bland food help

They aren't unnecessary if they make you hate your food. If you need your dressing on a salad, have a smaller breakfast to make room for the ranch (I love ranch)! You can fit in anything, just not everything in every day.
Butter isn't evil, we still need fat to function. It just needs to find room in your budget of calories.

Try making your own vinaigrette dressings. They have just as much taste as creamy. Or, if you want the creamy, thin it out a bit with water, then add dehydrated onion or garlic flakes to thicken it back up (just need to let sit a few min). This adds a little extra flavor can cut the calories in half but still give you a creamy dressing.

I made a creamy buffalo dressing for my chicken and spinach salad today by using 1 tsp mayo, 2 tsp Frank's Red Hot buffalo sauce, water and dehydrated onions. Creamy, spicy and low cal!

You can also make your own lower calorie bbq sauce. Or, if you don't want to be bothered with that, buy a hot bbq with less sugar, then add a little Stevia or other sweetener (if you like it sweet).

Sauces and dressing are typically super easy and quick to make. The internet is loaded with recipes. Just adjust to lower calories, if you want.

I use plain greek yogurt as salad dressing, works well with salsa for a taco salad or something along that lines. You can also use it with your favorite seasonings and to thin add a little milk. It's much lower calories and gives you a little extra protein in your day. Sometimes I do a half greek yogurt, half salad dressing combo or add a little powdered ranch dressing to the yogurt.

I use a lot of spices in my cooking, not necessarily hot and spicy just spices in general and balsamic vinegar is your friend just go lightly until you get used to using it. A good basic spice combo for meats is garlic, chili powder, cumin and black pepper adds a little bit of heat (depending on chili powder amount) and a little smoke (cumin) flavor, perfect for pulled pork, meatloaf and grilled chicken.
BBQ sauce isn't horrible, bit high in sugar and sodium which can creep up on you but instead of soaking your food in the sauce just add it at the end. I soak chicken drumsticks in watered down BBQ sauce overnight then cook on the grill and as it's cooking just gently brush the chicken with sauce.

Take a little time to surf the net, experiment a little on your own and you'll find your own path.

Also, look outside sauces for flavor. Explore cooking with spices and fresh herbs.

Adding strongly flavored greens like basil leaves and arugula to a salad can also add flavor that doesn't rely on dressing.

You don't have to eat bland food! Why don't you take a look at a few healthy recipe blogs to get some ideas for what to cook. Search for just about anything you want to make within the sites, and you'll find options.

www.skinnytaste.com
www.cookinglight.com
www.eatingwell.com

Would your family like bacon topped meatloaf?


Or shepherd's pie?


Or lasagna rolls?

If you don't want to use those things, start experimenting with spices, you can get tones of flavor with hardly any calories. Like dawnmcneil10 stated above, garlic, chili powder, cumin are all good. If you want more Italian, use garlic, basil, oregano. There are all sorts of combinations that make this delicious.

I like oil and vinegar for dressings, sometimes I just use salsa for dressing, for bottled dressing if I want something that is creamy like ranch or blue cheese, I use Bolthouse Farms Greek Yogurt dressings...and sometimes I splurge and go for the full fat stuff.

Re salad dressing: I've found that loads of fresh herbs tend to do the trick. Also, Parmesan (or Grana Padano, if you can get it) is your friend: it's got such a strong flavour that just two grams or so sprinkled on your salad give a lot of tastiness. Plus, there are some really good low-fat mayonnaise replacements out there; Hellmans do a mayo that has only 3% fat and tastes pretty much like the real thing, and you can vary it by adding some garlic, or some tomato puree (sparingly!)?

Re butter: have you tried cooking with diet oil spray and then melting a small piece of butter over the food afterwards? Adding the butter up front means most of the buttery taste is lost in cooking anyway, whereas adding it at the very end means you get lots more flavour from a comparatively small amount.

Re cooking for others: you could always make some really filling starchy side dishes (mashed potatoes, pasta, boiled rice & the like) and just have a small helping of that for yourself while the non-dieters at your table can fill up on it? With children, I've found that hiding tons of veg in a stew is an easy way to make them eat their greens without knowing about it. If you brown the meat off really well at the beginning, the stew gets a lovely meaty flavour throughout, and you can add pulses (beans, chickpeas etc) for cholesterol-neutral extra protein, loads of onions, tomatoes and mushrooms for bulk, and some grated carrots and frozen peas about 10 mins before serving to add a bit of sweetness. If it still doesn't taste meaty enough, perhaps try adding some beef stock cubes to the sauce? Also, smoked paprika is currently all the rage over here, and it does lend a wonderful smokey-savoury flavour to everything and goes especially well with red meats. One of my favourite cheats (time-wise, not calorie-wise) is to make a huge pot of neutrally flavoured stew that will last us several days and stash it in the fridge in meal-sized portions. I'll then add Italian flavour with lots of rosemary & garlic etc one day and serve it with pasta, another day I'll add cumin and paprika (I can't use chili powder b/o allergies, but that would definitely add some kick to things) for a sort-of Mexican meal, with tacos or even just some nice fresh crusty bread. You can also add Indian spices and serve it with rice ... the possibilities are endless :-)

Seems like a couple of issues here.

1) Taste: Experiment with different seasonings. You'll be amaised how good real food tastes when seasoned. Chili powder, paprika, cumin, coriander, tabasco sauce, there are so many great ways to season your food out there. Experiment, find what you like.

2) The Family: Your the mom you should control what your kids eat. Your job is not to make everyone happy. Do you let your kids run in traffic, even if it makes them happy? Teach them to have a good relationship with food and to love healthy food. So they make good healthy choices as a adults and live longer and healthy lives. Your husband should get on board and be supportive of you and model good behavior for you kids, he needs to care about the long-term health of his kids, if not to be healthy himself. Or - he can cook for himself.

Take care of your own plate/bowl. Other people are going to eat things. If you want it fit it in your calories or don't have it. I find it helpful to prelog my food so I can eat what I want.
Reduce your portion size of higher calorie stuff. Have more vegetables or salad. Drink water while eating and savor your food.
I've found it is easier to use less of a vinagrette type salad dressing.
Try roasting or grilling foods for a different flavor. Combine foods differently.
Explore different herbs and spices in cooking. Use more garlic and onions.
Try cutting the amount of butter or cheese you use down. I still eat butter and cheese but have reduced it a bit.
Plan meals so there are some family favorites each week but some new things occasionally.