What we ate, week ending 29 February 2020

One of the hardest thing about being a parent is figuring out what to feed our kids every day. It can feel relentless, coming up with ideas for breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinner over and over again. You've only just finished cleaning up one meal, when you need to be thinking about preparing the next one.

My hope is that by sharing our family menus each week, I can help ease the load a little bit for you. Maybe you'll see a recipe on here that you'd forgotten about, and it will be all the inspiration you need to prepare your next meal.

I shared in my last post about how I'm keeping track of our menu plans with my new homemaking binder. It has been such a help during this current season, where I try to knuckle down on our finances so am spending less on food.

Without further ado, here's our menu for the past week.

Sunday

Breakfast - French toast cooked by my wonderful husband.

Lunch - Overnight bread and various toppings, eg. butter, cucumber, cheese, tomato, basil pesto.

Dinner - Butter chicken and broccoli with toasted almonds.

Monday

Breakfast - Baked beans on toast for the kids; Chocolate chia seed pudding topped with frozen raspberries for me. (I realise I need to share the recipe for my chocolate chia seed pudding, because it comes up a lot on here. I did share a post about it on Instagram a while back, so you can check out my method there until I get organised to post the full recipe here.)

Lunch - Sausage rolls with leftover broccoli from Sunday. (I buy the loose sausage rolls in a bag, so that it's quick and easy to pull out a few to bake for homeschool lunches.)

Dinner - Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Chicken on pasta, served with a side of green beans drizzled with a homemade honey mustard dressing.

Tuesday

Breakfast - Pumpkin Pancakes (featuring homegrown pumpkin puree). This was a new-to-us recipe that I made to use up some of the many pumpkins I just harvested from my garden. It was really good, so I'll definitely be making it again.

Lunch - Leftover Butter Chicken for the kids and leftover Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Chicken for me.

Dinner - Boiled eggs (from our chooks), served with all homegrown vegetables - sweet corn, cucumber, green beans and cherry tomatoes.

Wednesday

Breakfast - Stewed apple and homemade Greek yoghurt; Cereal

Lunch - Overnight bread served with butter, cheese, cucumber, tomato and basil pesto.

Dinner - Crockpot roast beef served with new potatoes (from our garden), broccoli, baby peas and gravy.

Thursday

Breakfast - Cereal for the kids; Chocolate and peanut butter chia seed pudding served with frozen raspberries for me.

Lunch - This was a lunchbox day, so the kids packed various sandwiches, crackers, mini salamis, homemade Thumbprint Cookies, raisins and apple slices with peanut butter to dip them in.

Dinner - Roast Chicken served with sweetcorn from the garden, green beans with a honey mustard dressing, and a fresh fruit and vegetable crudite platter. (I've shared a picture of the roast chicken I like to buy. My sister-in-law, Mandy, put me onto these. They make for a really easy dinner, because the chicken has already been seasoned and stuffed, plus it comes in a handy cooking bag that seals in the moisture, so it turns out beautifully succulent every time. I got this particular chicken on a really good deal. They usually range in price from $12-$16.)

Friday

Breakfast - Cereal for the kids; I had a church breakfast meeting, so my beautiful meal was provided. It was scrumptious homemade muesli with yoghurt and boysenberries, as well as a plum muffin.

Lunch - Overnight bread served with tomatoes from the garden, cucumber slices, basil pesto and butter.

Dinner -  Chicken Leek and Tarragon Pie (another meal idea from my sister-in-law, Mandy). I used the leftover chicken from our previous night's roast for this pie, so that $8.99 chicken actually fed us for two meals, and I'll use the chicken carcass to make chicken stock that will feed us for many more.

We also went out to a Movies in Parks night, so I made stove-popped popcorn and Chocolate Weetbix Slice to bring with us to that.

Saturday

Breakfast - Pumpkin Pancakes and cereal. (We had four extra people in the house due to a cousin sleepover.)

Lunch - Pizza rollups - half made with pizza sauce and cheese, half made with pizza sauce, cheese and pineapple pieces.

Dinner -  Pumpkin and Bacon Macaroni and Cheese served with a platter of fresh homegrown garden beans and cherry tomatoes, as well as apple and cucumber slices. (My kids love raw veges.) I used two cups of pumpkin puree in the macaroni and cheese instead of the recommended one, and it made enough for three dinners for our family.


Now I just need to come up with next week's menu. Please send me links to your favourite recipes so I can be inspired by you and give them a try.