Weekly Menu Ideas: 25-01

As a parent, I encounter numerous losing battles in the kitchen each week. It often feels as though I am merely trying to plug holes and each week, a new challenge arising every time. In my mind, my struggles with food resemble Tom Cruise's adventures in Mission Impossible.

This week's challenge:

As you can imagine, being a parent in this generation is quite challenging. In my household, as in many others, my kids do not eat much. Our household staples seem to be limited to Nutella sandwiches and chicken nuggets on most days. I often feel guilty about packing something different, fearing that my kids will refuse to eat it and go hungry all day.  According to BMI standards, my children are underweight, primarily due to their intensive workout schedules with their football teams and a diet restricted by the word “yuck”. As a problem solver, I addressed this issue by creating a shortlist of lunch ideas that my kids would actually eat. This way, at least they are full and happy while receiving a decent amount of calories per day.

This went great! I was so excited that for several weeks, my kids have not returned any lunches. In fact, I received a compliment from my younger son, who mentioned that he was really enjoying his lunch. However, this week, some kids looked at his lunch and told him that it was not food and that their moms would not pack such meals for them because they are not considered healthy.

While I am glad that they are engaged in thoughtful discussions about food choices, it was already challenging to create a menu that would be accepted. Now, it has become even more difficult to incorporate healthier options into the weekly lunch plans.

In South Africa, the school days are significantly shorter, allowing parents to pack a snack for lunch while ensuring that their children can enjoy a good meal when they get home. In the Netherlands however, your kids are at school until 3 p.m., with older students staying even later. This means that the meal needs to be healthy, up to this generation's palate, and also stay fresh until lunch time. In the Netherlands, there are no school tuck shops so your packed meal is all you can eat for the entire day. While I understand the criticism towards the lunch I pack, I assume it is also not healthy to pack your kids rice cakes for the entire day as lunch. As a parent, I am almost never sure of what to do but typing this out I realize now that these are first world problems at their best.

Perhaps for the Mission Impossible, I should star as the main character and the universal household chores should be the grand operation.

I decided that to overcome all these challenges, it will be best to focus on one mission at a time, like many others I realize my limits. I have tried to incorporate a good meal plan this week which adds extra vegetables but my main goal this week will be trying to get my kids to drink more water!

Weekly Menu - 27 January

Monday

School Lunch: Cheese Quesadilla

Dinner: Philly Cheese Steaks

Tips for this idea:

In the cheese quesadillas, it is a good idea to add extra vegetables like perhaps corn or tomato. In addition, for the supper Philly Cheese steaks, a nice vegan or vegetarian alternative could be mixing vegetables for example peppers, mushrooms and broccoli together in some sauce and baking it all together.

Tuesday:

School Lunch: Salad Rolls

Dinner: Spaghetti Bolognese

Tips for this idea:

You can really get creative with salad rolls, bread is not all bad. It is good to use grained bread to incorporate a good amount of fibre in your diet.

For dinner, bolognese sauce requires marinara, for me personally marinara sauce with extra basil is sufficient for an excellent pasta and makes a great vegetarian dish.

Wednesday:

School Lunch: Cinnamon Rolls

Dinner: Pumpkin Soup and Bread Rolls

Tips for this idea:

For the cinnamon rolls, I used canned pastry and bake it for 8 minutes. In South Africa, a good alternative is to buy the puff pastry from a store, you mix some cinnamon and sugar with water and you will have an amazing snack. To pack a more sustaining meal, I also usually add a sandwich if your kids are out the entire day.

I will load a good recipe for pumpkin soup, it is easy and only requires about 20 minutes of cooking time. It is a great source of vegetables for the entire family.

Thursday:

School Lunch: Toasted Chicken Mayo

Dinner: Khuri Kitchri with Masala Chicken and Aloo Fry

Tips for this idea:

This sounds very traditional, since my mom visited last August , this meal has been a great way for my kids to remember receipes from South Africa. Without the chicken it is already a vegetarian meal so this is quite easy.

Friday:

School Lunch: Masala Chicken Wraps with Extra Salad

Dinner: Crumbed Chicken Burgers (Mushroom Burgers) and fries

Tips for this idea:

If you still have chicken from the previous evening, then shred this and use them for your wraps. If not, you can always use any topping to make a wrap so it is good to always have some extra tortilla wraps on hand.

Saturday:

Lunch: Chip Rolls

Dinner: Shrimp Tacos

Tips for this idea:

I realised this week, that more people love fries. This is equivalent to putting lays on bread for South Africans, if you have some atchaar available this is even better. It is easy, to make and is loved by all.

For the shrimp tacos , it is a great way to add the omegas to your diet, so I try to add at least one fish dish to our menu each week.

Sunday:

Lunch: Butter Chicken and Roti.

I hope this makes this week easier for you. If you feel like you this is something you need for the weeks ahead, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas for next week. ♥️