Are my dinners rubbish?

[Sowhatbigdeal]

Been told they are

Here’s an example of an average week, more or less:

Monday (I work at 6, so do something simple)

Feta & red onion salad with new potatoes & rice

Tuesday

Pasta with jar pesto (working today)

Wednesday

Dh to do omlette/eggs on toast with salad (working today)

Thursday

Salmon, salad, new potatoes

Friday

Homemade chilli with rice, nachos & dips

Saturday

Takeaway

Sunday

Roast dinner/homemade lasagne

Are they?

Oh but pulses are carby, so I’m sending the food police round! 😄
A good mango chutney is a joy. Although my absolute favourite is the Scotch bonnet and pineapple one my local place makes. It’s nuclear.

Are you being deliberately awkward?? Op has said Monday the feta cheese it's served with a huge salad ......so plenty of veggies in there. Also feta cheese is protein!

Just because your preference is not to serve cheese as a main protein, should it be everyone's?
Omelette eggs on toast with salad is not as far as I'm aware officially codified as lunch-not-dinner, but do pass me the latest Food Highway Code and I'll double-check.

I don't know about you but I'm exhausted just thinking about the effort people go to. It's tiring enough scrolling through my phone looking at Uber Eats.

I’m glad they think it’s all worth it tbh - I personally can’t think of much worse than spending 40+ minutes a day faffing with dinner, not to mention all the stress that seems to go into meal-planning and providing perfectly balanced snacks 🤣

Don’t vegetarians serve cheese as the main protein fairly often?

I'd personally probably want something more substantial Mon-Wed. When we're working I do some cheats, like getting a tin of minced beef and onion and making a cottage pie by doing the potatoes on top then baking. I totally get the issues with your DC liking it plainer, we tend to do pasta with broccoli and cheese for DD (she has ARFID and has strict meals she will take) but we will add more for ourselves. In a hurry I usually fry up a few peppers and onions then add a jar, just to give it a bit more

Ok, please tell me why Monday’s for example, is a bit shit? Just made it before, work cancelled, but I made the same dinner.
So, we had salad leaves (variety) cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onion, red pepper, corn on the cob, boiled egg, grated carrot, hummus, feta cheese..with boiled new potatoes & tomato rice (as ive said before, I don’t usually serve potatoes & rice together but Dd is asking for it recently

Dd had watermelon for dessert and a few marshmallows

Tomorrow, Dh will either do omlette with a similar salad or tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, peppers etc in the omlette (Dd loves it) or he’ll do eggy bread/french toast (agree not massive, substantial meal, but it’s a rushed day on Tuesdays with clubs, him finishing work, then me going etc.

Wednesday-the pasta with pesto-I agree with others that I need to get back to adding more to this. I did used to add broccoli, peas, cheese, but Dd started to say that she didn’t like it all of a sudden, as they do

I think people are reading feta, onion, rice, potato and thinking that's it, so it could use an extra couple of bits. When you clarify the salad has rafts of other veg and houmous it's clearly healthy. Pesto debate won't have helped, sorry about that!

Just give them a glass of milk with the pesto dinner if you are worried and can’t press more cheese/nuts or peas onto them. Protein needs are by weight so children don’t need as much as you might think. That’s fine for one meal every so often.

Protein needs are by weight so children don’t need as much as you might think.
I'll let you be the one to get in between DS and the ham, fish or chicken... he seems pretty convinced that he's on adult protein portions.

Are you pescatarian op?

Those meals do sound a bit shit and sad.

Spag bol
Cottage pie
Fish pie
Pizza
Pasta bake
Curry and rice

All easy options if you plan ahead and far more substantial

What is "shit and sad" about the food OP listed, exactly?

No….? I’ve written chilli, lasagne, roast…

Hey OP ..
What’s wrong with the crowd on this is you’re not doing meat dinners every night 🙄
And so what !!!!
Meat isn’t the best to be eating every single night anyway as smart & all as they think they are ..
I know you do lasagne , roast & chilli through the course of the week
Pay no heed to them !

Lots of people are on a protein push and it’s very fashionable.

Protein is important and requirements do ramp up when they hit their teens. But as my gp pointed out, protein can’t store in the body so any unused just converts to fat or has to be processed by the poor old kidneys so overdoing it isn’t good either.

Is DH only cooking 1 night a week? If so, how can that be fair to you if you both work? That seems unbalanced. Sounds like DH needs to be more involved in both menu planning AND cooking

Blimey that sounds lovely.
I would happily eat that. Maybe they can do a bit more

I’ve just come home from work and I’m eating pasta, pesto, cheese with some peas thrown in and it’s bloody lovely and satisfying.

They sound a bit light on protein if you're feeding children the same as you. But if everyone eats it, it's good.

For me it's a bit boring, but I love to cook. If you have freezer space you could try batch cooking so it's just taking out of the freezer the night before and popping into the oven (a pasta tray bake/moussaka/Bolognese sauce ect) and I don't think a takeaway away a week is an issue. It's a good way of trying different cultures cuisine without having to learn to cook it yourself!

I think you could add stuff to jazz it up, pine nuts, rocket and veggies with the pesto, roasted veggies in the lasagne, roasted red peppers and pumpkin seeds with the feta salad, spring onions and freshly chopped herbs on the potato salad (although your update sounds like maybe you do this?).

Looks very light on protein. You need to add more chicken and fish. And no - pasta and pesto sauce on its own is not a nutritious meal.

Theres nothing wrong with pasta and a sauce for tea

You say 'salad, rice and potatoes' leaving out that it was a feta salad, rice and potatoes, so what is lacking here?

Egg on toast and salad, again, what is lacking here. Protein, carb, veggies

I thought takeaway once as well was acceptable. We dont have a takeaway every week but have lunch in a cafe most weeks.

On the pesto pasta day, maybe add a fav veg and a fav protein, like chicken and peppers, or tofu and tomatoes?

Doesnt have enough for what?

I see another poster has claimed that the potato/rice dinner and the pasta pesto dinner contains 'no protein'

Well of course it has protein in it, not as much a a chunk of chicken or the eggs but it has protein in it. I think people really dont understand how much carbs, protein and fat are in each food stuff they eat.

Children need carbs and fat, she's not a peri menopausal 7 year old.