It may be delicious even if you eat it with your family. Time spent around the dinner table is a chance to catch up at the end of a long day, before bedtime for the little ones, or before evening activities for the older ones. , daily scheduled catch-ups help you spot things you might miss. It also provides an opportunity to ensure that everyone has a hot, nutritious meal.
After our firstborn son became a picky eater, family meals were a must-attend event. It was the most influential step in tackling his picky ways. He went from surviving on just a handful of food to eating every dinner he was offered, from stir-fried shrimp to spaghetti bolognese. The whole process took a year and a half, and if it weren’t for the family meal ritual and the opportunity to address his issues with food, we would still be pulling our hair out.
With a busy life, it can be difficult to eat well. Never mind serving a home-cooked, consistently healthy dinner every night. Every day there are time constraints that need to be worked around. For us, we have a short window of time between when we get home and when we have dinner on the table, so batch-cooking our meals is a must.
Batch cooking means having a specific meal on a specific day, but it also means having a meal in the freezer if you don’t have anything planned. It’s also great for those who didn’t get to eat at dinner time, if that’s what you want. It takes a little planning and the discipline to do it, but getting rewarded from this family time will leave you with a strong motivation to keep going.
Studies show that eating dinner as a family leads to healthy dietary patterns, including more fruits and vegetables, less soda, less fried food, less saturated and trans fat, and more fiber and micronutrients. associated with.
So how do you arrange dinner? There are many ways to do this, but it depends on many factors, including your taste buds. Then find time to cook!
I used to cook for the week on weekends. But if you run the shop once a week and use the slow cooker, at night he only needs 5 minutes to her 10 minutes to prepare. Cooking with a slow cooker means throwing ingredients into a pot at the end of the day and cooking overnight while you sleep. Then keep the pot in the fridge while you work and heat it up at dinner.
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Creating daily themes simplifies meal planning and adds structure to your week
quick tips
1. To speed up the process, buy chopped and prepared frozen vegetables and spices. Examples include onions, garlic, chillies, coriander, peppers, mushrooms, butternut squash, and spinach.
2. Use canned food. For example, canned beans, peas, lentils, tomatoes.
3. Buy quick options to pair with your meal. For example, fresh pasta that takes 3 minutes to cook, whole grain couscous, lentils, rice, quinoa, and barley in microwaveable pouches that take 5 minutes.
4. If you often serve slow-cooker meals to your child, boil frozen veggies and place them near meals so they won’t get used to vegetable sauces alone.
5. Each time you cook, make one batch for eating and one batch for freezing.
6. It may seem obvious, but it’s important to have containers that fit your family’s portions. Does your Tupperware have the amount of food you need to feed your lot?
7. For food safety reasons, it is important to indicate the contents of the box and the date of manufacture.
8. It is also necessary to cool the meal quickly by adding it to Tupperware, closing the lid tightly, and placing it in cold water before placing it in the freezer or refrigerator.
9. Consider batch-cooking lunch options such as soup. For an easy option, try adding frozen, canned, dried and leftover vegetables to your soup. If you buy a fresh soup mix with the vegetables you want already chopped, the soup can be made in a 3-step process.
10. Also consider batch cooking breakfast. For example, baking a high-protein porridge bread (see below) and eating hops with a glass of milk for the kids or a latte for the parents will give you lots of fiber, whole grain carbs and protein.
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Orla Walsh shares her top tips.Photo: Owen Breslin
high protein porridge bread
material:
- 1 x 500g pot of Greek yogurt, skyr or quark
- 1 kg of oats
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 large free-range eggs
- drops of milk
- Optional Extras: Almonds, Raisins, Cheese, Paprika
Method:
1. Place 500g of Greek yogurt, quark or scia in a bowl.
2. Fill the empty container with oats and place in a bowl. Repeat this step to fill the bowl with 2 yogurt containers for 1 kg of oats.
3. Add salt, baking soda and eggs. Mix well. If it looks dry, you may need a few drops of milk.
4. Optional: Add flaked almonds and raisins, grated cheese and paprika, etc. to add flavor to the loaf.
5. Scoop the dough into a greased bread pan.
6. Bake at about 200°C for 10 minutes, then at 175°C for another 40 minutes.
Tip: If you can’t eat it right away, slice it up and freeze it. Alternatively, you can bake the bread into a scone shape.
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Gillian McConnell’s Easy Peanut Butter Chicken. Photo: FomaA
Gillian McConnell’s Peanut Butter Chicken Curry
material:
- 6 chicken fillets
- 2 cloves of minced garlic
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon ginger
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon corn flour
- 1 diced chilli (optional)
- 3 tablespoons peanut butter
- 1 can of tomato
Method:
1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Cover and simmer on low heat in slow cooker for 5 hours.
3. Serve with basmati rice and broccoli.
Gillian McConnell is a nutritionist for Inside Out Nutrition. See insideoutnutrition.ie.
