One of the things that I love about summer is type of quick and healthy meals that you can serve up to the kids. Something that I have noticed over the years with children and food, is that the more control that they have over it, the less issues we have about what they eat.
If you were to track back through my menu plans over the last couple of months you would certainly notice a pattern in the type of meals that we have on week ends – they are generally self serve style meals. By self serve meals, I don’t mean that the kids have to go to the fridge and get their own dinner, but with a self serve meal, the ingredients of the meal will be placed on the dinner table and the children can select what food they want to put on their plate and how much of it they would like.
The photo above shows the salad that we had accompany our chicken schnitzels a few weeks ago. Our eldest two boys were absent for this meal, so there is actually much less food than what I would usually prepare. I find that with these meals the kids eat great quantities of fresh vegetables and love using the little tongs that we have to serve themselves.
Another bonus with these type of self serve meals for kids is that I generally have at least one child in the kitchen helping me prepare the salad – slicing cheese, peeling carrots, tearing lettuce, cutting capsicum are all tasks that can easily be done by little hands.
Here are a list of meals that we set up as self serve meals for the kids:
- Tacos
- Chicken Schnitzel and Salad
- Home Made Hamburgers And Salad
- Pan Fried Fish With Salad
- Salad Rolls
- Sausages and Salad
- Souvlaki
- Baked Potatoes
Feel free to share the sorts of self serve meals you have at home in the comments below, I would be keen to add to my list!
The Family Menu Plan For This Week
Baking: Going to try a new chocolate brownie recipe.
Monday: Chicken Lasagne
Tuesday: Fried Rice
Wednesday: Left Overs.
Thursday: Spaghetti Bolognaise
Friday: Tuna Rice
Saturday: Souvlaki
Sunday: Chicken Schnitzel and Salad
If you are looking for further recipe inspiration, check out my complete list of Family Friendly Recipes. All of these recipes are in the database of the Planning With Kids Free Menu Planner. You can use the menu planner to plan a week of meals for your family and then print out the associated shopping list.
And for even more menu planning ideas, you can also head on over to “I’m an Organizing Junkie” for Laura’s regular Menu Plan Monday posts.
{ 7 comments }
Do you remember approximately how old your children were when you could do this? My daughter will be 2 in May and she eats a variety of foods, but I find that she won’t really eat salad or any raw vegetables. This is frustrating for me, because I like to do the meat and salad dinners in summer, but I worry that she isn’t eating enough vegetables when we do this. Ever since she could self-feed (either with fingers or a spoon), we have let her choose what she eats from her plate, with no other options if she doesn’t eat what is in front of her, but salads just obviously don’t appeal… She is also terrible with crunchier fruit like apples.
.-= Julie´s last blog ..The “Good” Wife =-.
When I am working with the 2+ year olds I always make sure that it is self-serve. I make morning tea {lunch for 3+} and afternoon tea set up like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Whereby each child comes along, grabs what they want and then goes and sits down. For the 2-3 yr olds either help or I put a plate on each table.
And to ensure that independence and autonomy is invested within, I use a scraps bucket and have the children put their leftovers in that and then put their plate + cup into another bucket for washing up.
Also within a preschool/long day care environment, I feel that placemats are great and little table decorations, it gives off that homey-feel and most children respond great to them. I done this with 0-3yr olds on my last prac
{got rid of the table cloths and gave them bright placemats}
.-= miss carly´s last blog ..Gaming and Robotics for Young Children =-.
We make a few of those recipes too! Here are a few others…
My 5 yr old loves salad/raw veges so it is great to use these in summer.
He also loves assembling his own dinner!
a) Tortilla rollups (chicken, lettuce/tomato/cheese/cucumber etc etc)
b) Spring rolls (using rice spring roll wrappers – available it asian shops)
Contents: rice noodles/bean shoots/carrot/cucumber etc/fresh mint/mince or chicken and or hardboiled eggs + optional dressing of choice (sweet chilli sauce / yogurt with coriander & mint, are both nice).
These are great on hot days…having them tonight since it is 34 today.
c) for dessert, home made pancakes are a great idea…good to fill everyone up if you are a bit short of things that day. And economical.
Some great ideas here – we did the DIY burger thing tonight, in fact. Another similar meal you might like to try is felafel patties served with tabbouleh salad and hummous or yoghurt. I make my felafel from the packet mix, so it’s very simple. We put all the ingredients plus pita pockets at the table for the kids to make their own… though recently, my big kids are finicky and have gone off tabbouleh, so I serve plain tomato and lettuce or cucumber as well.
.-= Melanie´s last blog ..Grandma Eye Candy =-.
Yummy looking menu! I love schnitzel, but I have had it as veal or pork. I will have to try it with chicken.
Have a great week!
Sherry
.-= Sherry´s last blog ..Save or Toss? =-.
Julie – As we have older and younger kids, some of the children have been doing this since they were 18 months. How much they eat is really child dependent. One of my boys was slow to come at the salad options but I tried a few quick tricks like organic canned corn kernels, beetroot, gherkins and pineapple slices and found some success with these. (Odd combination I know!)It sometime worth trying very random different foods just to mix it up I think!
Miss Carly – Scrap buckets are such a good idea. We have a compost one, but I should really have a scrap one, will start looking at some options. Thanks for the suggestion!
Ruth – I have never thought of making up spring rolls like that and think it is a fabulous idea, appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and share your tips.
Melanie – I have never made felafels before and I think this would be a great addition to a our family recipes. I think my kids would prefer the plain lettuce etc, but they love putting yoghurt and dips on their food, so that will definitely be a hit.
Sherry – I have never tried veal or pork before, so I should probably give them a go for some variety.
Oh we loads of these kind of ‘self serve’ meals in our house. Setting out a platter of salad options works really well for my kids because they can easily pick and choose exactly what they want! Fabulous!
.-= katef´s last blog ..School Lunch Success! – Home Made Pizza Rolls =-.
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