What would a week in meals look like for your household, honestly?

[Justanotheremma13]

I feel as though our diets are a bit shit at the moment. Between work, varying likes and dislikes I’m really stuck in a rut.

For us breakfast is berries and Greek yoghurt, porridge with banana and mixed nuts, poached egg on toast. Youngest ds will only eat porridge and fruit and a spoon of Nutella or a buttered bagel or a sausage sandwich.

Lunches are chicken/egg mayo/salmon Sandwiches. Again youngest will only eat chicken sandwich sausage sandwich or a pitta pizza (at school), won’t touch cheese sandwiches. He will eat tuna sandwiches only at home and beans on toast. For school I sometimes have to resort to cold chicken nuggets with some chopped cucumber/tomatoes and a roll or some crackers.

Dinners are the same old. Baked potatoes with cheese and beans, some type of pasta, chicken/chorizo, tikka masala curry (homemade), a roast, chicken, chips and salad, spaghetti bolognese.

Why do you feel they're a bit shit? What would you like to change?

I don't eat a lot of bread and we eat more Asian inspired meals but otherwise quite similar to yours. I would have thought fairly bog standard

That all sounds very within the realms of normal eating to me. I would maybe try a new ingredient each week and put in the middle of the table for everyone to try if they wish, just in a non confrontational way to hopefully encourage your child to try new foods.

We try and vary breakfast so boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, porridge (winter), yoghurt with granola and fruit (summer), bagels with bacon or sausage, are on rotation.

Lunches we tend to stick to home made soup year round as it helps use up veg and we usually batch cook a few pots so have a good variety.

Evening meals really vary. Tonight we’re having salmon with rice, last week we had a lamb/cabbage dish with flatbreads, a Moroccan chicken dish with barley and kale, a turkey ragu with pasta and a pork and rice dish (can’t remember what else).

If you are feeling in a bit of a rut can you search and find some new recipes you’d like to try and maybe try one new thing a week?

I think it’s easy to get into a rut when you have younger children to factor in, all adults in this house now thankfully!

Breakfasts - toast/ bagels/cereal/museli/porridge

Lunch- kids have school dinners, dh has cheese and crackers often with tomatoes or pickles. I have fruit, yoghurts and a few crisps usually, I eat light during the day.

Dinners- chickens escalope, wedges, salad. Chilli. Pasta carbonara. Pie, veg and gravy. Quiche and salad. All day breakfast. Roast chicken dinner. Usually an oven pizza one day. A takeaway curry sometimes.

This week, suppers are/will be:

• Roast pork, roast potatoes, brocolli, peas, baked onions, apple sauce
• Hake & chorizo risotto and sweetcorn
• Pork & pepper fajitas
• Beef meatballs & tomato sauce with spaghetti
• Veggie chilli
• Cod, chips & peas
• Pork & fennel pasta

Packed lunches

• Home made tsatsiki & wholemeal pittas
• Crabsticks & salad
• Chicken salad
• Leek & potato soup
• Cheese & spring onion jacket potato

Breakfasts are home modes wholemeal toast with butter & jam/marmalade/marmite, and fruit.
Ds has some biscuits and crisps as snacks, after they're gone, there's cheese, eggs, sausage rolls, cornish pasties. He's 17, has hollow legs and is home all day. He eats a lot

I think that all sounds great.

New lunch we have introduced is 125g 5% beef mince spread on a tortilla wrap and fried on both sides; sprinkle with cheese if you wish. Serve with crudités.

Dinners: chicken cubes marinated in Greek yogurt, Turkish seasoning, lemon juice & oil then air fried. Chicken breasts butterflied & spread with pesto / pizza sauce, mozzarella and add toppings (we call it “chicken pizza”), salmon etc.

SimplyCook is a good option for encouraging you to try new recipes. I find it makes meal planning much easier. It's £2.50 per meal so not ridiculous.

Thank you, writing it down it probably doesn’t seem as bad as it feels.

I think I’m getting fed up about youngest. He’s 10 and he used to eat absolutely anything and everything but about a year ago he started saying he didn’t like so many things.

Based on what you put it does not sound like they have many fresh vegetables?

When I was a kid my mum used to make little pots of carrot sticks, chopped red pepper etc and leave on table after school. Kids will just pick at it.

We don't do that but once a day they have fresh chopped veg, either packed lunch at school or as part of dinner. They are just used to it, so eat it happily.

You might try hidden veggie pasta sauce too?

Much more varied than mine! On average, for dinner, we have jacket potatoes 3 nights a week (different fillings) pasta twice (different toppings), 1 x ready meal (usually curry) and 1 x Sunday roast.

Lunch is crackers 3 x a week (change topping each week) sandwiches twice, 1 x lunch out at the weekend and 1 x brunch at home on Sunday (content varies).

Sounds fine and normal. I aim for as little as upf as we can manage but accept that some is still in our diets and that’s just the way it is right now.
Oh and I eat far too much chocolate.

Overnight oats or toasted bagel for breakfast.

Soup or Salad for lunch

Typical dinners - veggie lasagne, curry, sausage traybake, fajitas, fish and chips, stir fry, chilli, hunters chicken, salmon with new potatoes and veg and some kind of sauce...

I think your meals sound very normal and absolutely fine when you're trying to feed a family something they will all like and don't have the mental effort to push the boat out. Prior to having kids I was a chef and loved cooking at home...ate all kinds of fresh and interesting things...but our meals currently look very similar to yours because now with 3 kids under 10 I just don't have the mental capacity to cook interesting meals which will probably end up in the bin.

Ours currently look like:

Breakfast - porridge with honey / sugar / defrosted berries / fresh berries / Nutella (treat). Bagel with butter or honey or Nutella. Greek yoghurt with honey, berries and granola. Cereals like Weetabix, Cheerios, Bran Flakes, Frosties (weekend), Coco Pops (weekend). Special occasions pain au choc from freezer, pancakes, Bacon with eggs and avocado and toast

Lunch - kids packed lunches are usually wraps with chicken / salad / salsa / cheese for eldest and ham / cheese for younger ones. 1/2 scotch egg. Carrots / cucumber / breadsticks with hummus. Berries. Satsuma. Dried mango / pineapple / raisins. Something sweet.

Dinner - currently in the oven are chicken Kievs, chips peas. Yesterday we had homemade curry with naan and rice. Tomorrow it will be roasted side of salmon with steamed broccoli and whatever carby thing I can find, maybe rice. For homemade meals we have sausage / mash / veg a lot, creamy chicken casserole, beef bourgeon, fajitas, poke bowls. But I only make homemade meals from scratch maybe 3 nights a week, the rest of the time its fresh pizza from the supermarket / freezer meal / toasties / beans and cheese on toast / omelette / dippy eggs etc etc.

Porridge or toast
Cheese or peanut butter sandwich, fruit
Something like veg chilli and rice or sausage/tuna pasta, or curry and rice. Fruit.

It is quite dull, but it's cheap and easy and gets eaten.

Kids usually have cereal for breakfast - just plain Shreddies with milk. Sometimes I do boiled eggs at the weekend. They used to eat porridge but won’t touch it now annoyingly.

Lunch is usually a sandwich or roll, with either tuna and sweetcorn, cheese and cucumber or cream cheese and smoked salmon. With stuff like bread sticks, cucumber, pepper, apple, satsuma, yoghurt, babybels. Sometimes instead we have soup or beans on toast.

Dinner is a rotation of roast chicken dinner, lentil and sweet potato curry, salmon with salad and baby potatoes, bolognaise/chilli, jacket potato with tuna mayo and green veg/salad, sausage and mash with peas, pasta with homemade vegetable sauce. Once a week I do freezer stuff like fish fingers and chips if it’s our crossover busy work day.

Snacks are fruit, yoghurt, crackers, sticks of veg, cheese, raisins.

I don’t think their diet is perfect but I think it’s pretty good.

We very rarely eat breakfast. There is greek yoghurt / fruit / porridge for those who want it. It tends to be coffee tbh.

Lunch: when I'm working I take leftovers. My son feeds himself at uni (God knows what) and my teen girls tend to take homemade rice bowls or a wrap. Sometimes I think they just eat fruit. They defo eat a Tesco meal deal at least once a week.

Dinners: tonight is pasta bolognese. This past week we've had a Mexican beef taco rice bowl, sweet and sour chicken with rice (homemade), sausages with wedges and beans, salmon fillets with creamy butter beans and green veg, and an M&S curry takeaway deal.

Dc have a cereal/porridge/toast/pancajes for breakfast.
I have greek yogurt abd granola or toasted bagel and pnb and fruit.
Packed lunch - usyally crackers, cheese/chicken/salami. Greek yogurt and honey. Crisps. Penguin or similar. Fruit.
I have salad or a wrap for most lunches

Dinners - I use Simply Cook a lot - louisiana linguini, penne rusticana, korma, thai green curry etc otherwise Roast, omlette, jackets, salamon new pots brocolli. Sometimes quorn nuggets and oven chips, or pizza . Occasional pot noodle 😂

Breakfast for the adults is usually plain yoghurt, frozen front & oats. DC have cereals.

Lunch is sandwiches with fruit or vegetables like cucumber & carrot sticks.

Dinners: (We are 99% Veggie)
Veggie chillie & Rice
Veggie stir fry with smoked tofu
Spinach & Mushroom potato bake
Pasta & Tomato sauce (including courgette & pepers)
Butterben & chickpea curry
Omelette & side salad.

Poached salmon & steamed veg & potatoes

From your post it sounds like there are quite a lots of different elements that you could expand on.
Chicken
Mince
Sausages
tuna
chorizo
potatoes
pasta
salmon
eggs
I would suggest involving the dc in looking for recipes based around these ingredients and slowly make small tweaks towards new dishes.