Stuck in a bit of a food rut

[Ozziegirly]

DS is nearly 2 and eats ok, pretty small appetite but not worryingly so. But I feel like I give him the same things all the time and he is now often asking for "more else", so I wonder if he needs a bit more variety. What kind of things do your DCs have for their meals?

DS has;

Breakfast - some banana, some of my cereal or half a slice of toast with nut butter.

Lunch - he tends to have some cold chicken or cheese, some bread and hummous or avocado (although both are v v hit and miss), some cucumber, carrot and then a yogurt, a fruit bar and some fruit. Won't touch sandwiches.

Dinner - I tend to rotate - chicken or pork chop or steak or fish cakes or fish fingers with carrots, cauliflower cheese, corn on the cob, peas and potato - v v hit and miss with what veg is eaten although the protein is normally fine. Also do spag bol which he reluctantly tolerates, pasta which he adores. Then a yogurt and some more fruit.

He can't have pure egg but can have it in things.

What do your DCs have in a normal week?

You sound to have a good mix basically. My DC like deciding what to eat more than actually eating - could this be some of the "something else"?. What´s more, often if they´re not hungry or if they´re just fed up, they don´t want what I´ve made but want "something else".
As for some of our favourites: I sometimes make a sort of spanish tortilla as a way to get lots of vegetables inside the omelette - but maybe that´s too eggy for your son.
My ds (3) loves quite strong sauces - so he really likes pesto. I also have a recipe where I make a tomato sauce with veg in it (courgettes, pepper) and then put a layer of the tomato sauce/veg mixture in the bottom of an ovenproof dish, then sprinkle uncooked rice over the sauce (important: the sort that only takes 10-15 mins to boil) then put another layer of tomato/veg sauce over the top. I then bake it in the oven for about an hour and the rice cooks and somehow takes on a lovely consistency. Then for the last 15 mins I put breadcrumbs and grated cheese on top and bake until that´s brown. Both kids really love it.
In the winter, my children love beef stew too - I also find it easy to make and once you´ve bunged it in the oven you can do something else for a couple of hours.
Mine also like grated carrot salad with raisins in it. We´ve also been surprised that both kids really like olives - which gives a bit of a different flavour. And lentil dhal goes down really well - I don´t do proper lentil dhal for them. I just get red lentils, boil them with not too much water until they have a soupy consistency, then add a bit of salt (my mum shudders at the thought of me putting salt in kid's food, but we put it in - long story). They eat it with rice or some kind of flat bread, veg and some yogurt instead of raita or tzaziki. DD really loves lentils done like that.
My children also quite like vegetable soups - which I also put lentils in to up the protein. I also put potatoes in to thicken it up. If we´ve had a chicken, they love chicken soup but as I´m vegetarian that happens very rarely! Poor kids!

Sounds fine to me. Our DD - 21 months, eats everything we do. We don't do separate meals unless it's something particularly spicy hot or salty.

How about doing some of your meat as a stirfry one night instead of normal potato and veg? Or maybe spice your veg? Perhaps he'd like try some different flavours

Our LO often eats whatever we eat now (minus hot spicy stuff) but often if I over do something my DS will suddenly decide he no longer likes it anymore! So I often source inspiration from some of the cookbooks down at our local library. In the children's section there are usually heaps of weaning/toddler cookbooks and they are get for a few fresh ideas.

Thanks everyone, great suggestions - I try at the moment to base his dinner on what we have, so if we're having chops, he has chops, but it's great to have other suggestions as I tend to cook him something in the afternoon in any event.

He loves pesto, would have pasta and peato every night if I let him!

I also find he gets bored with things and refuses them and so just feel like I need a few more choices for variety.