As I first mentioned a couple of weeks ago, for the past month we’ve been trying a new approach to the evening meal. This has involved 30 days of trying new meals for the whole family. You can read about the first two weeks here.
So, I won’t go over the process again (head over the the previous post if you want to know all about it), but I thought I’d cover what we ate for weeks 3 and 4, plus the all important ‘keepers’, and what, if anything, the kids are now willing to eat that they wouldn’t before! As before, I’ve linked to the website versions of the recipes where I could find them, noting that they’re not always identical to the cookbook.
Because of eating out a couple of times and a weekend away, it will take another week to reach the 30 days, so I’ll post a quick update on the last week later, and give you the kids’ final verdict…
The week 3 menu was a bit shorter as we were away for the weekend, but we still cooked:
- Pea and prosciutto frittata#
- Steak sandwiches with gruyere and and white beans with spinach
- Sweet and spicy tofu bowl with broccoli
- Crispy rice omelette with peas and cucumber salad
This week (week 4), we’ve tried:
- Zucchini fritters with sour cream and chives#
- Asian-style BBQ chicken and brown rice with coriander
- Vegetable tempura bowl
- Miso-glazed salmon with sushi rice – similar salmon recipe here
- Taco pizza
#Only eaten by one child
From my point of view, the keepers from this lot were definitely the vegetable tempura, the sweet and spicy tofu, miso salmon, and taco pizza. And thanks to the influence of Alton Brown, we had (almost) four takers for the salmon! Well actually, Mr Minecraft thought it was a bit strong tasting, but loved the texture, and is willing to try some other fish….I feel my dream of one day being a family that eats fish may actually become reality 🙂
This process is certainly helping me feel more optimistic, but I still have (quite a few) moments of thinking how much easier it would be if only they ate…(in my case, cheese, or fish, or chilli, or pasta, or potatoes!)
How about your children/family, any dislikes that make you tear your hair out occasionally?
In Search of Golden Pudding 
These meals look so good. Well, at least the adult tasters are having a ball! And obviously Miss Lego and Mr M are enjoying many parts of the process.
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Mr M is actually enjoying most of the meals – you can imagine how thrilled I am that he tried the salmon 🙂
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Our youngest is the fussiest eater so I can totally relate. What a great idea this project was, and I hope with time they all expand their palates 🙂
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We’re seeing some good signs, the fact that Mr M tried the salmon was pretty revolutionary!
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Wow what a great idea. I would like to try something like this!
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The menu sheets are free on Jenny’s website, so even if you don’t have the book you could print them and use your own recipes, or ones off the site.
I found that having the sheets so the kids could give all the food a score was a big part of it…
Let me know if you give it a try!
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What a great idea. I should challenge myself in the same way as often I fall into the trap of serving the same old same old xx
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Hi Charlie, thanks! It’s good for getting out of the usual rut, and also, even though the children are the main ones that need to expand what they eat, by making it something new for everyone it makes it seem a bit fairer than ‘I eat this why can’t you’…that’s the plan anyway 🙂
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