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
- Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
- Sang Choy Bow
- Sweet Chilli Chicken Wraps
- 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.
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