There’s a period of our family life, let’s say 2000 – 2007 which are known as the Spaghetti years. Within those seven years, at least once or twice a week G and I would get lulled into the ease of not so much “What shall we have for dinner?” but more “What can we have for dinner?” Meaning what do we have in the cupboard and what can we feed little people who range from 6 months to 6 years? The answer was usually pasta.
G and I are in firm agreement that we actually overdosed on pasta in the spaghetti years . Our evenings were spent in a carbohydrate coma, shaken and scarred from the experience of providing a constant kid friendly menu. We relied on fast, easy and cheap. The end result is that we now both break out in a cold sweat at the suggestion of a carbonara, or the mere mention of a marinara. Over Christmas I reworked and mulled over a text on how to politely decline a puttanesca. “I’m just not sure we’re ready to go back there yet?”
When I returned to work in 2006 I realized I had to get more organized with meals. I couldn’t face one more piece of penne. It had been six years of continuous parenting and within that six years there was a lot of ground beef. Spaghetti bolognese, spaghetti with cheese, meatballs, and lasagna. I was done. And there was only one way to fix the problem. I needed to start meal planning.
Each Saturday morning I’d throw a piece of paper on the fridge door with the week’s plan, and a trip to the supermarket was made over the weekend to gather supplies. It may sound like an exaggeration to say it was life changing – BUT IT WAS LIFE CHANGING. Not only was it cheaper (I stuck to the list), but the dreaded combination of what am I going to cook for dinner while little mouths called out the dreaded “what’s for dinner” was over. I now can’t live without the meal planner, my days of the aimless shop, or the 5 o’clock panic are over.
Up until recently, my menu plan has gone without a hitch. I plan, I write, I decide. It’s been a very one sided affair – and understandably the little travellers have staged a revolt.
“Eeeewww, I hate salmon – why do we keep having salmon?” said the screwed up face of Henry Hotdog as he looked at his plate.
“Nooooo, chick peas? Why does the chicken curry need chick peas? Chick peas make me barf.” the second little traveller acted out her best mock barf for her audience.
“I’m not eating any more Green Chicken Curry. From now on you can just feed me plain white rice – like a prisoner” the third little traveller pouted.
“I’ll have yours!” said the first, who eats everything, and lots of it. Her only request so far? No cous cous.
It was all starting to do my head in. Trying to remember who wanted what and then listening to the complaints. It was time to introduce a change of plan.
Last night was the beginning of the children’s meal planning sessions. Each week a different little traveller gets to choose the menu, the final plan is then run by the family for approval. If you know the second little traveller, you would know that she was drunk with power from the moment the pen made its way into her hand.
A list was made, items discussed, debated, people pleaded their case.
“Great – so we all have to be vegetarians now?” said the first little traveller, noting the second travellers distaste for red meat.
“We’ll turn into chickens by the end of the week” said the third.
I giggled and said I’d check him for feathers.
The second little traveller compromised, and threw in a token lasagna.
As I looked at the list and willed my nose to stop twitching at the spelling mistakes, I wondered about those little tiny people I’d originally planned meals for. I thought about little plastic spoons, first foods, first tastes, first mouthfuls. My decisions, my choices. Did I ever imagine this? A hand written menu plan which included steamed vegetables, thai curries and indian flat bread.
It’s done. No more what’s for dinners.
What do you do at your house?
Sign up for the best bits here
Sign up for the best bits from our community of forty thousands expats. Every Saturday morning we’ll shoot you the five hottest topics from the world of expat.
I have been doing this with my kids for a while. We have a few rules: seafood at least once, red meat once, vegetarian once, and chicken once. Plus one free choice. I don’t worry too much about the weekends and they are always unpredictable. When they were younger I told them they had to choose one meal per week that fit into one of those categories. Now they can do the whole week. We are on our fourth post in 11 years so the choices range widely! It makes life so much easier.
Your comment popped after I had already pressed go – love your ideas
I love this! I think we should do vegetarian once as well. What are some of the vegetarian options that they pick?
I am impressed with the variety! When we lived in the Big Smoke and were fortunate enough to market shop every Saturday morning I wrote a meal plan. Just too easy. Then we moved to the land of two small supermarkets and no green grocers and I stopped planning. I walk around the supermarket almost every day and plan according to the cost of the meat or vegies. I have a vague plan based on nightly activities but that is about it. Need to men plan again. Unfortunately mine wont be choosing curries or salmon 🙁
My guys love Asian food, my big problem with them is salad. The eldest loves her salad but the three younger ones are still at the 3 bits of lettuce, a carrot, a cucumber, some cheese stage. I can’t wait for them to eat more interesting salads.
Bring them over for dinner….. mine will eat salads all over. More vegies than any other way possible 🙂
i cannot function without a menu/shopping list and I am a passionate cook. But at the moment with a Neanderthal 13 year old and a husband who is a vegetarian/vegan wanna be (neither of whom will contribute in any way to the menu other than “what’s this?” when it ends up on the table) I am absolutely tearing my hair out. I gave them an ultimatum this morning and either they gave me two menu suggestions each or they ate EVERYTHING I served up this week with NO complaints. Let’s hope THIS plan works because I’m all out of ideas otherwise. All the enjoyment has been sucked out of cooking for the moment 🙁
And it can be sucked out can’t it?! G loves to cook, but the fancy stuff. He’s the star of the dinner party but the every day grunt work is the stuff that can slay you. I really hope your plan works. xxx
When we first got married, I made a menu every 2 (!!) weeks and posted on the fridge and shopped based on the menu. Whoever got home first started dinner. After the kids arrived, (mid-1990s) I floundered for a few years, then got back into regular meal planning after getting a free copy of Leanne Ely’s ‘Menu-Mailer’ online service: she provided a menu for 2 weeks PLUS a shopping list(still does, Google her)! As the working mum of 2 small kids and a husband who traveled at least half the time, her program was a godsend. From there, I bought her book (‘Saving Dinner’) which featured the same thing – menus plus shopping lists. These days, with 1 boy at Uni and, the other one very busy in his last years in school, and a husband who is gone roughly half the time due to work, I do a lot more cooking of ‘planned leftovers’ – soups, stews, casseroles, grilled chicken – things that can serve as lunch or dinner for a few days regardless of when you are coming or going. Love the idea of having the kids do the planning – ours have taken turns cooking at least once per week since they were old enough to do it. Has been a great help for #1 at Uni – he’s the only one in his house who knows how to cook!
I love the ideas of “planned leftovers” – clever clever clever. Definitely going to go and check out the site you suggested, it sounds fantastic. Thank you!
My Miss Middle is in love with Jamie Oliver, she will quite happily go thru his books and choose things. The Teen will demolish whatever is put in front of him, then ask for more…then eat the leftovers. Miss Little is 6 and is starting an anti-veggie stage 🙁 Hubster is the worst tho, meat and 3 veg or lettuce salad please! Hates the smell of curry…and garlic, hates mince, cheese and mashed spud…sigh.
Oh I feel for you. We had a house guest once who was strictly meat and veg (no curries or sauces) and he didn’t eat tomatoes or onions? But cheese? How does he not eat cheese??
Don’t tell him I told you, but I have to chill his snags after I’ve cooked them cos he doesn’t like them warm. Eats fruit like it’s going out of fashion, no carrot in the salad…lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, avocado. Groan. Who doesn’t like cheese…exactly! Makes a deathly cheesecake tho…triple chocolate 😉
OMG I just giggled out loud, chilled snags, that’s kind of cute. You are a good good person, a much better person than I. Are you ever tempted to not chill them and see what happens? 😉
Think I will have to try this my one and only little one takes after his grandad typical meat and potato kid, will only eat spaghetti shaped pasta, won’t touch rice or anything that’s not meat and potato 🙁
it’s about time we started this … how you do it with ALL your little travellers is beyond me. two is My Limit (ok, three of you count You Know Who)!!! xt
I can’t wait until ours are old enough to cook one meal a week, and I will definitely be borrowing the meal planning delegation idea before then. I think I’m heading toward the hatred of all mexican food, similar to your pasta. The mince, the corn tortillas, I’m sick of it.
Hi.
Last year I solved that dinner planning nightmare with one that rotated over 8 weeks*. It was my best year ever!
In the meantime we moved and here supply is consistently inconsistant so I m now shopping with a list of multiple dinner options in order to ease my weekly dinner planning cravings.
Our kids are still young so I m still in charge. Let s see how I ll handle the next transition.
*all my friends were calling me crazy or OCT 🙂
Three week rotating meal plan (to avoid boredom) & online grocery lists – theoretically should work like a dream except for the minor detail that online shopping in Belgium is order for pick up not deliver and the recent closure of my nearest pick up location means a 40 minute round trip drive!! Best laid plans….now back to shopping myself for said menus. This week will be a challenge too as we’re hosting 3 17/18 year old rugby players – think I might need to supersize 🙂
I am so impressed! I live alone, and resort to pasta more often than not! (I do try not to have it two days running!). One of my daughters, with one child, organises meals and eats plnty of exciting and different foods. Another has 2-year old twins, who will eat pasta, and fish and chips … sometimes we just have to do what works!
I spent way too many years in “the food battle” with my two older kids. When the ten year old came along, I fed him what we were having and he never knew any different. No “kid food” for him. Then I went out on a limb and hired a young lady to cook four meals every two weeks for me. It changed my life and was far cheaper than eating out or ordering in – and we got to say what we wanted.
Sadly, she moved state a few months ago, and to avert a full on nervous breakdown/running away episode on my part. the hubster and ten year are now fully into Sunday cooking. It’s a miracle. They literally pick out some (fairly complicated) recipes, shop for the food and spend the rest of the day cooking it. We freeze some and I now only have to cook about twice a week. *smiles contentedly*