I cook from scratch 90% of the time - largely because I want my children to eat well and don't want to rely on processed food. I vary the menu quite substantially too using recipe books extensively.
But I wonder why I frigging bother! Dd is 3.4 and DS 19 months. They eat okay - i.e. sufficient range of vegetables, fruit, fibre and protein but from a very limited pick list. Pasta is rejected, my chicken casserole with dumplings from last week was spurned, so was boeuf bourginone (sp?) etc - sometimes even cottage pie gets the cold shoulder. It's really demoralising.
What would you do - just offer them the limited menu options that they will eat repeatedly, which are:
*fishfingers, jacket wedges and french beans
*home made chicken nuggets, home made over chips and broccoli
*home made pizza, new potatoes, carrots and peas
*mixed vegetable frittata and baked beans
*fish pie + veggies
*roast with all the trimmings
- and that is it? so they would get 6 different options repeated cyclically every week. Should I just throw in the towel and do this? - it would make my life easier..however equally I am worried that they will get bored with these and stop eating them too if they are endlessly repeated.
Oh, what to do!
(I don't enjoy cooking from scratch btw, I am prepared to do it and do infact do it, but it's completely disheartening when it is not appreciated and fed to our chickens)