Mid week meals for after school

[lancslass17]

What are you feeding your family ( especially with primary school kids).

Running low on ideas.

Risotto www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/no-stir-tomato-and-basil-risotto/
Loaded potato skins realfood.tesco.com/recipes/loaded-baked-sweet-potato-skins.html
Fish finger tacos realfood.tesco.com/recipes/fish-finger-tacos.html
Paneer tikka skewers www.tamingtwins.com/paneer-tikka-recipe/
Buddy’s tuna pasta www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/buddy-s-tuna-pasta/
Cheat’s fish pie www.gestationaldiabetes.co.uk/cheats-fish-pie/
Gnocchi pie www.coop.co.uk/recipes/gnocchi-topped-pie
Mustard chicken spaghetti realfood.tesco.com/recipes/mustard-chicken-spaghetti.html
Quick chicken stir fry https://www.jamandclottedcream.co.uk/2017/06/child-friendly-chicken-noodle-stir-fry.html

my kids (9 and 4) dont like vegetables, what do you'll do to feed veggies to kids?

Put a big plate of cut up crunchy veg on the table with a bowl of hummus, olive oil, broad bean purée, or some other dip of choice in the middle. Cuke, different colours of pepper, carrot, courgette etc. Do this while they are hungry and before you prepare dinner (cut the veg up in advance, earlier in the day or even on the weekend). Point kids to veg as you cook if they want a snack. Telly helps too as it distracts. This got my DS1 eating veg as he was competitive with DS2 as they were eating from the same plate.

Mix in handfuls of spinach to pasta sauces

Double the carrots, celery, onion in pasta sauces

Get the kids to make salad dressing and dip leaves in one by one to "test" it

Also there are occasional threads of meal plans - maybe we should start one! They're brilliant for inspiration and I find that if I sit down and plan the week in one go, then I don't need to come up with an idea every evening which is exhausting.

Here's my plan for this week (including what we had mon & tues):

Mon: Traybake of chicken thighs, new potatoes, cauliflower, onion wedges, garlic cloves in their skins. Sprinkle with packet of chicken seasoning from the Polish shop, olive oil, salt & pepper. Assembled on the tray before school run and left in the cold oven, turn oven on when we get home, ready in 40 mins.

Tues: Spag bol. Bol cooked on the weekend so only spag needed and threw in tenderstem broccoli into the pasta cooking water for the first 3 mins, fished out with tongs.

Weds: Baked cod (https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/baked_cod_with_ritz_cracker_topping/), roasted new potatoes, green salad

Thurs: Skillet of sausages, kale and onions eaten with garlic baguette

Fri: Chicken curry made with one of those curry kits, rice, naan

(The above 5 meals are interchangeable so if we fancy fish on tuesday rather than weds, just swap around)

Sat: Grated potato & courgette pancakes (grate in food processor, make 3x batch and freeze for week ahead), sour cream, applesauce, german sausages from Lidl

Sat I will also make some kind of make-ahead batch cooking for next week - probably a tagine this week as I have some chickpeas and aubergine to use up

Sun: Roast chicken stuffed with tomatoes and feta stuffing, orzo, green salad

This was all planned last Saturday over a cup of tea in the morning so I knew what I was doing and had everything in that I needed - and don't have to come up with ideas in the week unless there's some emergency change of plans.

this is fabulous. Thank you so much

We eat the same things mid-week or school holidays generally as timing is all about the same, but this week we are having:

Greek salad with garlic toasts
Fish and chips with mushy peas (you can do a baked fish if you don't want the battered or breaded sort)
Vegetable soup (blended, mix of cheap root veg and whatever I find in the garden) with toast/butter
Hunter's chicken with chips and green veg
Beef tacos

None of it, except the salad, especially suitable for the current heat wave, but I planned it all last week before I thought to look at the weather!

If you want truly easy meals, ours are:

Cheesy pasta with peas or pasta with pesto
Jackets with a cheesy coleslaw and salad
Scrambled eggs on toast or in a wrap, with beans
Cheese quesadillas or taquitos with soured cream and salad

@Xiaoxiong great advice and ideas! Is it possible to have your recipe for the potato and courgette pancakes? Thank you!

She's not primary age anymore but this has been a staple since she was - Nigella's pasta/peas/ham/cream, so tasty.

Kale leek and potato filo pastry pie

Creamy mushroom pasta

Veggie sausages, root mash and tender stem broccoli

Teriyaki tofu bowl with sticky rice, edamame beans and radish.

That's as far as I've planned so far!

Risotto
Chicken korma

Thank-you