Often when I’m in a food or cooking rut, I love heading to the internet to scrounge up kid-friendly meal plans on Pinterest or food blogs. Looking at the flow/balance of meals and imagining heading through my week whilst cooking up delicious, healthy meals for my family–that’s much more inspiring (and less overwhelming!) than trying to pick half a dozen different recipes and build a plan from scratch.
And since I love reading others’ meal plans for inspiration, why not write down one of ours for the blog, in case it can help others?
With three kids under the age of four at the moment, my time and energy are quite limited so we tend to cycle through variations of the same meals every week or two. I can’t wait until I can get back to experimenting in the kitchen and cooking fancier dishes too–but that just isn’t life right now!
Obviously given Eric’s celiac disease, everything is gluten-free. Fortunately Mr. 3-year-old seems to have outgrown his gluten and dairy intolerances with time, so we are back to having dairy in our dinners.
Here’s our meal plan for this week, starting last Saturday (as that’s when we usually do our big grocery shop for the week, with a mini-restock for meat, veggies and any miscellaneous needs on Tuesday).
Sample Meal Plan
Saturday
- Dinner: Chicken tacos with sautéed rotisserie chicken/veg filling + avocado on corn tortillas
Sunday
- Breakfast: Stovetop oatmeal with grated apple (mixed in whilst cooking) + pecans
- Lunch: We ate at my dad’s house to celebrate an early Christmas so it was “eating out”!
- Dinner: Broccoli cheese frittata + avocado toast + greens
Monday
- Breakfast: Stovetop oatmeal with sliced banana + peanut butter
- Lunch: Leftover frittata, avocado toast + blueberries
- Dinner: Cheats pasta sauce (made with chopped leftover rotisserie chicken and broccoli) over rice, topped with parmesan cheese
Tuesday
- Breakfast: Eggs, bacon and toast
- Lunch: Butternut squash soup (boxed), crackers + hummus, avocado + sliced apple
- Dinner: Spicy salmon (but baked in the oven, not grilled!), roasted sweet potatoes + greens
Wednesday
- Breakfast: Stovetop oatmeal with sliced banana + peanut butter
- Lunch: Leftover salmon with fresh fruit/veg + crackers + hummus for the kids; leftover salmon salads with fruit for the grown-ups
- Dinner: “Breakfast for dinner” with eggs, toast, leftover bacon + fresh tomatoes
Thursday:
- Breakfast: Stovetop oatmeal with grated apple and pecans
- Lunch: Tomato soup (boxed), hummus and cheese toast + bananas
- Dinner: Black bean burrito bowls with all the fixings
Friday:
- Breakfast: Stovetop oatmeal with thawed frozen blueberries and nuts/nut butter
- Lunch: Smorgasbord with bread, cheese/yogurt, hummus, fruit + veg; fridge-clean-out salads for the grown-ups!
- Dinner: Pizza (from frozen)
Notes
As you can see we tend to cook a lot without recipes in this phase of life. I like to make more involved meals on weekend nights, but at this time of year with all the holiday festivities going on, I haven’t even been doing that much this month. As long as I’m getting everyone enough protein and a fruit/veg or two at every meal, I generally feel pretty good about our nutrition 🙂 Eric and I also take multivitamins and vitamin D supplements–I’m searching for a good vitamin D for the kids.
We buy a rotisserie chicken every week, strip it down and use the leftovers to make two or three meals. It’s more expensive than cooking a similar quality chicken from scratch, but much less expensive than takeout!
And the age-old question; do my kids actually eat this stuff? Well… Mr. 3 is an adventurous eater and goes for almost everything I give him (the exception is eggs, which are a hit or miss). He is a giant in 5T/boys XXS already, so he’s always hungry!
On the other hand, Mr. almost-2 is quite picky and while he has a few “favorite” meals (such as oatmeal, boxed soup or burrito bowl), a lot of the time he sticks to the side dishes and just a bite or two of the main protein.
It is what it is, and we never pressure them to eat. That’s just one battle I don’t want to start! They do eat three snacks per day, and I always include some protein there (cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, hummus etc) so my picky eater gets some.
But I’d love to know, what meals feature heavily in your rotation at the moment? Our favorites at the moment are probably tacos/burrito bowls, cheats pasta sauce, and frittatas!
xx Claire