Mumsnet users discuss family mealtime rituals with Uncle Ben's & Dolmio

[AaronMumsnet]

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While some evenings are for a hastily prepared and eaten meal as you taxi your child around to football/ballet/karate, others are for taking the time to share the chopping and stirring, then sit down and enjoy dinner as a family. Family dinners come in all shapes and sizes and can be noisy and often messy affairs - but they’re the perfect opportunity to create family mealtime rituals and spend quality time together.

Uncle Ben’s and Dolmio believe in the power of dinnertime to bring people together:

‘We all know that one of life’s pleasures is to share a meal with family and friends where you can take time to connect with the ones that you love, but in the midweek mayhem it’s not always possible to take time to cook and eat together. We want to hear your stories, what mealtimes in your house are really like, tips and tricks to overcome barriers to a great mid-week dinnertime and the rewards that eating together can bring.’

Did you make your daughter’s first boyfriend sweat over a flaming hot chilli con carne? Is it while your kids help you in the kitchen they have suddenly chosen to open up to you about their feelings, school day, worries or dreams, or did this time together produce a mini Nigella, now boasting cooking skills and flare far beyond what you’ve taught them. Does the dinner table give rise to stage-worthy performances, perhaps an impression of their teacher so legendary that it still leaves you in stitches, even now? Or do you still brag about the famous spaghetti bolognese in which you successfully hid a grand total of four portions of veggies and hit your family’s nutrient quota for the day?

Whatever your meal time wins, and rituals might be, share them below to be entered in to a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of your choice (from a list).

Thanks, and good luck!

MNHQ

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We have a big open plan kitchen and this is the heart of our home. Most week nights my DC eat together and DH and I eat later as he gets home late. At weekends we all cook together and have very nice meals. Most of our home cooking is from scratch and our DC are taught to love food and cooking from an early age. We make all our own pasta sauces from fresh tomatoes. Sorry, but I wouldn't feed my family a Dolmio sauce or an Uncle Bens.

We always sit down together at the same time everyday for tea. No phones,tablets but the kids like to watch cartoons and we also discuss what we have done in the day.

Friday night is the only night of the week where we don't have any after school activities and so is extra special. We usually have pizza or curry, which the kids help to make and we all sit down together with no devices, to talk about the week and make plans about how we should spend the weekend together.

Everybody always sits in the same seats at the table. Unless we’re having fajitas. In which case all bets are off. No one knows why 😂

I try and get my two eldest involved in the prep as much as I can, usually means they are more keen to try it if they've helped prepare it all.

Kids cook dinner at the weekend, I am sous chef

We try to sit down together as a family for our evening meal and no phones, ipads etc are allowed at the table.

We all sit done and usually end up watching the end of pointless with our evening meal

We all sit down together and no phones allowed. Basic manners are expected, clear your plate away. Everyone has to ask a question of interest to one person at the table. We try to accommodate likes and dislikes but luckily mine are not fussy eaters. I try to make it a pleasant time.

We always eat together at the dining table.

The only ritual we have, is that we always eat together at the table, with no tv or technology & discuss the day

Everyone sitting together at the table. No screens allowed

We have always made time for a family meal at least once a week...not easy with busy lifestyles but our weekly get together with grandparents too is our little ritual that I just cling on to!

Manners are a biggie for me so EVERYONE must ask to leave the table and if anyone doesn't then they are volunteering for washing up duties

Every mealtime for us consists of me doing all the cooking, usually with the kids complaining there’s too much vegetables on their plate. We then take turns with who does the dishes

We have always all sat down at the table for dinner only one meal is cooked we all help and its good to talk over the days events

We don't really have a ritual now as DH works away a lot but we do sit down together on a Sunday aft to make up the weeks meal planner. That way if I'm rushing out to work the teens still know what they have in the fridge. We do still have sat takeaway though

We try to sit down together as a family for our evening meal.

Always sit at the table and no one gets up until everyone has finished.

we all sit round the table at 7pm

Friday Breakfasts - We always play Star Girl by McFly

The children are asked to lay the table and clear the table at the end of the meal. They are also asked not to leave the table until the end of the meal, other than that we don’t really have any rituals but we do have the age old reluctance to eat vegetables battle !

We're working out how to achieve this with a toddler who currently eats on the sofa and twins at 5 months......

We've got a slow cooker, so meals are cooked for when the hungry tribe gets home.. The children love to help prepare the ingredients the night before and are so amazed how it turns into a meal at the end lol.. Friday night is a takeaway so we can all have a quality time evening with no pressure of cooking or washing lol

The only ritual we have is to eat a nice lunch together on Sundays. The rest of the week we tend to eat at different times in front of the tv

The family likes pizza, so I remember having cooked a particularly good pizza and they liked it, home made pizza is a great one for helping the whole family to have an excellent dinner time.