Back in the day when I had none of my own, I smugly (and naively) pooh poohed when I saw children eating sausages or chicken nuggets and chips in restaurants. Oh no, my little darlings, should I be blessed with offspring, would enjoy a varied and adventurous diet.
Now I actually have children, I'm acutely aware that if you are shelling out for a family meal, the last thing you want is to see untouched plates and to have to head home to prepare a second meal. If your children are sure to eat and enjoy sausages and chips then you will gladly let them order that. In fact you will make sure it, or a similar fail safe choice (Macaroni and Cheese, anyone?) is on the menu before you darken the doors of the restaurant.
Sadly, my children are pretty fussy when it comes to their meals. The annoying thing is they're fussy about different things. One hates cheesy things (you can rule out pizza, macaroni cheese, cheese toasty) but quite enjoys vegetables, salad and meat. The other likes the creamy, milky stuff but turns her nose up at tomato based sauces or dishes, eggs, meat and most vegetables.
They both agree on disliking anything spicy (except chorizo) soups, stews, casseroles and prefer compartmentalising their dinner plate so that the various components don't touch each other.
Menu planning for the week is therefore a bit of a head wreck deciding on meals to prepare that (a) are nutritious and (b) will be eaten and (c) do not bore the hell out of me and my husband because they are too bland or we are eating them ad naseaum.
I try to remember the advice of David Coleman, clinical psychologist and parenting expert and trust that if the choices I'm giving my children are nutritious and filling that even if seems they eat very little they will be eating enough for their needs (see here).
In Anna Burns excellent book The Food Nanny , she sets out "10 Food Rules to Prevent a Frighteningly Fat Future for Your Kids" . Amongst many other things, Burns advocates serving simple nutritious food to your children. Even if they don't like it at first, they will get to like it through trying it. Her approach reminds me of my own childhood meals where we were given no choice as to what was served but all ended up loving our dinner and developing wide tastes. (Mind you, we were expected to eat what was on our plate.)
I have had some slow successes through following this approach. Now my children will eat my home made fish goujons and prefer my homemade chips to frozen oven chips. They turn up their noses at a McDonalds burger but one of them will eat a small home made burger.
It's like Russian Roulette. One day they will love a dinner and my heart soars. Something to add to the very small list of meals they will eat. On the next occasion they may very well burst into tears in disgust at that very same meal.
"I hate that dinner!"
"But you liked it, nay loved it, the last day. "
As I say to my husband when I'm "pouring out" their dinner
"Will I just throw it in the bin now or wait until after I've given it to them".
Sometimes I lose heart about steering them towards the healthier options and not giving them much junk. To witness them eating the likes of a ham sandwich made with white sliced pan with such gusto and concentration would make anyone feel guilty about serving them sandwiches made with whole grain bread which they may leave uneaten.
One of the blogs I enjoy reading is Bumbles of Rice .... and Mumbles on Life. In it, Sinéad has a category of posts called Week in Dinners in which she blogs about what her family ate for the week and what did and didn't go down well. I love this kind of post as I'm always looking for easy, tasty recipes.
I received a Safefood booklet from my three year old's play school recently entitled "Your Child's Weight... A Guide to Preventing Childhood Obesity". I decided to cook the dinners in the meal planner in the guide and blog how I got on for the week.
The dinners in the Safefood meal planner are:
- Shepherds Pie with Sweet Corn and Green Beans
- Lamb Curry with vegetables and boiled rice
- Spagetti Bolognese
- Baked Fish with Vegetables and Pasta
- Roast Breast of Chicken (Remove skin), carrot, broccoli and parsnip with a baked potato.
- Stir-Fried Pork with Mushrooms, pepper, onions and noodles
- Chicken Casserole with vegetables and boiled potatoes.
In the end I didn't follow the meal planner too closely and didn't cook fish at all. Bad mother. Here's what we had.
Sunday
Roast Chicken with Roasted Carrots and Parsnips and Roast Potatoes followed by Rice Pudding for dessert
This went down a bomb as the children love this dinner. The parts can stand alone on the plate after all. There are no sauces or broths. I made roast rather than baked potatoes and didn't make broccoli.
Monday
Chicken Casserole with Mashed Potatoes
I used the left over chicken from yesterday's dinner and made a chicken stock from the bones. I roughly followed the Shanagarry Chicken Casserole recipe from Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course and added the left over cooked chicken at the end (rather than cook the chicken from raw as in the recipe). The technical term for this dish was yumser. Needless to say, the girls turned up their noses even when I picked out the individual bits of chicken and vegetables for them. They ate a bit of potato.
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| Chicken Casserole |
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| Child's Dinner. Casserole not served on the potato and no green stuff on top |
Tuesday
The girls and I got invited out to lunch so I was too full for dinner. I made pancakes for the girls' tea. I served those with a salad and grated cheese. The younger one has cream cheese on hers. The older one ate some salad (she likes it) but the younger one refused to (she doesn't like it).
Wednesday
Spagetti Bolognese
I had this in the freezer as I always batch cook dishes like Bolognese. Nice one. Went down okay. A lot of the pasta was eaten and some (very little) of the meat sauce. |
| Spagetti Bolognese. Looks unappetising. Memo to self: read up on food photography. |
Thursday
Zac's Omelette Wraps
I had intended to make Pork Stir-Fry tonight but we were out all day meeting friends at Newbridge House enjoying the excellent playground and farm. By the time I got home, I decided I needed to prepare something even speedier then stir-fry so I turned to "Easy Meals" by Rachel Allen and made "Zac's Omelette Wraps" with a cheese and ham filling. The name says it all and I served these with salad.
Friday (Halloween)
Pork Pieces served with Colcannon and Carrots
This replaced the Pork Stir-Fry. I wanted to cook Colcannon as the fairy always left money in my Colcannon at Halloween when I was a child and I wanted to make sure my girls got some too. Sure enough the fairy slipped two pre washed coins wrapped in baking paper in each of the girls' dinner. when I wasn't looking. They were thrilled. Finally proof that fairies do exist. (I find gimmicks like this work in getting my children to try foods.)
I made the Colcannon by boiling peeled potatoes, half an onion and washed and chopped Curly Kale. Once cooked, I drained the potatoes and mashed with milk and lashings of butter. Sounds yuck but is actually deliciouso.
They actually rather like pork. I sliced pieces off a pork fillet and flash fried them in olive oil. The boiled carrots got a bit charred which was a pity. My youngest daughter places carrots above all vegetables i.e. she eats hardly any but carrots.
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| Colcannon with Pork. Nothing is touching. Another vegetable on the plate wouldn't have gone amiss. |
Saturday
Pasta with Spicy Sausage and Cream
This Rachel Allen recipe bears no resemblance to any on the Safefood Meal Planner but we had the ingredients and it's an easy Saturday night dinner. It had mixed results as the hubby inadvertently made it with a tin of tomatoes with added chilli. While the recipe calls for chilli, we usually leave it out (with regret). The younger one picked out the bits of chorizo. The older one mostly ate pasta. We didn't serve vegetables or salad on the side which was also bad.
All in all a mixed week. I fell down by not including a fish dish and could have served more vegetables. The only meal the girls ate with relish was the Roast Chicken dinner.
Ah well, onto another week of scratching my head and searching for the elusive meals we will all enjoy and trying to have patience for the day when they enjoy all their dinners. There's a new post on Bumbles of Rice called 21 Dinners (most of) My Kids Will (usually) Eat, so I'm off to peruse that.
What's your family's favourite dinner? I'd love some more tips!
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