I may have said before that I have a hard time getting the whole family to eat/enjoy the same meal at dinner time. It's usually never to the point that I make a separate meal but, for instance, I might let the kids have an untainted version of the meal CJ and I are eating.
For example, if we have chicken curry and rice, I'll usually just give the girls some chicken and rice. There are other nights when it is a battle though and, although I don't make a separate meal, I find they don't eat anywhere near enough to make my time in the kitchen even remotely worthwhile. Not to mention that my dear friend mother guilt steps in when the girls opt for plain pasta for dinner especially more than once a week.
It's not that they want junk food. Actually quite the opposite. They would eat chicken fillets and vegetables seven days a week if I didn't protest. Truth be told, I have almost just bought a week's worth of the stuff to save any more meal planning headaches. The upside is I wouldn't ever have to think about what was for dinner. But I get bored. And there's only so many different salads I can eat with said chicken. Alas, usually the new meals on the menu do not stack up to that good old favourite of chicken and vegetables and I'm back to the drawing board.
So last week I decided to let the girls organise a meal plan. I was pleasantly surprised that takeaway food was not mentioned at all and even more surprised when chicken fillets only made the list once. I had prepared myself to have to allow two nights at least!
And guess what? They ate everything on the menu. We had tuna patties - Punk Chic = not a fan - and vegetables, burritos, chicken fillets and vegetables, beef stroganoff - Not sure what went wrong with that but not even I liked it. To their credit, the girls ate it though - and spaghetti and meatballs.
It has encouraged me to continue on for another week and see how we fare. I was too scared to mention it before the end of last week in fear that the beef stroganoff was going to be my undoing. But here I am. Doing it all over again.
And again, the girls have surprised me by thinking of other meals to add this week. Chicken fillets still made the cut though. But I'm quietly confident that I'm onto a good thing here.
Provided I can keep to the plan!
1 comment:
What a great idea - get them involved and then you 'sort of' know that they will eat what you cook. We never really had to worry about this - K just ate what was cooked - didn't always enjoy it and on the occasions when she complained bitterly, she was allowed to go to bed with no dinner (probably have someone from child servies on my case now but she is now 19 and seemed to have survived in tact !!!)
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