than 10 minutes to put together and clean-up was minimal.

Maybe your loved one has different food preferences than you or has dietary restrictions that can be limiting for the whole family. Other foods that are convenient in tin packets include potatoes (just slice them very thin or dice them), bell peppers, mushrooms and hamburger patties. Any seasoning or herbs can be used (pesto is another good one for chicken and either potatoes or zucchini). Some people may add shredded cheddar cheese, cooked bacon or barbecue sauce after baking. Modifying this concept to suit everyone's diet is simple and allows minimal preparation to accomplish different meals for the whole family. In addition, others can help by making their own packets and all meals that are cooked together are done at the same time. Assembling each meal could even be done the day prior to baking. Just pull the packets out of the refrigerator and put them in the oven when you are ready. This means you have one less thing to coordinate and this can make a huge difference in a busy day. This meal is also very forgiving as it does not over-cook easily and the foil packet keeps the meat moist (which makes it tender).

I hope this idea may help you and your family have an easy, affordable, healthy and delicious home-cooked dinner together.